Spinning...

Remember that diary that Gail and I are keeping on Skippy. Well, this afternoon I sat and talked with my sons psychiatrist. After going over all kinds of odd behaviors/ actions and verbalizations, she informed me that in her opinion, what we are dealing with is that he has Aspergers Syndrome.

My head is spinning.....

Gail is telling me that everything will be fine, that we will get through this. And I know she is right. I don't know what I would do without her, she is my rock. If it wasn't for her I would be in a corner sobbing.

I have two nephews with Austism Spectrum Disorders, so we have my brothers and sisters knowledge and experience dealing with any issues built right into the family.

It's just very overwhelming at the moment.

I know, it's been too long...

Wow, it has been awhile. Things have been going fast and it feels like the merry-go-round just keeps going. Okay so a quick summary of things since I last posted in May. (forgive me if I miss a few things here and there….)

• Married my beautiful, smart, witty, and multi-talented better half at the end of May in a beautiful outdoor ceremony. The weather was perfect and everything went beautifully with the exception of my running out of the house and forgetting the baskets for the flower girls. Crisis was averted when we had them walk down holding the flowers for the mothers.
• Finally got gutters put up on the house
• Got a dog, Princess, who really needs some obedience training.
• Gail and I are still trying to set up a house with 3 teenage boys (and yes I have been told to be thankful we don’t have 3 teenage girls! )
• Took the family to see Blue Man Group. Thank goodness for free tickets as I wouldn’t have paid over $350 for the 5 of us to see it. It’s good…just not $350 worth of good.
• Gail and I threw an open house for family and friends to celebrate our marriage. We had about 60 people show up and somewhere in there someone brought a nice rain shower that messed up our plans ever so slightly. Good thing the house is big enough!
• The boys started school….all 3 in high school….
• Our oldest had the back window of his car broken when someone decided to throw a rock (more like a mini-boulder) through it. The next day the window on the rear door decided to shatter when he was just opening the door…..
• Gail and I are keeping a diary of things that we are noticing with our middle son as I have my concerns that he may have an undiagnosed Autistic disorder. (Having 2 nephews with forms of Autism lends itself to my concerns)
• Gail and I attended open house at the high school. 2 Parents, 3 Boys with 3 schedules….you do the math, something has to get missed…

Okay I think that pretty much about covers the high points. Sorry if I have forgotten anything. As I said, things are always happening and our heads are always spinning!

Gail and I try to put together to-do lists and try as we may something always seems to jump out in front of us and keep us from getting done everything we wanted to. As they say, that’s life. Sometimes things just happen.

Now if I could figure out a way to put 12 more hours in each day, put my hands on $4,000, speed up the harvests, solve global warming……you get the idea.

Later.

The Move !

Ok so we moved over the weekend. Let's see if I can give you a quick run down of the weekends activities..

Thursday- Took the day off work and packed all day, my dad came out to help. My son (Skippy) and I made a run out to the new house in the afternoon, met up with my Gail and her boys (Spaz and Sparky) and we all grabbed a bite to eat. Skippy and I went back to our house and continued to pack. I loaded up the car and made a days last trip to the new house as did Gail. I got home around 1:25 am.

Friday- Got up around 6 am took Skippy to school. Kept packing. Movers should have been to house between 8:00 and 9:00 am, called at 9:15 am and said they were stuck on Rt. 47 in traffic that wasn't moving they were going to find alternate route. At 10:00 am the movers finally arrived. Started packing truck, a second truck showed up (small) and packed lawn tractor, snow blower, table saw, etc. After the small truck was packed they took off for the new house. I had to leave because Gail had her hands full with directing the movers with the stuff on her truck and said she would not have any idea where the stuff on the small truck should go. And with that I had to leave my dad to supervise and close up the old house

Got to the new house in time to direct unloading of the small truck. Meanwhile the big truck had left the old house and stopped for lunch. Finally arrived and got everything unpacked around 6:45 pm. The move cost for Gail and I was about $500 over budget....(basically my move..)

Now the refrigerator hadn't been working properly for days, the freezer was ice covered and the fridge part warm. The landlord came over to repair and unplugged to let defrost overnight.

Around 9:00 pm Gail noticed the house was cold and it appeared the furnace wasn't working. I went to check and saw a blinking light on furnace panel indicating that a pressure switch was closed. I took apart and cleaned the area, put back together and it worked.....(or so I thought) meanwhile Gail wanted to take a hot shower around 11:00 pm. I ran downstairs came back up and she was in bed, I said "that was fast" she responded she didn't do anything, and I should go try the shower. I did and the shower head had '3' single streams coming out, 1 of which only dripped. With that we sent the 3 boys on an errand back to Gail’s old apartment to pick up a few things including a spare Waterpik showerhead. 45 minutes later I had installed the new showerhead and Gail and I were able to take showers. The end of a very lonnnnnnggg day!

