Quelle Jolie Fille

Thanks Mom!

Image: A photo of a lion crouched defensively in front of her very young cubs, mouth open in a ferocious snarl. The cubs are labeled “autistic youth” and “autistic kids” and the lion is labeled “me.” 

I mostly post on my twitter these days, and I’ve been enjoying making memes like this one.

[Image description: A woman with red hair standing on the green grass of her back yard next to a small black and grey tabby cat. Both the woman and the cat are inside a small fenced in area about 5 square feet in area.The black thin wire fence is about four feet high. The cat is sitting on a white towel. In the background you can see the larger wooden fence for the whole back yard, and the trunk of a large maple tree. There are a few houses visible behind the fence]

 This is a picture of freedom within limits: an autistic red-haired person (me) with my blind cat inside a playpen fence made I think for dogs. This was Nancy’s first time touching the face of Mother Earth! She (mother earth) was touched in a heartfelt manner.  It took us a long time to figure out a plan how Nancy (the cat) could enjoy being out of doors safely, and without her companion (me) freaking out. The mission was successful. It took her about ten minutes to venture off the towel onto the grass. Then she walked around the limits of our cage in order to arrive at an accurate assessment of our situation. 

she sparkles

Sparkling Diamond

Getting ahead of myself

So it’s Monday evening and I say to myself: Good grief, it’s already Wednesday! It seems that way because I’m thinking: tomorrow I’ll have to start worrying about my Japanese class, which meets on Wednesday evening; but with that thought I realize that I’m already worrying about it now. So Tuesday is already part of Wednesday, and so is Monday. And that’s how the timeline collapses.

dazzle me dazed

Art G.Shvecova (Design graphics - Pastel Series - Glow Pastel Stars_020418)

I want that shirt

I sent a message last night about my new Autism Shirt™ and thought you’d like to see it

Kay: !!! it looks super soft and comfy!!! I also like the colors. They go well with your skin tone. SIDE NOTE IT THAT A HARRY POTTER POSTER IN THE BACKGROUND??? You’re a good bean, and I support you. I hope you get a lot of comfy flannels in the future.

Improve your chew! [Image description: There’s a very handsome but sad looking teddy bear to the right. Next to him are two bottles of essential oils: one of them is grapefruit and the other is cardamom. In front of the bottles is a chewable necklace: it’s in the shape of a pink fox curled up cozy for a peaceful snooze. End of image description] Chews carefully! I wanted to chew, but could not get used to the lack of flavor. So here’s my news: I found I can put a drop of essential oil and rub it over the chew toy. These are my favorites: grapefruit and cardamom. You might also like peppermint. Be careful to test a drop of the oil maybe on the back of your hand to make sure you are not allergic to anything in it. And I advise using only a drop per toy; even then, probably wipe it with a paper towel, since the oils are not designed for eating! Added benefit: you get some aroma therapy if you are placing oil on a chewable necklace. Teddy bears are optional, but highly recommended

An Exo-What...?

Simply put, an exoplanet is a planet that orbits another star. That said, just because a planet orbits a star (like Earth) does not mean that it is automatically stable for life. The planet must be within the habitable zone, which is the area around a star in which water has the potential to be liquid…aka not so close that all the water would evaporate, and not too far away where all the water would freeze.

Recently, with the help of our Kepler spacecraft, scientists have discovered the most Earth-like exoplanet ever, Kepler-452b. Pretty cool! This chart shows 12 other exoplanet discoveries that are less than twice the size of Earth, and live in the habitable zone of their host star. Kepler-452b is special because all previous findings have orbited stars that are smaller and cooler than Earth’s.

You may be thinking, “Okay, so what? There’s an Earth-like planet that spins around a similar sized sun.” Well, Kepler-452b orbits its sun at nearly the same distance from its star as Earth does from our sun, which means that conditions on the plant could be similar to those here on Earth!

We can already guess your next question…”When are we going to Kepler-452b?!” Well, this planet is located in the constellation Cygnus which is 1,400 light-years away, so not anytime soon. However, our Kepler spacecraft continues to search for Earth-like exoplanets and gather important scientific information about them.