bit o bit o Christmas Eve

 I did some cleaning today - laundry, sweeping, sorting papers, scrubbing, pulling trash cans and changing bedding and rugs and dog blankets.  It all has been needing to be done in more than the little scraps of time I had put to it when necessary the past few months.  I watered the plants - which I have done when they needed it yes, but maybe not as often as they actually preferred.  

 

At times I felt like I wasn't sure what I should be doing with myself, since I'm used to having 'no time' - which Mark reminded me doesn't mean I have no time, just none I allot to that.  Same with the little car's brake fluid - I would have done that today, but that would have been three days not doing it - waiting to have 'enough brain' to extend beyond the queue of items I already have been doing on rote to get the jobs done etc.  Yes, it's something to work on, but no, 'just do it' isn't always a good answer for it.  Today I did each of the tasks in pieces, and then did something else (game, coffee, language lessons) and then returned to the tasks and eventually got a lot done.  

 

I do have a way that works, it is just annoying in general to others and I can't do it sometimes, I have to push it around and space it out into intervals to make it seem like a bunch of smaller tasks.  I 'tell myself' that if I had tried to take it all at one whack and then did the leisure items I don't think I would have gotten as far.  It's part of that 'yes it doesn't make sense to you' but I've lived in this brain and this is how it ACTUALLY works, vs. how it looks like it should work.  *shrug*  That is something like an ADHD thing.  Mark says I can just 'tell myself' something else.  Not really.  When that huge brakes-dragging-the-whole-train feeling is there, that is all I can say about it.  Do I get it done the way I know I can, or keep failing trying to take it 'head on like a normal person'  Me, not normal... so, option one and be productive in the zig-zaggy ADHD way that actually accomplishes something.  The biggest problem with those scraps of time earlier in the months was that was all the scraps I had willpower for, among everything else I was doing, and when I reached the critical mass point where I went to do something else it always ended up being bedtime or worktime or town-run-time etc.. and I never got back to doing more of the tasks than was necessary.

It's Christmas Eve.  I've done French and Italian (I had bopped onto Italian for a practice session yesterday and then it was already loaded when I came to do my Catalan.)  I stared hard at a Japanese program that I haven't made time for in months and was offering a good deal on a subscription - but I decided to not do that.  I listened to a full Christmas album on another site in French, which was pretty neat.  

Tomorrow is Christmas.  We have a meal planned and time to open presents.  I will take myself off to bed here in a little bit and see how much sleep I get.  I had set the alarm forward to 'maximum chicken time' - 7:45 am.. and didn't get to sleep all the way to that.  I had been up for two hours in the night - which was the only reason I was able to sleep past five.  I don't really want to move my schedule though - I will need to be up early again all for the next week.  So, I will try to get to bed early tonight and see how that fares.

We watched several episodes of Crossing Jordan first season.  The episode I was looking for was 'Miracles and Wonders', which in our sequence is marked as number 12 - it is officially episode 13 of the first season.  I always like that one for how things weave together.

Monday

 Over the work weekend, on to the week.  The truck started each of my work days, although the battery light never went off.  Does this mean I shouldn't have been worried last week?  No... because I can't see the future and I did have a legitimate concern.  It's still concerning.  But I am very glad and grateful that I was able to get to work on the days they had scheduled me.

Made spaghetti for Esme and I and leftover meatloaf bits.  Later, made a tomato quiche egg pie thing to put up a little for breakfast and to give the rest to the dogs as a treat.  It worked well.  Mark asked me if this was alchemy... is it black alchemy, in that I can't reveal the secrets?

 

No, it's whole wheat alchemy.

8 eggs

1/4 to 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour

some salt

some baking powder

3 to 5 tbsp of tomato paste (leftover from two other meals I made, and now I had this big glop left so I thought - we'll see how that mixes in)

baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes

Doing minimum Japanese and going to bed.

It was a very long route day, with mail counting, and 100 degree weather and all that on top of it being Monday, which means we just have more mail than any other day usually.

languages, and bits of dreams

 

I'm trying a half-batch of Apple Cider Vinegar soda bread in the oven, after mulling over the chemistry for few days, rabbitholing a few times, and thinking about what I have in stock.  I thought it was a good day to try something new.
 

 baked

cut up hot

 

eaten with peaches and peach syrup

I put the rest of the soft slices away in a container, and the hard bits and crust into a bag to add to some soup later today or tomorrow, it's a recipe that is going to need some trying out different chemical reactions (sugar?, honey?  I added an egg above the board of the boildown recipe I had found, and what did that do, if I don't add that next time, what would happen?  I used the 1:.75 ratio of the flours that four out of the five recipes had.. why did that other one have the smaller ratio of wheat flour?  worth looking at) and techniques (did I cut too deep?  did I knead too much and should have left it with some of the air trapped in it that happened right away?  if I made twice the size of the loaf instead of halving it, would it not have been so very hard outside or would it have been about the same?) 

