New Digs

Well I have finally faced up to my fear of exposure and started a blog that isn't anonymous. You can now find me at leahelaine.net. Hope you'll join me there!

Who Let That Child In My House?

As I sit down to write something for what feels like the 15th time in the last few weeks, one more thing (probably) destined to never be published*, Cha-Cha starts yelling at me from downstairs. Again. And if I weren't already in a crappola mood I'd be laughing because it's such a great example of the quagmire I currently find myself attempting to wade through.

It's back. That deep restlessness that creeps up on me randomly. Where 'randomly' means 'like clockwork'. And where 'creeps up' actually means 'finally got louder than everything else making all that noise in my head'.

Getting my ADHD diagnosis about 2 years ago was a huge game changer for me. I finally started to feel like a grown up. I finally understood why the simplest tasks that everyone else seemed to manage just fine were so impossible for me (even though I was often told I was too smart for my own good, which I assumed meant I was ahead of the game). I finally had the necessary lens to bring into focus my battle with depression. Most importantly, it helped me make sense of a life that felt like it had no center keeping it together.

It was all rainbows! And unicorns! And glitter! And dozens of really bad metaphors for what it feels like to be inside my crazy little brain!

Where 'rainbows and unicorns and glitter' means 'life pretty much went on as usuall'. And all the bad metaphors... well, actually those did happen, and if you were one of the people forced to listen to me ramble on about them - I am so sorry.

It turns out having a diagnosis, and even medicating, didn't magically make my troubles disappear (documented here, here, and here) - who could have guessed?! Of course I realized it wouldn't be that easy - no really, I knew it would be work. I just didn't realize it wouldn't be such hard work. So, you know, pity party at my house...

I sometimes feel like I only have 2 options: 1. ADHD isn't real and your life is a mess because you're just a fuck-up, and 2. ADHD is real and super cool and if you can't make the most of your difference, you're just a fuck up.

Surprisingly neither of these is terribly helpful. But they are both really depressing.

I did manage to find a fantastic site late last night while somewhat hopelessly skimming through websites looking for something that might offer me a bit of relief from the giant overwhelm (aka, every day life). Jeff Siegel at Jeff's A.D.D. Mind has the great tag line, "If ADD is a gift...can I return it for something else?" Which is totally how I'm feeling at the moment.

I plan on spending all that time-when-I-really-should-be-doing-something-else, reading through his entire website. So you can expect me to discuss what he's got going on over there in, say, a year or two?

It just occurred to me that I started this post talking about my youngest son. I guess it won't surprise you that despite how quickly you've read through this, that was a really long time ago for me.

I intended to make the point (wait - am I allowed to do that or should I just keep going with the random thing?) that things have been especially hard for me lately because on top of my own brain jumping around like a crazed monkey on crack, my attention is constantly being jerked around by outside influences. Like the 4 year old who apparently lives in this house too and insists on calling me mommy. 

*Oh, oh, oh! I'm publishing!

PS After writing my first draft of this post, I went back to Jeff's A.D.D. Mind for some more fortification and found this post, describing, much more eloquently than I managed, how I'm feeling.

Linkety Link Link Love

Yeah, yeah, I know. Way too long away and you're bored with reading about how sorry I am blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda. So just to get myself back in the swing of things, here's just a taste of some of the things I've found on the Internet lately...

1. Flank Biting and the Hate Read at helenjane got me thinking about self-harm. I never realized animals did this. Or rather I knew that some animals hurt themselves in certain situations but never thought about it being the same thing as say, cutting. Duh.
2. Pinterest, Tumblr, and the Trouble With 'Curation' by Carina Chocano over at the NY Times (found via Gala Darling) got me all worked up and pissed off at the world for a few days. It's all about how putting together a coherent or inspirational visual collection is something better left to the 'real' artists and professionals. We plebeians are just creating an unrequitable* aching for something we'll never get. Note to all those who agree with Ms. Chocano: that yearning for something we can't quite define, that you claim is creating despair - its name is 'the human condition'. For examples please see the entire history of human civilization.
3. Completely fell in love with the tag-line at the top of Tamarisk Saunders-Davies website (found via Hannah's Harvest). "When Life Hands You Lemons, Go Back And Ask For The Tequila & Salt," might be my new motto! At least until I start taking swigs out of the bottle, and Monkey Man says it's time to go home...
4. Justine Musk once again finds a way through the chatter in my mind to the soft, painful stuff I waste so much time trying to avoid, in her article, the most badass thing you can do as a creative. Oh, I see much work to be done here before I can find the hope at the bottom of my own Pandora's box.
5. I am a night owl in a house full of early risers so Writing In the Dark by Kathryn Schulz for New York Magazine was a bit like peeking into my own dark(ness) desires. I may have to stay up until the wee hours soon. But don't worry, I won't be going running.

