Will work for floors

My husband has officially become a new floor ho. I will pimp him out to just about anybody willing to lay down the cash.
After an old dog, a new pup and three toddlers, our carpet has just had it.
On warm humid days there is a distinct urine smell that seeps from the padding below. I don't want my kids to go off to college only to be reminded of home every time they smell urine.
Okay, so I don't actually pimp him out, he just works a lot. He is a teacher by trade, which leaves his summers wide open for work.
He works for a friend of ours who owns several campus area rentals and he helps with maintenance and such. I use 'and such' loosely. Last week he packed up and discarded 54 trash bags of cockroach infested clothes and household items from an evicted property.
The same friend also has a contract with the Ohio State beauty schools so they maintain those buildings as well.
He also drives the limo, gives piano, violin, guitar and sax lessons, and just this week he started helping at one of the local high school's band camp.
The man is a work horse.
People often ask why he works so much in the summer. The truth of the matter is, we wouldn't make it through a summer with him home all day everyday. We love each other dearly, but who doesn't need a little space. He takes Friday morning and afternoon off, and that is just enough.
We usually have a project each summer that we work on. This year it is the floors.
We have been saving up to purchase the materials, because my Dad will be here in August and he has some serious skills.
I will keep you posted and hopefully have some pictures to show by the end of August.
In the meantime, I better get back to work myself....

My daughter has that crazy ability to always know just what to say..

Today I was feeling a little tired and bloated. Still on a mission to use the air conditioner as little as possible, I was feeling a bit hot and sticky as well.
So there I was, tired, bloated, hot, sticky....when Stella asked me for help squirting ketchup from our ridiculously large ketchup bottle onto her plate.
I helped her out, cause that's what I do and she said, "Mom. I love you. You are as strong as a hippo."
This of course sent the boys into hysterics and Miles kept repeating through his mouth full of food and giggles, "Mom's a hippo."
As strong as. Let's not leave that out of the sentence thank you very much.
That's me. Super Mom. Strong as a hippo.
Oh, she makes me laugh, that silly girl.

Top Five List

Top five ways that I make Autism work for our family:

1. When the caller id shows a 1-800 number I let Miles answer the phone. The conversation that follows goes something like this:
Miles: "Hello? HELLO?"
Miles: "I have a Mom. Hello?"
Miles: "Welcome to Miles' house."
Miles: "Ummm, I fine. Yes. I have a mom."
Miles: "DAAAD. MOOOOOM. Yep. Okay."
Miles: "Yep. I find Nemo. Can you say Dori?"
Miles: "What color Dori? Say Blue."
Miles: "Good-bye"

2. I happen to show Miles how he can scrub the grout in the shower with a tooth brush and it comes clean. Occupies his OCD (and mine) for hours.

3. Entertain myself and the kids by allowing Miles to 'flap' too close to the children of overly protective moms at the park.

4. Dad can be easily convinced to eat at Pei Wei due to the GF menu.

5. Great excuse to surround ourselves with cool people who never cease to amaze me with their ability to positively affect my boy!

