Fears, Frailty, Falls and Fractures

 

Mom Summer 2023
age 91

Dropping in for a quick note to explain why I disappeared for a week just as it began to seem I'd established a nice rhythm.  One that had held in spite of my falling on my tailbone on my birthday two weeks ago.  Even in spite of the fear that colored several days after the scare Mom gave the family complaining of chest pain the night before my birthday.

But then Mom ended up in ER last Monday having fallen because she'd fractured and dislocated her ankle.  And then fell.  But because of her grip on the bar her fall was in slow motion and no further harm was done--no bruises, breaks, scrapes or sprains.  But it was hours before we could be sure of that.  In fact I think it was nearly a full day before the tests and scans had reassured us and the doctors.

She spent four days in ER and I visited her there twice last week.  And a third time in the nursing home they moved her to for follow-up physical therapy and occupational therapy and monitoring of the (hopefully) healing bones in her left ankle. 

They opted to do no surgery as they believe her too frail.  It was her hip surgery after breaking her hip in 2008 that led to a clot induced stroke and the aphasia she's had ever since.  The known risks outweigh the possible benefits and since she has been bedridden since having COVID two years ago this month her muscles have atrophied. 

She hasn't walked since then but had still been able to stand briefly during the transfer from the bed to a chair and back again.  Now she will not be able to do even that much and the doctors have told us she needs to use a Hoyer lift.  And to accommodate the space that needs my brother and sister have been rearranging rooms at home.  They are moving her bed into the living room.

I visited her at the nursing home again yesterday.  I wasn't able to do so today as I had a preexisting appointment.  The same is true for tomorrow. But I mean to visit at least once more this week.  This event has forced me to see we're on borrowed time with Mom.  She will be 92 on January 3rd.  Suddenly all the difficulties with my energy, appointments, caregiver availability etc that have made getting over to see Mom even once a month for most of this year too challenging, seem frivolous.  I've had a priority reset.

Meanwhile I'm also scrambling to get my NaNoWriMo words...  But I won't say any more on that today.  Words on writing are for my Wednesday post.  And maybe the news will be better by then.

But I will say this much: due to the upheavals and associated anxieties I had to choose between posting and NaNo this past week.  Obviously I didn't choose posting.

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Almost Home? - A Photo Essay

Writing Station

By placing my blue tray table with laptop between the white tray table and the white drawer on the couch I created a 'desk' that is a little wider than my spread out arms.  The tables are collapsible when not in use tho I seldom collapse the blue table.  

When I started making the couch into a bed at night a bit over a week ago I put the drawer under the white table.  And a couple days ago I moved the white table between the blue table and the couch so that it could be my bedside table at night and the drawer underneath as a charging station for devices.

Below is a better view of the couch from late August right after it was unboxed:

 

Blue Suede Couch

Notice the empty shelves?

This is why:

It is hard to recognize it but that is the same corner as in the top photo and the same shelf unit in a jumble on the floor after it collapsed and avalanched books, electronics and office supplies all across the front room nearly wall to wall in late August.

I had just finished loading the World Book Encyclopedia set and the first few volumes of the Britannica Great Books set on the top shelf (not counting the tippy top) and noticed that the shelf was no longer flush with the same shelf on the unit to the right containing the rest of the Great Books.  I pushed on the top right corner and the entire top right quadrant folded towards me and most of the horizontal and vertical pieces popped out and the contents fell out around my feet in a large puddle with some of the smaller items including my desk toys aka fidget toys bouncing and sliding across the floor.

I messaged my sister and she brought her son over and the two of them finished removing contents from what still stood, took the entire unit apart and put it back together.  Then having learned what were my probable mistakes in putting it together in the first place took a look at the first unit and pronounced it unstable as well so they unloaded it before they left but it was a month before they returned to rebuild it.

That is why there has been such a long hiatus in my blogging about settling into my new place.  That incident followed by the heatwave the next week took the oomph out of me and not having the shelves available wrecked my schedule for getting the stuff going on them either unboxed or moved over from Mom's.  It was soooo discouraging.

But eventually I got with the program again.

Wheeled Carts

These are two of the wheeled carts containing mostly crafty stuff.  The single-wide on the left stood by my fiber art station at Mom's and contained everything to do with yarn, thread and sewing.  It is currently empty after I distributed its contents among the shelves near my current craft station.  There was no sense in having the fiber art paraphernalia clear across the room from where I would be needing them. Yes the cart was on wheels but there was no place near where I'd be crafting to place it that wouldn't create a trip hazard.  

That cart will now hold electronic devices and their assorted accessories.  As well as be one of several charging stations for said devices.  Once I get those items sorted into those drawers I'll have at least three more cubes on the black shelf units available for books.

