Mark, my husband, is an avid Stephen Lawhead fan. He has read, and in fact owns, almost every book Lawhead has written. I have read a little of Lawhead’s books, The Dragon King Trilogy to be precise. I quite enjoyed that, and I don’t mind the odd fantasy or science fiction novel, so I was anticipating enjoying The Skin Map (the first in The Bright Empires series).

The book opens with Kit, an overworked, under-recognised pleb in a faceless corporation working his way through the maze of the London public transport system in order to get to the house of his joyless girlfriend. One transport mishap leads to another bringing him to the conclusion that it would be best to walk to her house.

On the way he encounters a strange storm whipping up unexpectedly and mysteriously meets a man who claims to be Kit’s great-grandfather. Upon following the old man, he is transported to another place, and another time, where he begins to learn the mysteries of ley lines and ley travel. Befuddled by this talk of seeming nonsense, he chooses to return to modern London, only finding himself having to explain his hours-long delay to his girlfriend.

After a frustrating attempt to explain the phenomenon to his girlfriend, Wilhemina, he takes her to the ley line where he met his great-grandfather, and it is there that disaster strikes.

The Skin Map then takes you on a journey spanning continents and millennia. The chapters switch between different times, places and characters with seeming randomness.

I didn’t enjoy The Skin Map as much as I had hoped I would. I found too many of the characters unlikeable, and I find it hard to care about or want to know what happens to these characters if I don’t even like them.

I felt there were too many different stories going on all at once, with too little explanation of each. At this very early point in the series, I would say it would be better for there to be a singular book focusing on one set of characters with subsequent books focusing on others, and filling in the “gaps” left in previous books.

I also felt the book wasn’t at all Christian and had quite a anti- Christian slant to it. I would be surprised to see it in a Christian book store and disappointed to read it, expecting a Christian book.

I think it’s for die-hard Lawhead fans only.

Your challenge is to make some time this week to exercise.  Even better, make some time in your daily or weekly schedule for REGULAR exercise.  It will make a world of difference!

We are just beginning this journey ourselves of exploring different activities that help the individuals in this house who have a sensory processing disorder.  I hope to share some of the different activities we try on the blog each week (as I am able) to give others ideas of how they can help their sense-ational family members.

Most of the sensory activities I describe on our blog will be ones that can be done with household items, or things easily found at the grocery shop.  There wont be $500 gizmos and $300 doo-dads, just simple materials that could be found in any home.

The first sensory activity I’d like to describe is so simple.  We’ve all done it.

Water Play.

Water play can be soothing and relaxing, or exciting and invigorating.  Some children will prefer to just put their hands in, while others want a full body experience.  Sensory play will not achieve it’s objective if the child (or adult) is forced into it.

Water (in the First World anyway) is cheap, plentiful and accessible.  It can be put in a bath, a pool, a sink, a tub, a cup… almost any sort of container.

In this instance, we used a pool and some water bomb balls.  They are fabric-coated sponges that can be soaked and then thrown at people, eliminating some of the mess and fuss of traditional balloon style water bombs.  They provide a texture to explore and a substance to experience.  Of course, a clean kitchen sponge would work just as well for this if you don’t already have the water bomb sponges.

Although I read the Bible a lot I confess that I don’t always know what to “do” with it other than read it aloud.  I know that we need to apply God’s word to our lives, but I sometimes struggle with how to encourage my children in this as we read the Bible, so I was excited when I learnt that Matthias Media were offering free copies of some of their books to bloggers (or those who can review books in their Church) in exchange for a review.  I requested a copy of One To One Bible Reading by David Helm.

It’s hard to know whether to call One To One Bible Reading a book, or a booklet.  The text covers less than seventy pages (plus extensive appendicies) and is set out in brief, easy to read chapters.  Part of the book’s brevity is because the author truly believes that the Bible is accessible, and doesn’t need any special talents, study or extensive preparation to read.  It is a book and can be read like a book, albeit the most important and valuable book.

David Helm takes the seemingly-daunting task of reading the Bible with someone you know, and makes it seem easy.  Because, really, it should be easy.  Not every part of the Bible is simple to read and understand, but reading the Bible, and chatting with someone else about what the passage is saying, that’s not hard.

