My Favourite Flower
| June 30, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under iSnap |
My fav flower, picked for me by my fav 5 yo 
Posts Tagged by rural life
Poke the Chicken
| June 17, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iSnap |
lol..I just realized that “poke the chicken” might sound like I’m saying to poke the chicken, but really the chicken’s name is Poke.
a short, but much needed break at the beach
| June 17, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iSnap |
We live on lake Ontario. We have always enjoyed going to the quite beaches during off peak days/times, and taking walks. we are in a very touristy area, so some times it can be jam packed. We love it on quiet days after a hard rain when no one is around. We have not done it in quite some time…I hope we can do it more often.
TMO’s guest post of the week…Chickens!
| June 16, 2010 | Posted by TheMundaneOne under ADDventures, iLove |
Peck & Poke
It was too rainy today to do much of anything outside with tools, but we had a break for long enough to take a few pics.
The first is our two girls standing on their roost watching me. These chickens are called Red Shavers, and they are a Canadian breed developed somewhere near Cambridge. Their colour is sex-linked – the pullets/hens are red and the cockerels/roosters are white – so sorting chicks is really easy. At least we know we’ll be getting all hens when the chicks arrive next month! Poke is on the left, and Peck is on the right. It isn’t the sharpest picture, but I was hurrying since it was sprinkling.
Next shot is of the back of the coop. Poke is still looking out the window being curious. I always heard that chickens were a bit thick-headed, but these are very bright and curious. They aren’t budgies by any means, but they’re definitely friendly and interested in us, and not the stupid birds my great uncle had in his coop. Maybe it’s because he had 30 or more and didn’t see people as part of their flock, while we have only 2 who think we’re just funny-looking chickens.
The last 2 shots are the front corners of the coop. We’ve got a padlock on it because we’re a little concerned about a couple of neighbouring kids – one in particular who comes across the back field and climbs the fence. After all the work, we don’t want the chickens getting out and lost. The other shot shows the nest-box side. Our two girls are using an old kitty litter pan for laying eggs at the moment, but when we have more pullets we’ll need more space so I’m making a box which can be attached to the side for them to share. I haven’t made the pegs for securing the door/holding the box yet, so the blocks of wood will keep it tight.
The roof isn’t weather-proof yet, and couldn’t be done in the weather we had today, so the tarp is keeping the rain out a bit. Tomorrow, we’ll get the roof done properly and put the whole thing up on stilts (it’s currently resting on the base without the legs attached to the bottom.
Anyone wanna chicken-sit tomorrow while we finish?
SIT. I said SIT.
-The Mundane One
Goats
| June 5, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iSnap |
Just now, on the way home from town picking up THE NOW WORKING tiller, we had to stop and rescue three baby goats on the magic road. The neighbors got them this week, and this is the second time they’ve escaped. they were not home, so I had to find out where they belonged and then we each carried them to the barn yard. I tried to fence them in the LARGE fencing that WILL NOT hold them in by putting empty apple crates along the area they’ve been escaping from. I had no pen to write a note so I’ll pop by tomorrow and let them know they were loose and we put them back. I hope they stay put this time. I LOVE rural life. these kinds of things are the reason why
Now the kids are studying about goats for homeschool ON Saturday…because they wanna, and it’s FUN, and INTERESTING, and REAL LIFE.
a photo blog post of our garden progress.
| June 5, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures |
the house we bought has a l shaped garden, long and thin, and a back area to garden in. I didn’t get to it last year, things got away from me, and it became too late. The Mundane one was very disappointed about it, as he love the garden, even thought he cannot do as much as he used to be able to do before he got sick.
So when I went to tackle the back garden area there was 3 foot high grass and old dead brush to clear first.
So I raked the dead brush and burned it, and then started with getting the grass cut down.
then I cut the grass…i tried digging with the shovel to trn the roots, but it killed my back, after sweating my butt off, i grabbed the lawn mover and mowed the tall grass with the lawn mower tilted up, to keep it from stalling out…like in a chomping motion. finally got it all chopped down, and then had to rake it all out to be able to start tilling.
then I tilled it over a few days, in between fixing the tiller 3 or 4 times. ( hubby did most of the tiller fixin’ work.)
