overwhelmed but getting through it
Nov. 11th, 2025 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serafaeryJust a list of things I want to do regarding the house, starred is urgent/needs to happen today.
I am on three hours of sleep, so this is going to be hard. I'm in a terrible mood but mostly I think that is from the lack of sleep and this resulting headache. I need some food.
I decided my mission last night was to set up the kitchen, but it took me three hours to pack the rest of the kitchen up at the old apartment and get everything over here, and then when I started to try to put things away, I realized the inside of the cabinets here were super grody. Spilled sauces, grime and grease and stains, everything had to be wiped down multiple times. So I was up until four in the morning wiping and scrubbing and scrubbing and wiping. I found moldy left-behind items all over the place. I think I found the culprit of the yucky house-wide perfume smell that hits when one first enters the home that makes it smell like a cheap motel. Hopefully getting rid of that will help? I have been lighting really delicious candles in the meantime, to combat the scent, but it is pervasive and not letting go easily.
The tops of the cabinets have literally never been cleaned, there is a layer of 25 years of dust and grime up there, so, saving that for another time.
There is not as much cabinet space as the apartment and the fridge is smaller, but I think we can pare down a bit and work with it, we'll figure it out. The cabinets are just poorly designed, there is a ton of lost space in the corner.
There is lots of counter space so that's where everything is spilling out for now.
I need a spice rack. That can happen later.
I bought a vacuum, it'll get here tomorrow or Thursday. The carpets are already dirty and it's only our second morning here.
The granite countertops are pretty, but it's impossible to see dirt, which is frustrating because I will wipe down a spot three times, set something on it, and end up with black gunk (this happened after I was cleaning the cabinets and black gunk kept falling out onto the counters) on whatever I set there, and have to go over it again, then try again, find more gunk, and repeat. I would rather see the dirt. But we're stuck with it.
I am not complaining! There is just a lot to adjust to. The location is just not peaceful. I kind of knew that, but I didn't think it would be possible that we are under a flight path. It must be for the Hillsboro airport at Intel. We are so far from PDX, air traffic noise did not cross my mind, it's not terrible, I will get used to it. I grew up not far from PDX, it's something your brain just learns to tune out.
We are kind of sunk down with high walls all around us so we can't see much sky. I couldn't see the sunrise this morning. But my window does allow a view of the moon at night, which I love. The road noise is audible in the back yard when going outside for coffee in the morning, and there's nothing for Avalanche to see or do really, inside a little box of six foot fences. It will take some time to get the small backyard space set up better. I am envisioning a makeshift ramp or way up to the roof of the gazebo for Avalanche, to give her more lift and perspective but not in a place where she could escape. She's not super keen on going outside, there's just not much for her to do or see in such an enclosed space. I dunno.
There are other things I am in awe of, like the dishwasher, and the multiple bathrooms. We were able to fit Josh's car into the garage even with all of my stuff, which is heartening.
I want him to be able to park in there. I have a lot of guilt and shame about how much junk I have. It has caused a lot of distress during the move. I got rid of more than I ever have (the movers even commented that the garage looked more empty than the photos, which was true), and unfortunately Josh's reaction to this was to put a whole bunch more pressure to do more, and I cracked. He held me when I was sobbing throwing mom's clothes away, that was so much harder and more painful than I was expecting, for totally different reasons than one would think.
I had read this thing when my mom died in 2021 that said, don't throw away your parents' stuff right after they die. Give it some time and go back to it later. You might want to keep one or two articles that smell like her, it suggested.
I am more than happy to avoid purging. I have lost irreplaceable things and have deep wounds and regrets about things I have lost while purging under pressure of someone who didn't understand the significance of the stuff - precious, irreplaceable things, gone forever. I am so afraid to make a wrong choice. I get paralyzed.
But keeping mom's clothes was a terrible idea in retrospect. Because these weren't really her clothes at all. These were dementia clothes. Nothing that she picked out herself, or understood or cared about. All of those clothes are long gone, they all got ruined while she was sick. My poor mom. God. It's just so awful to think about how bad that all was. In the beginning, she got really mad that the laundry service at the elder care center was ruining her things (probably too much bleach and sanitization for her more delicate items) and she wouldn't let them wash her clothes at all, but she lost her ability to hand-wash, and everything ended up stained and reeking and even moldy. I tried to reason with her, but there is no reasoning with severe mental illness. I started to foreceably intervene with her clothes and bathing when I found mold in her hair. She wouldn't let anyone help her stay clean but she couldn't do it herself, but she literally didn't understand that she was dirty and couldn't clean herself properly on her own anymore. It was so awful.