It took about 45 minutes total to make, and I keep all the ingredients.

It's worth experimenting.

 

 Languages:

I thought it was about time to update the language tree - but anything not nearing level 10 means I'm not really working on it... there are a few of the harder languages at 9 right now.  The site that keeps the info only makes 'level' ratings up to 25, although the French and the Spanish go way beyond that in the actual program.  So I'm barely halfway through the French's 'section 5' which is only B1 rating, comparatively.  But still, that means I'm still working on it.  I just can't stick to it and only it - my brain needs to have the connections and variety.  Besides these, I'm still doing a little Latvian and Lithuanian elsewhere, and studying Chinese characters randomly as they come up on another program to extend the Kanji (Japanese) learning I did last year.

I still find it funny that I was told, as a young person, that my speech impediment (lisp) meant that I would never be able to speak any other language well, and I shouldn't even try.  Not to mention the dyslexia, which I had found my own ways of getting around*, which were considered to be me just being overly imaginative (with my phonetic script I learned to transcribe things in so I could connect them better, starting from age 9*, and informed by much of the other philosophy and language things I was randomly finding and absorbing as fast as I could understand it) and playing around with things like a child plays dollhouse or something.  * I did have a good teacher that got my feet under me and then started me on the way, it wasn't all on my own, no,  but the phonetic language was my own work, later, because things still didn't make sense.

And also, repeatedly told that I was 'never going to use any of that' so why would I even want to try to learn something like Portuguese or Japanese.. but of course, that was in the 80s and 90s.  If I had only really pursued some of these earlier, besides the German I was put into in high school - where would I be in them today?  I had a head start in French from my grandmother, but then I didn't get enough resources and definitely no encouragement to continue it.  That's so hard - you can't do that!  And the high school class 'was full' because I was at the end of the alphabet and not high in GPA.. so German it was.  And I still don't really feel the compulsion to follow learning German in the way I do a few other languages... it's there.  I could.  And yet, why don't I?  I can read some of it and understand some of it and then as usual I drift away and go do something else.

But then, with the internet making it so much easier to find resources and confirm translations than the hunt and peck and order things of dubious provenance of the 80s and 90s...   and maybe I just needed time for my brain to organize itself, before I could 'take off'.  There's also the real chance that my brain began to organize itself better by learning these the past 8 years, and the faster I put those pieces together, the better everything else has worked for my learning, as well.

French            L 25     XP 52758         22758 XP beyond Level 25
Welsh             L 25     XP 30114         114 XP beyond Level 25
Spanish          L 23     XP 25578         +422 XP to next level
Japanese        L 19     XP 14380         +620 XP to next level
Czech             L 19     XP 13888         +1112 XP to next level
Romanian       L 17     XP 11143         +857 XP to next level
Portuguese     L 16     XP 9632           +868 XP to next level
Italian             L 15     XP 7952           +1048 XP to next level
Greek             L 14     XP 7226            +274 XP to next level
German          L 14      XP 6086            +1414 XP to next level
Finnish           L 13      XP 5515            +485 XP to next level
Catalan (es)    L 12     XP 4303             +597 XP to next level
Russian           L 11     XP 3818             +82 XP to next level
Swedish          L 11     XP 3689             +211 XP to next level
Spanish (fr)     L 11     XP 3190             +710 XP to next level
Norwegian      L 11     XP 3097             +803 XP to next level
Hungarian      L 10     XP 2591             +409 XP to next level
Ukrainian       L 10     XP 2288             +712 XP to next level
Irish                L 9       XP 2174             +76 XP to next level
Turkish           L 9       XP 2044             +206 XP to next level
Chinese          L 9       XP 1882             +368 XP to next level
Polish             L 9       XP 1798             +452 XP to next level

 

It rained in the night, and everything needed it.  It could have rained a little more - it was just enough to take the dry off of most things but not enough to soak in good.. on the bright side, the road was not muddy for walking to the school bus.  Esme and I saw a baby deer up on the road on the way to the bus.  It was a little magical, with very big ears and spots, and it stopped and looked at us before deciding it needed to run off into the woods again.