Just some tidbits

Since I no longer have the ability to form full thoughts these days, I have some random tidbits to share with the world.
First, get this. My hubby was working last night. Limo run. He called me and told me that his party had tipped him, wait for it, $600.
That's what I said too!
I am starting to wonder if he is offering 'other' services on the side. Hey, if it puts groceries in the fridge.....
The same party booked him for tonight. (should I be worried) They are going to the movies and then 'out'.
Do you remember when you used to go 'out'? You would be leaving and your parents would be going to bed? Crazy.
Speaking of parents... Have I ever mentioned how dysfunctional my family is?
Probably not. We are so dysfunctional that I tend to keep it on the down-low as to not scare away potential friends.
We are crazy, but we love each other. I could do just about anything and my family would be like, "That's nothing. Remember that time when....."
So I was at the mall with my Mom, my Aunt (my Mom's twin) and my Sister. My Sister confessed a big secret over flavored lemonade while we lounged the food court.
My Sister, who is 11 years my junior is dating someone 10 years older than myself. He is going through a divorce, has kids and, best part, it's her boss.
Being as we are, we decided to talk it out right there in the food court, amongst the scantly clad teenage girls and the pimply faced boys checking them out.
At one point my Mom made some reference to having been with a man that had brought out the worst in her.
This caused me to bust out in uncontrolled laughter. I didn't mean to, it just hit me funny. Probably because she has been married many, many, many times. Each husband, save for my Dad, almost worse than the last.
My attempts to hide my laughter were feeble and my Mom started to cry. My Aunt, I swear because they are twins and that is how it works, started to cry too.
It only made me laugh harder.
My sister, who may be the most sane of all of us, could only shake her head.
We regained control shortly thereafter, and gave my Sister some 'sound' advice.
Then we threatened to show up at her work often and with my kids, if she doesn't at least consider our advice. That's just how we roll.
Anyway, if you happened to be at the mall and saw a group of women laughing and crying like ninnies....yep, totally me and my Family.

Pierced Ears

When Stella was all of 3 years old, she started asking to get her ears pierced. I told her she could get them done when she turned the ripe old age of 5 years old. That seemed at the time to be way far off and I figured by then fear would kick in and we could wait even longer.
Not so much how it happened. The day that she turned 5, she reminded me of my promise from almost two years ago. I asked if she would want to wait another year and told her that it hurts, but she still wanted to get the earrings.
We made a trip to the mall for the big event with Dad and brothers in tow. She took her favorite stuffed cat with her to help calm her worries.


We requested that they do both ears at once, as we did not want to walk out of there with only one ear pierced. And I would have felt really bad if I would have had to pin her down for the second piercing. They did and were very nice.


This was the worst. She looked up at me and mouthed the words, "That hurts!"
I was glad Caleb was there to see this. He has been determined to pierce some part of his body for awhile. When he was about 6 years old our neighbor got her nose pierced. He was so fascinated that he walked around with a round gold sticker stuck to the side of his nose for days.
He is, thankfully, a bit of a pansy when it comes to pain. I think he will be holding off on any piercings or tats for the time being.
I felt horrible when I couldn't make the hurt stop. We ran right across the mall to the Disney Store and bought a new bathing suit. It helped us both.



Now she looks so old. Not quite my baby anymore. *Sigh*

Berry Pickin' Good

I promised myself that I would post today, whether or not my mind still feels like mush. So here is my best effort. Some words interspersed with photos.

We went berry picking. This is Miles being his silly self. I would check his basket and ask where all his berries had gone. He would show me his mouth and say, "spell tummy, Mommy." That's his way of saying, "Why pick them and take them home when I can stand here and eat them right off the bush?"


This is Caleb, Stella and Ms. Bre. Bre was Miles' preschool teacher for 3 years and Stella's teacher for 2 years. We love her. We can't let her go, so we make her hang out with us in the summer. Really, she is one of Miles' summer-time tutors. She is always willing to field trip it with us and we always have a blast.
Notice the ear-bud protruding from Caleb's ear. He is not in training to become a member of the Secret Service. He IS getting to 'that age'. Lord help me, I can only hear 'Boom Boom Pow' so many times before I want to boom, boom, whack somebody.



I'm sorry, but how could you not love the person that belongs to these legs. She picks out her own outfits and these are her favorite socks. They are black and red with silver dots. They are so Rock-n-Roll, and so is she. As far as she is concerned, they match everything. Don't bother trying to tell her otherwise.



The fruits of our labor. Black raspberries and they are soooo yummy. We ate them over vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce.



After a day of berry picking and lunch at Whole Foods, I was feeling all green inside, so we also hit the farmers market. We got honey, straight from the hands of the bee keepers. Goat's milk feta. A savory blend with paprika and garlic and a sweet blend with orange and cranberries. We also snatched up a cherry and hot pepper jam. Seriously yummy.