I had a chiropractor appointment this morning. These interactions are very interesting to me as she's reintroducing me to a person I've known for years: me. My chiropractor serves as a combination translator and medium for my body. She takes what I'm feeling (I feel bad) and clarifies it (where, when, how bad). She also has me move in certain ways and then listen to my body to see what it tells her.
I've been very insensitive.
That's the only conclusion I can come to. Some of the "I feel bad" sensations I can clearly attribute to the collision. Some of the "I feel bad" sensations I only notice when she has me pay attention and feel for them. It really makes me wonder what other messages my body has been sending me that I haven't been paying attention to.
Thanks to her, I've realized I need to schedule more conversations with myself.
I used to meditate fairly regularly. I had some deep relaxation sessions on my mp3 player and I'd use the time during kid practices or my lunch to just completely and totally immerse myself in my breath. It really helped me refresh and renew my focus. It looks like it might be time to start meditating again.
I'll look for the links to the meditation podcasts I used to use. If I can find them again I'll share them in the comments.
Oh, and my chiropractor has one more very important job: she makes me feel better.
I think I'm happiest when I'm busiest. With a few footnotes...
I need to be working on something I believe in
I need to maintain my work/life balance
Other than that, life never seems quite so good as when I'm knee deep in stuff to do. It even makes the infrequent days on the beach so much sweeter because I can appreciate the feel of a job well done.
I hope you are happy with the level of busy-ness that today finds you at.
I love my phone. I hardly go anywhere without it. But there's a small problem. It's getting cold outside and my hands really hurt when the temperature drops. I'd love to buy a pair of touch screen gloves, but I'm a little on the cheap side (If you're not, check these out!) I read this Instructables post a while back and have been planning to make my own touch screen gloves.
Gloves, Thread, Needle, Phone
I was so excited about this project because I figured it was a perfect project to blog, too. It's simple, it's a good way for me to demonstrate some of my living with ADD steps, it's tech-y, and I figured it would also photograph well.
I've learned that it's a really good idea for me to practice Mise En Place aka "Everything Set Up." The process of gathering my materials and getting them in one spot seems to center my mind. It also ensures that I have what I need at hand. Today that meant getting my gloves, the roll of thread, and a needle. I put my phone in the pic because I knew I'd be testing the gloves on the phone.
It Didn't Work!
A couple of quick stitches and I was ready to go!
Actually, I wasn't. Even though I followed the Instructables guide, my "new" touch screen gloves didn't work.
And I'm still blogging it.
I'm taking this as my daily lesson in humility. I figure it's much more interesting than telling you about how I messed up dinner because I forgot to get the super important ingredient that was whole reason I went to the grocery store in the first place. Plus that kind of story doesn't have cool pics.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours or approximately 10 years to get really good at something. I'm pretty hard headed, so it might take me an extra 5,000 hours. But I think I'm starting to get it now.
You have to understand first of all that sometimes my brain amazes me. The other day I punched in the number of an old high school friend...even though I'd last dialed that number in 1992. And sometimes my brain disappoints me, like when I forget what I came into the kitchen to get even though it's just a few steps away from the living room.
Finally "getting it" also means that I'm not arguing with myself that I oughta know this already. It means accepting that for me it sometimes takes a little bit more effort. Or a lot.
I get that I have to write everything down or it may not stick in my brain.
I get that I need to have a combination of a distraction and a focal point to get repetitive tasks done. Hello Podcast!
I get that I miss interpersonal cues. For me to get a message I either have to have all my active listening skills set to "ON" or have someone hit me over the head with a 2x4. The good news is that after 15000 hours of practice I'm getting better at this. The bad news is that it's still work, and it probably always will be.
I get that sometimes I have trouble stopping myself. Those are the days when it's better to go shopping at the flea market than at the mall.
I get that adding people to my mix increases my stamina and enthusiasm. If Aunt Polly asked me to whitewash the fence by myself I'd totally pull a Tom Sawyer and try to get out of it. Well, sorta.* But if I'm working with someone else I'm like the energizer bunny and just keep going and going.
I get that I have no concept of time. Not only does everything have to go on my calendar, I have to set every single reminder option so that time doesn't get away from me.