I had strange dreams in the night, including that I was suddenly careening down the road, even though I had my foot on the brake, and it was dark, so I didn't realize I was moving - fumbling for the headlights, because I hear the wind whipping through the windows and I know there are turns up ahead - and get the headlights on and the absurdity is just ten times higher, my brakes aren't working well.. I'm making it around the corners (like I did when the power steering went out in the other truck) but just barely and I realize that no that isn't the wind, I'm not moving, it's raining outside in the real world and I am in bed.  And I get up and let the dogs in and out.  I stayed up a few hours, then laid back down.

Later, the same type of of dream.. except it starts in the driveway.  My mother and stepfather are there, loaded down with bags and winter clothing - they are going to try to get in my mail truck (there isn't even room, it only has one seat besides the driver and its small) and I don't know where they want me to take them or why etc etc....  I realize walking up to the truck that it is running and for how long?  How did I leave it running, and I'm going to run out of gas?  That was so irresponsible of me, why would I do that... and I get in and they are going to load the things in, my mother is talking about some rash on her hand, and then she sees this huge mass of blood and scratches over my right shoulder (which isn't there, it was some sort of analogy) and I say yes, that happens... it'll be alright, and she gives me this look like 'what in the world how does that happen?' and I shrug it off... (shoulder, analogy, shrugging things off.. yes)

And at that point I realize that I'm also 'half-naked' as I say to my mother in explanation - in tank top and shorts and barefoot and they are wearing full winter jackets and boots and such.. and I tell them I'm going to have to turn the engine off and go inside and get dressed, because I obviously can't go like this.. "I don't know what I was thinking, etc"... and I don't even know where we are going but obviously, I can't go like this.   And yes now I fully realize that this is a dream... that they aren't here, that I should wake up - but for some sort of completeness I go to turn the engine off, but then suddenly again the brakes aren't holding, which they were, before.. again, brain playing games, trying to force me to continue 'playing' and the truck is drifting down the hill.. and I'm trying to figure it out and then a big piece like the element of an oven comes out from underneath it and spits out into the garage... my stepfather and mother aren't there, now I am standing in the garage with Esme and Mark, the vehicle is off and up on blocks and turned 180 degrees, we're trying to figure out what the piece is, if we can replace it and if Esme needs to learn welding to fix it and I am realizing a lot of the things that are in the garage are only sort of 'half-formed', my brain is working really hard to make the air compressor and windows and shelves and things I don't look at often but I'm getting the picture again that this is a dream.. and I should just wake up.

I realize also, in both parts of the dream - that I was sitting in a seat on the left hand side of my truck which is not true - it is a right hand drive.   The lights are even harder to reach from the right-hand seat, but they were right there where they should be on the left and styled like the other vehicle.  So I was somehow merging the two trucks we have on the inside, while it was all the mail truck on the outside.   Everything else about it was the same - just with a left hand seat, and no right-hand seat etc.. I find it interesting that my brain did that.

So, yes, lots of worry allegory there, not in control, things beyond my control etc.  I'm still trying to figure out what the bloody shoulder means 'shrugging' I guess - just the fact that I ignore a lot of what goes on with my body other people would naturally find alarming, perhaps, and just press on. 

 ((footnote* : I had a really good first grade teacher, who got me on the right path when she realized what my issues were, didn't call it dsylexia, but later, I realize she did a lot of talking with me and 'worming out the problem' on each thing I was having trouble with, asked me to describe things, and turned things around or related them visually to me which is dyslexic teaching nowadays, showing me structures like 'gh' and to just mentally replace that in my head puzzle-piecing and trying to match words I knew until the word became apparent phonetically.  AND she kept up with me.  I had a bad second grade teacher, but the first grade teacher still visited my mother and I and helped me out.  She gave me projects and helped out on a Halloween costume I had picked out of a book, helping me follow the instructions and so forth.  I had a better third grade teacher, and at that point, the first grade teacher gave me a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and a bible, and said I was doing better than she had ever hoped and was so proud of me - and to promise to read every one of the Little House books.))

Of Frogs and Squash

What was supposed to be a long day of delivering packages, turned out to be hardly anything.  We joked are people stopping buying things or is it all coming tomorrow?  I have tomorrow off, but I work on Tuesday.

Went out and took some pictures of the basil and coleus, and happened to catch a few pictures of a little frog that was hiding in the soil until I began to water.

 

coleus, in brilliant purple and reds - we took some clones off these and others and they are all rooting nicely

 

small frog, smol forg, according to Mark

he sure posed well, for me, among the leftovers of my green onions here

 I cut up this butternut squash, which today had finally lost the bits of green it had.  The picture is from when I had it about a week, and now as at least three weeks.  It was from a farmer's market and fresh from the field (store bought ones are usually aged quite a bit longer to start with).