The double-wide cart holds other crafty stuff including graphic arts and papercraft and various found items that give me ideas. But also several misc aka junk drawers.  I will be distributing any items related to fiber arts over on the shelves designated for them.  

I have a vague notion that some of the drawers on the right will be used for small kitchen miscellany.  Or I might switch the carts around and use the single-
wide for kitchen stuff and split the double-wide between electronics and graphic arts.  Still a work in progress.

Moving on to the right now facing the kitchen:

Shelves

The wooden bookshelf in front of the breakfast bar contains my DVD collection.  Between that and the blue shelf unit is a charging station hidden behind the fan.

The blue shelves contain the bulk of the fiber art tools, reference and materials except for the large WIP kits and the unassigned yarn stash.  The navy cloth closet in the far corner is stuffed to the gills with said yarn stash and large WIP kits.  So stuffed the zipper is pulling away from the fabric.

This was the same wall before the black shelf collapsed and I urgently needed the wooden bookshelf for the Encyclopedia and Great Books sets.  Temporarily as it turned out.  But by then I'd found new and better homes for the clothes.

90 degree turn to the right:

Craft and Sort Station.

This is the tall 3 foot square table that was Ed's that I use for projects that I need to spread out or work at standing up.  Like sorting or large WIP in fiber art and writing/research.  Tho I've not had time for the latter yet.  NaNo is coming tho.  Fast like a freight train.

The grey shelf unit on the back wall is still a mishmash and may be for some time.  The far left column contains small to middling containers for organizing larger containers, shelves, cupboards, drawers, closets etcetera.  The middle to far right is all fiber art stuff still in flux.

Under the big table is another wheeled cart facing out.  That contains office supplies and vision aides and more junk drawers.  Behind that wheeled cart facing the other wall is a plastic dresser full of small to middling crochet WIP.  And left over yarn and thread from finished WIP.

The white shelf unit next to the front door contains outerwear accessories.  Hats on top.  Scarves in the middle and Shawls on the bottom.  My shoes are in a shallow box that slides under the couch.  My jackets and favorite handbags hang on the back of the door.

Next the self-care station aka bathroom:

Sink

HABA

Clothes

It is hard to tell in that last pic as it is such poor quality but that is 8 folding boxes on four shelves over the toilet tank.  They contain the kinds of things I might need to get dressed after a shower when I'm not planning to leave the apartment: T-shirts, sweats, pajamas and grunge.  That way I can get showered on an impulse even on a cold morning or evening without having to hunt clothes out and without having to heat up the whole apartment as the bathroom has a very toasty heater.

There is still a lot of work to do to get my clothes, HABA (Health and Beauty Aids) and self-care miscellany sorted and organized but the 'homes' for the items are in place.

On the way out of the bathroom we encounter:

Read Watch and Listen Station

That's the beanbag chair atop the mini-tramp that becomes like a recliner where I watch videos, listen to audio books, music and podcasts.  When I'm just listening I'm also crocheting now.  That is new this past week.  I am on the third project. since picking it back up 9 days ago.

The same listening activities can accompany mini-tramp workouts.

Next the kitchen:

Food and Drink Prep Station

Visible are the blue toaster oven above the electric tea kettle, crockpot and red microwave.  Next to the microwave are the knife holder and spice rack.

I turned all my plastic crates into kitchen storage for the space between the fridge and the back door.  I made them stable by using bungy cords to snug each to its neighbor above and beside.  They contain:  Pots and pans too large for the other cupboards, mixing bowls, small appliances and produce that doesn't need refrigeration.  

And I left a space in the back corner for the mop and broom.

This was a recent development.  Like last week.  It was a major step in making the kitchen workable, preventing that corner from being a junk collector and also established homes for the empty crates that I'd been schlepping from place to place whenever the place they had landed was needed otherwise.  I was beginning to wonder if I needed to give them up.  But I was planning to try them inside the closet for clothes organizing before deciding but I have other options for that and I'm liking this better every day.

So the answer to the title question?

I think maybe yes?

I'm still ambivalent about it because most of the time it doesn't feel so but evidence that it is so is in these facts:

• My days for at least two weeks now have been more about daily living than about the moving in tasks.
• I started crocheting again
• I started serious reading again
• I started writing again.
• Last week coming back from grocery shopping with my caregiver I was startled to see we had arrived and I spontaneously asked 'Are we home already?'

So yes, almost home.

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Playing Musical Places

 

The Bed Alcove
showing the back wall cleared for the shelves and the table moved in for the build

The last ten days has been a hectic blur of shifting stuff from one place to another.  At one point as I was moving things from one shelf to another for the fifth or sixth time for those items, I said to myself, 'This reminds me of musical chairs.  Without the music.'  So I started thinking of it as 'musical shelves' but soon I realized it wasn't just shelves, it was every conceivably nameable place: wall, corner, cupboard, counter, box, bag, floor, table, chair, tramp, tub, sink...

