When It Rains It Pours …Quite Literally In My House!

You know I’ve mentioned briefly, that this house of mine was a God send 2 years ago when we got in it. We were in a desperate “we’re going to be homeless in a few weeks if we can’t find a house SOON” type situation. My wife went online and found this house…and we were able to get it with Owner-Financing which was great because my credit was REALLY low at the time…the house ad read that it was “recently renovated”…HA! What a FREAKING LIE!!!

The kitchen cabinets are the original kitchen cabinets from the 1970’s when this house was built. They are the ugliest, flimsiest things I’ve ever seen…and in such disrepair that I recently had to pull one off the wall because it was quite literally falling apart…the carpets which were supposed to be “new” were simply shampooed, re-stretched and re-cut. And they left gaps in the corners of each room. In the dining room, they actually left the carpet un-tucked instead of finishing it by the sliding doors to the back deck. And the back deck is pitched on an angle and the cement is all cracked up. The house was recently re-sided right before we got it…and when they did it, they covered up all the outdoor electrical outlets. And the back door threshold is broken and when it rains, our laundry room gets flooded which runs into our kitchen! And oh yeah they advertised that the roof was recently redone as well.  Well I recently switched insurance carriers and when I had the roof re-inspected, the roofer said that roof is about 10 years old minimum.

Today, after an early morning rush to get to the final game of Monkey Boy’s baseball season, we had to come home to get ready for my mother’s 72nd birthday party…nothing big…(since we don’t socialize with anyone, just my sister, her girlfriend, her daughter, the monster in law and my kids)…AFTER I ran Monkey Boy to Game Stop to get a game, and my wife ran Aspie Teen over a friends house to buy Yu-Gi-Oh cards for his collection…we were home finally and my sister etc. had left, it started raining…REALLY raining…so of course the rain came in under through the broken threshold in the laundry room…here’s the hitch…we installed laminate flooring in the kitchen!!!

So we literally piled all the towels we could find on the floor in the laundry room to stop the water from leaking under the laminate…this is going to smell LOVELY tomorrow…and since my wife has SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) and can smell EVERYTHING….well you get the picture….

I swear…I HATE this house…if I knew that it needed all this work when I bought it, I could say well we knew what we were getting into…but the person who sold it to us told us it was in good condition cause he just put a bunch of work into it…I shudder to think what his idea of a lot of work is…because on top of the issues mentioned before, the stairs are falling apart in the house, the a/c doesn’t blow  upstairs and I just had a new unit and compressor put in when I moved in…almost none of the light switches in the house actually WORK and we have to walk over to the light/ceiling fan and pull the cord in almost every room…and light bulbs constantly blow out quickly which tells me there’s a short somewhere…and the garbage disposal under the sink CRACKED and leaks anytime you run water on that side of the sink so we can’t use one side of the sink OR use our dishwasher until I get that fixed. I have four kids, three of which are autistic…there is no “free time” to do things ourselves (we’ve been laying laminate for 4 months already!) or “extra money” to hire someone to do it for us…(the last handyman I hired did such shoddy work I can’t even go into it now)…I’m scared to death something is going to happen to one of the kids because something broke…poor Aspie Teen and Monkey Boy have to go upstairs with no a/c in the summer (which is now), and bake up there during the day…I’m scared that when they come down the stairs, they’ll finally finish breaking and they’ll fall right through them…

I am so NOT a handyman either…

My wife and I have done some major things in this house…like laying down laminate flooring…remodeling the master bath and the upstairs bath…repainting the ugly ass cabinets and putting tiles down and grouting them on the counters…but I swear I need Jonathan & Drew Scott from the Property Brothers

or Nicole Curtis from The Rehab Addict

or Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri from Cousins Undercover

or Tarek and Christina El Moussa from Flip or Flop

to come do this house for me…for free would be great since I have NO savings for a rainy day to fall back on…if you’ve never seen these shows, you should Tivo them on HGTV…they are fantastic! I stand in awe of these creative geniuses who manage to do what they do. They are a lost and dying breed…those who create…instead of destroy…restore instead of abandon and see value in what others see as lost causes. The world needs more people like this…people with vision…and the willingness to make a change…and do some good…instead of just saying well that’s not my problem…but I digress…

I’m putting in for promotions in different states and if I get one of them my job’s relocation company will buy the house from me, but if I can’t get it fixed up I’m going to be stuck with it, or else take a beating on what they’ll buy it from me for! (which would just be my luck wouldn’t it?)

