Weekly Wins 22: I Have Been Absent Of Late

I have had a lot going on at home.

To get you up to speed…. 2 years ago, our house flooded. We were catching fish in the lounge room as they hid under the couches. It was quite the experience to have a flowing river through your house. Having been flooded before this (4 years before), it wasn’t quite as traumatic as it had been previously. We had picked ourselves up and dried out before, so we knew we’d be able to do it again. NOT SAYING it was easy, or not challenging, but we had done it before, so there was evidence that we could do it again.

1 year ago, we moved out to get our place renovated and repaired. We wanted to be back in by January when the kids went back to school, we weren’t. The next best option was to be back before the kids went to back to school Term 2. I had given up on moving due to time running out, and that I had a conference booked and that the house wasn’t actually finished, and that it wasn’t cleaned with a builders clean. And right there is when my ADHD husband said, yeah let’s do it. Let’s move. We can work out the rest later. There was two weeks of school holidays.

Week 1 consisted of whooping cough, parainfluenza and pneumonia.

Week 2 consisted of half the week doing the builders clean, and packing at nights; and the other half was moving the kids rooms over, the kitchen and me attending a work conference!

So I present to you my top 5 tips for moving house!

1) Declutter, marketplace and donate as you go.

2) Clean the new place before you move in, or have it bond/builder cleaned.

3) Move one area at a time.

4) Label boxes as you pack them.

5) Unpack as you move and one area at a time.

Now ask me how many I did…. I tried.

1) I had started the declutter.

2) I did the builders clean - I know EVERY cm2 of that house inside now!

3) I succeeded with the kids rooms - they were my priority (& the kitchen).

4) 50% are labelled, others are a lucky dip.

5) Currently sitting in a packing box cubby, but the boxes are still full... sigh..

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned, but my husband has ADHD. He has the ideas and energy, and I bring the structure and detail. When he suggested moving I thought he was crazy, but not true, he’s “just” ADHD. He sees the now, he doesn’t see the planning, he doesn’t see the mess, he just sees new opportunities, energy to make it happen and the inner drive to just be back at home. If it were up to me, I would’ve done my top 5 tips above and have taken about a month to actually move.

Here's what we got:

1) A lot of take away meals – which suits the ND nicely as what we get from maccas/kfc/subway/sushi/insert any other regular take away place is THE SAME EACH TIME 🫶🏻

2) Boxes of 100% totally mixed up contents, fortunately labelled though!

3) Kids mostly settled.

4) Compassion – when the kids can see how tired their parents are, and how much they work day and night to make this happen, they have been showing compassion…. And they say Autistics don’t have empathy 😒

5) Nanna’s Hidden Vege Spaghetti! I remember saying to my husband, holy moly the kids need a home cooked meal with goodness in it….. Nanna to the rescue with her Spag choc full of hidden veggies.

Here’s what I realised:

1) We have too much stuff, still. Even though I am constantly decluttering, we still have too much stuff. Unfinished projects, the latest hyperfixation that I wasn’t immediately awesome at so it was shoved to the back of the cupboard, hoping to be revisited when I had “time” haha.

2) Kids are resilient. I firmly believe that by keeping the kids in the loop, sharing with them how I was feeling (the good and the bad) about moving out of our home, all the new things to get used to (traffic, timings, different shops etc) at the other place and then the logistics of moving back home was helpful for them to understand and see and be explained about how these things were both exciting, yet a struggle, exhausting, yet made me feel happy! This built their resilience so when they were feeling these things too, they could understand what was going on.

3) Even when the little ND people struggle with change, keeping the kids prepared, talking to them about the process of what’s happening, being diligent in labelling their things, moving their things first made the world of difference. They had something to do when they got there (i.e. set up their space) and I knew all their things were there and not lost in a box to be unpacked in 6 months time (imagine trying to find their particular soft toy for bed time within the pyramid of moving boxes in the “everything” room…. Do you have an everything room/cupboard/drawer – you know the one that you just think gosh I don’t know where this goes so I’ll shove it here.

4) I am so sensory. I mean, this isn’t new to me, but when I am at my capacity I have to be really cognisant of my environment around me or I just curl up in a ball and cry…. #notactuallykidding. The noises, the sounds of the moving boxes sliding down your hands as they are placed on the floor, the smells, the cleaning products, the smelly kid socks you find in their old bag, the feels…. The gross things you clean that haven’t been cleaned in months, the feels in terms of emotions as you go through your stuff…. It’s alllllllll energy zapping….

5) Wins need to be celebrated. ADHDers traditionally just jump onto the next thing once one is completed. Actually taking the time to celebrate “hey guys we are actually sleeping in our house tonight”, or “you did it, you set up your room”, or “wow you found XXXX for me!” These are all pivotal things to be celebrated. It’s an achievement for anyone to move house, let alone 6 AuADHDers!!!!

We might be currently living under a pyramid of boxes and not meal planning the week, but we are in. After 2 years and 2 months, we are in. And that my friends is worth celebrating.

Can you relate to any of this????? Moving house or not….

Have a great week, I’ll be unpacking boxes for the rest of the year….. haha!

Much love,

Alison xx