*not a word but totally should be

What Do You Suck At? Burning Question Series

Because that's not in any way a loaded question for someone with severe depressive tendencies and self-talk so negative it could make a demon weep...

Yes, it's true, my first instinct is to answer with -

EVERYTHING

Yes, I know that's not true.

Mostly.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Danielle LaPorte's assertion that accepting our weaknesses allows us to move more fully into our strengths. This has echoed through some of my other recent reading about living with ADHD and in Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose.

Serendipity, you say? What's that word mean again?
So What Do I Suck At?

Routines and schedules. Which totally explains why the school year can be physically draining for me even without the kids around. Anything that requires me to regularly pay attention to a clock sucks out my life force.

Doing what I'm told to do even when (or especially when?) I'm telling myself what to do. I really think my life would be easier if there weren't so many personalities inside my head vying for control.

Follow through. This is something I've talked about before. More than once.

I'm also terrible at not getting lost, keeping track of details, cleaning, being in large groups, being quiet, and doing pretty much anything if I don't get plenty of down time (or sleep).

Now if I can learn to accept these things, be OK with these things, maybe I can find the energy and courage to focus on developing the things I'm really quite good at.

Learning Optimism Skillz

One of my favorite sites, Brain Pickings, recently posted a review of the self-help classic, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of Positive Psychology (the review is right here). I read Dr. Seligman's Authentic Happiness years ago - I even registered at Seligman's University of Pennsylvania website where you can get access to a ton of awesome (and helpful) questionnaires. But I may need to add this book to my (ever growing) list.

I was especially attracted to the excerpt where Seligman outlines the differences between a Pleasant Life, an Engaged Life, and a Meaningful Life. All I wanted for the longest time was to have a Pleasant Life. Because, you know, like, depression sucks?

But I just realized I've managed to get that Pleasant Life, and I didn't even notice when it happened. Which is all kinds of fan-tab-u-lous. No complacency though, this is a war of creeping changes that can be easy to overlook until they've taken over. Not that I know that from experience.

Much.

In fact, things may even be better than that. I suspect I am already swimming in the shallow end of an Engaged Life.

Which is a terrible metaphor given that I am not a very good swimmer.

And I'd actually like to get to the Meaningful Life bit.

The Quanta of Letting Go

I was visited again recently with dreams of the dead. Once a rare thing, it's becoming more common for me. A result of getting older and facing my own mortality perhaps. Or maybe just a result of getting older and knowing more people who are dead, my own small army of ghost friends and family.

I always imagined Letting Go was one big moment when you were finally done with 'it' (whatever 'it' might be). You let go of the plate, the glass, the vase, and it falls to the floor to shatter. You let go of the horse's reins, and the horse gets to decide what to do, where to go. You let go of a love, a relationship, and it's still hovering about like it needs something else from you, like it hasn't already taken all that you have.

You Let Go, and you Let Go, you and Let Go in a never ending series of small movements toward the future, forever drifting outward but still somehow always within reach. Like Grief, it's never something that's complete, finished, over with. The intensity just fades into the background of the pressing needs of your current life.

Until it decides to punch you in the gut long after you thought it no longer had that kind of power.

Oof!

Some Link Love

Some of these are a little old by Internet standards (cuz I am constitutionally unable to be less than a week behind which is about a decade in Internet years), but that doesn't mean they aren't still totally awesome.

Creative badass, Justine Musk, shares Lessons from Chernobyl (Dear Justine, I think the people who thought you were crazy for wanting to take the trip are crazy - I've wanted to visit Chernobyl for years!).

I just discovered popperfont, which seems like a major oversight on my part. If you only read one thing on the site, make it An Introduction to the Scientific Method, by way of Chewbacca. Brilliant, funny science - just as it should be.

Check out How to Be an A-List Blogger: One Simple Step over at Unbridled Existence. Yes, even if you're not a blogger. It's a good reminder for everyone to make sure you know what success means for you.

Oops! I Did It Again...

Forgot that I was writing for this blog, that is. Not the first time.

Probably not the last.

In a neat little twist of Fate (oh, I claimed to be paying attention to those recently, didn't I?), I stumbled across the post Things I'm Afraid to Tell You, written last week by Ez at Creature Comforts. Her words touched such a sensitive nerve on the Internet, a veritable army of bloggers took up the theme and wrote their own confessionals in response (you should read through some of these when you have time - they're really good). And just when I was deciding what to write after my mini-hiatus...

