Hardware store or Cat food ?

Pulled in to pick up Noah from the sitters an there he was sitting in the middle of the drive way with Wendy his childcare provider sitting on the ground beside him. I couldn't image what they were doing. That's when I saw the kitty. The second I pulled in Noah gave me a pleading look. The moment I opened my car door he the words "MOM CAN I KEEP HIM PLEEEEASE " came flooding out of his mouth. I look at Wendy and while responding to him "oh honey she probably belongs to someone" (HINT) . Wendy said "nope ! she's definitely as stray ! Oh and she looks pregnant , the poor thing !" Noah wailed again "MOM PLEASE ! PLEASE !" I quickly responded with I don't have a cat carrier to get her home anyway. Wendy's neighbor who until then had been enjoying watching the conversation jumped up and ran for her house "I got one" she said with waaay to must exuberance . She is probably loaded with fleas I said in defense and a few more retaliations.....

  Everyone meet our newest family member MISS Pricilla !!

The trip to the hardware store was cancelled and off to Walmart we went to get all the kitty essentials. 70 bucks later we was home with Pricilla, she was deflead and sporting a snazzy red collar with a bell. Being pregnant I was concerned that flea chemicals would be harmful for her and her babies so I aired on the side of caution and bought tea tree oil for her. WELL GUESS WHAT FOLKS ? Tea tree oil is toxic for cat !!!! I haven't had this poor soul only a few hours and have already nearly killed the poor thing ! She is so sweet and has let me torcher her all evening trying to get all the oil out of her fur. Now all I can do is watch and pray that she will make it through unscathed as there is no treatment for tea tree oil poisoning. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow night with good news and NEW TINY HOUSE PICTURES !!   

   

Creativity ! The TRUTH !

Here's the TRUTH about being creative about tiny house living ! Pretty isn't easy ! The only cool and pretty projects that came together the way it should without a hitch so far has been these beauties ! A trip to Walmart, 12.75 and Wulla !!! MUMMS !!

Sometime accidents can turn into something cool. The cement that got dumped on the stair ended up being a signature of sorts for our tiny home. Leave Jay and Noah alone for two minutes and check out what they did !

Back to the truth. In the tiny house world galvanized tubs and metal roofing are common fashion statements for good reason , cost, space and who doesn't like the country/industrial look ? I thought it would be easy. After all the YouTube video was less than 5 minutes ! In truth it doesn't come together that quickly or without battle wounds. I definitely could post more on this topic and positive I will in the future !! 

Jay will be picking metal out of his arm for a while after trimming the metal roof pieces for the bathroom wall. BUT its sure going to be pretty !

It doesn't seem to slow him down !! He just started a new tiny house project !

This weekend I'm am in hopes of finishing the bathroom ! I'm so excited and I just know its going to be super cool and easy as pie ! The plan is to build some floating shelves, make an original creative mirror piece. Shelves attached to an industrial pipe for the shower and containers for my toiletries !

Noah and I are off to Home depot for supplies tomorrow night . Come on back tomorrow night and see what we found !

 

          

Dreaming of Tiny houses, Laundry and Autism

Passion, faith and the ability to continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep on going even on the days I just want to sit on the couch and eat ridiculous amounts of chocolate and watch Netflix.

Today was the first day of school. Woke up at 5am and the cute first day of school pictures had already started to flood onto facebook. I planned on taking the first day of school pictures too but as the morning continued so did Noah's anxiety. The first day, the first time of anything is brutal for him so we went from trying to part his hair and combing it to the side too just being relieved we was finally able to get his braces and shoes on his feet and his pant weren't on backwards (happens more than I care to admit) ! By 6:50  I was nearly dragging him to the car , realizing after driving to the corner I forgot my work bag. So no cute pictures, not this year. I used to be really hard on myself about things like this but in the end I kissed him goodbye for the day, said a little prayer, patted myself on the back and headed for work. WE DID IT !!

No work on the house tonight. The washer is still sitting on my front porch so we were laundry mat bound. Laundry mats are full of noises that are that are not " Noah friendly " so the race was on to get the laundry into the machine and out as fast as I could with the lure of ice cream to inspire Noah to maintain . Three meltdowns, both of us covered with purple unicorn ice cream and 2 hours later we finally made it home. We  wont discuss the showwe incident as I'm still a bit frustrated from that. In the end Noah's clean, sound to sleep in bed  and WE DID IT !