 

I peeled the outside with a potato peeler, and cut it up into julienne 'matchsticks' - and cooked some of it in the toaster oven, then mixed it with rice and cheese.  Finally, I made a tomato sauce and poured over the top of it.  It is not a dinner Mark or Esme would eat - but I was very happy with it!  I really like the taste of orange squash like this.

Butternut Squash 'au gratin' (and tomato sauce) <--follow link for Patreon 

I used the toaster oven on the squash and then added the precooked rice and cheese and toasted for another ten minutes, then made a simple tomato sauce

 We had some mashed potato that had been in the fridge over a week - and I mixed that up with a little milk and three eggs and fried it for the dogs to eat after dinner - because Mark and Esme had pizza, and there wasn't much of that as scraps, and there was hardly a spoonful of mine left at the end.  They were quite happy with that.  I need to learn to make that so that it stays together and cooks through at the same time - but for them, it doesn't matter.  It smelled good enough that I took a bite with them just to see what they were getting.

Tomorrow, we need to go get some of the groceries that Mark has been keeping on a list.  I had gotten a few of them here and there over the week when we deemed them 'urgent'.  We also need to get goat feed, because now she will only eat that one kind of food from the Amish store, and she is doing very well on it (it is alfalfa and oat pressed pellets) and the dogs are eating it out of her bowl as some sort of snack or camaraderie, along with eating their own dog food, which she does not do well with and we have been working hard to keep her out of.  

Languages : I've done mostly French, Japanese and Chinese today.

Cooking, cats and working with my brain

Notice there is a comma there, we aren't cooking cats, this is about cooking, cats, and working with my brain.  Which of course, yells about that comma /ha

 

I know my 'ADHD' isn't as bad as some... and that I can use my brain to load 'new programming' and sometimes it even sticks.  But I still feel like maybe I can offer something, to someone - that might help things 'stick' for them.  So I'm continuing my collection of 'Neurodivergent Cooking' ideas and recipes at the Patreon website.

 

I was trying to explain this to Esme this morning - how sometimes I have two or three 'alarm locations' for the same thing I had already done - but I find them useful, and encourage them.  It took a while to try to get it written down in something I hope someone else can understand and use.  I tried to explain it in this post about 'Redundancy'.

 

Got the pictures off my phone from the past few days.  A cicada I saw at the end of my mail route yesterday.  I've heard a lot of them - but hadn't been able to catch one up close till then.  When I opened the box because I did have a letter for them - the cicada just plopped down on the ground.  Sorry dude... I can't help with that.

Lyffan (above) said she didn't have any part in spilling coffee on that shelf below, which just doesn't wash clean well anymore, and I tend to put shoes on it, besides cats, and soforth.  This is another example of why are you doing that now?  Because I think of doing it a lot - (cleaning, painting) but I just don't have the energy for a lot of it always, and sometimes I can break it down into a small task that can be done right now - and if I can get myself to do it right now - it takes a chunk off the bigger task.  

So, this picture pushed me to get out the white gloss paint and put a new coat on the shelf -  after it dried from cleaning and wasn't really looking that clean even after scrubbing.  It is just a particleboard garage shelf anyway - it started out that way, and I haven't painted it in a long time.  If I can just keep cat paws off it while it dries.  I scrub the desk down every couple of days, too - but it always seems to have a bit of coffee on it even when I use coasters.  Cats don't fit on coasters, apparently.

 

better, cleaner... for the moment

'make it better' doesn't have to be a huge thing every time.  But it does require that extra push to get over the hump and all the 'buts' (but a cat might walk on it again while it's wet!) and just do it.

Not a Quiche - maybe Strata? recipe at Neurodivergent cooking

That applied for this 'quiche' that was actually perhaps Strata ( a greek egg casserole dish, but usually containing old bread, eggs, and vegetables).  I knew it wasn't an actual quiche, spent time looking that up.. and then realized that I didn't even actually know how long it was going to take or what other people would use for ingredients.  But hey - I know what I'm doing.  But what I'm doing is usually not what others are doing.  What I'm doing falls in between the gaps of what other people do ALL THE TIME... but I still seem to get things done and sometimes I get a lot more done than others, except all over the board and it looks 'painful' to others.  That is why I am making that website - because I feel like what I do now, vs. what I did twenty years ago, works better for me.  I do things at odd times, in odd ways - but it is still good.  In fact, it's great - because I do it, instead of waffling or being stuck in 'but it isn't the proper way'.  I find benefit in that, and someone else might, too.  And it is delicious, if you like eggs and green things.  *ha*

 

Maybe someone else who doesn't have cream or a crust for their quiche, or needs to use brown rice flour instead of regular flour, will find it, and like it.  Maybe it will give them an idea to make something of their own that becomes part of their repertoire of recipes.  