This evening I took it back to the guy I bought it from and he’s gonna tinker with it. He plays with them and fixes up old stuff. If he’s not ADHD at 81, i’ll eat my shirt. He’s got unfinished projects everywhere, and a barn that screams ADHD organization. Every flat surface is covered, and there are piles everywhere. but he’s happy and it’s his space, and it’s been that way all his life, and he knows where EVERYTHING is. He stood around talking to me for a good 20 minutes, which *I* personally find funny, cause I can shoot the shit with just about anyone, but *I’m* usually not the one trying to get a word in edgewise and making motions towards needing to leave without being rude while the ADDer rambles on about 20 different topics that go from one to the other “stream of consciousness” topic changes. It, didn’t bother me a bit but it was a neat thing to witness and realize as I’m standing there.
I think I could sit and talk to him and his wife for hours. She is a Mini Pearl impersonator, and she is GREAT!
The sweetest, funniest thing I think I have ever seen, is that in red nail polish she has written on his barn door “We eat at 12 noon and 5 pm SHARP, for an HOUR! Thanks Hilda” he chuckled and said she did it cause people come by and he just can’t be rude and not chat or see them. So, now people just know NOT to come by then.
with most of th4e tilling done we strung string across the garden to mark north and south so we can lay the 4 by 4 foot squares facing south for optimal sun.
Hubby was there with a compass and getting down to fine points on the north and south, I told him “it’s a garden, not rocket science dear!” he rolled his eyes in that “you and your ADD” to me, while I rolled my eyes at him in that “you and your OCD” this is why we’ve managed to make it 11 years…we keep it interesting butting heads constantly 
then we strung thre areas for the 4 by 4 foot squares. We will have 13 in total. I wanted to start slow, and go with 4 or 6 this year and then add them as we go, but Mr perfection that he is made a plan and even hauled out the graph paper, named the squares and areas of the garden, and planned EVERY single plant in the 13 squares. i mock in a kidding tone, because this will help us save money, but currently I’m in massive pain, frustrated as hell that it is taking so long, and feeling a bit overwhelemd at the idea of getting in & caring for 13 squares! Gardening and ADHD don’t go well together. I’m anxious at the thought of the arguments of having let lettuce go to seed accidently, or killing plants be forgetting to water them. I’m going to have to make gardening a morning daily chore. once I get into doing it, I don’t mind, I find it meditative, but I have SOOO many things to do already.
so, this picture was taken this afternoon, just before I took a break to eat something, and then take the tiller to the old guy to have a look at it. 5 squares edged. the 6th being measured out to I can dig, and the white sheet of plywood marking where the 7th will go. after that I still have 5 more to till again, rake, de-root, mark out, and edge before we can start planting.
Back at it again tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t rain! I’ll be out in it anyway.
I hate paperwork
| May 26, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iRant |
doing paper work…i hate paper work
the amount of paper work that it takes to get things from our disability support is a full time job in an of itself. they changed the way you file for gas for medical travel.
It’s a TOTAL pain in the ass. they are cutting me short for mileage to my ADHD dr appointments, using google maps and having me travel on back dirt ( bog) pot hole infested unmaintained roads to shorten the distance, that are not even plowed in the winter and are considered snowmobile trails in the winter.
I don’t travel those roads, so they are cutting me short on klm per trip of the crappy 18 cents a klm to travel it… the trip is 137 klm round trip. it minimal, but it’s the point, they try to cut corners every chance they get.
Last year they took away the back to school clothing allowance for children, and the winter clothing allowance for children.
the 18 cents per klm doesn’t even cover the actual gas we use to go there and back. ( lets not even factor in maintenance and wear and tear on our vehicle, and the fact that we are too rural to take a bus, or taxi cab.)
and now for every trip I take BESIDES that appointment for medical travel, I have to fill out a medical cost form, submit gas, parking receipts for THAT day. We live rural, so we don’t buy gas ON THE DAY, we buy gas and fill up for multiple trips, and try to do so when gas prices are lower, since they go up and down more than a cheap hooker on Jarvis Street ( local Toronto ref sorry)
So, I just KNOW that when I submit one gas receipt for two seperate trips, because it was a 40 dollar gas purchase we made knowing we had multipul medical trips coming up, it’s going to confuse the morons that seem to work in our local office.
