Holiday Greetings & Such

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday. I’ve been busy trying to stay sane while the kids are out of school. Today, I spent all afternoon pretending to be domestic. I made 8 or 9 dozen chocolate chip cookies…from scratch. I also finished up a half completed batch of Buckeyes I started last week. I had made the peanut butter ball middles, but ran out of chocolate for the shell, so I just left them in the freezer for later. Today was later. I also made another half-batch to use up the chocolate coating I made today.

This batch of peanut butter balls seemed WAY easier for me to make…probably since it was my 3rd batch. I also think I figured out a little trick that my mother-in-law left off her recipe, which made it easier also. I’m sure she would have taught me the trick if she were still with us.

Another thing that I tried today that I hadn’t done with the first 2 batches of Buckeyes is I used my fondue pot to keep the chocolate warm instead of plunking the bowl in the microwave after every few buckeyes.

So, now all I have to do as far as “baking” goes is prep the sausage swirls I make every Christmas for breakfast. They’re pretty easy to make, just a pain to prep. In case you’re wondering, it’s just crescent roll dough rolled out a little bit with a layer of ground sausage smeared all over it then rolled into a log & sliced about a half inch thick (like cinnamon rolls, except not as thick). I figured out a long time ago that it’s much easier to “cut” them if the “log” is firm – otherwise it just squishes & the pieces are all funky shaped. So, after I roll the “log” I put a layer of wax paper around it & stick it in the freezer for an hour or so, then I cut it up & put it back in the freezer until I’m ready to bake them. Yummy Christmas breakfast that cooks while we’re opening gifts.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season no matter which winter holiday you celebrate!

Things That Parents of ADHD Children Wished Every Teacher Knew

I found this while looking for something else online today. It pretty much sums it up.

  • Having an ADHD child is very challenging and we need all the help we can get. Teachers play a vital role in the way that our child feels about himself and we hope that you will do whatever you can to help our child learn and maintain his self-esteem.
  • Just like a blind person needs to learn coping strategies so that he can lead an independent life, our goal for our ADHD child is that together with his teachers and his medical professionals, we will help him to learn the special ways that he can be successful in all areas of his life. These special strategies include things like developing ways to keep organized, be on time, control behaviour, plan and complete work, make and keep friends. This requires consistent effort on the part of his support team, of which you are vital part.
  • All current research emphatically shows that ADHD is not caused by bad parenting. Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to learn and use effective strategies for managing ADHD at home. Research also shows that the more consistent we are in the ways we manage ADHD in the home and school environment, the greater chances for success.
  • Children with ADHD have many talents and strengths: creative minds, curiosity, boundless energy, humour, courage, leadership abilities, physical abilities, stamina and often show amazing gifts in specialized areas like computers, math, music, etc. Sometimes as parents and teachers we tend to focus on the weaknesses rather than the strengths in our aim to change behaviours. As parents and teachers we need to seek out these strengths and utilize them to help this child be successful in their own way.
  • Unfortunately, our highly structured, standardized education system which requires all students to sit quietly at a desk, listen and do independent work for several hours a day can be the worst possible environment for ADHD children. Although, we understand that we cannot change the system, from or own experiences we recognize the value of learning to understand this condition and how it effects these children. We would be more than willing to work with you to develop strategies, reward systems and any other problem-solving that is required.
  • Please feel free to contact us as frequently and as often as you need to and don’t wait until issues get to a crisis stage. And remember that we would love to hear about positive developments and not just the negative stuff.
  • In turn,we may need to contact you frequently, but rest assured that we will not take advantage of the situation. Please help us by giving us a way to do that. Email could be very helpful for this.
  • Because ADHD children often misunderstand social interactions, they quite regularly report events inaccurately. It’s important for you and us to remember that what he tells us about what happened at school or at home may need to be verified to make sure that it is correct before we take any action.
  • A daily communication tool is often helpful but we need it to record progress towards desired behaviours and not report on negative behaviours. Our children will work very hard for much-needed positive reinforcement but will shut down cooperation and effort if they only receive negative feedback. They will not cooperate with either of us if they feel we are only joining forces to share negative information on their behaviour.
  • ADHD is not an excuse for poor behaviour – but it is an explanation. Our child is expected to act appropriately but will need your help and encouragement to learn and practice it. Immediate feedback is important – positive and constructive. Our child needs specific instruction and modeling in this area. If he acts inappropriately, take him aside and tell him that his behaviour was not appropriate, explain why (tell him how it effected the person it was directed at) and show him what he should do instead. Then make sure that you praise him whenever you notice improvement.
  • Homework is an enormous challenge for our child and also for us because he has challenges with organization. Please work with us to develop strategies to help him learn better organization skills. We expect him to work on improving his organization skills and will not accept his ADHD as an excuse for not doing his homework.
  • Short term memory deficits can be an inherent problem of ADHD. Insisting that the student needs to take responsibility for remembering things without giving him strategies and tools to do this only sets him up for failure and frustrates all of us.
  • When our children arrive home without the necessary books and materials to complete homework, it causes enormous stress for our child and us. Please help him to develop a strategy which ensures that he has everything he needs before he leaves school. Having a second set of books at home is helpful.
  • Our child has trouble remembering multiple instructions. Please provide written instructions so that we can ensure that assignments are being done correctly and completely. Unfortunately, without assistance, our child may then forget the instructions at school. Emailing instructions home or providing the phone number of a classmate would be helpful.
  • We will do our best to ensure that our child completes all homework on time but we may need your help with deadline extensions if our child legitimately needs more time. We will help our child to plan out larger assignments by breaking them into smaller pieces and setting deadlines and then ensuring that the deadlines are met, but any assistance that you can give him at school would be most helpful.
  • We will not do our child’s homework for him. It is important that he do the work and earn the marks himself. Doing his work for him will only rob him of his self-confidence and self-esteem and will not give you an accurate picture of his progress.
  • We will develop and maintain a system to ensure that all assignments come back to school. Please create a consistent routine and place for him to hand his work in. If any assignments are missed, please contact us immediately.
  • When our child has a teacher who understands how extremely difficult and frustrating it is to have ADHD, he has the potential of having a wonderful school experience where he can grow, learn and feel proud and successful. However, when his ADHD is not understood, he often feels like a failure and we run the risk that he will give up on school and himself and turn his fantastic energy and gifts to unproductive and possibly destructive activities. I hope that we can work together to to nurture the wonderful qualities of our special child.

