Shopping

I love shopping....but I am not very fun to go shopping with.  At least that is what I'm guessing.  My husband is always willing to go with me, no matter what I am shopping for.  But he is one-of-a-kind amazing husband.  My kids on the other hand...hate shopping with me.

When I go shopping for a specific item it is always a process.  Take for example recently I needed a cat carrier for my new kitten.  It did not matter that I already had two cat carriers.  I needed a special cat carrier because she is going to be my therapy cat and she cannot be seen hanging out in one of those boring old tan, hard sided cat carriers.  I wanted my kitten to be hanging out in style.  She needed a pink cat carrier.

Of course I decided this one evening about 7:00 at night and had to have it that night.  My husband indulged me and took me to the pet store.  I found lots of cat carriers that were less than perfect.  My husband found one that wasn't pink, but it was the right size and a really good price......but it wasn't pink.

**For some reason this in this picture I would fill in my red shirt and when I saved it parts of the shirt did not save.  So I'm not trying to look inappropriate...my computer is out to embarrass me.**

We kept looking and I could not find the perfect one, so I started settling for the blue one my husband had picked out.  But he could tell I was not happy with it.  I was thinking...how could I settle when we had only been to one store so far this evening?

So my husband agreed to take me to another pet store.  That is a trend with me.  I can find the absolutely perfect item that I am looking for, but if it is at the first store I looked, I can't help myself, I must keep looking.  The perfect item might be out there and if I stop looking I won't find it.  Never mind that this rarely happens.

So we go to the next pet store.  And I was right!!!  They have the perfect pink cat carrier.  But it is too expensive.  Hmmm....I keep looking...time is running out, I must find the perfect cat carrier tonight.  It's not like I have a need for it tonight or tomorrow, I just want it tonight.

I keep looking through the store, the perfect one was actually a dog carrier, I figure I will go check out the cat area.  And there it is.  The perfect carrier for the perfect price.  And I can purchase it, because before I ever got to this store I had checked at the big box stores while grocery shopping, I had checked online earlier that day and I had been to the other pet store already this evening.  If this had been the first place I had looked I would not have been able to bring myself to actually buy it.

So I thought I had been entirely reasonable that night only going to two stores.  I can't imagine why my kids refuse to shop with me.

Adventures in Driving

I had to take my little kitten to the vet again today.  I say again because I took her two weeks ago, but she was one ounce too light for her surgery.  One ounce...I should of had her wear her collar.  But she has managed to permanently lose two different collars so I refuse to buy her another one.  I think she secretly throws them away because she hates the bell ringing all the time on it.

So I was on my way to the vet.  I turned down the street and the vet was not there.  I was confused.  It was there two weeks ago.  Now there was some companies headquarters...not something that would have been built in the last two weeks.

I went further down the road thinking that maybe it was down farther than I remembered.  Still no vets office.  So I did what I seem to have to do almost every time I drive...I did the U-turn.  Seriously, I make u-turns all the time.  And unfortunately I'm not talking just when I'm going somewhere new.  I could be driving the same route I drive everyday and suddenly I realize I have gone past my turn...so I do the u-turn.  I once bought a car based on it turning radius...but now I own a van.  My van does a great u-turn.

So anyhow...I did the u-turn and looked once again where the vet was last week.  Still some companies headquarter...darn...I was hoping the vet had reappeared in the last two minutes.  I was starting to think my cat had something to do with this.

So I do the quick look on my phone to see where the vets office had gone to.  I found a place about an hour away.  Not what I was looking for.

So I'm driving along after performing another u-turn and suddenly it dawns on me.  I'm on the wrong road.  I turned one light too soon.  I went down to the next road and the vet was magically where it belonged.

This is why I drive as little as possible.


***No my cat did not ride in the back seat of my van.  She rode in her carrier.  I just cannot draw her in her carrier very well :-)

The Great Hotel Search

In a couple weeks my husband and I are taking a few days to sneak away for a short, inexpensive, much needed vacation.  I wanted the best bang for the buck for my vacation.