She did eventually let me bathe her, or rather, she would say no, but I would do it anyway, and she didn't physically fight me, and afterward she would be happy and grateful.
So, even after going into higher level memory care and then hospice, all of mom's old clothes still reeked. That smell never really totally goes away. And when I opened the bin, the smell brought back too strongly all of those memories of struggling through her illness, and fighting with her just to get her a little bit more clean. It was so many years of this fight. Eleven years. It was so, so awful.
It wasn't just mom's old stuff that was a problem. (I still have quite a bit of it.) It's lots of things.
I have some hoarding disorder traits. I have been working so, so hard on this, this year, on understanding it and taking small, gentle steps toward retraining. (Some are less gentle, such as repeating the mantra to myself, "nobody wants your shit," which I absolutely agree with.)
So, for my very fraught, hard-earned progress to be rewarded with, "Now do more! omg you have so much shit, get rid of it! Right now! I want a place for a bike stand!" is not great. when I still don't know where my toothbrush is and am missing medications and supplements that I need to feel well and function optimally, and cannot complete orders that I need to process for my business - there are other more pressing matters in the middle of moving into a new house.
He listened and has calmed down and he's really good at hearing me. I do my best to take ownership for my unhealthy reactions and explain that my emotional triggers are not his fault, it's my own unhealthy issues that I am working on. I apologize for my illness spilling out onto him at times. He's very kind and patient about it.
There are lots of good things about the house and location, we will be okay. There is not so much vagrant activity and active crime and mental health crises happening right outside our windows. Our bedrooms are upstairs so we are insulated from most of the street noise.
With our budget, we could get an okay house in a crappy location, or a crappy house in an okay location, one isn't necessarily better than the other, so, we are adjusting and working with what we have.
At least, with the nicer house (despite the griminess), once things are set up, when we are inside, we are comfortable, and it is functional.
List time.
* set up home office (this will require many steps, heavy lifting, and moving multiple pieces of furniture, so it's not really one thing.)
* printer
* fairy hair storage shelf
* misc fairy hair shipping items
* print labels and ship orders
...
* find and take progesterone this morning
* set up dresser
........
* get those little stools I liked at the Goodwill, drop off donations
* see if there's a small shelf that will work in the smaller bathroom
* check new swim schedule at comm center
* get more 3/4 brackets at Home Depot so we can finish the barrier along the banisters for Avalanche
...
* Finish cleaning out old apartment today, get the last few remnants of stuff. (There is like, half a cabinet here and there and a few random odds and ends, the cleaning supplies cabinet also, if I can't get it all I can just stick it in the storage unit in the basement before the cleaners come tomorrow, but I should be able to get all of it in one trip, I think.)
* copy trash key
* ugh brain stopped working I can't remember what else to do lol.
....
Being on three hours of sleep is not good, I'm going to go eat and see how much I can do before I crash, I guess.
At least the kitchen is clean, the fridge has food, we can eat. My room is very cold, I might need to get a space heater (we got rid of our small one, pretty sure, but I'll dig around and see if I can unearth it).
The most important things are getting my office at least partially functional and finishing the old apartment. Everything else can be tackled tomorrow or later. I have to work all day Thursday and Friday. I miss the outdoors and aerial and exercise, none of that has happened in over a week. But this is temporarily, eventually I'll be settled and can get back to taking care of myself appropriately.
Seeing a new physical therapist about my back, tomorrow. We'll see if they can help at all. I'm in so much pain.
I am grateful that we can be in a house for a bit. I am totally overwhelmed by the cost, I do not consider it ours, I consider it on loan from the bank with a balance I can literally never fathom paying off. We do not own a home, we live in a house that could be yanked away at any moment and what we own is an insurmountable mountain of debt.
Josh thinks he can surmount it, eventually. Or, we will sell and go back to apartment living. We'll see how it goes.
Maybe I am just feeling negative because I am underslept and underfed and have a raging headache and too much to do with too little time and not enough support. Josh is gentle and a wonderful partner, but all he managed to do in the kitchen yesterday was dump chicken noodle soup all over the gas range. It is a 25 year old stove and I am nervous it can't handle a soup dumping. It took me half an hour to try to clean everything. He did not help. But maybe that was because I spent too much time scolding him and freaking out. We're both struggling and tired and scared. I am trying to be more forgiving and kind. I made him coffee this morning. We're doing okay.