All that shifting of stuff wasn't random but always part of a preplanned project with a goal that was, I hoped, possible to reach before time for the next event that required me to have the area(s) affected returned from chaos to functional.  Events like time for meal prep and eating, time to prepare for the arrival of my caretaker to help with mundane chores and errand running, time to stop making noise that could disturb my neighbor, time to lay out my mattress or  even just time to stop and take stock of my surroundings to confirm that I'd left a clear path between wherever I was standing and both doors and the bathroom.  That latter is an important self-care habit that I try to remember to do as frequently as every twenty minutes because my vision impairment puts me at risk of nasty jarring incidents if not outright falls.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

The projects that required all this shifting of stuff were of several categories.  There was the unpacking of boxes and bags, the unboxing of amazon orders, the building of shelf units, the experimenting with the placement of furniture sized items and the sorting, purging and organizing of a category of items.  The projects must likely to take longer than anticipated and thus have negative ripple effects on the functionality of the places and myself were the shelf building.  They required having enough floor space to spin the unit in place with room for me to walk around at least one end of it.  In other words I needed an approximately six foot diameter space.  The only way to get that was to shift a lot of stuff to the front wall of the living room.

Three Happy Places Smooshed into One
making room for the shelf build in the bed alcove

All of this shifting around played havoc with my happy places.  Those areas of calm and functionality I established in the first days.  I kept having to compromise one or more in minor or major ways.  For the three days it took me to build the 5x6 cube unit for the back wall of the bed alcove, I had to smoosh three happy places into the 6x4 foot space in front of the front room window so that I could move half the huge bags of crafts into the front room and move the table in there to build the first two layers.

The three happy places smooshed into a space equivalent to a queen sized mattress were the tramp, my desk for reading/writing/viewing and my bed.  When the mattress was on the floor I had to walk across it to get to the tramp or the desk, when the mattress was folded it had to be on the tramp.  I had to live with this set up for two full days and the first night I had worked long past the cut off for potentially noisy activities trying to make sure I could have my bed in the bed alcove.  By the time I gave up the sky was already pale and by the time I had my bed made the three windows viewable from my pillows were bright and there was no way to turn my back on all three at the same time.  Between the light and the pain in my back and feet and the fretting over needing to be awake in four hours to prepare for the arrival of my caretaker (the 7th new girl in under 5 months) I could not sleep.

Tho I didn't sleep I made myself stay put with my eyes closed until my alarm went off at 9 and then got up to prepare for the arrival of my caregiver at 12:30 by making a list of the things I needed her help with while I drank my coffee, making sure the floors were clear in the kitchen and living room for sweeping and mopping, gathering all the cardboard boxes needing to be broke down and stuffed in the bins, placing all the dirty dishes in the sink, and getting a shower.  I was going to do up all the dishes except the crock pot which I'd dropped three times when I washed it after pulling it out of the box from the 2013 move from the Rogue Valley. But I ran out of time.

But then it didn't matter after all as the caregiver did not show up.  It turned out she got lost trying to find my place and because I was so busy watching for her at the window I did not think to check my Google Voice mail for messages from her boss until 45 minutes after she was due and by then it was too late.  I was so tempted to put my bed back down and sleep away the heat of the day but the issue of the window light and the neighbor noise made that unappealing.  So I returned to work on the shelf.

Not sure that was wise tho as I made so many mistakes I am sure I doubled the effort with half the return.  I kept having to undo and redo things.  Things put in backwards or upside down.  Things put in off center.  Things put in before realizing that the thing below it was not secure so it had to come back out in order to get at the loose piece and secure it.

So it was unsurprising that I was unable to finish the shelf in time for bedtime Tuesday night which came as soon as the window light was minimal enough--around 8:30.  In spite of the pain in my back and feet being worse than the night before, I slept hard Tuesday night right through until the light from the kitchen window filled the front rooms around 7.

The Portable Yarn Closet Returned to Its Place After Spending Three Days Cat-a-Corner

I finally got the shelf unit finished Wednesday late afternoon in plenty of time to experiment with its placement and the placement of other large items.  In preparing the space for building the shelves I'd concluded that the portable closet I'd set up beside the hall door which held all the never-been-on-the-hook yarn and thread was not going to fit with the shelves so I'd moved it to the opposite corner of the alcove by the window.  But that was before I'd decided to combine the pieces of three kits for units three cubes wide into one unit 4 cubes wide by 6 cubes tall.  Now the closet would fit and that was where I preferred it so that meant pulling at least a dozen 11 gallon and 22 gallon bags out, piling them in the living room, moving the closet and putting them all back.  The reverse of what I'd done Monday afternoon to prep for the project.