So I started out with looking at cruises, worked my way down to flying somewhere, then down to driving somewhere.  With our time and money constraints we finally decided upon a location a few hours drive away.  Which I am still very excited about because no matter what my husband and I do together...we still have fun.

I love researching and booking vacations so I was ready to find the best hotel value I could.  Something low priced, but not gross.  (I once stayed in a hotel with bugs crawling all over the floor.  I had no option of changing rooms or hotels and it was just me and the kids.  I just told them to go to bed really early, like around 6pm.  They could not understand why I was making them go to bed so early on vacation.  My theory was the sooner we go to sleep the sooner we can wake up and leave.)

So that is not an experience I care to revisit.  So with due diligence and research I came up with the perfect option.  A good hotel at a great price.  Booked it...all taken care of done.  Happy dance for me!!

A week later I was talking to my husband about a conference I was excited about going to.  He asked me exactly when was this conference and my heart sunk.  I realized it was during our scheduled vacation time.

So the next morning I called the conference to see if I could get a refund.  Nope...the refund date had passed 4 days ago.  But I could move the session I was scheduled to attend from Friday to Saturday.  So I could still go on vacation, but would have to cut it short.  Easy enough...it would save us money and we would still have fun.

So I call to change the hotel reservation, except now the rate is higher per night because I am booking less nights and oh yeah, that room is no longer available?  What I have that room booked already, why isn't it available for less nights.  This isn't worth the frustration so I cancel the whole booking.

Now to find a hotel all over again.  And my brain goes into hyper-focus.  This is something that happens to people with ADHD, sometimes they over-focus on an activity and they cannot seem to break it.

A few hours later I still do not have a hotel reservation.  I really do function so much better when I am busy.  Can anyone relate or am I just a one of a kind mess today :-)

Motivation...where did mine go?

ADHD is often associated with distraction.  Perhaps that is why the AD part stands for Attention Deficit.  But what the name of the disorder is missing is the fact that it is also a motivation deficit order as well.  I guess ADMDHD was too long an acronym.  Plus when you add the forgetfulness, the frustration and everything else that goes along with ADHD the acronym might be longer than the alphabet.

On days that I have a schedule or a long list of concrete to do items I do pretty well.

On other days where I know I have stuff to do, but I am either overwhelmed, don't have specific deadlines, have too many priorities or wake up on the wrong side of the bed, lack of motivation kicks in.

Yesterday was one such day.  Here is the outline of my day:

7:00am Wake up.

7:01 get up and go to the bathroom

You didn't really think I was going to draw a picture of me going to the bathroom did you?

7:03 go back to bed to wait for my medicine to kick in...I can't eat for an hour after I take my medicine so when I'm not on a schedule I figure I can hang out in bed catching up on emails, Facebook and important games on my iPad.

As soon as I show any signs of movement the cats decide it must be time for them to come attack me on the bed.

8:30ish...think about getting up (got really involved in a new game)  realize I forgot to take my medicine at 7:00.

8:31 Get up and take medicine...lay back down again.

9:00 Finally decide that I've wasted enough time today and get up to eat breakfast.

9:37  After eating a leisurely breakfast and fending off the cat all of the sudden realize I have to take oldest daughter to work in about 3 minutes.

9:38 tell oldest daughter that I will get dressed quickly and take her.  Daughter lets me know that she won't be ready for another 10-15 minutes.

9:39  Being that 10-15 minutes is too short a time to shower or start working on my project for the day I sit down to play stupid addictive game some more.

10:15  Daughter finally ready to go.  I did have time to shower...grrr

11:00 Back and finally showering

I thought about putting a drawing of me showering here, but thought it might be inappropriate.  This is a family site...cannot have any naked stick figures here :-)


11:30  Sit down at computer to work on presentation I have to give at work next month.

12:15 Presentation too overwhelming...go eat lunch.  Play more of the game.

 1:00 Time to get ready for my interview I have scheduled for 2:30.

1:30 Need to leave the house in 15 minutes...no time for anything other than stupid addictive game.  Set alarm on my phone so I leave in time...good thing because once again I lost track of time.

