Posted by TheMundaneOne on July 15, 2010
I’m not sure if it has been mentioned here before, but we’ve been without a hot water heater for almost 3 months. Our old hot water heater was the only propane appliance drawing from some VERY large tanks in our yard. When we moved in, we thought we’d use the propane for heating and eventually a gas range, but we discovered very quickly that the propane fireplaces here were too inefficient to be practical. We’d decided to get rid of the big rental tanks and replace them with much smaller ones when Superior propane showed up while we weren’t home and refilled them without our permission (we’d repeatedly told them the house had changed owners and we didn’t want them filled). That meant we were stuck with them until they were empty enough to move – and by our calculations we had enough propane to run the hot water tank until at least 2011. They gave us a deferred, interest-free payment plan because of their screwup and that was paid in full as of March.
So, of course, we ran out of propane on April 17th, 2010.
Since then, we’ve had to do without. We’ve boiled water for baths on the stove, bathed in the mill pond, and used cold water for everything else. We researched out options extensively, including looking for alternative propane tanks that we could move and fill ourselves, alternative hot water heaters (including solar options), and anything else we could think of. Everything was a no-go: financially we couldn’t afford to purchase tanks, lines, regulators or anything else outright; because we live rurally, we don’t have natural gas lines so there is no gas company to finance a heater; our electricity comes from the large, main provincial utility rather than a local municipal supplier (the usual tank-rental providers); and we were having trouble getting financial help from CMHC, the government agency which is supposed to assist with such problems. That is, until about 2 weeks ago, when we found a company which declares their mandate to be renting electric hot water tanks to rural homeowners. It took 10 days of phone-tag, but finally ADDGirl finally was able to arrange an installation for July 13th. Unfortunately, we didn’t know until they arrived that the existing HWT wiring didn’t meet the current building code so they were able to hook up the water to the tank, but not the power. I had to go out and purchase $6 worth of armoured cable and install it last night, so the plumbers could come back and connect the wire to the heater today (“We’re not allowed to go in your electrical panel, because we’re not electricians,” they said).
Sorry to be long-winded and boring, but I had to explain that to tell you about this.
I planned to work before dark so that when the main power was off, I’d still be able to see – but that didn’t work out. In fact, the job kept getting delayed and delayed until after 2am. I used a backup power pack (a deep cycle battery/built-in inverter combo device) to run a halogen work light so I could do the job with the mains off. It was gruelling due to my pain issues and lack of stamina, and the fact that pauses were needed to make everything safe and let the battery recharge with the mains back on (we had to do that at least 3 times). Finally done around 3:30am, I sat down to rest and relieve the agony in my legs while she put some things away. I was also desperately thirsty, but we had no drinking water because the kids had emptied the water cooler during the day and she’d forgotten to change it. Then, she got on the computer – in spite of the fact that she knew she had to be up for the plumber’s return in 5-6 hours – and proceeded to play around for more than 40 minutes. This induced an argument – while I tried to point out the lack of forward thinking in wasting time instead of getting into bed, she kept insisting that “wind down” time was needed. I went to double-check that things were finished, and discovered the back door had been left unlocked, so I locked up, turned off the lights, and came back to find her still on the computer. Finally, she came into the bedroom, crawled on the bed, and within seconds was incoherently telling me she’d “Just be a minute” and she’d refill the water cooler that she’d promised to take care of 12 hours before “in a sec”. Our well water is not suitable for drinking (after the water softener, it still tastes very unpleasant) so the water cooler or bottled water is only way to slake ones thirst. After I tried to be patient for almost an hour, we ended up having a huge blow-up because I lost my temper with the “I’m just resting my eyes a minute” B.S. In a snit, she went out to the car and brought in some bottled water. Eventually things calmed down, but it was damn close to 6:30am before we were actually getting to sleep.
Now, here’s what makes me nuts.
The plumber showed up sometime around 9am (without calling first like he was supposed to), so she wasn’t awake. He knocked but we were obviously too out-cold to hear it (which is actually abnormal for me, but given the circumstances, understandable). A neighbour walking by told him that if the van was home we were home, but he couldn’t get an answer. He saw through the window that the wire was ready to be hooked up, so he tried the door, found it unlocked, and walked in and connected the hot water tank. He then left a note and headed off to do his next service call.