The Yarn Closet and the New Shelf Unit In Place

Once I was happy with the placement of the closet and the shelves and the bags of craft stuff destined for those shelves, I could put the rest of the alcove together according to the plan I'd had for over a week.  I moved the tramp in under the window and then spread the fleece rug in front of it to mark the space for my bed and stood the folded mattress up against the shelves.

The Bed Alcove With Tramp and Bed Space In Place

Now I was free to recreate my read/write/view happy place in the location I'd been envisioning as it's long-term home ever since I first toured the unit over a month ago: The front wall with my desk placed so I could look out the window while I wrote.  I would be putting it together with boards across cardboard boxes, a bit flimsy and far from the ideal I have pictured but functional enough and a right proper reward for the last three days of chaos, pain and fatigue.

My Read/Write/View Happy Place Re-Created Now In Its Home Space

After I got that set up I fixed a salad and ate while watching MASH and Gomer Pyle.  That was the first time in a week that I'd been able to stay awake for the final scene of a sitcom tho I'd made watching one part of my bedtime ritual.  Maybe it was only because I was sitting in my office chair with food in my hands instead of reclining with the DVD player on my belly.  But it was at least partly pure exhilaration. 

It was while enjoying my replaced happy places Wednesday night, that I conceived the plan to spend as much time there over the next three days as I'd spent on my feet over the previous four of five days.  In light of the anticipated heat wave with temps expected to hit triple digits it seemed a wise plan and not just self-indulgent.  Add in the fact that incipient blisters on the soles and toes of both feet were making standing and walking excruciating and it seemed insane to expect myself to continue the work at the same pace.

My new caregiver agreed with me Thursday afternoon and suggested I needed to stay off my feet as much as possible for at least three days to allow those hot spots on my feet to heal before they became real blisters and thus at risk for infection.  She also coached me on the protocols for surviving an exceptionally hot day without air-conditioning: hydration, closing windows and blinds before the air warms up in the mornings and keeping them closed until the air outside is cooler than the air inside, frozen wet towels, minimize exertion..  Most of which I was well versed in after living for decades in the Rogue Valley where triple digit days were common in July through September.

The thermostat on my fan read in the high 80s by mid afternoon Friday and flickered between 89 and 90 several times before 10:30 that night when, just out of curiosity I opened the front door to see how warm the air was outside only to discover that it was much cooler with a nice breeze already.  That seemed to indicate the heat dome had moved on or broken up.  It was a nice marine air flow and I opened up all the windows.

The Front Room
I Can't Wait to See My Books Fill Up Those Top Two Levels

Nothing is the same as It was Wednesday evening or even Thursday evening when a few of these pics were taken as I continue playing musical places.  For example, my sister brought the blue six cube shelf unit I had at Mom's since 2016 over on Friday and Saturday I discovered it's parts were the same as the 9 cube unit I had yet to assemble and I decided I'd combine them into one larger unit 3 cubes wide.  I finished that Saturday evening and today, Sunday, I unpacked four large bags and two large boxes of the craft stuff that had been on shelves or in drawers or bags at Mom's.  Now both of the shelf units I built in the last week are loaded up.  But I'm going to have to unload the blue one tomorrow to fix several spots on one level where I put pieces in upside down and one pipe that came loose from its slot.   I'll probably move it all over to the top two levels of the two load-bearing bookshelves on the opposite wall which I just got cleared off in anticipation of bringing my books over from Mom's.

And so I continue to play musical places

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In Place/Out of Place

The Microwave and Toaster Oven are Now In Place

Thanks to my caregiver yesterday afternoon we unboxed and set up the toaster oven and microwave.  This afternoon I got Ed's knives placed in their rack.  That's about the extent of new placements that are intended to stay put since...I don't know...Sunday?  The rest has been a swirl of chaos including bringing in two more van loads of stuff and a grocery shop.

The Corner Connecter and Figure 3 Brackets

I spent most of Monday afternoon and evening getting those figure 3 brackets mounted on the shelf unit I built Sunday.  I learned that it would have been much easier to mount them during the build process. Not least because I had to pull everything off the shelves that I'd placed there Sunday. 

It took me over six hours to do it the hard way often pulling another 'cube' or shelf out of the corner connecters while wrestling the brackets onto another one.  By the end of the second hour my thumb and first two fingers on my right had felt the same as they once did after pushing a needlepoint needle for eight hours.  They still feel bruised five days later.

I learned another important lesson about those shelves: Measure the item you are trying to place on them and don't force if there is resistance.

A Displaced Shelf

When I tried to put a box of notebooks on this shelf Thursday morning it was a smidge too wide and it popped off the corner connecter on the left and dumped the box to the floor spilling out the notebooks.  But it didn't happen immediately but a good half an hour after I finished placing as many items as I could from the boxes we brought from Mom's Tuesday, trying to clear the table to make room for the anticipated haul that afternoon.  One of the items I place on top of the box of notebooks was a tray full of my desk toys or as they are known among the autism community--fidget toys.