                                                 Living Big in our tiny house

 
I wanted to share a few before and after pictures. Now keep in mind we have only been here for a month and this will to will change !!

                          Here's a picture of the "living room" , Jay had moved most of his stuff out so you'll get a better sense of the size of the space.

                

          

          Even still who says you can't have tiny house and a wrap around couch too !

As a matter of fact we even have a spare bedroom !!

If you look up in this picture you will see the ladder to my loft. The lofts are still a work in process. I can't wait to share that with all of you.  I got some big ideas I know you love :)

If you are reading this and you think this may be your answer to home ownership or you are in over your head in bills feeling like you will never see the light of day. Feel free to message me, you can find me on Facebook as well. Heres the link :

https://www.facebook.com/Tiny-house-on-the-spectrum-254306915214832/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Feel free to comment, I would love to hear from you all !!

Thanks for dropping by !! See you back here tomorrow night !!

Save the World with a Tiny House ?

How do we save the world with a tiny house ? Well we don't . We empower one family at a time though !
I have got a lot of responses and emails expressing sadness about my prior circumstance and though a appreciate the love and concern conveyed by everyone I want to reassure you that I am thankful beyond words that I had these experiences for so many reasons. One of the biggest reasons is it has changed my outlook entirely on life. There was a time when I honestly felt if someone lived in poverty it was their choice, either because of their bad decision making or their lack of work ethic or some other flaw they may have. This wasn't my first expedience with living in poverty as a young single mom of a bunch of kiddo's we had it rough, but I powered through and fought my way out leaving me to believe everyone else could and should do the same. Poverty is not drug addiction, alcoholism, abuse or laziness, those things afflict people in all walks of life, we can look at Hollywood and see that. Some of the hardest working people I have ever known live in poverty now that I think of it. People getting rich on welfare ? Nope I was on welfare and I can assure you I was not rich. I remember standing in line at the grocery store with a Coach bag on my shoulder just last year. I got the bag at a yard sale for 5 bucks. My intentions was to resell it but before I did I just wanted to use it for a few days. I checked out and reached into my bag and pulled out my EBT card, within seconds the lady behind me let me know I had know business owning a Coach purse. I was crushed... I never used the purse again.

Everything I went through has prepared me for this very moment. To be sitting in my Tiny home on my tiny couch writing this blog so the world can read, poverty is not a sin, for me it was even in many way a gift. THIS GIRL IS DOUBLE BLESSED !! :)

Because of this I am searching for a way to start a tiny house community so others like myself can breathe easy and know that they will never be homeless again.

                                                    
                                                     Now back to the bathroom !!

Now seriously could this get any cooler ?!?!? I am so tickled about how this project is coming out ! For a few pieces of metal roofing and a galvanized troth this is beginning to be one classy bathroom. Now some trimming a few shelves and just the right shower curtain nd we will be Pinterest worthy !!

Thanks to Jays mad skill and my creativity of course HA ! You all feel free to add your comments. I would love to hear (read) what you have to say !!! Meet you back here tomorrow night (HUGS) 

  

Introducing !!!

Here we I am ! I'm finally going to do this ! I've been told I should write a book ,but really how can I write a book if I'm still in the middle of the story ? I'll start from the beginning or well the beginning of this.
My 6 year autistic son Noah and I live in a tiny house in Maine. When I say tiny I mean TINY, our house is 200sqf .
Here I write our story of the events that brought us to our tiny house and our life living in it. A story of loss, love, tears, hopelessness, faith and miracles.

My hope in the end and the reason for telling my story is to be a catalyst in fighting the war on poverty. To make home ownership and the stability of home ownership possible even for those with the biggest barriers.

For us owning a tiny house means my house will be paid and I will have no mortgage in under two years. Having a child with special needs also means as a his parent I need to care for him for the rest of his life, not just the rest of my life. I now have the security in knowing my son will always have a place to live.

We moved here August 1, 2018. It is now August  24th. The beginning of a new chapter but not the beginning of the story.

I have been obsessed with tiny houses for years, and spent any spare time I had trolling the internet for tiny house ideas, watching YouTube how to videos at nauseam and building a hefty Pinterest collection of all the pictures and ideas I had found. Everyone thought I was crazy but I think they even knew someday, somehow I would be the proud owner of my very own tiny house.

 The beginning of July this year I found this house on Facebook. I wiggled like a puppy when I read that it was for sale in my town but never dreamed that it would be ours. Honestly I just wanted to go look at it. I had never actually been in a tiny house so I thought maybe just standing it would tell me if this should or could be a reality for us.