 

for posterity - the boildown

Not a Quiche, maybe Strata : Recipe

six eggs, about 3/4 cup of whole milk? (that's a guess - look at the recipe, I took pictures), assorted green things from my garden, well washed and chopped fine (arugula, parsley, lemon basil, chocolate basil, a green onion, a shishito pepper), stirred together, then added about 1 cup (little less) of brown rice flour, salt, less than one teaspoon of baking powder, all mixed up, bits of hard white cheddar cheese cut up fine and strewn on top - bake at 350 degrees, took about a half hour in a ceramic baking dish.

Languages : I've done French, Chinese, Japanese and Russian the past few days.  I read a children's book in Spanish that used grammar I am still learning about past tense and another one that was in Cyrillic and I'm not sure entirely if it was Czech or Russian because I only got a few words here and there - but it was still practice.  I read another children's book in Japanese, and only got a few things here and there, but was really happy for what I understood before I looked things up.  There was a box at the post office yesterday that I recognized the kanji for 'white' and the kanji for 'wood' in the checked boxes on the side of someone's dresser they had ordered.  That was a 'I bet no one else gets that, or cares, but I smiled anyway because a year ago that would have been garble to me and now, it's words!'

Neurodivergent Cooking (at Patreon, link)

I started another thing today - and well, because I'm ADHD I start a lot of things but I'm not always very consistent.  BUT - this is about ADHD, and not being consistent, but learning skills and tips and going forward anyway, to make good healthy food, and to make it everyday.

Neurodivergent Cooking : Rhelynn at Patreon

I will be collecting certain articles and recipes, with lots of pictures and tips for making it 'click', to this site.  This does not aim to be America's Test Kitchen or Martha Stewart - but closer to the: oh right, I'm the buyer, cook and the cleanup crew, and I've got to keep this up, sort of thing. 

I aim to tackle 

    the 'Where Ingredients go to Die' problem, 

    the Make Ahead, I barely have time to Exist problem, 

    Oh Look, a Squirrel issue (not solve, but manage)

    Multitasking is our Friend and Superpower

    and the I'd Rather be Sleeping type issues... 

because really, being neurodivergent or low-energy of any kind brings with it certain issues most other people don't even think about.

 

1.) We love to experiment, but hate to follow instructions

    --wait, so you're going to give instructions for people who don't like instructions?  They're more like guidelines, really.  And most times you don't even need them.. but when you're in a slump or doing the same bad habits (frozen pizza I'm looking at you) it can be nice to have some 'look over there' inspiration.  

    -- we tend to skip over or avoid a lot of things, and miss key information

    -- we're not good at keeping our recipes or even looking them up again

           -- and keep a notebook isn't going to help, where's my notebook?

            -- out of sight often means out of mind, keep things visible! 

            -- I haven't even put hands on that in weeks, where is it?

            -- Ew, I found it.  How long was that in the cupboard? 

    -- be your own best friend - good habits and good results make good memories

            -- making something well means we're more likely to keep it up 

            -- make something often, with variations

           -- learn to grow into your tastes and skills

           -- learn to reflect and say : HEY, that was a good idea 

ALSO : mental exercises are just as important as physical ones for making routines.  Take time in the moment to reflect.  Remind yourself : I'm learning this.   Or:  I've done this before.  I'm doing this.  This is getting done.  And : I've done this, that needed to be done.   It's much more important than you might think.

         

2.) We get excited about things, buy gadgets and ingredients, and then when it comes to the actual doing, wander off and/or eat junk food

We'd mostly rather be eating real food, but Time is a fractured multiverse of other things we'd rather be doing.  Sometimes we forget to eat at all!  Or we inhale the potato chips and leave the fruit we bought on the counter.  Do I really need to eat?  Can I put it off?  Where did the last four hours go? 

    -- I think recipes need to be a little better engineered to 

    ----- contain relatable and sustainable ingredients and substitutes

    ---- understand that purchasing the food is also an important step

    ---- encourage good sustainable habits for prep and cleanup

    ---- understand that we want to start and finish in a reasonable time

    --- have some things we can make ahead when we do have time, but otherwise would fall into the 'I have nothing useful to do' trap and scroll, watch tv or bounce off the walls.   

    --- bring a book, computer app or project with you if you absolutely must bounce, bounce usefully, and in clear view of what you are 'actually doing'  Out of Sight out of Mind is a thing.  Keep things visible.