Once The Mundane One had to step by step, with a calculator, talk the worker for disability through a math calculation, because they were trying to say they over paid us, and were cutting us off for a funding we needed and were entitled to, and they still owed us for for another 5 months.
People seriously lose their brain matter when working for an agency or company that requires them to work from the step by step instructions in a book, they cannot think for themselves. it’s insane really!
He had to finally talk to her supervisor to get it straightened out! this is the level of competence we are dealing with here. We are smarter than them literally, but they treat us like we are retarded because we are disabled.
did I mention I hate paper work?
All Nighter
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, CFS/ME Spouse, iSnap |
All nighter drive in weekend.
Our local drive in is wonderful, I love it there…laid back, a fun park for the kids, and NEW released movies for a GREAT price. the second you drive in the gate you go back 20 years.
The playground it all the old wooden and metal slides, and teeter totters, and old swings. the kind you could get a splinter from, or a cut from the painted over rust on the sides of the slide.. it’s GREAT Survival of the fittest We survived…I’m not into raising wimps
On the Victoria Day weekend they always have an all nighter, 4 movies back to back.
the boy being 5 still gets in for free, and the girl cub is $3….so it’s a good bang for our limited buck.
We don’t have a lot of funds for entertainment, in fact the internet is what we consider our entertainment fund, and we try to do a lot of stuff for as cheap as possible or free ( and a bit of gas money), but we always try to swing going to the all nighter.
We spent the last of our money this month ( save some gas for the kids swim glasses midweek) to go to the all nighter…Sadly… it almost didn’t happen because CFShubby (The mundane one) was in so much pain going, the idea of being cramped in a car for almost 12 hours between going and being there and getting home, we had a bit of a meltdown from frustration before we left. Living with CFS is not easy for anyone.He was too sore… I was frustrated at the idea of him not being able to go. I’m a problem solver, so I was trying to come up with ideas to make it better for him and didn’t want him to miss it & The kids would be dissapointed if we didn’t go. HE was crabby because my ideas were none that appealed to him ( thought he is a bit stubborn, and sometimes I think if he at least TRIED the idea, it might work. shhh)
He came with us….and made it through…but it is pretty bad when he can’t even do these things as well anymore. It’s a whole other blog post, but I’m so tired of my husband’s life being limited to coming to the living room to try and play some video games with the kids for a few hours before needing to crash again.
Anyway…for $23 ( and the gas there) we saw 4 new movies. Shrek 4, Iron Man 2, Clash of the titans, and She’s out of my league.
I tolerated but chuckled in a few places at Shrek 4.. it actually has a real good moral lesson to ADULTS who gripe to much about their lives( so basically all of Twitter)
Iron man 2 was good….I enjoyed it…except for the bathroom trips with each kid, and therefore missing some of the best action scenes. RDJ is hot as usual as Tony Stark…but I much preferred him in Sherlock Holmes. ( glad there is another one in the making )
Clash of the titans.. I didn’t watch, I mostly dozed through it…too much mumbly dialogue…thick accents for my CAPD and it was going on 3 am…. no ADHD meds left in me, and not entertaining enough for my attention span at that hour.
She’s out of my League.. was actually what I’d have to stick in the category of “good” and though I would not pay a full theatre price to see a basic, typical boy gets girl, boy loses girl” romantic comedy…if you do get the opportunity to see it for cheap, or rent when it comes on DVD, it is worth the watch just for the one HILARIOUS shaving scene…it by far tops the 40 year old virgin waxing scene
We got home as the sun was coming up, and I made breakfast for everyone, as I watched the birds and the chimpmunk living in our wood pile wake for the morning get breakfast too. I watched a Starling steal hay from our bales we put around the house in the winter, and take them up to a tree and add it to it’s nest.Then we all crashed in bed exhausted.
It’s going to be a short, kind of lazy day. It’s like Sunday to us today being the holiday weekend.
Busy Feet, Milk & Tweezers
| May 12, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iLove, iMother, iRant |
I live on the outskirts of a small town. I used to live in the small town, and for the last 5 years attended mommy play groups with other parents. So, when I go to town, I see some people I “know” on a hello basis.