Note that the door was unlocked. It wasn’t SUPPOSED to be unlocked.
She’d forgotten to lock it when she went out for water to drink. She wouldn’t have gone through it if it wasn’t for the argument and her sudden “inability to stay awake” problem.
I’d locked the door. I’d tried to get us into bed as soon as we were done the job. I’d reminded her repeatedly about the water, only to be ignored. I did everything right, trying to steer us toward getting enough rest and making sure she’d be up when the plumber showed up, trying to plan in advance and anticipating any problems.
She did everything wrong – she didn’t get to bed early enough (and prevented us both from getting the job done in a timely manner), she didn’t get the water when she was supposed to, forcing her to have to drag her butt outside at 5am – and as a result she left the door unlocked so anyone could walk in the house.
If it wasn’t for ADHD behaviour and the argument over failing to get stuff done,the plumber wouldn’t have been able to get in. He would’ve had to charge us for a service call instead of doing the hookup for free. We wouldn’t have hot water today – plus we’d have had to pay out-of-pocket to have them come back.
So much for learning from mistakes. ARGH!
Posted by SuperADDMom on July 12, 2010
So a few weeks ago I “liked” a page on facebook for “muffin tin meals” when I saw it on a friend’s status as it looked kind of fun for the kids, and I wanted some more info.
When I saw what they were doing with “muffin tin mondays” I decided I’d try it with the kids. I have muffin tins I NEVER use ( as you can see by the picture! lol) I liked the idea because it is derived from Bento boxes from Japanese traditions, and as an ADD person I find Asian culture’s streamline organized ways to be calming to my mind.
Anyway, in my usual ADD fashion I forgot about it for a week or so, and then in a rush one evening this week past, and from having literally NO clean plates in the house due to our current canoe project taking up a lot of my time, I needed a solution!
Once again a possible ADD disastrous supper due to no clean dishes, and little time to prepare anything decent, I became a Super ADD Mom, and got some major cool mom points for remembering the muffin tin idea.
I dug out some muffin tins and scoured the fridge for leftovers, and made a muffin tin meal for the kids. We had worked late on the canoe and everyone was tired and cranky, so I just threw in some fast bite foods to fill the tummies fast, and cut up their hot dogs in bite size manageable pieces with some raisins for the boy, and hummus for the girl.
THEY LOVED IT!
HOW SIMPLE an idea, but how BRILLIANT! A mom and former preschool teacher from California came up with muffin tin meals!
Now, the kids are asking for muffin tin meals at every supper, and if I can dish it in a muffin tin, I am!
The smaller sized sandwiches or hotdogs cut make it easier to eat, and they are HAPPY to have them cut for the muffin tin. If I suggested cutting a hot dog served on a plate in half to make it more manageable to hold they’d normally get really upset..possibly even major meltdowns, but in a muffin tin, they are happy to have it cut.
The girl HATES her foods touching each other, so this is PERFECT for her. Potatoes and corn and chicken all separated. Even gravy for dipping. She’s not whining about foods touching.
The hyper boy is making less mess and actually SITTING for supper!
In fact he was so excited for “our muffintin meal” for supper the other night he cleaned the WHOLE table off ( it was stacked with crafts, recycle, and the breakfast dishes)….and he worked really hard to wipe the table off! He was so Proud of himself! he said to me ” i’m being asponsible aren’t I mommy” with a big grin on his face.
Then in the evening after the kids were in bed. TMO and I were cutting beef up and I put the crock pot and slushie maker on the table for counter room, and in the morning the boy said ” AWWW man I JUST cleaned this WHOLE table and someone went and messed it ll up!”
I laughed so hard…nice role reversal. I cleared off the table and told them if they like muffin tin meals to keep the table and dining areas clean. Today they kept it clean again, and even put new place mats in place, and made a bouquet of fresh flowers from the garden. 
So far… this is like a small miracle in my house! We are planning on shopping for some nicer looking colourful muffin tin type trays for the kids soon, or maybe making more traditional bento boxes.
The Mundane One has also said he’d like to eat that way too and spent some time on google looking at bento boxes.
Thanks @muffintinmom !! She and I connected on Twitter last night, and best part of all…. SHE’S a Super ADD Mom too!
