This Memorial Day I am taking time to remember people. In particular, I remember  family members who served. My mother’s side of the family has had a strong interest in their history and so I have documentation of earlier generations. As I browsed my collection, one article stood out. It is from October 1945, and is an article about four members of my grandfather’s family who served in WW II. My grandfather, his older brother and two of his younger sisters all served. My grandfather served as a doctor in the Army, in Europe as part of the 42^nd Air Repair Squadron.

Over the last few years, I ‘ve realized that I am a writer. I have written a collection of essays, poetry, blog posts, and books over the last forty years and it sunk in that I might be a writer at heart.  If I had a nickel for every word I’ve written, heck, even a penny would do, I’d have a nice lump of money to try and spend frivolously. I’m sure I could find some way to spend it foolishly or at least it would be fun to try.

Time for another post. We have been busy in the last few weeks. We received the proof copy for our next book, "You Don't Want to Go For a Ride" and John has finished reviewing it. I need to make some corrections and re-upload the cover and content. I will also start generating the files for the ebook version at this time.

This morning I completed the San Diego River Run 5K. Over the last year I have been running during the week and gradually increasing my distance. A little over a month ago, I saw a flyer for this event and after some research, decided I want to run in this race. My only goal was to run the entire way and I was successful.

In the last few years I have changed  how I view my sons autism. For many years I focused on getting him to fit in with other people, completing his studies so he could go to college, and pushing him to find work and start earning money. I always felt like I had to push, to keep bringing up these topics to remind him of what I thought he needed to do.

I have been busy the last couple of weeks but lots of ideas for my blog and posts running through my head. One quick post this evening, I am taking a new step in my workouts, I will be running in a 5K on May 6th. My goal is to run the entire distance, I am pretty sure I can do it but I'm glad I have a couple of weeks to continue working my distance. I have not run in a race since grade school so this is a milestone for myself. I won't be the fastest or most elegant runner but I do plan to finish, one way or another.

In the last year I watched two films about families dealing with autism. The first movie was Life, Animated, based on a true story of parents and their son, Owen. The book described how the family connected with Owen with Disney films. The second movie was Po, based on a fictional story of a single father raising his autistic son, Po, after his wife passed away. The films showed the struggles the father has in taking care of his son while still working.

As part of autism awareness, I would like to announce our upcoming book about our family and experiences with autism. The book has completed our editing process and I am in the process of pulling it together for publication. The plan is for a release in September 2017 and I will be posting more information during the next few months. Writing this book has not been easy for my husband or myself, but the feedback we’ve received has been positive. I hope that sharing our experience can help other families.