Most of all, after 15,000 hours of turning on my ears and using my calendar and grocery shopping list and doing a load of laundry a day and checking for my keys every time I walk through a door ... I get that this is who I am and that I'm really good at being me. You see, along with the distraction comes some really cool creativity and amazing energy. Since everything new draws my attention I've had the chance to meet all kinds of really cool people and do some really neat things. I am so thankful that I've been able to remain positive through everything. Even though I haven't always been thrilled with every thing that has come my way, things really work out once you rub a little persistence, creativity, and positive energy on it.
And I finally get it.
*I couldn't exactly do like Tom and collect marbles and a dead cat while my friends whitewashed the fence. But I might tweet about it
Today was a rough day. It was totally a climb back into bed and pull the covers over your head kind of day. I definitely felt like calling it quits and doing just that multiple times. And yet I didn't.
Did I accomplish anything? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I made a positive impact in the lives of some high school students, and I'm fairly certain that I kept our family from making a bad financial decision. I took steps to preserve some memories of my son's school life and I performed a few random acts of kindness here and there.
Overall, I'd say I did good.
But it wasn't fun.
If the balance sheet is on the positive side at the end of the day but you feel like crap, do you call that a good day?
If you have a great day with lots of laughter, but you know you'll pay for it tomorrow, is that a bad day?
I wish I knew the answers.
And so I leave you with the song that's been running through my head all day. I hope your bed is warm, and that you have a loved one or three to kiss goodnight, and even if you feel it's a hard knock life that you indeed keep putting up a fight instead of throwing the towel in.
It's a Hard Knock Life
[ORPHANS]
It's the hard-knock life for us!
It's the hard-knock life for us!
[ANNIE]
'Steada treated,
[ORPHANS]
We get tricked!
[ANNIE]
'Steada kisses,
[ORPHANS]
We get kicked!
[ALL]
It's the hard-knock life!
Got no folks to speak of, so,
It's the hard-knock row we how!
[ANNIE]
Cotton blankets,
[ORPHANS]
'Steada of wool!
[ANNIE]
Empty Bellies
[ORPHANS]
'Steada of full!
[ALL]
It's the hard-knock life!
[ANNIE]
Don't if feel like the wind is always howl'n?
[KATE AND TESSIE]
Don't it seem like there's never any light!
[DUFFY AND JULY]
Once a day, don't you wanna throw the towel in?
[MOLLY AND PEPPER]
It's easier than puttin' up a fight.
[ANNIE]
No one's there when your dreams at night get creepy!
No one cares if you grow...of if you shrink!
No one dries when your eyes get wet an' weepy!
[ALL]
From all the cryin' you would think this place's a sink!
Ohhhh!!!!!!!
Empty belly life!
Rotten smelly life!
Full of sorrow life!
No tomorrow life!
[MOLLY]
Santa Claus we never see
[ANNIE]
Santa Claus, what's that?
Who's he?
[ALL]
No one cares for you a smidge
When you're in an orphanage!
[MOLLY]
(Making a whistling sound and imitating Miss. Hannigan)
You'll stay up till this dump shines
like the top of the Chrysler Building.
[ORPHANS]
Yank the whiskers from her chin
Jab her with a safety Pin
Make her drink a mickey finn
I love you, Miss Hannigan
[MOLLY]
(whistle) Get to work!
(whistle) Strip them beds!
(whistle) I said get to work!
[ALL]
It's the hard-knock life for us
It's the hard-knock life for us
No one cares for you a smidge
When your in an orphanage
It's the hard-knock life
It's the hard-knock life
It's the hard-knock life!
One thing that is very ironic is that usually I can't focus on anything. Pain doesn't go away for things like ADD though. It yanks your attention right back to - ow - hold on, it's calling my name.
The impact was on the driver's side of the vehicle, and the side airbags deployed. I have a colorful bruise on my left arm and I can feel a swathe along the left side of my back that is probably doing a rainbow impression, too. I haven't looked at it yet. Yes Jenn, I will go in and get checked out.
Have I mentioned how happy I am that we're doing #NaBloPoMo this year instead of #NaNoWriMo? I don't think I could create any fiction at all this year. Maybe next year I'll just write a daily journal. The last three Novembers have been far more twisty and turny than any fiction I've ever read.
Now if you'll please excuse me, I'm going to go conduct some research on the effectiveness of Ibuprofen, Aspirin and their relatives Tylenol and Aleve. One at a time, of course.