If you want to check it out, follow @muffintinmom on twitter, or read her blog at www.muffintinmom.com
Posted by SuperADDMom on July 8, 2010
this is why i love my kid.
they can drive me nuts through the day fighting and whining, and making ABSOLUTE mess of the house, having temper tantrums over sensory issues, being cranky from lack of sleep etc.
But today, she had a fairly decent day, though she was whiney and cranky from the heat….then after a lovelery swim in the pond we come home hungry and the girl makes her own supper wth some help… a can of alphabet noodles.
In the middle if eating she asks “can I borrow your DSi for a minute?” I say ya, but give it right back. She did, and I never looked until just a few minutes go to what she wanted to take a picture of… and this is what she borrowed it for!
Posted by SuperADDMom on July 5, 2010
So planning things is helping me not have so much anxiety.
becoming more aware of my high anxiety times is helping me avoid total add/aspie meltdowns.
all my life I’ve been a sort of “fly by the seat of my pants and see where I land and deal” kind of person.I think one of the reasons I avoided it like the plague is because I fear needing to be very rigid and have strict planning to function. it’s almost like dealing with the chaos feeds my ADHD need for stimulation, and my aspie side of me is cringing, and having anxiety the whole time.
So planning things, and using a day planner/to do list has not been natural to me, nor has it it been easy to start as a habit.
I’ve finally come to some habits that are making things easier for me, though if I get interrupted/sidetracked in my routines, I forget things lose things etc.
Slowly I’m trying to fix the mess I’ve made of this place since our move and my mental burnout. Your looking at someone who has taken 11 years to remember hubby needs his bread toasted to be able to eat it ( oral sensory issues)
So, I have a day planner I write a week out in, in an overall plan, and then each day of the week after the general plan I write out info that is important as those days come, like who I called, recipes, my master to do list for the week, and next steps in those projects .. really it’s just a composition book, with blank pages, so I have no worries of needing to remain neat, or confined to a certain amount of space. it IS my brain it holds everything.
and I have a calendar I write out meals on for a week or more to have a plan.
On Sundays I plan the weeks meals ( generally, sometimes they change)
This week, my menu plans are
Chicken taco crockpot w/home made Naan bread
Salmon Croquettes w/dill sauce
beef crock pot & gravy w/mashed potato
Veggie Lasagna
Pizza
Crock Pot Pork with orange and Videlia onions & rosemary rice.
Posted by SuperADDMom on July 2, 2010
This collage makes me cry.
These are pics of my kiddos. This makes me cry, not because they are some of the cutest frackin’ kids you’ve ever seen, but because this collage even exists.
I didn’t make it, and it is not on my wall.
My friend SJSH made this collage of my kids for her wall…from my facebook pics. she had asked me for the better pics of originals to get it done, and waited a long time… and I never got around to it.
She reminded me over and over, but she knows me.
And I know her.. we just connected and have known each other now for 7 years. she was my neighbor when we moved into our building when the girl cub was 2. I baked homemade bread and brought it over, and from there, a friendship budded. establishing and maintaining a friendship has never been so “right”…like puzzle peices, we just fit.
no matter how long we go without talking since I’ve moved an hour and a half away, we fall right back into as if we were right next door. when we lived next door to each other, we’d talk in the phones across the hall. while doing housework, I could hear her defrost her freezer through the door, while we gabbed on the phone.
So…. she got her son to get the pics she wanted and help her put this collage together for her wall.
I LOVE that and it makes me cry, because she loves my kids, and thinks they are so smart and beautiful and she has the biggest heart! The Cubs love her, and not a day goes by that they don’t talk about her
I’ve said it here before, she was at the boy cubs birth for the three whole days, she helped us move ( move from hell) and she is always a phone call away for a laugh or a .cry, or gossip.. we never fall short of things to talk about.
In short…I love this woman, and her family. they are awesome people, and I’m glad they are our friends. Family is not the people you are born to, or give birth to, or are stuck with at easter dinner out of obligation… family is there through thick and thin, and laugh and cry with you, share your joys and your sorrows with you.
I’m glad I have SJSH as part of my family… she’s the best kind
Posted by SuperADDMom on June 30, 2010
My fav flower, picked for me by my fav 5 yo
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Filed Under: iSnap
Posted by SuperADDMom on June 27, 2010
"I'm the bestest cherry picker in the whole world mommy!!!?"
Posted by SuperADDMom on June 21, 2010
they say time heals….i say bullshit.