Reprinted from this source document under Creative Commons License.

I Miss You

There are times when you wish you hadn’t been left alone with your own thoughts. This afternoon is one of those times. I “think” a lot when I’m hyper-focused on “mundane” tasks. Today I’m hyper-focused on cleaning the baseboards & door jambs. The girls are pretty much staying to themselves today & JR is out motorcycle riding with a friend, so, I’m basically left alone, in the quiet with myself.

Being left alone with my thoughts isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve come to some realizations about several things today … why I feel the way I do about certain people & time periods in my past.

But then I get to thinking about other people who have been in my life and I realize just how much I miss them. Not because they are no longer in my life because they have died, but because for one reason or another, they are no longer in my life – generally due to some sort of falling out between us. Some of those people I do not “miss,” others I realize I miss terribly – mostly the “flesh & blood” relations I was very close to before the falling out.

I do not know if those people will ever read this. Hopefully we will be able to patch things back together at some point…because I miss you.

2011 NASP National Archery Tournament – Day 1

It’s the end of day 1 of Blaney Elementary Archery Team’s trip to the NASP National Tournament. We left the school a little after 7 this morning and got to the hotel at 5 PM…10 hours on a charter bus with a bunch of 10-12 year-olds. We unloaded and then headed out to dinner at 6 and got back to the hotel again at 9 PM. Now it’s lights-out at 10. All the archers will be shooting tomorrow.

Here are some of the pictures from the trip. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2038644130598.122137.1379126407&l=cb9bc90a9c

I’ll try to remember to write more tomorrow after the kids have shot.

Days Like Today Could Drive Me To Drinkin’

It’s days like today that might drive me to drinkin’! UGH. The kitchen sink sprayer lever broke after breakfast. I had a replacement sprayer under the sink from a repair we ended up not having to do, so I brought it out and replaced the sprayer. Perfect fit. Great. Unfortunately, THAT sprayer lever broke also!

Moving on to this afternoon. The clutch cable I bought for the lawn tractor last weekend had come in earlier this week. So, off I went to switch out the clutch cable. I get the mower deck removed (with a little help from J.R. for some muscle), clutch cable replaced, mower deck re-installed & started the tractor to test out the mower deck. Yay, the blades turn! But, alas, they do not stop when the attachment lever is disengaged (which is why I replaced the clutch cable – a $30+ part plus shipping…(stupid internet told me to replace it). So, back to the tractor manual and exploded parts diagrams. What is this? I don’t recall seeing this spring in the diagram on my mower deck! An idler spring appears to be missing. Great, super, awesome, sigh. I look up the price from Sears…sweet…only $2.91…plus shipping of $7.99. So, I call around to some small engine places thinking they may have one since, according to the Sears web site, this spring is used on 474 mower models. Nope…no one local has one in stock. BUT, one cool dude told me if I can find the size of the spring I should be able to use a general use spring from the hardware store of the same size. Wonderful…the parts diagram and the Sears parts site do not HAVE the spring size. Fortunately, another search of the ‘net using slightly different search terms nets me dimensions!

Off to Lowe’s we go in search of a spring and a kitchen sink sprayer.

After some searching, we found a 2-pack of springs I think will probably work. If not, it was only 3 1/2 bucks for 2 springs, plus I can take them back. We also found a replacement sink sprayer that says it’s universal and fits all faucet brands. Excellent. Cool, let’s go eat dinner and go home to fix the sprayer.

Kids are in bed, remove the broken sprayer and attempt to install the universal-fits-all-faucet-brands-sprayer. Hmmm…doesn’t fit. I try all sorts of different ways to get the darn thing to work, but it simply doesn’t fit. So, I think maybe I can just swap out the existing hose since I WAS able to get the sprayer to install on the replacement hose that went with the replacement sprayer that was under the sink from this morning. After some fumbling around under the sink trying to see what the heck I was doing & figuring out how to disconnect a hose that doesn’t screw on I finally got the hose off. Great…awesome…NOT! The replacement hose screws on, the original is a Delta quick-connect hose and the piece it attaches to under the sink doesn’t have ANY threads, so there’s no way to screw the replacement hose onto it. GAH!!!!!!