Desk Toys aka Fidget Toys

When this box fell the items in it scattered from the breakfast bar to the edge of the tramp, under the table and all the way to the edge of the area rug in the bed alcove and nearly to the front door.  It took me a really long time to pick them up and be sure I had them all.  This also meant that This morning, instead of breaking out the box with the second shelf unit and starting to build it, I had to fix the first one beginning by pulling every thing off the shelves which was an extra challenge in light of the new load brought in yesterday afternoon.

Then as if that wasn't enough, either while pulling it off the shelf or putting it back on, I unplugged the wifi box and took myself off the Internet which I did not discover until after I had the shelf fixed and everything back on the shelves including the wifi box.  To plug it back in I had to pull the unit away from the wall at least two inches to get access to the cord and the back of the box.  I took a big chance doing that without unloading the shelves first as I could have popped one or more of the corner connecters off if I put too much strain on them.

Jumbled Ribbons

Yet another chaos ambush happened at Mom's Thursday afternoon while pulling drawers of craft supplies out of one of my three rolling carts and packing them in a box.  I bumped a large box of well organized ribbons over and ended up with what you see in the pic after chasing them all down.  That is going to take me hours to untangle and reroll.

Sewing Kit Chaos

While packing those rolling cart drawers tho I re-discovered a similar jumble from when one of those drawers got pulled out too far and spilled.  I didn't have time at that moment to reorganize it so I put everything back in willy nilly.  The items in this drawer were some of the most frequently used while working fiber art projects so I expected I would deal with it soon but then Ed died and I stopped crocheting.  Since most of the items in this drawer were part of the traveling kit I took with me to Ed's every Sunday, it was very nearly a grief grenade to encounter it suddenly like that.  But I did not have time to indulge in feelings.

I'm not yet done with the chaotic displacement theme for the week.

Soon after my caregiver left on Thursday, I discovered that I'd lost yet another pair of reading glasses sometime since leaving the house.  My habit is to hang them off my collar or stick them atop my head but they always fall off when I bend over too far.  So who knows which time I bent over that afternoon was the time they fell.  But they were the second pair I'd misplaced that way this week.  The other pair is definitely here at my place somewhere but I did my best to trace my tracks that day and did not find them.  I can't put anymore time or energy into it.  So I was glad that I'd grabbed a third pair from my note taking station at Mom's.  Glad that is until I discovered that they were one of the extra strong ones and I have to have my nose nearly touching the item I'm looking at to get it in focus.

My only other option was to tear into the pile of craft bags on the window wall of the bed alcove looking for the bag where I packed my collection of dollar store reading glasses in multiple strengths.  I really did not want to take that pile down again until it was time to unpack onto the shelves.  But after realizing what a hassle it was to read, write and thus blog with my nose an inch from the screen, I gave in shortly after I finished reloading the shelves in the living room.

Not done yet.

Earlier while I was writing the first sentences of this post, the tower of boxes by my left elbow that comprise the charging station for my electronic devices collapsed forward almost spilling everything out atop my Windows tablet directly below.  I prevented that disaster by throwing my left arm in front of the tipping tower and pushed my desk away with my feet so I could stand and deal with it.  That took an hour take apart and put back together smaller and sturdier.

Charging Station Tower Before the Fall

The weak link was the brown Amazon box.  I should have known better.

Visible directly atop the crate of books is the box of notebooks that I broke the shelf unit with Thursday.

The top one holds my DVD player. The second one down holds my Library of Congress Talking Book device.

The two 7 inch Nexus tables are now charging on the top under the lamp until I make my bed when I'll move them down to the bench where I can reach them without getting up. That was working just fine before I add the extra box yesterday.  I live with it.  This 'happy place' set up is temporary.  I can get fussy about minor details when I put together my long term writing and sleeping and recreation areas.

One last out of place thing for this post.  

The Table Shoved Away From Its Center Place

It is really bugging me but can't be helped.  I had to move the table from its place in the center of the room towards the far corner while putting the brackets on the shelves Monday and then Tuesday crammed more boxes under it, unpacked a few of them but added more Thursday.  I'm leaving it as is until I get the second shelf unit built but then I'll have to shift everything except the boxes up against the front wall  towards the front door to put the second shelf unit in place.  At that point I can unload most of the boxes onto the shelves and put the table under the light again.

At least I've managed to keep my tramp in place and free of clutter and continue to use it multiple times per day.  It helps calm the chaos in my mind.  I've also noticed far less issues with backache at the end of the day since I started taking rebounding breaks.