I've been trying to post during my lunch hour, but today somebody popped open the "Alarm Will Sound" door on my floor. Did I mention I'm highly distractable? Consider this a placeholder. I'll post later some of the "Why's" of living with ADD
Have you ever been completely mentally “away?” Not just daydreaming, but mentally fully immersed in a completely different situation? This happens to me a lot. My understanding is that this is why what my brain does is called Attention Deficit Disorder . It’s not that I can’t maintain focus, it’s that I have a disorder that makes it difficult for me to switch between a deep focus when intermittent focus is needed or switch out of intermittent mode when I need to be focusing deeply on something, like you know, my next blog post.
Something that has helped me understand this brain mechanism better is meditation. Apparently there are two basic kinds of meditation – I’m going to call them the orange and nitrogen because I have no idea what they’re really called.
The Orange:
In this form of meditation you take a single item, like an orange or a raisin or an action (your breath) and you focus everything on that. You consider the folds and the valleys and the color and the stem and every single thing related to that orange. You train your mind to exclude all other stimuli so that you can deeply concentrate on the scent and the weight and the texture of that orange. Just like a muddy stream settling after a storm, gradually all the sediment in your mind settles and you’re completely clear. It’s amazingly powerful and I’ve finished this kind of a meditation feeling as though I’ve awaken from the deepest most refreshing sleep.
Nitrogen:
In this form of meditation you focus on everything in and around you. It helps me to think of nitrogen – it’s everywhere in our environment, and as a gas it gets into our bloodstream and our lungs and fills every space that we move in. When meditating like this you keep yourself grounded in the here and now, becoming deeply aware of all of your thoughts and your feelings and all the sights and sounds around you. I have deep trouble doing this. For whatever reason I start out focusing on the mundane activities of life around me and the next thing I know my mind is a million miles away. I pull it back and bring my focus back to the spaces that nitrogen has crept into and I’m gone again, thinking about how I need to add fertilizer to my plants. My personal theory is that I’m already uncommonly aware of the things around me, and as such this kind of meditation doesn’t help my brain settle.
So what’s my point?
Anchors help me. As I write this I have a printed sheet of paper across the room with my top three priorities on it. As my mind wanders off my gaze lights on my priority list and it narrows my focus back onto my priorities. At home I’ve taken a slightly different tack: rather than have a priority list tacked to the wall, I remove the distractions. The TV set is tucked into a back room and I keep the computers closed up unless I specifically need them for a task. My phone ringer and calendar reminders are on, but text message notifications are off. I know where my mind goes, and I’m learning how to direct it where I want it to go.
I’ve worked with a lot of people in various stages of life. One of the techniques that I’ve seen help some people figure out what direction to go in is to first eliminate the options they don’t like. Horribly paraphrasing Sherlock Holmes, once you have eliminated the unwanted, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the direction you should take.
I know I’m easily distracted from the boring task at hand by the promise of a hilarious tweet or another news story or yummm chocolate. The Buddhists call this state of mind “Monkey Mind” meaning unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable". Ok. Um, this is not who I want to be.
So, taking Sherlock Holmes advice, who do I want to be? I want to be consistent and responsible. I want my decisions to be reasoned and thought out and made in a timely manner. I want to be dependable and clearheaded. Those of you who know me in real life may say “But this is who you are” If so, Hooray! But I do want to mention how much effort it takes me to be like this.
I write everything down or text/email it to myself. Very simply, if it isn’t recorded, I don’t consider it “known”
I schedule everything. If you look at my calendar, you’ll see a lot of 1 minute appointments for random things.
My “appointments” have multiple reminders
I work with my strengths – For example, I know that I like being around people. Rather than try to do things that I’m bad at by myself, I schedule them with people, or in conjunction with things I like to do.
I realize that some things are going to take me a lot more time to do and I’ve learned to accept that.
I apologize a lot. Unfortunately, even with all the tips and tricks I use, I still say things in the heat of the moment that I probably shouldn’t say, forget things I’ve promised to do, and miss events. Still, a humble heart is supposed to be good for you, and I figure all of the oops’es have definitely made me more humble.
This article is what inspired today's blog post, even though I didn't really stay on topic. Still, it’s worth a read because basically this is what I try to do – outsmart my baser self by setting up “tricks” that keep me productive.
“Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more will power, more drive, but because they know productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty which can never be excised from the soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push ups.” Thanks David McRaney for the quote that I've been thinking about all day.