    ---- use a stable, easy to keep pantry instead of 'Where do I even get that?'

    ---- learn a basic set of skills that we don't have to look up every single time

    ---- adapt, use things multiple ways, learn to size recipes for your needs

    ----- not have so much of the 'wait 10 minutes' and 'in a separate bowl...'

    ---- but also understand how multitasking is our superpower

    ----- not have three paragraphs of history that distract from actually cooking

 

 

Buy the Food

Prep the Food

 

Know what you have (and where it is)

Know what is possible with it

Understand the basic qualities of ingredients

Know the basic skills about how to do it

Actually form good habits to use it

 

Chop, Cook, Eat, Clean

Repeat

 

Pat yourself on the back you made food

Learn more when you're excited

Have goto easy but healthy recipes for when you're tired

 

 Learn to use time when you have it

to help out when you don't

 

and think ahead - be your own best friend

know and observe your own habits

connect your past self and your future self 

to adapt to how things work for you

 

Encouragements: 

I Made That!  That was good.  

I should make that again.

I bought that and USED it.  

That had so many good ingredients in it.

I bought that from the local farmer and it was tasty. 

I will buy this food over the other because there are four ways I can use it.

Yes, talk to yourself, you're listening:

That was easy.

That was easier than last time.

I learned how to make that easier for me. 

I'm reminding myself right now how much easier this is now.

Next time : I will think, hey, let's do that, it was easy! 

Use the Now while you have it

I have five minutes while the coffee runs - that is enough to make a salad.

I have twenty minutes while the washing machine runs, that is enough to make rice.

I can make these two recipes in tandem during the same time and enjoy a really good dinner.

 

ADHD hacks:

I will buy that ingredient when I'm off work because:

 I left a bungee cord across my steering wheel

I can set that to simmering while I'm in the shower and remember it:

because I left my shoes right there 

I'm awake at four o'clock in the morning :

Why don't I prep the rice for fried rice tomorrow? 

 

PURCHASING takes time and effort, too, not to mention $. 

This is me investing time and the three dollars in the me that wants this later.

 

I'm standing at the grocery store - this has taken so LONG

I finally got all the things on this LIST

I want to just go HOME... let's skip the 'X',....

but if I buy the lettuce now,

I'll have it for that five minute salad.

I liked that five minute salad, and so did (other person).

So I'm taking two minutes now to go get the lettuce. 

and Future Me will thank this past me for doing this

by using the lettuce that this me is taking the time to buy.

(the road goes both ways)

 

I have some time and energy : what can I do to help Future Me?

I'm so glad I did that yesterday when I had time.

I'm so glad I did that while I had the energy.

I'm glad I did that between switching the laundry.

I'm so glad I've been growing that in the garden / on the porch.

I took all this time to grow and care for this - now I'm using it.

I remembered that without having to look it up!

I know this doesn't take as long as it feels like sometimes

Having to look everything up every time actually took more time than cooking it!

I cooked and cleaned up and it's all ready again for tomorrow. 

I didn't have to look all over for that pot, or it's lid before I started.

I'm not hung up on using that specific thing because I know lots of ways to do this.

Cooking is a 'chore' but you can work to dread it less.

I can look forward to making that dish tonight,

because I know all the things are there

Isn't it nice everything is all ready to go?

engres cau'r ça va

/philosophy post/ I find myself saying this little mantra to myself, and others, even without knowing the true provenance of it, when I'm just trying to get over the hump between now and 'a little ways from now'... was talking with Mark about that, I've gotten so much better on the postal route with the 'encapsulation of useful time'... I'm not wasting time, I'm getting paid and doing a necessary job, but still, it often feels like I'm just pouring the time into a bottle, corking it, and setting it on a shelf to look at but nothing really 'happened' during that time.  I delivered mail, another day, and I'm tired again.  

engres cau'r ça va 

It's hard enough, but it's okay.  / We've closed the hard thing up, and it's okay.  

après ci ca va

after this, it's really okay

aux troussé / à ses trousses 

It's on my heels, I'm being chased by it

Assez quoi! / Quoi?  / A ne se très se quoi / je ne sais quoi

Enough already / What is it? / It doesn't matter a bit / I don't know what it is

 

Some of that feeling, I've come to realize, isn't all anxiety, some of it is my ADHD.  And I'm using my own brain against myself (in a way) to keep myself on the task at hand, and since that is a huge effort, it feels like anxiety, but it IS getting the job done.  And I'm getting better at it.  But the 'extra tired' also comes with that territory, of doing the task and also doing the task of keeping myself on the task.