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Multiplying Happy Places

Mini Tramp In Front of the Front Window

The latest happy place created is making room for my tramp in front of the front window.  It matters what I'm looking at when using the tramp and if I'm looking at ugly clutter and chaos I can't find the the serenity I need to process, recharge and prepare to move on.  Thus instead of proliferating peace I find anxiety increasing.

I know this about myself so in the weeks I had to plan for the moving process, I promised myself I would put priority on creating spaces of calm functionality in the midst of the chaos to facilitate the early creation of healthy habits in this new environment.  Because another I know is that bad habits once made are hard to unmake.

I'm loosing count but I think this makes five: The standing desk at the breakfast bar was the first.  The kitchen counter where I make my coffee, tea and salads was the second, the shower with the third.  All three on the first night, Thursday.  Then on Friday I set up the first version of my rest and recreate happy space where I can indulge in reading, writing, thinking, video watching, or crochet as the spirit moves me when taking breaks during the day or in the late evening after it becomes too late to be making noise that might disturb my neighbor on the other side of the bed alcove wall.

Where did the sorting station that stood here since the first night?  Well...

The Sorting and Unboxing Stations Merged

This was possible partly because the boxes left to unbox are dwindling but mostly because I now have Ed's tall table where I can stand at a yard square surface without bending over in the slightest.

The tall Table in the Center of the Room.

You could almost call this another Happy Place since sorting and organizing is one of my favorite things to do.  It's like playing solitaire or match three games--almost meditative.

Early today that table gave me a wake up call.  I had just woken up and was checking messages when I found one from my sister-in-law in the Rogue Valley Oregon informing me that Ed's Dad had passed that morning.  That makes four of my Davis family gone in under ten months-=Ed, his brother and both parents.

My first thought was that I needed to get over to the tramp before the grief grenade I'd just been handed blew up in my face.  The tramp helps me process thoughts and feelings.  It calms the raging anxiety and helps me organize my brainspace. 

As I turned away from the computer and took two and a half steps toward the front window already tearing up and in the act of raising both hands to my face I smashed nearly all of my knuckles against the edge just before crashing into the table which then scooted at least a foot towards the window.  I stopped its slide by gripping the edges on both sides just before my rolling office chair parked under the table tackled my knees. 

Gripping the table edge probably saved me from a bad fall but it nearly brought me to my knees anyway as the pain in my hands exploded.  Worse than the pain tho was discovering that my hands had stopped working.  I could no longer grip anything, i couldn't flex them, I couldn't use the pincer movement between thumb and index finer, I couldn't do any of the fine motor skills.

It was the weirdest sensation.  It was a bit like when your hand goes to sleep from laying on your arm in your sleep but it wasn't numb.  It wasn't the pain itself causing this.  It was more like my hands had stopped taking commands from my brain.

It was a very long half hour or more waiting and wondering.  I couldn't get on the tramp without the use of my hands as I have to grip something as I'm climbing on and off and I wouldn't be able to break my fall if I lost my balance.

So I did my waiting and wondering in my read, write, rest and re-create happy place.  While I sat there the bags I was sitting on started to slide out from under me and one of the bags of clothes in the pile next to the door fell and another shifted like it was about to.

So while my hands got a hold of themselves, I contemplated how I was going to re-create my recreate happy space.  Less than half an hour later I was able to make my coffee and type my reply to my sister-in-law.  I sat in my recreate space planning my day.  I realized it was very important to have the tramp in front of the window so I tackled that smaller job first so I would have the tramp as a happy place when I needed breaks from the huge task of moving and repositioning every bag, box and misc item in the bed alcove.  That took over two hours and when I finished it looked like this

My Rest and Re-Create Happy Place Day 4

The hassock storage box is now up against the wall in place of the bag of coats I'd been sitting on.  That's the only change I'm going to name here.  It is just obvious comparing the pic from last night's post of the same area that there is more order in spite of the amount of stuff still occupying the space.

And now I know exactly where each bag is and what is in it.  Speaking of which: two bags put on the craft wall had to be move over to the clothes wall because...well...sweaters and scarves are yarn right?

A Happy Place In the Making

This will eventually be another happy place but right now tho it has the functionality it does not have the beauty and it will not until all my books are in place.  Right now its function is to play musical shelves with me as I shuffle things from here to there.

Yet I try to arrange at least a few things pleasing to my eye as I sit across from it against the bed alcove wall recreating my life

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Stuffing My Place

Closing in on my first 24 hours alone in my new place.  Above are a few of the new things I acquired in the weeks since I learned I was next in line for placement.  I broke them out to celebrate my first night with a relaxing herbal tea--Ginger Peach Turmeric.  

The little electric tea kettle is made of silicon and has accordion pleats that allow it to collapse flat.  The little cup on the left came with it and also collapses flat inside it's lid.  The water boils faster than a teakettle on the stove and uses less electricity.