Time doesn’t make the death of someone you love hurt less. You don’t heal. you just learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart, and learn to live with the pain.
It’s like acquiring a disability from a sudden car accident that will change you forever.
the initial grieving is like rehab, a period of time that teaches you how to go on through the day to day for the rest of your life differently.
sure you get so used to the gaping hole in your heart you kind of have a new normal, and go on about your life. But it’s always there, you never really forget, even if you can go a day or a week forgetting your disabled now, you will see something, hear something, and be smacked in the face by how much it still hurts.
Today is the anniversary of the day my brother died 13 years ago.
It is hard to believe it has been 13 years! some days it feels like yesterday. live in his basement that I rented from him. I came home from work at 3 in the morning to be greeted by the blunt news on the driveway… “Paul’s dead” with a somber, no emotional expression on my then husband’s face.
i fell to the ground, I screamed, i refused to believe it, i demanded they take me to the hospital to see my sister in law, and see this apparent reality for myself.
I’ll never forget.
I wish someone had warned me what I’d see. they still had all the tubes and wires attached to him from trying to revive him ( which was futile, he was dead before he fell to the floor at a restaurant.)
i keep this picture out and framed where I can see it, because if that memory pops in my head, I NEED to look at this picture to get that image out of my head. I used to be angry at my first husband for how he told me, but I realize now that he was just as shocked, and that he is a “fixer” kind of person so he was trying to be strong for me, and my brother’s children, and my sister in law, and my parents.
My sister in law ( ex husband’s wife) had taken me to the hospital, then she took m home and I never slept,I changed clothes and she drove me from Toronto to Hamilton so I could tell my sister. I didn’t want her to find out over the phone. That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.
Paul was 32, and had a heart condition that runs in the males of our family. until his death, they didn’t consider it a pattern. officially dxed cause of death was Arrhythmia.
I could tell you so many things about him. but I’d be here all day.
as a young girl, he was my hero.
as an adult he was my friend.
he was un dxed ADHD,( looking back it is obvious) and he was awesome.
he was a motorcycle racer and a greatly sought after motorcycle mechanic and go cart builder in Toronto in the racing circuit
He was a great dad, a great brother and had a great sense of humour. I wish my kids could know him.
he had his flaws. I have not put him on a pedestal because he’s dead. but we all have our flaws. the thing about him was, you could never hold his flaws against him for too long, because everything else about him was so great.
I’m wishing I had more pictures of him. whenever I look at this one i can just hear him laughing so hard. It was taken at the reception of my wedding to my first husband. He had danced and danced and partied all night. that’s why he is glowing. it was August, and it was a muggy day, so he was sweating from dancing, and they hauled him off the dance floor for candid family pictures. it was 2 am. He had such a deep chortle.
My son chortles, but it is high pitched. Sometimes the things my son does, remind me so much of him it makes my heart ache.
There has been a hole in my heart for 13 years…today it is more noticeable. today it aches, and makes me cry.
Posted by SuperADDMom on
published online 07 June 2010.
Objective
To assess the effect of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its treatment on growth outcomes in children followed into adulthood.
Study design
Two identically designed, longitudinal, case-control studies of males and females with and without ADHD were combined; 124 and 137 control and subjects with ADHD, respectively, provided growth information at the 10- to 11-year follow-up. We used linear growth curve models to estimate the effect of time on change in height and whether this effect differed by sex and ADHD status. We also examined the effect of stimulant treatment on growth outcomes.
Results
We found no evidence that ADHD was associated with trajectories of height over time or differences at follow-up in any growth outcomes. Similarly, we found no evidence that stimulant treatment was associated with differences in growth. However, among subjects with ADHD, major depression was associated with significantly larger weight in females and smaller height in males.
Conclusions
Our results do not support an association between deficits in growth outcomes and either ADHD or psychostimulant treatment for ADHD. These findings extend the literature on this topic into young adulthood and should assist clinicians and parents in formulating treatment plans for children with ADHD.
SOURCE: http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476%2810%2900325-2/abstract
Posted by SuperADDMom on
just did 1.6 miles on the gazelle. I’ve noticed the last two times that after all the gardening and muscle toning with the tiller, though it killed me, it had a benefit… i’m sweating like crazy to go the same time/distance/speed… my metabolism is speeding up and I’m burning off the fat baby! WOOHOO