I found the book encouraging.  It has given me some simple tools to use with my children when reading the Bible, which will (hopefully) enrich our Bible reading time.  It has also encouraged me to consider other adults in my life who I could read the Bible with.

Even if you a not a “reader”, I encourage you to take a look at this accessible and inexpensive book.  It won’t take long to read and will hopefully encourage to you read the Bible more, especially with other people in your life.

I had a few errands that I’d been meaning to do, that I just hadn’t gotten around to. I’d forget, or put them off, or just run out of time. One had been hanging around for about a year!

Our remote control for our garage door needed new batteries (or so I thought) and the spare one had needed new batteries for about a year. I finally got around to taking them to get the batteries replaced, only to discover that the batteries were just dirty, and not needing replacing. So no monetary cost, and took less than ten mins to do.

So why is completing a task you’ve been procrastinating about help you live a life less ordinary?

When we have uncompleted tasks, they weigh on our mind. We constantly shift them around, working out when we can put them off until. We have the objects that are associated with the task taking up space. Procrastination just causes stress and doesn’t help anyone.

So, what have you been procrastinating about?

While for most people, epilepsy can be controlled with medication and makes only a small impact on their life, for others Epilepsy is more pervasive.

There is a specific form of epilepsy called Dravet’s Syndrome.  It was studied and named by a French psychiatrist named Charlotte Dravet.  It is also called Severe Myclonic Epilepsy of Infancy (or SMEI).

Dravet’s Syndrome is characterised by febrile convulsions, or tonic-clonic seizures (also known as general seizures).  These seizures are the “classic” type that everyone seems to think of when you say seizures – fall to the ground, with whole body shakes, eyes roll back into the head.  For children with Dravet’s syndrome, they generally begin before the age of one and reoccur about one to two months later.  Then the myclonic seizures or jerks begin.  These seizures are very brief – and consist of a sudden muscle jerk.  The child remains conscious during the seizure. This seizure is one type of “partial” seizure (as opposed to general seizure).

People with Dravet’s syndrome can develop other types of seizures also.  The other type of seizure that happens in our home is an atonic seizure.  This seizure lasts between one and ten seconds (usually one to two seconds here) and is characterised by a sudden loss of muscle tone.  They are also called drop seizures as the loss of muscle tone will cause the person to suddenly drop to the floor if they are standing up.

In most cases of Dravet’s Syndrome, it is difficult to completely control the seizures with medication.

Unfortunately, Dravet’s syndrome doesn’t simply cause the inconvenience of seizures and medication.  People with Dravet’s syndrome usually have developmental delay across some or all areas, with speech/language development being the most significantly affected. Most children with Dravet’s syndrome have significant developmental delays across all or most developmental areas.

Dravet’s Syndrome is usually caused by a gene mutation.  Generally, those who have the mutation, have Dravet’s syndrome so it is not generally “genetic” in that parents pass it on to their children, and may have other children with Dravet’s syndrome.  The genetic mutation occurs while the baby develops.  On rare occasions a parent may have the gene mutation and pass it on to the child. At present, the blood taken for the genetic test is sent to Glasgow, Scotland, and takes many months to return a result.

Epilepsy affects between one and two percent of the general population (ie 1-2 in every 100).  Dravets syndrome affects somewhere between 1-20,000 and 1-40,000 people (0.005% to 0.0025%).  On that average, you would expect that 500-1200 people living in Australia had this condition (and less than 350,000 world wide). I don’t know about you, but those numbers help me conceptualise it all.  As a comparison, Down Syndrome occurs in 1 in 660 births, Congenital Muscular Dystrophy in 1 in 10,000 births, and Cornelia de Lange Syndrome in 1 in 10,000 to 30,000 births.

Dravet’s Syndrome is not something that will go away, or can be grown out of.  The symptoms can be managed and treated but they will always be there.

The people we celebrated with are a big part of what made the day special.

Thanks Grandma for making two big plates of sandwiches!

We cut out scrabble letters and found alphabet stickers for people to leave us messages.

Who would’ve thought the Scrabble Dash cards wouldn’t come with a “z” card?