In the past, when I first started doing mail, there was so much more to worry about overall that I would actually feel mini anxiety panic attacks - because there was so much to worry about, and I was here pouring time into this task and trying to make it make everything else okay, eventually.. finances, life, goals, ultimate understanding etc etc.. I let my brain spread out too thin and didn't keep it on task - and then when I was finished with the route I STILL had all the regular worry waiting at the end of the 'string' of time.  I would spread it all out all day long like a huge four dimensional matrix in my head and look at all of the red flashing lights and then turn myself into a ball of stress.

It took a long time to hold my feelings in my hand, separate them down into their elements and look at them and not feel that domino-effect cascade of panic with it - and not have that panic come and take me over at the end of the day or whenever something else went wrong later.  That's a lot like the kids who sit still all day and then have a meltdown at the end... but all this time it was just masquerading as something else in me.  But also, the answer to it was in me - I just had to look at it for what it was telling me, so I knew what I needed to respond with.

So sometimes I have to take myself by the lapels (figuratively), and go through the paces:  I am one creature, at one sequential time, that this sequence has a beginning, and an end, and is moving at a set pace that I cannot change much.  The only thing that will make this feeling better is to continue along this time-string doing this task until it is done. (small breaks can help sometimes, but that's also a bad habit - it's like stopping while climbing a rope, you're still hanging there, and getting through to where you can put your feet down is so much better)  So, I'm doing this, and will continue to do this until it is done.   Because it is a task that does need to be done, and I'm the one here to do it.  And then, later, we will think about the other million things.   THEN I can let it overwhelm my timestream and matrices like a Rubik's Cube and work like an overactive pinball machine trying to make sense of this Universe.  But not while we're doing this NOW... and yes, somehow, that still feels a lot like anxiety, but a different color.  And treating it just as 'I have anxiety and worries' never helped before, like having this reminder about time does when I know it is this.

 

an attempt at what it feels like, to be stuck doing the one thing, but your brain continues to bounce while you try to hold it to the one orange line that is the shortest distance between the two points, it is naturally wanting to be a quantum particle anywhere at all within the triangle 

languages : I did mostly French, Japanese and Russian today with just a touch of Finnish to see if I still remembered the words.  I also did the 'minimum' on both profiles (about 50 xp) and we'll see how much time I have tomorrow.

the swirling bits

 So I'm downstairs, heating up coffee and 'swirling' - and by this, I mean my brain is constantly washing and swirling over multiple regions of thoughts again and again and it's a little like sitting with a big cup of coffee swirling it around in your cup to make sure you aren't drinking the grounds??  Exit now if you don't want to see my representation of just a slice of what goes on in between these ears..

I'm also doing while I'm swirling, and it is just the most classic form of ADHD housekeeping and planning and some inside-out form of reminisce--now--plan middle-out thinking you could ever imagine.  It gets things done, but I've had others (Mark included) explain observing such is 'painful' and 'I have no idea what you're doing at any moment there, it seems to be five things at once, always.  And I cook the same way.)  And- it is, five things at once.  And it adds up, as long as I keep at it and don't sit.  I'm : washing rugs, sweeping floors, wiping counters, staring at the window (involves thinking about moths that have often been there), thinking about sewing, upset about the sewing machine, optimistic about the sewing machine (cycle), thinking about weaving, thinking about baking, planning on cooking rice, thinking about a sketchbook from twenty years ago that is in the left hand pull-out shelf of my desk and paging through it mentally while I'm washing a sink, reminding myself I have three pages left in my current little sketchbook, sketching the last few things I saw on Pinterest in my head in a mental sketchbook with pencils that I have upstairs, layering schedules around me like rings of Venn diagrams in space and guessing what will happen later today, reminding myself about chickens when first light hits (did I mention it is 3:30 am?).. *drink coffee*

 

I'm reminding myself to sort laundry (which is upstairs), brain-sorting the laundry that SHOULD be in that load and where it has landed and where it goes (before ever doing it in real life), doing a review of Welsh on my computer, bouncing back up from that thinking about that crochet project in the bag I did one row on yesterday, yarn for that, thinking about the yarn on my desk (how it got there, where it's going, how necessary it is to be there right now, the effort it takes to move it, how soon it will get back there again), the project I started and tore back out yesterday, my library book (it's due date, the depressing about not finishing it vs. the depressing it felt reading it, it has such a cheerful looking cover, bah, the trip to the library, Esme saying she was fine with her own book for now and didn't need to go again soon), thinking about the gas level in the truck after yesterday's running around and fuel efficiency logarithmic models vs exponential growth which is the best 'asymptote' representation and if that is even a word, yes it is, why is it in my head right now though, and return to thinking about the art supplies to be sorted, (mentally emptying the entire desk piece by piece and wondering if it is worth the effort), 