So, I have to re-attach the original hose and broken sprayer just so we’re able to use the kitchen sink.

You’d think I’d have learned by now that if the original plumbing fixture is a DELTA that NOTHING that says UNIVERSAL will fit. I’ve run into issues with sink stoppers, sprayers, and various other items throughout the years.

Yep, if I were a big drinker I’d probably have a drink. I guess chocolate will just have to do.

Poor Working Memory & ADHD

When many people hear that someone has ADHD (ADD) they immediately think of physical hyperactivity. I must admit, until I was diagnosed and began educating myself on the subject, I also thought that’s all that it was and that it was “outgrown”. Boy was I wrong!

I was doing some reading today, and ran across this list of abilities that are affected by the working memory difficulties experienced by people affected by ADHD.

  • Remembering and following instructions (especially verbal instructions) (I’m sorry, I don’t remember you saying anything about needing to do that part!)

  • Memorizing information (math facts, spelling words, dates, etc.) (Probably why although I enjoyed “learning” about history I couldn’t “memorize” the dates to save my life, which, of course, resulted in lower than usual grades on “memorization related” tests! Countries & Capitals, States & Capitals, what year did So-And-So discover Such-And-Such?)

  • Performing mental computation (doing math “in your head”) (Someone please give me some scrap paper!)

  • Completing complex math problems (algebra) (No wonder I DESPISED algebra & math!)

  • Remembering one part of an assignment or project while working on another segment

  • Paraphrasing or summarizing (Um, yeah, I’m not exactly known for being brief.)

  • Organizing and writing essays (Don’t get me started on my hatred of organized reports & essays…Can’t I just let it flow as it comes out of my brain?)

  • Learning from past behavior (No comment…)

  • Judging the passage of time accurately (and therefore not allowing enough time to complete tasks such as homework, projects, etc.) (I swear it only takes me 30 minutes to get ready to walk out the door, but if you ask my husband, it takes me about 2 hours.)

  • Examining or changing your own behavior (possibly leading to behaviors that may alienate friends, co-workers, etc. “Self awareness”) (I shudder to think what people “really” think about me. I know “tactful” probably won’t be found on any lists most people would make of descriptive words for me. BUT, I believe I’ve gotten better at keeping my big mouth shut compared to how I was up until a couple of years ago. Not perfect, but better.)

  • Planning ahead (Weekly dinner menu? HA HA HA HA!!! I’m doing great if I can decided at lunchtime what I’m going to make for dinner…which reminds me…it’s almost lunch time.)

  • No matter how high a person’s IQ is, if they are affected by ADHD, they WILL have more difficulty with their “working memory” (if not then they don’t have ADHD) than a person without ADHD. Fortunately, there have been great strides in ADHD research & treatment/management in the past decade. As I find resources on the ‘net I try to bookmark them in my Delicious bookmarks. Please feel free to check out (or subscribe to) my ADHD related bookmarks.

    I’d love to hear about your ADHD experiences! Feel free to comment below.

    From Understanding Why Some Species Eat Their Young To "Awe" Within Moments

    There are those times as a parent when you understand why some species eat their young. Then, within minutes, that changes to an “aaawwwweee” moment.

    It’s lunchtime. Delaney had started eating her apple (whole). Brianna just finished slicing hers & got the last caramel dipping cup from the cabinet. Delaney started throwing a fit that she wanted Sissy’s caramel cup & refused to eat her apple. I offered to cut her apple but told her she still wouldn’t get Sissy’s “dippin’.” She refused. Then it occured to me to offer her some peanut butter for dipping her apple slices. Delaney perked up & agreed. Crisis temporarily averted.

    So, I go into the garage to get something & when I return I see Delaney dipping her apple slice into Brianna’s caramel. I looked at Brianna. She says, “We’re sharing. She let me have some of her peanut butter, so I’m letting her have some of my caramel dip.” I said, “Funny how that works, hu?”

    Testing out the iPod Touch / iPhone WordPress App

    Well, I just downloaded the new iTunes Store app for WordPress blogs that allows you to manage your blog posts, write new ones, create pages & manage comments. So, let me see if I can add photos and format text.

    Well, it looks like I can add photos from my iPod, but they are added to the bottom of the post by default & I can format text using HTML coding, italics, did bold in the other paragraph, & I’m sure I could do colors & other formatting manually also, but that is a pain to do when you have to type with your thumbs. Oh well, it seems like it would be a great app for people who blog shorter blog posts on the go, but, as you can tell by the massive amount of posts on my blog , I’m not sure how much use I will get out of this app. But I do see a use for it for many people.

    If this post turns out right, hopefully I will have moved the picture that is automatically inserted at the bottom in between two of these paragraphs.

    Why do people do what they do?

    Why is it that if you have a perfectly functional driveway, people will still park in the street?