This is the first of a multi-part post on how to plan your meals
First off, what do you mean when you say "plan your meals?" I'll be the first to say that there's no right way or wrong way to do things - there's just your way that works for you. I've used formal month long meal plans with breakfast, an afterschool snack and dinner planned every day, I've also scribbled a couple of dishes on the back of a slip of paper and used that to go grocery shopping. Both methods work, and are as different from each other as the east is from the west.
When I say "plan your meals" I'm basically saying have an idea of what you're eating every day for a defined period.
Ok, so what good does that do me? Why should I plan my meals? In my case, my brain either works overtime when I'm under pressure or it completely shuts down. I wish I could pick which one would happen, but usually at 5:30 when I'm tired and hungry I simply can't think of what we should eat for dinner. Having a menu for the week posted on the fridge restarts my brain and having the supplies I need just inside the refrigerator door lowers my stress.
Eating at home saves us money and allows us to eat healthier meals. You save money three ways: one is by getting fresh foods and skipping the overhead that a restaurant has to add on. Also, by not running to the store all the time you save a ton on impulse buys. Finally, you save money by using the food you've bought and not having to throw it out when the tomatoes get squishy and the lettuce melts into a yucky mess in the produce drawer.
You also eat much healthier, too. In 2007 when I did Weight Watchers we were encouraged to plan all of our daily points in advance. That way if I was tempted by something I had my daily planned snacks and meals to look forward to, which made it easier to resist temptation. Cooking at home also gives you complete control over the ingredients, which is important if you have someone with food sensitivities/allergies or a vegetarian/vegan in the family.
I try to do all of my shopping on one day each week. This saves time because instead of having to run to the grocery store to pick up two items (and invariably forgetting one of them!) I have everything at home when I'm ready to cook. I also like to use listmakers like Allrecipes.com shopping lists to help me get everything I need in each part of the store. Best of all, I save time and stress by not having to worry about what's for dinner each night. I come home, look at that night's menu, and I'm good to go!
What do I love most about eating at home? The relationships. We often hold a "Make Your Own Pizza Night." I'll make an easy dough earlier in the day and let it rise. Then we have friends or family over and give everyone their own dough ball to toss and make into a pizza. Anything you could ever want on a pizza is laid out on the kitchen counter. Picky kids get to make a pizza with exactly what they want on it - no more and no less - and gourmet parents finally get to have their spinach artichoke garlic black olive pesto pizza. We enjoy the time together making the meal and the time spent at the table eating the meal. The very best part? No check at the end of the dinner and the knowledge that the memories and dinner in cost less than half of a similar dinner out.
And last but not least, Email phera at ymail dot com (Replace the "at" with "@" and the "dot" with "." I'm just trying to keep a little of the spam out of my mail box!)
A lot of things have indicators to let you know that you're almost out. For example, the receipt roll at stores generally has a pink bar pattern as you get to the end of the roll. Your smoke detector is really good about letting you know when batteries run low. Our cars even have a light that comes on when we start running low on gas. Wouldn't it be cool if we had something like that at our houses to let us know we were low on certain supplies?
Here are a couple of ways to build in your own "low supply indicators"
Laundry: Check each family member's sock and underwear drawer to see what their supply looks like. Make sure that youhave fewer pairs of underwear and/or socks than anyone else. Designate (or buy) a particular pair of underwear as your "laundry light" pair and make sure to always put it on the bottom of the underwear stack. When you pull that one out of the drawer, you know you need to do laundry! If you've got fewer pairs than anyone else in the family, they'll never run short on shorts again because you were able to step in and take action before they ran out.
Toilet Paper/Paper Towels: Put a square of red masking tape or write "BUY MORE" on a roll almost at the end of the stack. When that roll comes out of the pantry add toilet paper or paper towels to the shopping list.
I'm going to check around the house this week to see what other items lend themselves to "Low Supply" warnings. Any ideas?
When our son was three he used to go to a daycare that was on my way to work. One Saturday morning as I was on that road headed to the grocery store I found myself pulling into the daycare parking lot. It took me a minute to realize that a) I didn't have my child with me. b) It wasn't even a weekday. When we do things on a daily basis, we learn how to do it so well we eventually start doing it on autopilot. In my case, I seem to turn the autopilot on and zone out so fast it isn't even funny. This can be hard to deal with when the autopilot decides that we should log on, cycle through facebook, IM's, email, and youtube instead of paying a bill. Whoosh! There went an hour.
The good news is that we can make out ADD brains tendency to cruise on autopilot work for us. There's a couple of ways that you can do this:
Work with a focused friend. This is by far my favorite way to get things done. When I'm talking to a friend it's easy to clean up the muckiest messes and come up with the greatest ideas. This seems to work best for me in person and over the phone - I haven't yet been motivated by text messages, IM, or twitter. I'm hoping to try Skype cleaning to see if that works as well as an in person visit. I'll keep you posted on that.
Distraction. I know you're probably going "Wait a second! Stop! I read this because I'm trying to figure out *not* to be distracted, and here you are telling me to distract myself to get things done? Explain yourself, Phera!" Here's what happens to me: My mind wanders when I'm sorting socks, doing dishes, sweeping up, or any of the zillion mindless things that have to be done around the house. I find it really helpful to have some sort of an anchor to keep my mind from wandering. This can be a cleaning podcast or watching a movie while I do laundry, even a really good radio station. I think of this directed distraction as as kind of trellis - I can do anything around the trellis that I want to, but in the end I'm growing up towards the sun.
Repetition. By far my least favorite method, I'm including this because it works. Yes. If you do something enough times, it becomes a habit and you'll do it without even thinking about it. Why isn't this my favorite? Well, it's really really really hard to do a routine enough times to make it a habit. Once again, this is where the cleaning podcasts come in really handy. It's easier to start small, so I'd recommend a short 15 minute routine to begin: AM Basics or PM Perkup are good 15 minute routines to start off with.
My advice for the day? Accept that your brain will sometimes want to do things that drive you nuts, and work with your strengths, not against them.
I heard this term for the first time today and I'm wondering where it has been all my life. Mind monkey or Monkey mind is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable". Yup, that's my mind.
The article I read went on to talk about ways to meditate and still the mind, but as my mind wandered (yes, it does that frequently) I realized that I had accidentally found one of the most powerful ways to calm my mind: my podcasts. Simply put, from the minute I decide to record a new podcast, my mind settles down. I start to figure out the best way to get the job done and how long each sub task will take. While I'm recording I'm totally focused on what I'm doing, and I'm narrating the task to you, my listeners, so much so that occasionally I lose track of what I'm saying as I focus on what I'm doing. Thank you so much for helping me conquer monkey mind. If it weren't for the encouragement of my listeners I don't think that I would have recorded past that first year.
A good friend of ours sent my husband the perfect sweater for Christmas. You know, the one that is dressy enough to wear to church, casual enough to pair with jeans, not too loud, but not too boring. He's worn it twice since Christmas. Yesterday I realized I still hadn't sent her a thank you card.
Today I sat down with my card box and pen and started to write my thank you notes. An hour later I realized that I was still going strong. It was humbling to realize how much had happened in the last month that we were grateful for.
Let me back up just a tad. My husband lost his job in November 2009. Even though there are some positive effects of the job loss (I get to see him now!), for the most part this has resulted in a major rise in our stress levels and a change in our financial situation. No more eating out, a serious crimp on gift giving, deep discussions over every financial outlay. We've tried not to focus on the negative, but it was a very different holiday season for us.
The interesting thing has been that instead of spending our holiday season shopping, we spent it with friends and family. Instead of going out to the cineplex or renting movies, we broke out the board games. In fact, except for the minor discomfort of not having gifts to give our extended group of friends and family, this was one of the best holidays we've had. It sort of snuck up on us, too. It wasn't until this week when I was writing thank you cards that I fully appreciated the value of the people in my holiday. I'm going to rectify this oversight by making a conscious effort to be more grateful on a daily basis in 2010.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more thank you cards to write.
A friend got stuck pulling out of her driveway so this afternoon my husband and I went over there to clean up the drive. The driveway hadn't been cleared when the snow was light and fluffy, so instead of a quick 1/2 hour job he was out there for about four hours. In addition to the snow that was packed down near the garage, the accumulation from the plows had built up at the foot of the drive. He ended up having to take a mattock to break up the four inch deep ice that stretched across the base of the drive. I was really amazed to see how something that started out so light and beautiful and airy became so dark and dense when we let it lie.
Moral of the story? Don't wait for the sun to come out and melt away your troubles - start working on them now before they get worse.
I feel like I'm bouncing all over the place, which is fun, but not very good when it comes to getting things done. It's 2010, it's time to focus. I need to get back to blogging and podcasting on a regular basis.
It's too easy to get caught in analysis paralysis, so I'm skipping that step. This blog may not be as focused as I'd like, but if it helps me to focus in real life, it has served its purpose.
I read