I've been battling a strange little bout of depression. Strange in that it left me unable to write. Usually my depressive moods bring on a flood of (often terrible and always deeply self-pitying) words and an almost compulsive need to write. Because I forgot to take my meds on Wednesday, I woke up Thursday morning remembering four different and very complicated dreams along with a feverish need to write them all down. Putting pen to paper to record those visions was like castor oil for the soul. Because constipation jokes are awesome.

Things I'm Afraid to Tell You

When I first contemplated what I could possibly tell you that you didn't already know, it seemed I had nothing to share. I've told stories about my depression, forgetting my baby in the car, and strange growths on my girly parts. Frankly, I think I probably share things you'd rather not know.

I am comfortable sharing my embarrassments and failures. It's funny! It helps all of us embrace our own humanity! It effectively distracts the audience from seeing my deep insecurities about my own abilities!

Crap.

I am afraid to tell you about my desires and ambitions because I doubt my ability to reach any of the goals I want to set for myself. I learned a long time ago that failure doesn't hurt as much when you can pretend you never wanted to succeed in the first place.

You may remember I recently titled myself the Queen of Deep Resolve and Crappy Follow Through. In case you're curious, that project has stalled too. Of course.

Telling You What I Need To Hear

Stop being mean to yourself.

The Death of Spontaneity

I am not a keeper of schedules, nor do I follow many routines. I know, you're shocked.

This was not a problem with small children. Oh, my babies had schedules all right. Schedules they created. And schedules they changed. Randomly. With no warning. I rolled with it.

Where "rolled with it" was often synonymous with "sobbed in despair about yet another night with no sleep".

Whatever.

This parenting style has its advantages. Quite used to disruptions in their days, my boys adapt happily to traveling or sleeping in unfamiliar places. Or snacking on a granola bar when dinner is late because Mommy forgot to go grocery shopping. Again.

Whatever.

I fear my carefree, spontaneous days may be coming to an end.

Preschool, after school activities, and more challenging academics for Quake are threatening to upset my bouncy little apple cart. It is with severe trepidation that I approach such chilling things as chore charts.

Any tips for surviving this?

Fashion Friday - Anthropologie Edition

I love Anthropologie. True, none of their clothes fit me, but I can't afford them anyway!

But neither of those things has to interfere with using the Anthropologie aesthetic to inspire myself. Recently I found myself frustrated with the outfits I was creating - they felt a bit safe and stale. So I started giving myself challenges. The first one was to create outfits using lots of Anthropologie's pieces, especially in ways that expanded my use of color. I'll let you decide if I was successful...

 

In other fashion news (but not only fashion), I just discovered Gala Darling. How is it possible that I didn't know about her earlier? Now my breakin'-out-of-the-box outfits have got a whole new level of inspiration. Of course my other soul-sister-but-she-doesn't-know-it-in-a-totally-not-stalkerish-way Susannah Conway "introduced" us.

New Project 8,027

Because there are truly few things I like more than starting another project I will probably never finish!

While moving a bookcase a few weeks ago, I was once again confronted with a pile of books that I usually keep stacked separately from the others - my personal self-help/get creative/figure out what it all means shelf. Oh, the sweet sweet guilt.

I always buy these titles with the deepest resolve to do the work, make the change. But just like everywhere else in my life, I get distracted. I read a chapter or two, do the exercises, maybe even pick up a new habit. And while I'm practising this new habit for a few weeks, I manage to forget to keep reading. Oops!

I am the Queen of Deep Resolve and Crappy Follow Through.

Every time I've noticed these books in the last few years* I've told myself that one day - one day! - I'm going to work my way through all of them just for kicks. And possibly in the hope of reaching enlightenment. But mostly for kicks.

That one day is here.

I'm starting with Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose (something practical), Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets (something spiritual), and Liz Lamoreux's Inner Excavation (something more arty, plus I just got it for Christmas). Why are you looking at me like that? You mean you don't read 3 books at a time? 

I don't either. I'm actually reading 6 books right now. The other 3 don't have anything to do with my journey through the 7 levels of self-help though. Unless of course that bitch, Serendipity, decides to show up. As usual.

Only 18 more after these**!

It's OK, you can roll your eyes. I do it all the time...

*Yes, that's right, I said 'years'.

**These original 21 titles do not include the subset of writing books I've collected. I decided if I could get through the others, I might torture myself with those. One impossible mountain at a time, people!  

Remember When...Flipping Edition

This weekend Monkey Man left the TV on when he and boys left to go fishing. I didn't mind because Jack Hanna was coming on, and there were wombats involved. Wombats! Eeeee, the way the waddle on their short little legs! Wombats!

