An open letter to my cats and dog

Dear ones I support and govern. I am sick and tired of your entitlement ways and dependency on me who governs you. Why can’t you go get your own food? Do you think just because you’re adorable and loving I should feed you, provide shelter and clean water? I think it’s time you pulled yourselves up by your bootstraps and started feeding yourselves, cleaning up your own filth and paying me more money for putting up with your lazy asses.

However, I also want to apologize for being pressured by society to take away your fertility, it was wrong of me as it should be up to god on how many litters you have and not us humans. Obviously we have plenty of room on this planet, and even if it gets a bit more populated, I can always put you on the roof of the car. More survival of the fittest you know. Sorry Gibson, you are the slow one, so we will miss you.  As far as veterinary care, I will no longer be making you go to the vet as who am I to tell you how to take care of yourself. If you want to get healthcare then get a job and walk yourselves to the vet.

                                                                  All you do is sleep and eat, you disgust me.

I will also not be spending any more time trying to educate myself in your care. Education is just a form of indoctrination and my time would be better spent making money.

Gibson, you in particular have to stop having these female or mommy tendencies, I know you weren’t born that way and I am obviously failing you as a pet-parent because you are not more male-like. So stop cleaning the kittens and taking care of them, if you love them too much they won’t be able to take care of themselves. And you will go to HELL!

Things will change; we will bring our household back to a time where there were fewer rules. You will be able to piss, poop, scratch and sit on anything you like. And Fred you can eat it all, since as I said we aren’t worried about going to the Vet anymore. You will be able to do whatever you want, but if I don’t like it I can shoot you at any time.

                      and don't try to be cute and give me that look...you didn't work for that food.

There will be no more sharing of toys, beds or food.  Sharing is wrong, only the lucky can prosper, if you aren’t lucky you aren’t praying hard enough.

I know it isn’t all of you; it’s just about 47% of this furry bunch that thinks you are victims to humans.

Just remember I can wheel this power because I have opposable thumbs and you don’t know how to operate a gun.

 You can't fool me again, I gave you that toy first...okay it was given to me to give to you, but so what

Love and Kisses your human overlord

PS. Be sure to tell your fellow cats and dogs without homes that immigrate into our society that they are not real cats and dogs, but even bigger moochers then you guys. We here are going to start rounding them up and sending them back to Egypt (well the cats anyway).

It's been a while

It has been a long while since I have updated this blog. I wrote the following a few months ago and never finished it to get it on here. But today is a new day, and I decided while updating other sites I would do so on this one. I hope to build some momentum on here again.

 I spent a lot of time on my health, and with the idea of working smarter not harder. In the time since I last updated there has been some changes. Noah is more like a typical 7 year old, but he will be 10 in 10 days, wow. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years! He is doing so much better, is off the gluten free-casein free diet (minus yogurt and milk) and doing very well in school. He is interested in having us be proud of him.

Working on Health

This is necessary for so many of us. We take on more than we should, sometimes because there seems to be no other way. Sometimes because we just think we can. Maybe you are like me, and you tend to bite of more than you can chew, I find its best to do so, as long as you don’t’ mind spitting something out if you truly can’t chew it all. Pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone is necessary for growth.

Goals I had were to make sure I exercised every day, drink enough water, get to bed so I can have 7-8 hours’ sleep, have a day of rest, and eliminate as much bread as possible(because I truly have issues digesting it, and its causing me inflammation). I like many of you know to do these things, and do them pretty consistently, but it still can be sporadic. Which means, sure you do all that you should for weeks or months on end, but then suddenly you have more on your plate, so what goes first, all the things you need to do to take care of yourself. Before you know it, a few months pass and you realize you have been barely drinking water, your sleep is disturbed, you are eating foods you can’t digest because they are there when you need them, and others aren’t there. You may be busy, sweating your butt off and having plenty of activity, but no fun exercise or decent consistent like you normally do.