I am grateful. I know I am very privileged, and to many my life would be an absolute dream. Just very stressed and tired.
I am on three hours of sleep, so this is going to be hard. I'm in a terrible mood but mostly I think that is from the lack of sleep and this resulting headache. I need some food.
I decided my mission last night was to set up the kitchen, but it took me three hours to pack the rest of the kitchen up at the old apartment and get everything over here, and then when I started to try to put things away, I realized the inside of the cabinets here were super grody. Spilled sauces, grime and grease and stains, everything had to be wiped down multiple times. So I was up until four in the morning wiping and scrubbing and scrubbing and wiping. I found moldy left-behind items all over the place. I think I found the culprit of the yucky house-wide perfume smell that hits when one first enters the home that makes it smell like a cheap motel. Hopefully getting rid of that will help? I have been lighting really delicious candles in the meantime, to combat the scent, but it is pervasive and not letting go easily.
The tops of the cabinets have literally never been cleaned, there is a layer of 25 years of dust and grime up there, so, saving that for another time.
There is not as much cabinet space as the apartment and the fridge is smaller, but I think we can pare down a bit and work with it, we'll figure it out. The cabinets are just poorly designed, there is a ton of lost space in the corner.
There is lots of counter space so that's where everything is spilling out for now.
I need a spice rack. That can happen later.
I bought a vacuum, it'll get here tomorrow or Thursday. The carpets are already dirty and it's only our second morning here.
The granite countertops are pretty, but it's impossible to see dirt, which is frustrating because I will wipe down a spot three times, set something on it, and end up with black gunk (this happened after I was cleaning the cabinets and black gunk kept falling out onto the counters) on whatever I set there, and have to go over it again, then try again, find more gunk, and repeat. I would rather see the dirt. But we're stuck with it.
I am not complaining! There is just a lot to adjust to. The location is just not peaceful. I kind of knew that, but I didn't think it would be possible that we are under a flight path. It must be for the Hillsboro airport at Intel. We are so far from PDX, air traffic noise did not cross my mind, it's not terrible, I will get used to it. I grew up not far from PDX, it's something your brain just learns to tune out.
We are kind of sunk down with high walls all around us so we can't see much sky. I couldn't see the sunrise this morning. But my window does allow a view of the moon at night, which I love. The road noise is audible in the back yard when going outside for coffee in the morning, and there's nothing for Avalanche to see or do really, inside a little box of six foot fences. It will take some time to get the small backyard space set up better. I am envisioning a makeshift ramp or way up to the roof of the gazebo for Avalanche, to give her more lift and perspective but not in a place where she could escape. She's not super keen on going outside, there's just not much for her to do or see in such an enclosed space. I dunno.
There are other things I am in awe of, like the dishwasher, and the multiple bathrooms. We were able to fit Josh's car into the garage even with all of my stuff, which is heartening.
I want him to be able to park in there. I have a lot of guilt and shame about how much junk I have. It has caused a lot of distress during the move. I got rid of more than I ever have (the movers even commented that the garage looked more empty than the photos, which was true), and unfortunately Josh's reaction to this was to put a whole bunch more pressure to do more, and I cracked. He held me when I was sobbing throwing mom's clothes away, that was so much harder and more painful than I was expecting, for totally different reasons than one would think.
I had read this thing when my mom died in 2021 that said, don't throw away your parents' stuff right after they die. Give it some time and go back to it later. You might want to keep one or two articles that smell like her, it suggested.
I am more than happy to avoid purging. I have lost irreplaceable things and have deep wounds and regrets about things I have lost while purging under pressure of someone who didn't understand the significance of the stuff - precious, irreplaceable things, gone forever. I am so afraid to make a wrong choice. I get paralyzed.
But keeping mom's clothes was a terrible idea in retrospect. Because these weren't really her clothes at all. These were dementia clothes. Nothing that she picked out herself, or understood or cared about. All of those clothes are long gone, they all got ruined while she was sick. My poor mom. God. It's just so awful to think about how bad that all was. In the beginning, she got really mad that the laundry service at the elder care center was ruining her things (probably too much bleach and sanitization for her more delicate items) and she wouldn't let them wash her clothes at all, but she lost her ability to hand-wash, and everything ended up stained and reeking and even moldy. I tried to reason with her, but there is no reasoning with severe mental illness. I started to foreceably intervene with her clothes and bathing when I found mold in her hair. She wouldn't let anyone help her stay clean but she couldn't do it herself, but she literally didn't understand that she was dirty and couldn't clean herself properly on her own anymore. It was so awful.
