Overheard in the Wolfe House #122

By Peggy | August 17, 2011 |

Sam (as Microsoft Office 2010 gets loaded on his Dell via the digital river): …. and so if you need to chat with them, here’s where you turn that on ….

Peggy: I’m sure it will be fine. I’m happy to keep an eye on it for you so you can go to work.

Sam: Well, I’m very sorry I got you into this, Mom.

Posted in problem-solving, What Sam says

And So It Begins

By Peggy | August 14, 2011 |

My friend, and fellow autism mom, Yolanda, calls it the business of empty nesting.

Michael moved into his first apartment this week. I let him shop the house for things he would need to stock the kitchen and outfit the rest of this space he’ll share with three other guys. He’s a junior at TCU, and each step taken is a further step from the nest. It’s exciting to watch, and a little bittersweet.

Paige is next. She will move into the dorm this week at the University of Iowa. Dorm life is not as nice there in Iowa City. I suspect by this time next year, she’ll be hunting down her first apartment, the way I did after my first year at North Texas.

Back then, in the dark ages, Bruce Hall didn’t have air conditioning. I wasn’t putting up with another year of that.

Sam sees these exoduses and knows he’s got to make his own moves. We’ve talked about it a lot in the past year. He doesn’t have a good enough job yet, but he’s getting there.

Last night, he emailed the folks at Marbridge in Austin. Another young man his age, Daniel, moved there after high school, got a good job at a local hospital, and just this past year, moved out of Marbridge village and into his first apartment. Sam knows that’s the kind of support he needs to make the transition.

We’re supposed to go tour soon.

And so the last fledging, not to be outdone by his brother and sister, starts stretching his wings.

Posted in adults with autism, hope

Overheard in the Wolfe House #120

By Peggy | August 12, 2011 |

Sam: Pretty soon we won’t have to open the door for the dogs again.

Peggy: What do you mean?

Sam: It will get cool enough to leave the door to the breezeway open

Peggy (forgetting there is weather other than “Texas scorch”): Oh, yeah.

Posted in Uncategorized

Extreme banking with Sam in the international marketplace, or how I got another 100 gray hairs in the last 24 hours

By Peggy | August 10, 2011 |

Last night I sat down to the computer to do a little scanning and the first document that opened up told me that Sam had scanned the front and back of his bank card and driver’s license for Avangate — something akin to PayPal in Canada.

I haven’t scrambled so hard in a 24-hour period since he left his wallet on a chair in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. That day, someone picked it up and bought gas in Gainesville, about 30 miles away, before we could cancel the card. And Sam had realized the error within the hour.

We did all the usual things — fraud alerts, card changes, getting the driver’s license re-issued.

This time, I wasn’t so concerned about Sam having made an error, but that he had left himself too vulnerable.

His intentions were spot on. He upgraded us to OS Lion. We needed Tuxera NTS, a file system that lets the Mac get backed up on an external drive. And probably some other amazing tasks that Sam knows that I don’t.

But Tuxera is in Finland. So he had to pay through Avangate. The bank blocked it. That’s an international transaction. Avangate sent him an email with several ways to get the payment through. He chose the offline pay and cajoled the bank into authorizing it. Everything seems to have gone through alright.

But, Hey, Martha. I tell ya. If that information got in the wrong hands, someone could drain his bank account.

I went to the bank and ordered him a new bank card. He applied for a credit card. As the good guys at DATCU said, better he shops with the bank’s money than his own.

I agree. He manages his money well enough that I know it will be paid off at the end of each month.

Then I called a good friend who I know has LifeLock. She explained it. I persuaded Sam to sign up.

Maybe the rest of us can get in the ring and fight the financial fraud matadors, but Sam is just too much like Ferdinand for that.

Posted in adults with autism, problem-solving

Brainstorming 101: Fixing the Garage Door

By Peggy | July 31, 2011 |

After Sam finished fixing problems that came with the Lion upgrade, he suggested that we tackle the garage door. We have an automatic door opener that works when it wants to.

And it doesn’t want to very often.

It’s been a great chance to brainstorm solutions. We’ve watched videos on YouTube. We’ve called Uncle Matt. We’ve taken turns trying things and watching the trouble spots to come up with ideas.

And because it’s primarily a mechanical system, it seems that each thing we try brings a small reward, whether it’s knocking down wasp nests to remove a blocked pathway or lubricating parts to lessen the drag on the motor. Each step brings progress.

Sam has decided that we still have some kind of electrical problem, though. He says because we have to hold the button down for it to open there must be some kind of wear in the wires. I told him I’d like to replace the sensors — they look like they’ve just about had the life kicked out of them, they’ve been bumped and bustled so much — and he’s agreed.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, he’s going after the wiring.

Posted in decision-making, problem-solving, What Sam says