Wrong Place

I use craft carts to store my supplies. There's the stamp cart with all my inks, stamps, cleaning supplies, and acrylic blocks.

I have a sticker cart which I've been trying to reorganize for what seems like forever. My original tactic of stuffing stickers into whichever book they fit in wasn't conducive to actually finding the stickers I wanted to use.

I also have two other carts. The carts are wheeled out as I need them, otherwise they're tucked into the craft room and out of the way.

I do have one cart that's out all the time. It has a lid on top of the highest shelf and I store my planners there as well as other books I grab every day or at least nearly every day. At the moment, while I work on a washi tape organization project, a second cart is beside it.

And this is where the confusion set in. 

The middle shelf of my primary cart is overloaded with small cards and A6 folders storing my icon stickers. They're tipping over and it's very annoying. So I went looking for a clear storage solution. (With ADHD, it's out of sight, out of mind.) I finally found something that might work. The length and width were perfect. It was a little taller than I wanted, but it was worth a try and I didn't have to buy a package of ten. I could buy one. Perfect.

Then I made a small mistake. Instead of taking overnight delivery, I said, sure, deliver it with my Subscribe and Save order. I don't need it right away.

And then the storage box arrived and it was high quality. It fit on my cart perfectly. I loaded up the items on the top shelf of the washi tape cart into it. Absolutely perfect. Well, almost. They sides were a little high, but I decided I could live with that.

Did you see what I did there?

I bought the box to handle the problem on the second shelf of the everyday cart. I used the box for the top shelf of the washi tape cart.

That's right, in the span of four days, I forgot what I ordered that storage bin for and promptly used it for the wrong thing. I realized that when I tried to get a marker out of the middle shelf of the everyday cart and had to fight my way through the paper that's leaning over.

Sometimes my brain can be frustrating. I looked at the storage bin filled with items on another cart and it worked so well that instead of emptying it out, I ordered another bin. This time I chose overnight delivery since it was free. 

Adventures With Rice

To say I hate cooking is to understate it. Loathe doesn't quite touch the exact amount I hate to cook.

Of course, I have to do it whether I like it or not.

One of my biggest challenges is rice. Even using a timer, I have charred rice to the bottom of the pot. It reached the point where I just stopped making rice.

Then someone told me about rice cookers.

I was intrigued. It knows when to shut itself off and go to warm mode. No more ADHD time blindness making me soak pots of rice in water until I can unstick from the bottom.

So I bought a rice cooker and then didn't make rice because I was concerned I'd mess up this, too.

But on Monday? I took the plunge. I read the instructions. I watched a couple of videos about the rice cooker. I boldly proceeded to make rice!

Well, maybe the right phrase is I timidly proceeded to make rice.

I was confused at first. Did I leave the rice in the basket or did I put it in the bottom pot thing. (FYI, it's the bottom pot thing.) Once I figured out where to put the rice, it was easy. Press on, press whole grain because it's brown rice, and let the cooker do its thing.

An hour later, I had perfect rice.

Although I think I maybe should have added salt to the water? Not that it matters. I made it to go with a stew, so it will have stuff on top of it.

The only thing I didn't like about the rice cooker was that it didn't beep to tell it me was done. It had been warming for 15 minutes before I went to check on it. Since the instructions said to let it sit for another 10 to 15 minutes if you prefer softer rice, I would have let it wait anyway, but it would have been nice to know when the 15 minutes began.

Other than that, I'm excited! I can make rice now whenever I want without worrying about adhering it to the pan. Rice cooker for the win! 

My ADHD: The Magic

If you read Tuesday's post, I talked about having a sobering look at how my ADHD brain is different from a neurotypical person's brain. And that while I wasn't depressed, it was disheartening.

This post is part two.

Sunday I was writing. Not fast, I'm a slow writer because I think too much while I write. I basically put the ADHD thing out of my brain, but I wasn't chipper or excited about how finding out just how different I am. That planner video was an eye-opener for me, and it made me do a re-evaluation of myself.

I was working on a side project. This was something I started when I wasn't able to write and just needed something to get the words flowing again. It ended up being more than that for me. I wrote one sentence for my heroine in her Point Of View and magic happened.

In less than fifteen seconds, I had the complete setup for a trilogy where the book I was writing was book 1. I tied all three books together and gave them a series title. I had the heroes and heroines of the other books. I had the basics of how they meet and what the issues were.

In less than fifteen seconds.

If I had to describe it, it was like a pinball machine where the ball keeps hitting bumpers, illuminating them until the entire machine is lit up.

I was excited! I had three heroes, three heroines, I had secondary characters, I had how the three books connected together, I had a series name, I had a series logo. I had the books connected. I had nothing but the first book when I started writing it. It wasn't even supposed to be a book when I began, it was supposed to be a novella.

Apparently one of the good things about ADHD is being able to make connections very quickly. I did. It was like the pinball going ping, ping, ping and boom. Trilogy.

I don't know how it works for neurotypical writers. Maybe they have this happen to them, too. I have no way of knowing since I've never had a different brain.