Saturday- Woke up and the temp in house was 62. I checked the furnace and the same error light was flashing again. I called the landlord again to tell him about the furnace (I'm sure he dreads our number coming up on caller ID...lol). About an hour later he came over to check on the fridge and the furnace. He fixed the fridge and then called the HVAC company that came out and cleaned the furnace two weeks ago. Turns out they don't have techs that work weekends, but told the landlord to call anyone with a Saturday tech and they would cover the charge. Ended up calling a guy from down the street and he came a cleaned out the line and cleaned some electrical switches. It now works fine.

The rest of the day was organizing. I also started to assemble a couple of cabinets we had bought from Ikea. Sparky had a baseball game in the afternoon. We were supposed to go to a family gathering at my cousins later in the afternoon, however we called off with regrets as we were just dog tired.

Sunday- Mothers Day. (It’s been raining since early this AM….this is important.) Woke up, continued putting together the Ikea cabinets that I had started on Saturday. Everyone started taking showers to get ready to go over to my brothers for a MD gathering. Gail in the shower, Spaz in the other shower, Skippy in the family room, me making a cabinet and Sparky decided to go to the basement to play some X-box. Not 30 seconds later Sparky says 'Scott you need to come down here'. Which I think he wants to bust one of his brothers for leaving on lights, tv, etc. I tell him I will be down in a minute. He says 'Scott I really think you need to come down here now' ...... I think oh shit there’s water in the basement.

Sure enough, water on the floor in half the basement.... (Now the house had been painted over the past 2 weeks and part of that involved removing the old beat up gutters and repairing some squirrel damage (holes) to the eaves. The new gutters have not been put up on the house, so the rain water went straight off the roof and into the ground along the foundation.)

I tell Sparky to go grab towels, and tell his brothers to come down and help. Skippy has come downstairs and I tell him to start grabbing wet boxes and giving them to me. I tell both boys to put the towels down to keep the water from spreading. I then tell them to start taking plastic totes and putting them in the dry areas and placing the cardboard boxes on top of those. Sparky had told Spaz about the 'flood' as he was grabbing towels, and after Gail had finished her shower, Spaz asked her about the ‘flood’. So now I have the whole family in the basement. The boys were following directions and getting things moved and perishables up off the floor and Gail remained impressively calm.

After the past few days of moving and the stress we have been under I would’ve understood her just breaking down.

Gail called the landlord and left a message for him, and then she suggested I call my brother as he has a shop vac. I asked him to bring it over along with a squegee. A little while later he showed up along with his son and our dad. After they left to go to the Mothers Day gathering we then sent the boys over to the see their grandmothers and cousins (and get them out of our hair..)

Gail and I cleaned up the water as best we could. Gail ran to the hardware store and got some Damp-Rid, a small but powerful box fan and a squegee of our own. I dumped the water that the shop vac had sucked up.....all 8 gallons of it. !

When the landlord called back he joking asked how the weekend from hell move was going? lol

I am sure there are a couple of other things I am missing.....that pretty much covers it... we were both looking forward to going back to work as we could sit down and take a 'sanity break'.

Gail and I are toast and we have the wedding in two weeks ! (I can't wait!)

Update

Last night we lost a member of the zoo. Pedro the Corn Snake died. She was about 18 or 19 years old. As far as Corn Snakes go she lived to a ripe old age.



The packing continues......

My little man

Ok, I told you yesterday about the little man inside my head that is running around screaming with his hands in the air.

I mentioned the 'little guy' today in an e-mail to my family and my fiancee responds to all with this:

"... the little woman running around in my head screaming with her hands in the air would beat the crap out of his little guy, just to prove a point!"

I read that and almost fell out of my chair at the office as I was laughing so hard. I guess my little guy is gonna have to watch out ..... or keep a little box of chocolate on hand just in case. LOL

It's May .....and life is busy.

Hello all !

I am starting up a new personal blog. So stay tuned for my musings on life...

I will make this brief as time is precious. It is May and I am busy!

This Friday my fiancee and I are each moving from our current dwellings into our new (new to us) home. It's not just us, it's also our 3 teenage boys! Oh, and the family zoo, which currently consists of 1 rabbit, 2 turtles, 1 tadpole, 3 geckos, 1 fish tank, and 1 corn snake.

Not only are we currently packing and moving, but 2 weeks after we move we are getting married! (and we still have to finish our pre-marital counseling sessions..... could we add any more things??)

So yes we have a lot on our plates! The little man inside my head is running around and up and down the stairs with his hands in the air constantly screaming :-) Yeah there is a lot going on. We will survive!

I will tell you that even with all the things we are juggling, and as crazy as the next few weeks will be, I am sooo very happy! She is the best thing to ever happen to me.

A little over a year ago, God saw fit to bless me and bring into my life the woman I was meant to be with. Little did I know at that time that almost a year to the day of our first date she would honor me by becomming my wife, my partner.

I love you honey! As I said, I am truly blessed.

Now back to the insanity!