Well here it is 2pm and after two days of hauling all we have managed to do is remove to boxes that have been sitting there packed forever all this time in Scholar Owl’s room. I would have kept going but… IT’S RAINING AND MOST OF THESE BOXES ARE BOOKS AND THEY WERE GETTING WET ON THE BOTTOM because we couldn’t fill the trunk fast enough.

Today I only brought Scholar Owl with me since Tuxedo Cat has caught the head/chest cold I seem to have. I don’t need him out in this yuck weather only to get worse. And of course this set my oldest off in a weird sort of funk. Not whining but not really putting a lot of effort into anything either which burned my ass.

Sadly since all the boxes we were dealing with were boxes we had been storing in the apartment to start with, they were old and many of them I had to repack in new boxes. I went through 2 rolls of tape today just repacking boxes. Bonus? Some boxes got consolidated. Now I am losing feeling in my fingers like I always do in this kind of work with a great big knot right between the shoulder blades.

I’m really wishing that Scholar Owl hadn’t let his room go to hell the way he had. Looks like I kind of do need to micromanage just a teeny tiny tweeny weenie isty bit there with him on his bedroom. Seriously cringing here at the thought because I believe in privacy and respecting space but damn… do all teenage boys have rooms that look like hoarder’s rooms if you don’t lay down the “Hammer of God” upon them?

I honestly have not paid attention to this room much since we moved in and I regret that now. I pay attention to, and fail to keep up with, Little Bear’s room and Tuxedo Cat’s room because of their age and abilities but I just assumed that my teenaged son would be different. Big mistake. The younger two do not have rooms this bad. There is barely any space to walk in there and it’s not because of the boxes. I’m just grateful it doesn’t smell bad in there.

Looks like I need to bring back the cleaning charts and schedules for him. Too bad if he doesn’t like it because he obviously needs something to help him manage it and get it done. Better yet, I should show him how to make them himself and have him set up his own schedule and charts to use. Make him figure out the particulars and how often. In the end I don’t care how it’s done, just as long as it’s kept safe and clean. And since it’s his space he keeps the power and control over it and I’m not invading. If that fails, well there’s always my charts.

And if that fails too… well there’s the garbage can I guess. Ugh. I hate the last resort.

Now I want to be clear here, this kid is not a bad kid. He’s really not. He’ll do whatever I ask most of the time – if I think to ask. The problem here is we all have disorders here. Not one of us is fully functional and “normal” in any sense of the word. Housework tends to be the first thing that goes to shit when you’re struggling to hold yourself together. But if you’re keeping up with the housework perfectly everyday, chances are you’re then losing your shit everyday. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of trap you never seem to pull yourself out of – especially if you have kids.

I mean… look at the kitchen (not really, please don’t). Rather than deal with the kitchen I take them out to eat because the sink leaks into the downstairs apartment and I feel guilty about that even though I have dishes molding and lord knows what else in there. I would rather haul my children over to my parents house, go grocery shopping, and cook for everyone over there than eat out of paper dishes in my own apartment. Yea, my avoidance level is that high and it is that bad. All because I have a landlord that just won’t fix shit that ought to be fixed.

FOR THREE YEARS.

For the last year we have lived out of disposable dishes because the people living downstairs never stopped screaming about the water leaking into their home. I don’t blame them but it got to the point where we felt like we couldn’t use the sink or toilet for anything  without incurring their wrath and we showered over at my parents’ house.

And now it feels like it’s taking forever to move out of this place.