But if what I read was correct, and if I was able to put an entire three-book series together in less than fifteen seconds because of ADHD, well, I'll keep my brain, thank you very much. The struggles I deal with on a daily basis, the ones that make a daily planner mandatory, not optional, are worth it for the magic I experienced that Sunday. I was flying, and after that initial burst, more and more ideas kept flowing.

Yes, I do have to use a "garbage eve" sticker every week to remember to put out the trash, but I also had magic happen. Worth it.

My ADHD: The Bad

I'm open about being diagnosed with ADHD in 2024. As an adult, which means I spent my entire life thinking my brain worked like everyone else's and I just sucked at being an adult.

Because I thought I was normal, I always assumed my planner obsession and neurotypical people who were obsessed with planners shared a common goal.

Organizing our lives so that things don't fall through the cracks.

Even after learning I had ADHD, I never revisited this assumption that we were all interested in the same end goal.

The planner channels I watched on YouTube were plan with me videos or plotting out which planners to buy or why they'd decided to switch to another planner part way through the year. But I'd never seen anything that made me question my basic assumption that my interest in planners wasn't different from everyone else's.

And then YouTube's algorithm served up a woman who went through every planner available at a small, boutique planner company and she walked through why she wouldn't buy this planner or that planner. My mouth literally dropped wide open.

The one comment that absolutely floored me was she referred to daily planner pages as journaling pages and said she didn't want her journal in her planner.

Daily pages to her are  journaling pages only.

I was stunned. Daily pages are vital to me actually getting anything done. Without my list of things to do every day, I'd forget those things existed. There are some items that get listed on every single day of the week and I still write them down because I will forget them if they're not there.

I've since been told that neurotypical people don't require lists the way I do. That they just remember.

They just remember.

This was on a Friday evening and I spent a lot of time thinking about what this woman was saying. She wasn't trying to be mean, she was just walking through why she didn't like the planners and the things she was calling out were things I find vital.

I'll be honest, this was the first time that I had a wake up call--a real wake up call--about how neurotypical brains work as opposed to how mine works.

Then I got curious. How many people have ADHD? According to what I found, about 5% have been diagnosed, but maybe up to 12% of the population total have ADHD.

Another fact that made me think. I guess I always assumed it was higher than that. Like maybe 25%, but I was wrong. Only maybe 12% with those who haven't been diagnosed factored in.

I wasn't depressed about it, but it was sobering to learn how different my brain is. Even things I do every day, like meditating, are tasks I can't hold in my mind. If I don't write it down, I won't remember to do it. And people who aren't like me just remember.

And so I went into Sunday, wondering why I had to have ADHD. Why couldn't I just remember to do things without using my daily pages, split into four categories, each with tasks? Why is it out of sight, out of mind for me? Why do I have to carry my planner around with me on busy days because I feel frazzled when I have too much to do and I can't see my daily page?

Come back on Thursday for part 2. 

On the Mat

Back in August, I had my house power washed. And part of having this done meant moving things off the porch and patio. Including the mats.

My patio mat was thin and light and was constantly being blown around. It also had cracks on the rubber backing, so I threw that away.

The front porch had a different issue. The welcome mat was slats of wood. I discovered two things when I lifted it. 1) this thing was heavy and 2) the slats allowed all kinds of debris in between it and I didn't like that.

Thus began the search for new doormats for both the front and the back doors.

I could get by without one on the patio because that thin one was always underneath the patio table anyway, but I wanted something to wipe my shoes off on before coming into the house.

I definitely wanted a new front mat.

It took a little research, but I decided on coir mats. They looked nice, seemed as if they'd be good to wipe off shoes on before going inside, and the brown color would complement the house. There was one note that I found about coir mats. Don't get them wet. ETA: I have since discovered that they are made to dry out after rain, but that they shouldn't be in standing puddles. I stand corrected.

Not a problem, I thought. I have a covered patio. I have a covered porch. It should be fine.

I found two mats I liked ordered them, and when they arrived, I immediately put them out. This was about 10:30 in the morning.

I took pictures. I went grocery shopping. I went about my day.

And then late afternoon came. I heard a rumble of thunder. It's not going to rain, is it? I looked at the radar on the app and a little pop up storm was headed my way. How bad could it be?

Let's try 40 mph wind, rain being blown hard into the house, and gusts driving the rain even harder. It lasted a while, too.

And I went to check on my mats. The ones that aren't supposed to get wet.

The one on the back patio was caught by the wind and crumpled up underneath the patio table like the thin, lightweight mat I had previously. It was also wet because the storm had blown the rain all the way to the back door.

I put my mat back into place and went to check on the one at the front door, fearful it had blown away.

It was there, right where I put it, but the strong winds drove the rain all the way to my front door and this mat was wet, too.

My brand new, didn't-even-have-them-twelve-hours mats, were both drenched by rain.

Here's my mats after I first put them out. The difference in lighting is because the back patio had more sun on it than the front porch. At least I have a picture of them before the storm came.