Editing My New Home ... Finally!

Over the past decade I have gone to trying to manage a household of stuff for 2 kids, 2 cats, and a set of parents in a 4br/2ba home with yards and a garage ... to compressing down to a 2br/2ba mobile home (with a yard!) for James, myself, and 2 cats. 

There were many, many crazy hiccups and hitches over the past six years, so this was so not a smooth transition. I am very lucky to have had the help of so many family members and friends ... but I don't let go of things well in the best of times and for many years it's felt like the stuff was the best of my years as a mom. Result: I held on to way too many things, slung into bags and schlepped too many places.

The move into our current home was literally pre-empted by a historically large and long evacuation of most of Sonoma County to fight the Kincade Fire: First our apartment was given notice, then my mom and daughter received notice, finally, at 10 PM, we got the evac notice at our new place. We were gone for a week. 

I am so lucky I was able to get the movers to squeeze us back into their schedule. However, rain was eminent, so for several months, James and I lived in an indoor box canyon. Then COVID-19 hit and school and work not only shut down, but resulted in more bags of stuff being brought in and dropped in nooks and crannies and new set-ups needed for remote learning and working from home. 

Luckily, I had an idea of how I wanted to set up the bedrooms and the main kitchen/dining/living room area and my years in a live/work loft resulted in good lessons in setting up living areas in one large space. I have sporadically been able to engage in a cleaning/organizing frenzy, then spend weeks at a time recuperating and trying out the solutions. I got the dishes and spices dealt with first. Then the cabinets over the washer dryer and the linen closet. Utility closet was next, followed by the pantry. 

Today, I finally cleaned out on top, under, and around the kitchen table, aka ABA central. I got inspired by watching "The Home Edit". I am so happy to get rid of the school podium and to replace it with simple shelves from Amazon. Along the way, I re-organized the cabinets over the laundry area, James' games/videos under the TV, the room divider bookcase, the bench hidden by the table, and the bookcase and lamps that were not being used behind the table. Pausing after 4 hours - phew!

The disaster area that is supposed to be my work area now has more bags of stuff to sort. BUT: 2 bags and a box are leaving the house, the floor has really been swept, the runner rug is down, and most importantly, James had a huge smile on his face when he saw the results.

Point Break

We are taking a break from ABA today. Last night, both James and I were in tears part way through the session. We eventually calmed down and had a good evening, morning and day. It's so frustrating that services that are needed, with such nice people are too much right now.

Some takeaways:

• James is overwhelmed with verbal interactions. It's pretty quiet at home and he's always had an aide to interpret for him at school and me at home.
• Because he's stressed (hypervigilant was a recurring term last night), James is not eating, which makes everything worse.
• I think James also feels like his safe space is being invaded. The ABA folks and I have a Plan for that.
• James really likes going for car rides. I think it's a great way to literally reset one's head.