She did eventually let me bathe her, or rather, she would say no, but I would do it anyway, and she didn't physically fight me, and afterward she would be happy and grateful.
So, even after going into higher level memory care and then hospice, all of mom's old clothes still reeked. That smell never really totally goes away. And when I opened the bin, the smell brought back too strongly all of those memories of struggling through her illness, and fighting with her just to get her a little bit more clean. It was so many years of this fight. Eleven years. It was so, so awful.
It wasn't just mom's old stuff that was a problem. (I still have quite a bit of it.) It's lots of things.
I have some hoarding disorder traits. I have been working so, so hard on this, this year, on understanding it and taking small, gentle steps toward retraining. (Some are less gentle, such as repeating the mantra to myself, "nobody wants your shit," which I absolutely agree with.)
So, for my very fraught, hard-earned progress to be rewarded with, "Now do more! omg you have so much shit, get rid of it! Right now! I want a place for a bike stand!" is not great. when I still don't know where my toothbrush is and am missing medications and supplements that I need to feel well and function optimally, and cannot complete orders that I need to process for my business - there are other more pressing matters in the middle of moving into a new house.
He listened and has calmed down and he's really good at hearing me. I do my best to take ownership for my unhealthy reactions and explain that my emotional triggers are not his fault, it's my own unhealthy issues that I am working on. I apologize for my illness spilling out onto him at times. He's very kind and patient about it.
There are lots of good things about the house and location, we will be okay. There is not so much vagrant activity and active crime and mental health crises happening right outside our windows. Our bedrooms are upstairs so we are insulated from most of the street noise.
With our budget, we could get an okay house in a crappy location, or a crappy house in an okay location, one isn't necessarily better than the other, so, we are adjusting and working with what we have.
At least, with the nicer house (despite the griminess), once things are set up, when we are inside, we are comfortable, and it is functional.
List time.
* set up home office (this will require many steps, heavy lifting, and moving multiple pieces of furniture, so it's not really one thing.)
* printer
* fairy hair storage shelf
* misc fairy hair shipping items
* print labels and ship orders
...
* find and take progesterone this morning
* set up dresser
........
* get those little stools I liked at the Goodwill, drop off donations
* see if there's a small shelf that will work in the smaller bathroom
* check new swim schedule at comm center
* get more 3/4 brackets at Home Depot so we can finish the barrier along the banisters for Avalanche
...
* Finish cleaning out old apartment today, get the last few remnants of stuff. (There is like, half a cabinet here and there and a few random odds and ends, the cleaning supplies cabinet also, if I can't get it all I can just stick it in the storage unit in the basement before the cleaners come tomorrow, but I should be able to get all of it in one trip, I think.)
* copy trash key
* ugh brain stopped working I can't remember what else to do lol.
....
Being on three hours of sleep is not good, I'm going to go eat and see how much I can do before I crash, I guess.
At least the kitchen is clean, the fridge has food, we can eat. My room is very cold, I might need to get a space heater (we got rid of our small one, pretty sure, but I'll dig around and see if I can unearth it).
The most important things are getting my office at least partially functional and finishing the old apartment. Everything else can be tackled tomorrow or later. I have to work all day Thursday and Friday. I miss the outdoors and aerial and exercise, none of that has happened in over a week. But this is temporarily, eventually I'll be settled and can get back to taking care of myself appropriately.
Seeing a new physical therapist about my back, tomorrow. We'll see if they can help at all. I'm in so much pain.
I am grateful that we can be in a house for a bit. I am totally overwhelmed by the cost, I do not consider it ours, I consider it on loan from the bank with a balance I can literally never fathom paying off. We do not own a home, we live in a house that could be yanked away at any moment and what we own is an insurmountable mountain of debt.
Josh thinks he can surmount it, eventually. Or, we will sell and go back to apartment living. We'll see how it goes.
Maybe I am just feeling negative because I am underslept and underfed and have a raging headache and too much to do with too little time and not enough support. Josh is gentle and a wonderful partner, but all he managed to do in the kitchen yesterday was dump chicken noodle soup all over the gas range. It is a 25 year old stove and I am nervous it can't handle a soup dumping. It took me half an hour to try to clean everything. He did not help. But maybe that was because I spent too much time scolding him and freaking out. We're both struggling and tired and scared. I am trying to be more forgiving and kind. I made him coffee this morning. We're doing okay.
I am grateful. I know I am very privileged, and to many my life would be an absolute dream. Just very stressed and tired.