So for one year, I wanted to make sure I did all those things, I got through most of September doing so. Then Joe got laid off and was home every day for a MONTH, screwing up my routine. Now he is working, but they are sporadic hours so it’s taking a lot of adjustment to find a routine in this small house. So some things are within my control regardless, but others, including work  or exercise which are in areas that we share or are equipment we share aren’t just when I want because I don’t live here alone.

Overall I made a lot of improvements, and I keep reminding myself I have to put myself on the list, it’s my job to do so and no one else’s. It’s my job to say no, and I am not in the position to help others until I help myself.

Working Smarter not harder

Most people work hard, and we should. But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about ways to accomplish tasks more efficiently or find better paying work to cut back on some of the stuff that we have to spend more time on that pays less. I was grateful for the experience I received from some of the websites I write for, but needed to get more pay up front work. So I focused on more print work which pays much better than online. Hence, not seeing much here. (Since this pays pennies…but one day!)

I also made sure I was fully available for Noah, and anything related to the house. I need an organized and clean home, otherwise I get all stressed out.  When you work for yourself you are fully in charge of finding your work also, and anyone who does so will tell you, this is a task you do every day. Each day someone who has their own business or is their own contractor spends time finding more work, networking and just keeping their radar up. I have been fortunate where work has occasionally fallen in my lap based on someone reading an article and wanting to publish it in their magazine. But that doesn’t happen often enough to just rely on the maybe of it. Like all things, you need some luck, but mostly a lot of perseverance to see things through.

What They Don't Tell you About Autism

I spend most of my writing time discussing ideas, tips and advice regarding autism-parenting. And after writing over a hundred articles about the subject I began to think about all the aspects of autism we as writers (and even parents) don’t discuss. Overall your perception changes, and your view of the world. Nothing is black and white anymore. But it’s not so much that life is grey, but rather it’s multi-dimensional. You gradually accept you can’t understand what you don’t have a full understanding.  There may have been a time when you would jump to judgment over the bad things people do, politics, various reports and articles you read; but now you realize you don’t know the whole story. You realize knee-jerk reactions just contribute to problems and feed the same anger and hate, which people claim to be offended about.

Autism makes you more understanding, empathetic, and open minded. Autism can make you hyper-aware of behavior and motivations in people, children and even animals. This starts early on, when you are trying to reach your child. You have to tap into to your empathetic nature and you need to be open because it's the way in. From doing this you begin to realize your own judgments tell a story about yourself. You now know you don't have all the answers and no one does; you cannot understand what is happening in everyone else's lives since you aren't in their lives. Judgement is one of the first things you let go.

You become more observant to people’s idiosyncrasy and how everyone has quirks, sensory issues, stims and does things to help balance themselves. This leads to understanding addicts more, since those choices are fueled by imbalances in the brain. You understand yourself more, and all bad behavior in children. This isn’t just in the area of addiction, whether its smoking, drugs, alcohol, food or shopping, but all things.  Because you have this ability to understand without judgment you can then focus on the solutions, instead of the problems.

Autism helps your realize you will try almost anything, which leads to lowering your comfort zone for trying other new things. You can see how there were activities you would never consider before but now suddenly it seems silly to not try. Overall autism will make you more peaceful and more stressed out.

You will change what you believed about friendship. You will realize how much deeper it can go, how you will find friendship in places you may not have thought. You will bond with people who go through what you do. You will forgive people who you originally wrote off as a ‘bad friend’, but you will remember who to spend your limited time.

You will disregard some of your previous beliefs. This can even come in the area of your budgeting and financial attitude. You will change how your define responsibility. You realize there are more things you can do without than you ever thought. Clothing and shoes can last a lot longer than your realize, and furniture is more for function. Autism makes you more conservative with your resources, but more liberal with your love.

Things you took for granted before you no longer do. You will spend a lot of your time being grateful, you will spend a lot of your time feeling worried. You will feel uncomfortable about looking into the future; you may not look forward to things as you did before, not the feeling of excitement because you have been taught all new things are problems. But you will still find some peace in this; you will still feel happy if you let yourself.