                                                           The Hobbit House

I contacted the man who owned the house and set up a time to go see it the next day. Noah was anxious at first but soon made fast friends with Jay(the owner) . I found out after chatting with him a bit that Jay worked with individuals with special needs as well as children on the spectrum. He went right to work helping Noah to feel comfortable and before we knew it we had been there snake hunting, Bigfoot hunting and playing in mud puddles for 3 hours !

The longer we stayed the more Noah and I fell in love with the house, so I took a chance and asked Jay  if he could possibly finance it for us.

He said YES !!

I was floored ! I couldn't believe it !!  I held back my tears of joy but could not refrain from football tackling this poor guy with the biggest hug !!

Back to the beginning(Of this story anyway)

There I am, ready to go ! I had two plans for my life, a tiny house and to hike the Appalachian trail. 

After a lifetime of raising kids, work and school I had decided it was time to go on an adventure !

I was living life ! Having a blast !

Life is full of unexpected surprises 

The biggest surprise of my life ! I was pregnant at 44 years old ! This was not the plan ! Needless to say the Appalachian  trail was not in my near future .

                              The pregnancy was hard and there was lots of complications

                         

                                   But this guy was worth every minute of it !

    

And how stinking cute he was !!

Money was tight, and we was barely getting by. When my husbands brother invited us to go to Arizona we jumped at the chance.

The Ranch

We got a job working at a horse ranch at the foot of the Superstitious mountains in Apache Junction Arizona. It didn't pay much and we lived in a camper but what an awesome adventure !

It was about then we realized, Noah was struggling. He became more withdrawn and struggled with more and more very challenging behaviors.

                                        

My husband began to struggle with the long hours, poor finances and depression. After many years of sobriety he lost the battle and turned to alcohol for relief.

Then he left.................

Back to Maine

Noah and I flew home with little money and alone. With meltdowns several times an hour it was hard to find a place to stay never mind a childcare provider so I could work. One evening I was face with the reality that we were either going to sleep in my car or we had to go to a shelter.

New Hope Woman's Shelter

Having been a volunteer at this very same shelter many years before I felt ashamed.  I was afraid of the reaction the other ladies at the shelter would have to my sons never ending meltdowns. How could I ask them to go threw what they were going threw and what we were going threw at the same time. It was one of the scariest loneliest moments in my life. My feelings of helplessness was overwhelming.

I will talk more about this later.

   

The Diagnosis

As a behavioral Specialist I knew early on my sons diagnosis. I had worked with both adults and children on the spectrum for 15 years. Getting a diagnosis for me was admitting to myself that no matter how strong my skills were, no matter how many years I had worked in the field I was not able to manage it myself. I needed to get a diagnosis for Noah to get the help we needed. It was a tough pill to swallow. I was learning the hard way working in the field and being a parent to a child with autism were worlds apart. Now it had as much to do with my ability to manage my own anxiety around Noah's behaviors and coming to grips the reality that this was not going to go away no matter how hard I tried no matter how many hours of ABA I subjected us to. I couldn't fix this, I needed to except that though things could and would get better,but I couldn't teach the autism out of him.

More about this later.

The Yard Sale

After being homeless and having little but a few outfit you will never guess what I did !! I horded as much stuff as I could ! You know JUST INCASE !

Moving into a tiny home was little unsettling for me, having to let it all go. I tried to look at the positive side LESS TO CLEAN !!! YEAH ME!!!

Back to the Tiny House

Our first big project (thats if we don't count moving)

Here is the bathtub when we moved in. Nice right ? Here is the problem. I got a kiddo that is  OBCESSED with playing in the mud ! There is no room for the washing machine ! So I did what any resourceful mom would do and made a deal with Jay to give him the tub and shower unit in exchange for renovating the bathroom. This guy is either a saint or he's completely lost his mind, he said YES again !

Here is my bathroom all torn apart. YES that is a galvanized troth ! The troth solved problem number two. Noah does not take showers, we couldn't keep the tub and he is still going to play in the MUD.

The next problem arose when we realized the tub had ribs in the bottom and would not drain entirely( it looked so easy on Pinterest ) so we filled the bottom with cement and Jay donated his marble collection to make it look pretty. Its not dry entirely in this picture and we have yet to use it. I will let you all know how it worked out.

Jay installed galvanized metal roofing on some of the walls tonight. Looks pretty awesome don't you think ?

I will continue to add updates and pictures as we go !! Meet you back here tomorrow !!