Rest of the day...go to interview, go to class and feel generally productive.

10:00  Get ready for bed...promise to self that I will not do this tomorrow...play stupid game some more until I'm too tired to see straight.

Time spent productively not including scheduled items = 45 minutes
Time spent on stupid game = at least 4 hours
Finishing stupid game = not worth it

**Update:  I just realized I forgot to add the most important part of this post.  The part where I share with you my secret weapon for making it look you were productive when in fact you spent the entire day playing a game on your iPad.  Here it is:

At some point during the day yesterday I realized felt guilty that my husband had been hard at work all day and I had been wasting time.  So I looked around and noticed this:

This is our sink full of dishes.  The green squares are our plates and the happy face is my favorite yellow happy face bowl that I eat yogurt out of every morning. 

I thought...a ha...I could empty and fill the dishwasher and suddenly I would look like I had been slaving away all day long.

So I spent maybe 15 minutes doing the dishes.  (Emptying the dishwasher took about 30 seconds because we had been using the dishes from there for the last few nights)  And the result was this:

Nothing like a shiny sink to make you look like you have been motivated. 

Who does that?

I have recently picked up a new annoying habit.  I say new because I don't think I have done it in the past, but maybe I did and I'm just now becoming aware of it.  I like the sound of new though, because I really don't like the thought that I may have been doing this for years.  As for the annoying part, it's not annoying to me, but if someone else did this I would be annoyed, so even though I have not been told I'm being annoying, I'll assume this is the case.

Okay, I hope that was clear and we can now move on.

So here is how the new annoying habit works.  My husband and I are getting ready to go somewhere....for this example lets say the store...and if you want to be specific let's say that big box store with lots of blue everywhere and low prices.  (We happen to live around the corner from such a store and go there pretty much daily, if not two or three times a day.  Having ADHD and living so close to such a store is both a blessing and a curse...I can go into that on some future post.)  Okay so back to my husband and I going to the store.  He will say something like, "I'm going to go change my shirt and use the restroom then I'll be ready to go."  I will say, "ok" and proceed to get my phone out and either check Facebook or kick a friend's behind in Scramble With Friends. (My two favorite app on my phone.)

He will come downstairs and say something to the effect of, "Ok, I'm ready".  I will then shut off my phone and start heading out the door with him.  And then the new annoying habit kicks in.  I will think of a hundred things I have to do before I leave, such as go to the restroom, find my purse, keys, wallet or sunglasses, turn off some lights, start the dishwasher or any number of small activities.  My sweet husband will stand by the door whip out his phone and never say a word as to how I could have been doing all this while he was getting ready.  I do everything I need to do before heading out the door for our run to the store and half-way to the car I will realize that I do not have my phone.  I cannot possibly go to the store around the corner without my phone so he again waits while I go find where on earth I put down my phone.  And he never complains...ever.  (Reason number 5,326 why I love him so much.)

So I have been slowly noticing that I have this new annoying habit, but it usually only delays us 5 minutes or less so I haven't been worried about it.  Plus my amazing husband doesn't complain so I haven't seen the need to change my ways.  Until this weekend.  Same routine...we were going somewhere and my husband stated he was going to go get ready to go.  I messed around, I believe on the computer this time, until he stated he was ready to go.  This time I said, "sure I'm ready, but do you mind if I take a shower first?"

Really?  Who says that?  (Well...me I guess)  I had had plenty of time to shower while my husband was getting ready.  I had had plenty of time to shower all day long.  I waited until he was ready to go before I decided that I might want to shower for the day.  It was about 6pm by this time.  And you know what he said?  He said, "okay" and patiently waited for me.  Amazing.

So now being aware of my new annoying habit I'm going to consciously try to get ready while my husband is getting ready.  Because I would like my new annoying habit to become the old annoying habit I used to have but no longer have anymore.

The Jacket

I'm not exactly sure if this post has anything to do with ADHD, but I'm thinking it has to tie in somehow.

