Cleaning the World...One Piece of Pinestraw at a Time:

_{background paper blends and elements found in Gina Cabrera's Lucky Star kit and Kim Christensen's Rad Kit
Font: Georgia
Alphas: Newspaper by Rikki, and funky black chip board alpha by Gina Miller.}


Text by Jim Towhey:

TV networks save their best for sweeps week; the bi-annual test of what is working and what is not. Of course at our house the term has an entirely different meaning.

As I have noted in the past, our boy Denny is his own man. The inner workings of the autistic mind have never been easy to understand but when Denny decides it is time for something to happen, it usually will.

Denny has always had a penchant for collecting and disposing of the odd detrious of modern life. Each week in the laundry Denny's pockets (when he is willing to wear clothes with pockets) provide handfuls of strange items; Pull tabs from soft drink cans, gum wrappers, rubber bands, pens, lint and the ever-present pine straw.

Denny has always had a "thing" about pine straw, the stringy, brown pine needles that cover our yards, walkways and rooftops here in dixie. Earlier in his lanscaping career our boy would bolt away from us and suddenly pluck flowers and plants out of the ground by their roots and fling them away before we could react. We always coped, but it was tough on the school plantings and relatives yards.

As he aged and slowed down a bit he would simply collect handfuls of pine straw until he could carry no more and then fill the household trash cans or the back seat of the car. Lately Denny has refused to stop collecting the stuff despite our pleas and protests. To adapt, we simply set aside an old cardboard box for him to fill and he is happy. I then get to return the pine straw to the yard.

Today, on his arrival home Denny started collecting mamouth mounds of pine straw and would not come in the house. Rare, since he usually can't wait to hit the fridge and get his favorite treat; and ice cold Pepsi.

With no end to his crazed landscaping in sight, we gave Denny a push broom. The plan was a form of reverse psychology - he usually won't use tools, as they require actual work. To our suprise he attempted to sweep the entire driveway, side walk and lawn free of the offending needles. The guy was workin' his butt off!!

I broke out the leaf blower and backed him up, collecting the big heaping mounds into his box and adding them to the landscaping in the proper place. It was like working with the demented groundskeeper, Karl, from the movie Caddyshack. The wild-eyed man with the broom frantically sweeping the lawn while I attempted to place the collected material where it needed to be.

I eventually had to explain that we were done, and it was time to go in. The boss just handed me the broom and walked away - mission accomplished! I wish he would get this excited about scrubbing tile or cleaning the toilet - then he would have a real "sweeps week" winner!!

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Rachel is my voracious reader, so when I saw on Janna's site about the fun challenge going on at Kathryn Balint's site I joined in and made this page with the freebie made by Carol Baumann: