Waiting for Sunshine and Roses

Posted on July 19, 2016 by simpleijustdo

It’s been a tough week.

Somewhere there’s a list of life events that can bring you to your knees and if moving isn’t at the top, it should be. Moving into almost-finished new construction with only two adults, a pickup and a Hyundai wagon. In 90 degree heat. When one of the adults considers the other “a hoarder” for having stuff… Yeah, “stressful” is one word for it.

(Thank goodness for Poppy’s mad vacuuming and cleaning skills, and Grammy’s mad Boy-entertaining skills!)

And you’ve accomplished this monumental thing, moving an entire house in two days on top of constructing said paid-for home from the ground up, but you are surrounded by boxes and missing shower curtain rings, and where-the-hell-am-I-going-to-put-that stuff. (I swear I’m not a hoarder!)

Then comes an unexpected, HUGE bill in the mail to take the wind right out of your sails, and evaporates any semblance of excitement you had left, and you wonder how anyone ever gets a leg up…

Then one of The Boy’s best friends decides he doesn’t want to go to summer day camp anymore, and his absences begin to trigger meltdowns and anxiety every night and morning. The Boy lashes out and threatens not to go himself, even though he absolutely adores it.

And you’re supposed to go to work and do work things correctly when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week, you haven’t eaten since you opened that huge bill, and you’ve taxed your body to the limit. The worry and overwhelm seem to be taxing your brain even more.

Everyone around you is worried, too. Either about the same things as you, or about you, and there’s nothing to say or do. You just keep going. There’s no time or money to do anything else. And crying gets old. Deep down, you know this too shall pass, so you just continue to be until it gets better.

Moving, Removing, and Limbo

Posted on August 5, 2015 by simpleijustdo

We put our house on the market in June. Two days later we had an offer. We negotiated and agreed upon a price.

Since that time, we have been going through the process – appraisals, inspections, etc. All of the details that have to happen, be approved, and then to the next step. This past week, we were supposed to close on Friday.

Monday we got a call that there was an issue with the paperwork, which could nullify the deal. Tuesday, we got another call that the issue had been cleared up, and we were all set to go with the closing on Friday. Wednesday afternoon, we got another call with another issue, which could delay the closing, but were told to plan as if the closing was still going to happen.

I don’t know about where you live, but apparently here, the buyers take possession of the house immediately after closing. This means if there is a closing, your house better be packed up and empty.

As a result, we packed up our entire house Wednesday evening so that The Man could move it all to the place we were supposedly renting on Thursday to be ready for the closing Friday.

Thursday, we were in limbo, but emptied the house.

Friday, we were notified that the closing would be postponed 2-4 weeks.

How do people do this? All of the professionals kept saying, “This happens all the time,” and the response in my head was, “Why? How?” I think my stomach was in perpetual knots the entire week. I couldn’t concentrate at work. The Boy was completely confused, staying at Grammy’s several days and nights so that he at least had some consistency in his life. As it is, he is still confused, as am I.

We decided to move everything back to our house, and forgo any rental until the papers are signed, and the money has cleared. It’s just too much to bear. In my opinion, attorneys handling the closing should get their paperwork in order way before the week of the closing, so that if there are any issues, people are not having to rent another moving truck to re-move back into their own homes, hopefully they haven’t yet signed a lease on a rental, and they are able to cancel cable installations after they’ve already happened. It’s insanity.

Apparently, everything is still going to happen, but we have some steps to follow to clear up an issue. So keep us in your thoughts. The real estate rollercoaster is always aggravating, but this has been beyond the pale, especially with a young man with autism in the house struggling to understand what’s going on.

What’s in Store for Next Year

Posted on May 21, 2015 by simpleijustdo

Well, I guess I didn’t need all that battle gear for our IEP. Apparently I had made my wishes clear in the email I had sent to The Boy’s teacher specifying that I did want him to have access to his general ed peers, you know, as in, least restrictive environment?? But there are changes coming for next year.

The program teacher will now only be at The Boy’s school part time because they will be spreading her autism knowledge throughout the county, now. In other words, they are no longer funding the pilot program, and don’t want The Boy’s middle school to become a magnet school for kids on the higher functioning end of the spectrum, so they are spreading her too thin to try to knock some sense into the teachers at other schools who act as if they’ve never seen a kid with autism before. My God be with her, because that will be a Sisyphean task.

In the meantime, The Boy’s day will not look too much different except that his social skills class will be a pull-out from his electives, and combined with the pull-out for speech, he could potentially be pulled out of his elective classes four days out of five for a half hour. That’s a recipe for some negative behavior, if you ask me, but they didn’t, so The Boy (and they) will have to deal with it.

I mentioned that we will be building a house in-district, to which they responded very happily, and made it clear that if we were not residing in said house by the time 9th grade rolled around, The Boy would be placed in his current home high school. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Even if we are not in said house by then. But I will fight that battle if and when I need to.

I’m crossing my fingers for these plans not to change too much between now and August. I’m pleased I didn’t have to fight, and encouraged by the team in place. Now to get the house built…

No Program Extension. Now What?

Posted on April 14, 2015 by simpleijustdo

I found out the week before break that most likely, The Boy’s pilot program for “high functioning” autistic middle schoolers will not be extended into the high school, as we were previously encouraged to believe.

So now what?

He is currently bussed across the district for his program, and has a community of friends in and out of the program. If they do not extend it into the high school, he will have to go to high school here in his own community, where he knows absolutely no one, and if the high school over here is anything like the middle school was… Let’s just say that’s not going to happen.

The Man and I have been looking to buy property and build a house out towards The Boy’s school anyway, but so far have not been in the right place at the right time to make that happen. Moving out that way would make his current school his home school, and the high school I’d like him to go to his home school, as well, but we’ll just have to wait and see. And unfortunately, we only have another year to make all of this happen.

And then I begin to think, “Could I make homeschooling work with a full-time work schedule? Maybe with the help of Grammy?…” I think I’d be killing myself to make it happen, and The boy would miss out big-time on socialization with NT peers, but I’m not ruling it out.

Part of me is saying, “Well, maybe there are decent schools in Florida, where we want to move eventually, and maybe we should fast-forward the timeline…”

Ugh.

Being forced to make major life decisions like this because a school district can’t do the right thing and commit to the needs of its students really bites.