I have a teenage son who wears a jacket every day to school.  And when I say every day, I mean every.single.day.  From the 100+ degree days to the below freezing days.  And it's the same jacket every single day.  It's kind of a mid-weight jacket much too hot for the 100 degree days and not near warm enough for the freezing days.  And he doesn't carry it to and from school on the hot days.  He wears it. 

I did see him take it off for tennis practice, but it went back on after practice for the walk from the courts to the car.  One advantage of him wearing the jacket was I could find him easily in the yearbook because he was wearing The Jacket in every picture.

Notice that his head wasn't even in some of the shots and I could tell it was him by The Jacket.

A few weeks ago he went to scout camp and The Jacket went with him.  I was unpacking his camp trunk last night (that part is probably due to ADHD...I let the trunk sit in my living room for over a week).  I found The Jacket...it was my golden opportunity to get it in the washer because he was at his dad's house.

Before The Jacket went anywhere near my washer I wanted to empty the pockets.  Little did I realize that process would take much longer than anticipated.  Here are the contents of The Jacket.  Two very squished protein bars, a variety I haven't purchased since last fall, several bags of crushed goldfish crackers, lots and lots of folded up paper, about 20 assorted pens and pencils, 2 erasers, some money, a sand like substance I had to dump out that I'm guessing was animal cracker crumbs, and something I absolutely could not identify.  One pocket was filled with short sticks of an unknown substance.  They were about an inch long and about as thick as a crayon.  No one in the house could identify them.  I'm surprised The Jacket was not infested with bugs for all the food that was in the pockets.

I have to say I was very close to throwing away The Jacket and not subjecting my washer to it's leftover contents, but I could not bring myself to do that without my son at home.  Being as attached to The Jacket as he is, it could be very detrimental to our relationship if he came home to a missing jacket.

So I washed The Jacket and also went out and bought him a new jacket.  Of course with it being 100+ degrees out all I could find was a very lightweight workout jacket, but hopefully that will do until the temperature drops a bit and I can find him a replacement jacket.

The Art of Saying Thank You

My oldest daughter graduated from high school about six weeks ago.

We were very proud of her and did what most parents of graduating seniors do...we sent out graduation announcements. These weren't just your ordinary announcements, we painstakingly sorta custom designed them and had them printed.

 They were extra special because Coleen from coleenhauthphotography.com took her senior pictures. (Coleen is not paying for this endorsement...I just think she is super awesome.) Coleen almost moved to Alaska recently and I was panicked about how I was going to be able to afford a trip to Alaska for our family pictures. But she isn't moving to Alaska so all is well for me.

Sorry, ADHD tangent...back to graduation. So we sent out the announcements and several really thoughtful people sent my daughter graduation gifts.

Immediately I let her know that she would need to send out thank you notes because I figure if people are kind enough to take the time to send you a gift the least you can do is send a thank you note right?

My daughter of course agreed that it would be a good thing to do.  A couple weeks later I asked if she had sent the notes. She replied, "Oh not yet, I forgot." So I went a step further and gave her a stack of thank you notes with envelopes and let her know where the stamps were.

A week or so later I noticed the cat had thrown up on the stack of untouched thank you notes that were still sitting on the counter.

I immediately got mad at both the cat and my daughter. I had handmade those notes...how dare he puke on them? And if the notes had already been written then they wouldn't be sitting on the counter for the cat to expel his lunch upon.

So I cleaned up the mess, found some new clean thank you notes and let my daughter know these notes were to be written today. I got a text at some point during the day asking who she needed to write to. When I got home from work I saw that she had written about 1 1/2 notes. As a reference she only has to write four notes so she is close to half done with the writing at this point.

Once again I reminded her the notes needed to be written and a few days later she was able to finish the other 2 1/2 notes. Fantastic I thought...thank you notes are done. I put them out of mind until this morning when I was eating breakfast...I saw all four notes hiding under some papers on the table.

So to our wonderful friends and family who sent graduation gifts, the notes are written, they really are...they might get sent out before she graduates from college. But then again...no promises.