You will cry for happiness and pride, and you will cry from frustration and stress.


You may find yourself at a loss of words at times to explain to others exactly why it is as challenging as it is. People will tell you to treat special needs kids like any other, but they aren’t like other kids. And you are no longer like other parents. The rules are different. Even with the similarities, the challenges of 20 children can never measure up to the challenge of one who is autistic. It’s a different world. Much of what you learned about social rules and benefits as being part of society, or as a parent are suddenly gone, those rules don’t exist. So the way you should expect to be treated by your child is gone, it doesn’t exist for you. You will not have what your friends have. But in essence, you will have more.

Autism isn’t a death sentence; it isn’t something horrible that happened to you or your child. It certainly doesn’t “wreck your life”, but it can wreck some moments. It is a challenge and it is completely ok to feel terrible about it at times, just like anything. As long as you let it go and do not let it become who you are.  One of my favorite quotations is by Maya Angelou, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Your life is how you define it.

Yes Noah There is a Santa Claus

It is easier to dismiss the idea of magic, than it is to believe in something you don’t see or haven’t experienced, when you are an adult. Noah was questioning whether Santa was real this year, I don't know if it was because he had some difficulty more recently, or because I told him christmas was going to be light.

When you are child, believing in magic of course is much easier, and not believing it in would feel foreign and wrong. Something happens to us along the way which flips these two ideas-the one which believes with the one marked with cynicism.

Life happens to us, as we live we lose. We lose people who mean the world to us, we lose jobs, pets, friends, and sometimes we lose our homes, our sanity and even our way. The loss of things that mean more than a misplaced toy, slowly affects our inner-workings. We still believe, but our prayers go unanswered much more often than they did before.

At some point we get to a cross roads where we can take one path or another. We can choose to believe in good, in magic and in life. Or we can choose to dismiss those things, value them as unimportant and embrace bitterness. My husband took one road, and I have been on the one which believes in magic, even though countless things have happened to me which should kill that. However, there has been magic too, like blowing a tire on 95 in the middle of the night and being picked up by nice people who drive you home, and like what happened to us this Christmas.

Most of us Have Been Dealt a Bad Hand from One Time or Another.


Sometimes the hand is temporary, and the next round is better. We only wind up a bit behind, maybe we still break even at the end of the game, or only take a minor loss. And with that loss, we at least gain some wisdom.

Other times the hand we are dealt is not the type we can recover from so easily. Not without the help of others, and not without a little magic.

The idea of Santa Claus when you are a child fills you with hope, excitement and can make you a bit nervous. Santa is judging you after all, but it didn’t feel harsh, cruel or in the ways people judge each other later in life. Santa still accepted that even if you were flawed, you were still worthy, and loved for trying.

As you grow older you then can find yourself feeling as if magic is dead, it never existed, and it was just a lie. Cynicism takes hold, yet somewhere within me, I refuse to accept it.

We had some bad luck about 6 years ago, just before Noah was diagnosed. I will give what I call the Reader’s Digest version.

We are a good example of people who did things right, made good choices. We saved money to buy the current home we are living in, and bought something a bit smaller to not have to take on a huge mortgage when a smaller house would be just fine for awhile. While selling our former home laws changes regarding underground oil storage tanks, and it took some 2 years to get the house sold. During this time we had 2 sets of taxes, mortgage payments, water bills and though we lived conservatively, we could not afford 2 homes. And it wasn’t as if we could sell the new one and move back into the old, it had an “environmental problem” now, and was deemed uninhabitable. So there was inevitable debt, plus testing and clean up costs for the soil. This wound up costing close to just over 75,000 dollars. Then Noah was diagnosed with autism, just after the house was sold. The costs of Autism ran up another 40,000 over the past five years.