Anyway…that’s my rant for the night…thanks for listening…

 

So Proud of the Tot!

After a miserable day yesterday that left his mother in tears by the end of it,  the Tot seemed determined make up for it today,  because he’s been so well behaved that I’m wondering what they put in his sippy cup at school today and where can I get a hold of some of that stuff myself!

He’s been happy,  he’s asked for help,  he’s listened,  he took a bath AND he went potty all by himself with no prompting for the very first time today!!!

He’s been walking around without a pamper/pull up all evening,  (which made me very nervous I’m not ashamed to say), and then he just gets up and walks to the bathroom,  climbs up on the porcelain throne,  and lets go!

Some of you may be like what’s the big deal,  but some of you know what a VERY big deal it is when your special needs kid does something like this because you never thought you’d see the day come when they did it!

Most nights, he climbs into my bed and holds my wife hostage for 4-6 hours before he passes out. Tonight, he let me bring him to bed and lay down next to me and passed out in 45 minutes.

I don’t know what the change is but I pray to God to please let it last at least a few days!

 

Tot at the playground-he looked so happy I thought it would be the perfect pic to go with this post.

Happy Birthday Monkey Boy!!!!

MB turned 10 today!  I made him toast with jelly for breakfast,  and I told him Happy Birthday bud,  and he goes Double digits baby,  I’m a man!  To which I replied,  Great! Now go get a job!  To which he replied,  A job? ! Ppph! Yeah like that’s going to happen! !!!
LMAO!

Happy birthday kiddo!

Send it on!:

Now Available in Audio format on Audible.com!!!

Twirling Naked In the Streets – And No One Noticed is now available on audible.com!

Go check it out!

Straight From the Heart

I’ve been doing some light research on autism etc. for various reasons and I came across something that disturbs me. There are so many people being told their children and themselves as well will never be able to exist on their own, to live their own lives, to love someone or be loved by someone. That they and their children, their loved ones are doomed to a life of perpetual supervision and loneliness.

It makes me ask one question among the hundreds that flit through my ADD brain…ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???

PLEASE stop pushing this garbage on people, and children especially!!!

My wife grew up without ever being diagnosed. She is high functioning, and struggles in so many areas. And she struggled without ever knowing she was autistic. Along the way, she had too many bad experiences to count but she developed into an intelligent, driven young lady, who despite all the challenges she faced persevered and is still fighting today!

She was living on her own at age 14 and raising her 3 brothers in lieu of parents who were there but didn’t make any of their kids a priority. She worked several jobs at once, maintaining a place to live that her brothers could come stay at whenever they wanted. She went to school, she went to church, she dated, got hurt, dated again, got fired from jobs, quit others, but always came back.

If anyone reading this has ever been told they have no hope of ever being loved or loving someone let me tell you right now that is LIE!!!

I didn’t know my wife had autism till we had been married for around 10 years. There was plenty about her that I could not explain, but you know what? Because I loved her I let them go and kept at it. Our marriage was ROUGH the first 10 years. Mostly due to my immaturity and stupidity, but dealing with the issues which arose because of her autism (though we didn’t know it was autism) was not easy on either of us.

But I have to say this, without my wife’s devotion to family, her drive to make our marriage work, and her ability to forgive, I would not be the man I am today. I most likely would not even be around to type these words, I would have given up on myself and ended my pain, but SHE gave me reason to hope, reason to change. She inspired me, she showed me how to truly love someone and how beautiful love could be. My children, and myself are so lucky to have her, autism and all. Her autism doesn’t make her less…it makes her more…more than I am …more than anyone else I know.

So keep the faith. There is hope for you. You are not doomed. You can and will lead a full satisfying life. There may be some limitations you might have to adjust to, but just don’t give up.

My wife put her heart and soul into our marriage. She put her heart and soul into her book. And though she’s stuck with  a husband like me, tonight at least she was honored for her hard work and dedication on one front. Tonight was the Awards ceremony for the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards, which she took second place in her category.

I am so proud of her. She deserves recognition for so much more than this but at least she is being recognized for her work on this book.

Congratulations Jeannie. I love you and I am so very proud of you.