Then when I went upstairs to do my email/shower/start the laundry, I left it on too. Because I am a giant electricity hoarder. And when I came back downstairs there was an infomercial on about how to make money in the current real estate market, otherwise known as "The Best Way to Get Rich is Sell Other People Information on How They Might Get Rich."

It made me nostalgic for when everyone was all crazy about house 'flipping'. Oh, how I wish I could have been a part of that. Not because of the money, but because I love the idea of going into some bland house, replacing the flooring and the fixtures, putting on a coat of paint, and basically just making it look pretty and up-to-date.

I never felt like I could do much with my own house. We bought at the top of the market so any improvements felt, shall we say, "cost prohibitive". And now we're renting so it's sort of a non-issue. So I guess I'll just indulge in a little bit of remember when...

Things Other People Wrote

Feeling lazy today...OK, lazier...so I thought I'd throw out a few links to stuff that's been making me happy or thoughtful or just insanely jealous lately. I'll let you figure out which link goes with which feeling.

• The poem Why Creativity Was Invented by Samantha Reynolds
• This article about being joyful and depressed, all at the same time
• Found via a perennial favorite, How About Orange, the Color game (because I am obsessed with color) and the I Shot the Serif game (because I am a budding typography nerd apparently)
• The Bloggess - so funny I almost peed my pants (and not just because I'm 40) and now I'm angry because a) I'm only now discovering it, and b) I didn't write it
• Geeky Embroidery - 'nuff said

Serendipity is a Bitch

Serendipity. Synchronicity. Coincidence.

I'm sure the skeptics would mock me mercilessly for believing that the Universe sends us messages to help us along our way when we need it. Their insistence that these sorts of things are incredibly common is probably right. Usually we just go about our business without really noticing. Kind of like how you never seem to notice a certain kind of car on the road until you start driving one - suddenly it feels like that car is everywhere.

What matters is attention.

You may remember that I've had time management on the brain for a few months. Then approximately 3,418 items on my to-do list failed to get done this week causing me much frustration. A few days ago I started a rough draft blog post inspired by Kate Swoboda's What Time Management And Diets Have In Common post. Then last night I read a few chapters in Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose with all sorts of tidbits about how someone like me - the type of person with approximately 3.6 million interests* - can manage to get to all of them.**

And finally this morning I responded to all of that with a giant yawn.

Because in my relationship with the Universe, I am a teenager who is too cool to listen to her mom even when she knows her mom is right.

Fine. I'm listening. {insert giant eye roll here}
...

Nothing.

Because just like the annoying teacher who tells you to look up the word you asked him how to spell,*** the Universe likes to point you in the right direction and then watch you flop about trying to figure out the rest on your own. 

She can be such a bitch.

*Give or take an order of magnitude.

**Reading this book is part of a new quest I've started that I plan to tell you about in another post. Unless I forget.

***How can you look up how to spell word in a dictionary when you need to know how to spell a word to look it up in a dictionary? How?

Voodoo Doughnuts

Almost every list I've found of the things that must be done when in Portland, has included a visit to Voodoo Doughnuts. Not too surprising since they've been featured on a lot of national TV shows and in magazines from Food & Wine to Playboy. Which of course begs the question - what's so great about these doughnuts?

Maybe it's the urban legends that have built up around the no-longer-available-flavors-by-order-of-the-health-department, NyQuil glaze and vanilla Pepto crushed Tums. Maybe it's all the other funky (but not in the health-department-needs-to-get-involved way) flavors like the raised doughnuts covered in all your favorite cereals or the maple bar that comes complete with slices of bacon on top. Maybe it's the irreverent names like the Gay Bar (full of "luscious cream" no less) and the Maple Blazer Blunt, a perfect way to cure your munchies.

We've driven and walked by the original Voodoo location a few times, but there is always a line out the door. Seriously. And you know what one of my least favorite things to do is? Wait in a really long line with two children who can't stop whining about how they want doughnuts and when is it going to be our turn and why are you pretending you're not our mommy? Waaaaaaa! Seriously.

Then the magical oracle at our house - otherwise known as the Internet - informed me that there is another location! Well technically there are two other locations, but I'm not driving to Eugene for a doughnut. But I might go out of my way while driving through Eugene.

Early one Saturday morning after dropping Monkey Man off at the airport, I took the boys to Voodoo Doughnuts Too to see if we could get some of the doughnut magic without the line and the whining and the me pretending those two aren't my children. Of course getting there required me to drive in circles through an unfamiliar part of town while being teased mercilessly by the sweet scent of doughnuts somewhere nearby. Which led to me driving like such a doofus that I made a public apology to all the other Portland drivers on the road that morning.