Against the wall hiding the outlet and ugly cords from the kettle and computer is a mini dish drainer which I've still not used as I haven't moved in my cleaning essentials collected from Ed's apartment last October.  I can't clean up anything that needs more than water and paper towels so I'm trying hard not to make any serious messes.

My goal for this first day has been to create several of these  little oasis of peace and functionality amid the chaos so that I can establish some healthy routines even before everything is moved in and put away because to wait for that would risk making bad habits in the several weeks it is going to take me to reach a minimal order--bad habits that would likely carry forward or at least be hard to un-make.

Some of these oasis and/or functional routines with estimate of completion are:

• 100% Keeping that counter space pictured above where I make things to eat and drink clean, cleared of clutter, functional and whenever possible also pleasing to look at.
• 90% Put all food items in the fridge and cupboard for ease of access so food and drink prep does not always entail more of the same bending, lifting, searching, and sorting of the unpacking process.
• 10% Locate, organize and place in temp homes all food supplements and over the counter meds.  I learned the hard way why this is important when a spasming back kept me awake past dawn this morning and I realized that all my pain relief stuff was buried under  piles of stuff stacked against the bed alcove wall shared by my neighbor's mirror image apartment. 
• 100% Create a space or two for unpacking or unboxing and sorting stuff.
• 100% Provide the bathroom with the minimal necessities for daily showers because if the last several days are to be typical I'll be sweating upwards of six hours a day for weeks.
• 70% Create a space for sleeping.  This might include creating a routine for laying down the mattress and making it up with bedding for sleeping and then getting it all up off the floor before the day's work begins. I tried leaving it all on the floor this morning and it became clear it was a trip hazard as well as just being in the way when I needed to access the pile on the wall behind it.
• 100% Create a space for sitting to relax, to write, to eat, to rest briefly when my back is screaming.  This is a challenge today as I have no chairs yet.  In fact there is nothing here yet that can be called furniture other than a plastic dresser for crafts and several as yet unboxed Amazon orders that include a folding desk, a beanbag chair and several shelving units that add up to over approximately 100 shelves around 12 to 14 inches wide.  All of which need assembling which is my first big task after I've established these oasis and routines as they are the linchpin of my organizing plan.
• 100% Stack all the boxes and bags against the walls nearest to the spots they will find their homes once all my storage solutions are in place.
• 100% Create a USB charging station for all my electronic devices--tablets, lamps, personal fan, rechargeable batteries, light boxes etc.  This may have to migrate or split into more than one.
• 80% Establish a safe zone for important papers and for the essentials for leaving the house on errands
• 30% Locate and organize the essentials for prepping self to leave the house.
• 100% Create a standing desk for laptop for ease of communicating via message aps for routine messages as well as potential emergency as do not yet have the phone that comes with my Xfinity service.

The Bed alcove.

Can you believe all this stuff needs to find homes in this space and the closets in the hallway and still leave room for my bed which is currently a folding mattress but eventually I hope will be a daybed or futon couch?  

And it's not yet all here.  

I have four more 22 gallon bags of yarn and probably a dozen middling sized boxes of craft supplies to move over as well as several bushels of clothing, accessories and bedding.

From left to mid back wall is all clothes.  The mid spot is winter coats and bedding, in front of which I tried to create a place to sit on my folded mattress placed in front of the coats and bedding for back rest.  But it was too low to the floor and the mattress was still a trip hazard.  So I tried putting the mattress atop the pile of coats and bedding and sitting with my back against the wall but I kept falling off.  I finally repacked the two bags of coats and bedding into one 22 gallon Ziploc zipper bag as a more level foundation.  Still the mattress slid off.  So I removed the mattress from the concept and put two 11 gallon Ziploc bags under the coats bag--one full of plastic bags the other full of bubble wrap and foam scraps.  That is working.  I'm sitting on it as I type and it's been over an hour and it still feels solid and comfy.

In order to make it work as a writing and eating station tho I had to unbox and assemble the folding table.  I will get pics of that for tomorrow's post.

To the right of the bedding at mid wall and wrapping around across the entire window wall is all fiber art projects and supplies.

The long wall in the living room.

On the left is the charging station and the wifi box.  On the right are all the Amazon orders to be unboxed.  I created a station for the unboxing and assembling by rearranging the boxes to create a high 'table' and keeping tools like box cutter and measuring tape and scissors on the window sill.  All that as well as unboxing the folding table and the tower fan was done after I took the picture. 

The front wall.

These boxes and bags were brought in and placed willy-nilly last night.  It is hard to place most of them according to the rule--stack near their final destination--because they were also packed willy-nilly with a mix of categories.  I've actually managed to unpack and find temp homes for the contents of several of those boxes since the pic was taken.

