If you live in Tennessee, now you can wear your autism consciousness on your bumper–and not just via a magnetic ribbon or a sticker….We're talking a beautiful license plate (matches me blog right nice, eh?) co-designed by the talented Mary Sweeney of mSweeney Designs. Mary was the designer of our book, From Heartache to Hope: Middle Tennessee Families Living with Autism.
Talk of an autism specific license plate has gone down for years. But passionate Nashville go-getter autism mom Jennifer Sheridan paired with Kim Howell of Knoxville, whom she met during the annual Disability Day on the Hill at the state legislature, made it happen! Both moms were working independently to pass legislation approving an autism license plate. So, a union was born and autism moms, Sweeney and Hendersonville, Tenn., designer Lora Resha, were recruited to design a license plate image. The Autism Society of Middle Tennessee chose a blend from both designers' work.
Proceeds from the sale of the tag will benefit the Middle, West and East Autism Societies and purchasers can will be able to customize their plate with special wording, if desired the second year the tags are out. (So, if customization is desired, the cost would be an additional $35 for the plate and then $35 for customization and, again, not available until the second year.) To order now, it's really pretty user friendly on the pocket book and all the details are here. I've never had a "vanity" plate but I readily plunked down my $35 for the chance to create awareness of the misunderstood disorder that now numbers 1 in 88 children. You will also be able to just have a number versus a special word of your choosing on your plate.
Now here's how you can help. Order your plate NOW, because this sweet and ambitious effort can't be all in vain now, can it? You see, they must receive a 1,000 orders in order for the legislature to approve the plate. Last I heard they'd met a tad over the 1/3 mark. Help, out, won't cha?
Here's the details. Order now!
I attended the eenellxct program and learned a lot from the PowerPoint presentations, but we weren’t able to inspect any hives because of the bad weather. We were told that it would be scheduled for sometime soon. Unfortunately, I really needed this hands on part of the class! I just opened up my 2 hives all the way for the first time to remove the entrance reducers, which were stuck in the openings. The burr comb stuck things together so when I separated the boxes, frames were pulled up and fell. This upset the bees, of course, who did not follow the comb building rules! The capped brood did not look good. It was scattered and the caps were concave instead of convex. I didn’t try to find the queens because the bees were very upset with me and managed to get inside my veil and caught in my long hair. The good news is that each hive is going through more than a quart of sugar water a day.