And here is what we got for the effort...

Cha-Cha, the family baconinator, went for the bacon topped maple bar, I had a Raspberry Romeo, and Quake had a Voodoo Doll, complete with raspberry filling, pretzel "stake", and a horrified look on it's face. You may also see evidence in this photo of Quake's first doughnut, a Dubble Bubble, which I'm sure he ordered just to see if I'd gag.

I guess it's no surprise that the next time we had to make a morning trip to the airport the boys begged for another trip to Voodoo. This time there was cereal and M&Ms involved...

And I actually got a photo of the now much beloved favorite Voodoo Doll before it was half gone!

At least this one didn't look scared so much as just confused. And look! There was another Dubble Bubble! I hate it when they order things I'm not willing to eat the leftovers of. Now if I can just plan a trip there by myself so I can order a Cock-N-Balls without the need to explain it to their shrinks in 20 years...

Something...Anything...

I have so much to write about and nothing at all to say, but I felt the need to post to remind you (or maybe just me) that I am still here. The currents in my life (or maybe just the ones in my head) have been tossing me about lately; I am spending too much energy trying to find a calm spot to anchor and either laughing at myself or berating myself for supposing such a place even exists.

Maybe winter has finally caught me in her grip, although a long afternoon spent at the park in brilliant sunshine yesterday suggests this is not the cause of my discontent. Maybe the upheaval of the move is finally catching up with me. Maybe the magic of the latest drug combination is fading like all the others before it. Maybe this is just another turning inward, a resting point on the journey.

All these years, through all these struggles - it seems like I should understand my own moods better than I do.

I'm a bit behind in The Burning Question series, but I hope no one minds if I go back to add my answer to one that's been spinning in and out of my consciousness for the last two weeks.

What would you like to stop doing?

I want to stop indulging in shadow comforts when what I really need is true comfort. I want to stop fighting the flow - of life, of my moods, of the words that knock about in my head wanting out. I want to stop feeling guilty about giving up the things I no longer love to do. I want to stop putting up with 'good enough' - expect when 'good enough' is 'perfect'.

Letting My Thing Find Me

Finally got around to listening to an interview with Danielle LaPorte that's been sitting in my inbox for longer than I'd like to admit. It's part of Tanya Geisler's Thing Finding Thursday series (you can listen to it or read the transcript here) - something that appeals to me greatly even though I started telling myself that I've given up on finding My Thing. Of course I tell myself all sorts of ridiculous things.

As usual, Ms. LaPorte's words managed to be exactly what I needed to hear.

She suggests that you let Your Thing find you by letting go of the demands you have for Your Thing and focusing on working in the zone. I, for example, have always wished for My Thing to strike me like the proverbial lightening bolt and then pretty quickly lead me to making a million dollars without it ever feeling like work. Because when it comes to the big questions in life, I am apparently still 15 years old.

Actually when it comes to the little things in life I'm still pretty much 15 years old.

But the last two months I've been doing exactly what Ms. LaPorte suggests.

I've been following my creative urges and listening intently to my own internal rhythms. One week I made 7 pieces of art for the house just because I I felt the need to create (here are 4 of them). One Saturday I spent 12 hours making scrapbook pages, barely stopping long enough to eat. I recently stayed up late writing 4 pages of a story, the original idea for which came to me in a dream. And I've already admitted to be being obsessed with creating outfits for my Pinterest.

Are any of these (or all of them) My Thing? How can I possibly manage to make money from any of these things?

It doesn't matter.

Maybe one or all of these are My Thing. Maybe not. Maybe one or all of these things will somehow make me a million dollars - or at least a regular income. Maybe not.

It doesn't matter.

What does matter is that I'm doing work that I love. I am finding myself regularly in that zone where the work feels effortless, where time becomes meaningless, where who I am and what I'm doing become the same thing.

Scrapbook Pages

I wanted to share a couple of the scrap pages I did a few weeks ago. Don't be alarmed at the sight of my boys' faces. They do actually have normal faces. Most of the time.

None of my scrap stuff is original - I scrap lift all of them. I have the images I lifted taped to the back of each page, but I don't have the original publication information. If you recognize the layouts and have the information, please send it to me and I'll be happy to add it.

A friend has requested a quick lesson on the process I use for scrap booking. So in the next week or two I'll take some photos as I put some pages together and post it here.

More Fashion

Just wanted to share a few virtual outfits I put together this past weekend. At least this way my obsession doesn't just disappear into a black hole. Otherwise known as the "back-up drive".

I've been trying to experiment more with color although if you saw all my files, you'd notice some obvious favorites. Kind of like the aquas and purples above.