 

thinking about when I was looking for that ring yesterday (blue box, 2 inches, tucked into drawer but not the original drawer vs. constellation of four other rings that are similar and where they are), that when I was looking I thought I should be throwing out and going through that other stuff I found, sweeping the entry way, throwing out a frog, exchanging cats, bringing the goat in for breakfast, knowing I should clean the cat counter but being frowned at by large cat currently eating there knowing what I'm thinking, thinking about eggs - quantity, storage, value, where to use them, thinking about rice, thinking about leaves outside (maple, veins, soft) (and it's still dark out there, so why? because when I'm sweeping I so often look up and see them there and it is pleasurable to see them, the thoughts are intertwined), thinking more about laundry, wondering where that other red dishcloth is now that I've replaced it and did the laundry, well not all the laundry, will start that after this load and it's probably in that bag, thinking about the laundry bag upstairs and exactly which items are in it 

 

drinking more coffee, thinking about making coffee, thinking more about baking, thinking about all the array of ingredients and where they are and how much there is of them and what they are used for, return to thinking about rice and all the ways I used last week's and that Mark has this other kind he makes for himself which the kitchen dinosaur toy is currently camped out on the lid of, telling myself I should sweep that back hallway, talking to the cat and the dog about the rugs, being glad I made the rugs, saying I should make another one - oh right, it's in that bag but I haven't committed to it being a rug yet, 

And now it's five a.m, but the laundry is started now and hopefully won't wake anybody up when it spins down, and the dogs and cats and goat are happier - and the roosters are crowing, but they'll be happier when I go feed them and change their water when it's light.  Then I can check on the pepper I planted yesterday and all of the other things, and maybe push myself to do one or two other little things like move the French book on my desk back to the shelf and so forth...

5:30 Put the French book away, and ten other things - found the ring, it still fits, I still don't like how it feels against my vein in my hand, there are twenty other little things in that box, beads, a pair of dice smaller than a dime, old earrings, a sachet pouch of Allspice and Star Anise flowers, put it back where I had kept it.  Onward.  Chickens want food.

3:30 pm  : Too much adventure, episode 99

Took Esme to town earlier this afternoon, got greenhouse potting soil and some groceries Grandma had wanted ( and two we had forgotten ) and came back home - forgot to give Grandma the groceries at her drive before we went to our house, and so started the truck back up at our house just minutes after parking it, and drove up to give her those - and just as we would have turned into her driveway the car went completely dead - flat.  We had stopped at a lot of places in town, much more than usual, but still I wasn't expecting this problem in the summer at all (it has the problem in the winter if you let it sit too long between starts).   I joked 'I was thinking too hard right there', and I was thinking too hard at exactly that moment because she was riding in the back up the driveway and I was thinking at that exact moment that I was in charge of her safety when I turned into Grandma's yard and to slow down and take it very easy and -- flat, no lights on, no sound, no movement, just like the car turned into a brick. (ask me about how I used to make the lights flicker at Lowes and the electrical team would tell me I was thinking too hard, they even tested it a bit, asking me what was in boxes in topstock and how many of something was up there without looking etc).. 

 

but anyway, Esme got lessons in what a car battery voltage should be, what ours was (10.6 volts, and 11.7 after beginning charging, and 12.7 more than an hour later before we gave up and came back down to our house to to rest again) and then she got more lessons in how to put the charger on it and continue to monitor progress.. but it took Mark walking up with me the third time to push the truck out of the middle of our gravel road and into the ditch to get it to start up again.  I pushed it, and he steered.  It didn't start for him before I pushed it and Mark wasn't sure if it was possible that could have kicked it over.  I've seen it in old movies, but who knows?  

Frankly, I was very reluctant to reverse it into the ditch by myself or even with Esme there because I am responsible for her safety and a car running backwards in neutral even with good brakes still makes me tense)   It started and stayed started so we brought it home, and are going to mess with it a bit more later tonight and tomorrow to see if it has deeper issues like needing a new alternator.  I had been texting the mechanic a couple of times during this and he told us to check what the voltage was running and it should be 13 to 14 volts running, if it isn't - then he needs to know so he can order the part.

After that many times walking up there I'm 1.) really glad that it wasn't further down one of the roads around here where there isn't anyone for miles.  2.) grateful we were able to get the charger extension cords to reach that far  and 3.) really tired after being up so early in the morning as well and going to do things

8:00  It is so tempting to go to sleep now, but that means I would be back up at 2 or 3 am so I'm holding out...