We still live frugally; we do all the things suggested to save money. No landline phone, cheap cable, thrifty shopping, and no extras. We do not buy new coats or shoes every year. We do not go shopping for fun stuff; we do not go out to eat. And for seven years, never took a vacation. During Noah’s treatments it was not possible for me to go back to work fulltime, it still isn’t because there is no one who can handle him in between. When he was getting therapy it had to be done here, for 40 hours a week, with multiple therapists. But I digress, I wrote all about that in a book.

We both work as much as possible, but it isn’t enough to keep up with the $1,000 of debt bills we have in addition to regular bills each month, but it helps. If not for our frugality, things would be worse and we would have lost our home years ago. So even though it is this way, I am grateful it isn’t any worse, and I have always believed deep down, since we didn’t ask for or create any of this. One day, the universe will balance, and it will be ok. One day, there will be such prosperity it will give new meaning to our suffrage. I have always cared about others, but it will force me to never forget…when I am wicked famous :)

The economy has been a problem for many people the past few years, at first for us it wasn’t that much different. We were already living the way other people now had to. Of course with no raise from my husband’s job for over 2 years, but higher costs for everything, healthcare, tolls, taxes ect. We now had less money, for an already stretched out budget. We skip meals, we are sometimes cold, but I have also found that you can adapt to a lower thermostat and make it a personal goal to push it a bit lower each year. Christmas has always been small for us; we give to others, but not ourselves.

A Child Shivers in the Cold, Let us Bring him Silver and Gold.


This year, a miracle happened. I decided to look into getting food from our town’s food bank. Hoping this will help shave something off of the food bill. I figured there wouldn’t be too much for Noah’s diet and particular aversions. But something is better than nothing. Somehow this outreach for help led to help.

A former school mate, and now current council member of our town decided to do something about it. His wife and he did a toy drive, they collected gift cards, cash, boxes of gluten free/dairy free food and reached out to two members of the Maple Shade Business association who are Santa and Mrs. Claus ever year.

These two people have been adopting a local family every year for the past 12 or 13 years, it is their gift to each other. They deliver gifts, and bring food. This year, it was our family they shared Christmas morning with. This also led to another old friend donating a tree to us, and some elves who know Noah’s occupational therapist donating some food gift cards. Another writer from one of the websites I write for is sending a $100 to us after I mentioned part of this story in our forum, not because I was asking for help. But because I was remarking how wonderful people can be, and they are as good as they are nasty.


Noah woke up earlier than expected on Christmas morning as children can do, and found nothing new under the tree. “My sock is empty.” he said, and noticed Santa’s coconut milk and cookies were still uneaten. He didn’t cry, or get upset-though I think the Farmville gift card in his stocking from me took the sting out. He just said he would go on Farmville and open his presents!

About twenty minutes later, Santa and Mrs. Claus knocked on the front door, and with them brought cookies and gluten free dairy free donuts for Noah, as well as two huge contractor bags of wrapped presents.

“ Wow Santa you were busy at your workshop”

Noah was extremely happy and excited to tear through gift after gift, even was excited to open up box which held an Eagles sweatshirt and wind breaker.

“Oo a sweat shirt!”

They had a big wheel! Something we wanted to get for him for some time. Legos, playdough, games. Noah is a big toystory fan, and someone even got him the Andy's toys gift pack, I couldn't afford to buy this year because I missed the black friday sale at Target. I cried when he opened these gifts.
They even had a few gifts for my husband and I. His heart did indeed grow "three times this day." My favorite was an ornament of a stocking with one small powerful word on it. Believe.

On Christmas Eve, our new best friend dropped off a ham, card and small box to us to be opened after Noah went to bed. We opened this, and it was full of gift cards. So many we had to keep reaching in the box and more and more came out. What we received from the good people of Maple Shade was more than what was in the many boxes. Hope, love and belief were the best presents of all. I am always overjoyed when I see people helping people, it gets me every time. I just never knew it would happen to me one day.