That wall is designated for the soon to be moved boxes of papers, books and office/writing misc.  Once all of that is unpacked and placed on the shelving going up on the long wall I will have my writing station on that wall with my desk in front of the window. 

Tho the desk will probably be the one I assembled today which is likely to migrate according to tasks.  For example when I want to work on fiber art I might want the table near the materials on the window wall of the bed alcove.  Or if I want to watch videos while sitting on the future couch/bed I would set up the device on this table.  I will likely be using it for meals as well.  And any of the above except video watching can also be done out on the front porch or front or back yard.

One item, multiple functions.  That is a necessity for small space living.

The cubby space between fridge and back door.

This was hip-high last night and spilled over to fill the space all the way to the stove one bag or box deep but most of that spillover was food which got put away in the first hour I was here.  I got the back door unblocked before I went to bed and spent part of today bringing this pile down to knee-high.  One of my shelving units is destined for this spot and much of what's left here needs to wait until that is assembled.

The tub showing the shower curtain and water shoes

One of the tasks I had to do last night was find and hang the shower curtain.  Then I realized I don't have a bath mat so I wore my water shoes.  So far there is only two bags of stuff destined to have homes in this room.  There will be more when Ed's stuff is moved over and even more when the stuff I brought up here in 2013 at the time Ed got evicted down in Oregon gets brought out of the garage and basement at Mom's.

Not everything that was mine or Ed's before and during my 8.5 year stay at Mom's will find permanent homes in this apartment.  Purging will be a theme of the unpack, sort, and organize tasks.  I've been reading about and watching videos on the minimalist and tiny home living themes.  I tend to be a hoarder and I'm trying to learn to let go.  It is a slow process but I've already made significant progress in the last two years--especially on the emotional drivers of the condition.

The breakfast bar as standing desk for the laptop

One of the goals stated at top completed last night and functioning well all day.

A view from my front porch.

Looking down the sidewalk toward the lane.  One of the things I am grateful for about my new place is how much like a village this looks and feels.  It has the ambience of community instead of a parking-garage for people.

Earlier while I was still struggling with creating the faux easy chair in the bed alcove I had a blood sugar meltdown and needed to fix and eat food.  I was too tired and sore to stand at the kitchen counter to eat but I still had no place to sit except the throne which works for brief respites but not when food is involved.  So I fixed my meal of cold cereal with blueberries, nuts, dried cranberries and peach yogurt smoothie instead of milk.  Then I put on a visor and sunglasses, grabbed my cane and ventured down that front walk to the bench where I took my time, eating slow and soaking up the ambience of my new neighborhood.

That took big courage.  It was out of character for me even before vision loss made me a shut-in several years ago--unable to venture more than a few steps out the door at Mom's without an escort because of so many trip hazards.  The idea would not have crossed my mind if I had not just been studying the photo I'd taken shortly before the hunger attacked and my back and feet screamed NO to standing for a meal.

Well, it's officially been over 24 hours since I began living alone for the first time in my life.

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Findiing My Place

Walking towards the front door of the efficiency unit duplex I was being shown for my approval nearly a month ago.  I approved.  This week I'm moving in.

The window on the left is the front room.  The window under the porch roof is the bed alcove.

My front door.

So many doors have shut for me in the last decade it is about time one opened.

Standing next to the breakfast bar for one with the kitchenette behind me and looking down the length of the front room.

Spun on my heels and took this shot of the back door with the breakfast bar on the right and the fridge on the left.

I stood in the empty space between the fridge and the back wall to get this shot of the stove, sink, counters and cupboards.  The breakfast bar is just out of the shot on the right.

I stood on the back wall of the bed alcove to get this shot of the long wall of the front room.  Most of it anyway.

Now I'm standing on that long wall next to that window looking into the bed alcove.  visible on the right is and accordion curtain that can be pulled across to close it off.  The entire space is barely bigger than a queen bed.

Now I'm standing in the hallway between the bed alcove and the bathroom looking down the length of the alcove at the window next to my front door.

Now I'm standing in front of that window looking down the yard square hall into the bathroom with the window onto the back yard visible.

two closets with double folding doors are to the left and right inside the hall.

The one on the right holds the water heater and shelving.

I had to stand in the hanging closet to get this shot so there was nowhere to stand to get a similar shot of the clothes closet.

 

I settled for a shot that showed the shelf over the rod.

To the left upon entering is the tub/shower.  I had to shut the door to get the whole thing in the shot.

To the right of the door is the sink.

There is a full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

Leaving was soooo hard.

Signed the lease and took possession of the key last Thursday.

Took the first load of stuff over Saturday morning.

Took the second load over today--Tuesday

Also got signed up for Internet which was the necessary thing for spending the night as I must have a way to call for help.

Hoping I will have enough essentials moved in by Thursday to spend my first night there.

                                                   

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