Tonight when taking the girl to her swim class in town at the rec centre, I knew I had to go and pick up milk at the store my kids call “Big Tig” ( the store has a huge tiger painted on the side)
A few weeks ago we ran into the coordinator of a mommy and me evening program called Busy feet, and we had not gone since we moved from town.
Since the programs on Wednesdays overlap by an hour, she invited us to bring the boy while the girl is at her class, and tonight he mentioned to me that he wanted to go to busy feet.
He mentioned this as we were getting back in the van from dropping off the girl, and I happily agreed that we’d stop by to see after I picked up some milk.
And the very second I agreed to go check it out, and see people we have not seen in a while, I got in the van and flipped down the sun visor and noticed something that made me want to get out of going anywhere in public.
big black chin hairs! OHHHHHH crap! As a 35 year old ADD woman, with changing hormones, I no longer worry about pimples, but I’ve started growing stray dark black chairs out of my chin….this would not be so bad, but I forget to do a good check and pluck them out, and then I notice them at really awkward times, like when I’m in town, without tweezers, and needing to go somewhere in public.
I frantically searched my backpack for a pair of tweezers. I own several pair.. and I had THOUGHT i left a pair in my back pack for just this kind of situation…but a 5 minute search resulted in nothing, and found me bargaining with my 5 year old to find a reason to NOT go to busy feet, where I’d have to talk to people, and be totally aware in my own head of the black chin hairs. I rationalized that I’m sure no one will notice, but that it didn’t matter. I’d notice, and that was enough to make me nervous and anxious. I have social anxiety enough as it is with my communication issues due to hearing processing, and also reading people’s body language, so I didn’t need this kind of extra anxiety.
So, I drove to run an errand for The Mundane One, and got stuck in traffic, then went to big tig for milk, and decided to see if they had some cheap tweezers.
Cleaning the car last week while waiting for a dr appointment I’d found a $1 coin ( called a looney in Canada) and thought perhaps it wold save me.
IT DID. they had a pair of tweezers for a dollar!!!! so I bought them, and plucked them suckers out of my chin in the parking lot, and then went off to the play group with my boy for the last 40 minutes of it. And in all of that, I almost forgot to buy the milk!
(me in total “no makeup, hair in ponytail, not brushed today, stained sweater going to town mode”)
Being a sexy SuperADDmom is no simple task!
And I’m gonna yell at the Mundane One for letting me out the door like that!
I’m keeping the tweezers I bought today in the van from now on, for just this kind of situation!
Children are like a flower garden
| May 5, 2010 | Posted by SuperADDMom under ADDventures, iMother, iSnap |
(click the picture to enlarge it so you can read the easel)
On the side of our house that people see most when walking past on the small piece ( and only sidewalk) in our little hamlet, there is a “flower bed” that was there when we moved in. it had nothing but dirt and some crappy low weedy plants in it. It was more of a dumping ground.
The Girl cub claimed it as her flower bed, and this year she sprinkled wild flower mix in there, a few misc bulbs from other places in the yard we removed them from.
Late last fall I tore up a peonie bush that was poorly placed on the other side of the house under the bathroom window and just tossed it in there…it was cold, and I said. “well I guess it’ll take or it won’t, let just see.”
Well it rooted, and it’s growing and soon there will be peonies there. which she is delighted by.
I’ve noticed that the walls don’t contain the lily of the valley she transplanted in it, and the clover grass is growing through the holes in the walls of the wood. To keep the wood edging clear, when I walk by I pick out the grass growth. But I smile when I walk by that side to cut the grass, because it was nothing before, and it’s growing into a little while and crazy, beautiful bed of flowers that she loves and waters diligently ( too much).
So the saying on the sign just came to me this afternoon, so I grabbed some chalk and wrote it down on her easle and stuck it in her garden.
For those of you who don’t know I started a “blackboard blessings” last year in my front window, to thank a neighbour for the mystery gift that was left at my door, and now I make new signs on a rotating semi regular basis of quotes or what I’m thinking, or what I feel blessed by.
So this is the sign out side in that flower bed. I’m going to make a “permanent blackboard” for that flower bed with the sign, because since it spilled rain while I was out this evening , the writing it gone now of the easel