Gift cards and presents = about 60 items
money, gift cards, food, presents for Noah given = about $3,000
Hope, faith restored and love= Priceless

It isn't as if this will wipe away all of the debt by magic- it certainly helps, and this Christmas was the best ever. It absolutely has made me believe this is the beginning to it getting better. All of this generosity warmed us so much inside; I didn't feel cold in the 62 degree house. And now some extra money means I can crank that heater up to a steamy 65 degrees..at least for the next few days. There is enough food, and food gift cards to last us until February at least.

I know Santa is real, he was in my living room! Twice, but only one of them had a beard. Santa is as real as love is real, and magic is real, for it took a bit of it and some luck for this to happen. When people come together like this, it is amazing. I have loved Maple Shade my whole life, people often joke about how you can't leave it, if you do, you come back. This is one of the reasons why. Local businesses helped too, they donated, and one night this week Joe and I will enjoy a nice dinner out, thanks to Charlie Browns.

Thank you good people of Maple Shade and elsewehere you helped our family this magical Christmas.

Yes, Noah there is a Santa Claus.

Ready, Set, Holidays!

The holiday season has begun. Haul out the headache medicine, do the plastic shuffle and try to not go insane. You will need your mind when it is all over. Personally I love the holidays. I love the lights, the music, the movies, the special foods! My favorite aspect though is being able to laugh and exchange ideas and just have fun with friends. I have been fortunate where I have had some wonderful memories with terrific people over the years.

From Halloween through New Years there are so many different tastes, sights and smells to enjoy. Parties or activities to attend or tend to, and people to share your time with. It is a season of good stress, but stress all the same. Here are a few tips I use, which helps me look forward to the holidays every year.

My Top Holiday Survival Tools.

Be Prepared. Wrapping paper, check, Gift tags, check. Tape, check. Scissors??? Where the heck are the scissors! I discovered after many misplacements of my scissors to just buy an extra pair and keep them with all the other gift wrapping supplies. Try to get these types of items at the end of the season, pack them all together-maybe in a red and green tub, so it's all there for you. Stock up on batteries, and don't forget the sensory tools for your special child who will sense every bit of your stress.

The House to Yourself. You need to be able to have the house to yourself for a few hours, a couple of times during the holiday season. Not only to get things done, but to decompress. Send the kids (and maybe even the husband) off to the grandparents, your sisters, your brother, best friend’s house …somewhere they will have fun for a few hours. This also makes a great gift.

A Money Plan. No one wants to go into debt. But you do want to have funds to buy extra food, and even making gifts costs money. The best scenario is to save money-even if it is your extra change, in a jar or Christmas club account throughout the year so you have extra cash. There are also pay-to-read email companies, shopping websites where you earn points or money for reading their ads, and shopping on their site. You can save your earnings all year and cash them out in November as money or gift cards. Spending just 30 minutes to an hour a week on this can add up to an extra 200.00 in your pocket at the end of the year.

Credit for credit, not just using it as a convenience and paying it off in the month is fine if you have a plan. If you shop well, you will get some amazing deals, and if it means having a holiday over no holiday just factor in your comfort zone on interest. I normally match my savings as long as I can pay it back in 3 months. This yields two months of interest, which sometimes only adds up to an extra 40 dollars or so, with great deals-I am still a head.

Wine and Whining. You need to vent. Let it out. Call your best friend, swap horror stories and let it go. Wine is also a welcome addition to the end of your day. One glass of wine not only helps you relax, it gives you antioxidants and is good for your blood. Several glasses of wine will just give you a headache and unnecessary calories, so if you can practice moderation then add a bottle to your shopping list.

Christmas Music and Movies. When the “shitter is full”. Nothing works better than watching the Griswold’s with their Christmas adventures in Christmas Vacation. Watching Christmas movies while wrapping or listening to music- or if you are Noah, both; adds that holiday feeling and some humor.

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Top 9 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Autism Spectrum Child - Newark Autism & Parenting | Examiner.com

Top 9 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Autism Spectrum Child - Newark Autism & Parenting Examiner.com