Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

More resigned than annoyed

It snowed today.

On June 10th.

Two days after some straight-up summer weather.

I couldn’t work up a full positive attitude but I do feel kind of resigned to the facts here. (Acceptance is important, right?)

June is often awful here in Newfoundland and Labrador. And we have had so many foggy, rainy, cold Junes that our recent good weather is the aberration, not this.

It’s pretty rare for us to have our patio furniture set up by this point and the leaves are hardly ever put by now.

But still, the fact that it is has been so warm and so green makes this snow a sort of insult.

This was not in the plan.

A backyard deck, set up for summer, is covered in snow.
Image description: a corner of a backyard patio, decorated with star shaped lights. There is a deck chair with a red cushion on it under a leafy tree. There is snow on the deck, on the ground, and on the tree.

Balancing My Schedule

ADHD is a tricky thing to work around.

Even though I am medicated, I still need to be careful with how and when I schedule different types of work and activities.

Lots of times, I overschedule myself and then I get overwhelmed. Or, like the last few days, I sometimes underschedule myself, get off track, and then have to scramble to finish the things I wanted to do.

Both of those are frustrating scenarios and I don’t like how I feel after trying to wrangle either type of day.

For tomorrow, I have a set of tasks scheduled with some buffer time around each.

Let’s see where this falls on the scheduling scale.

GIF of TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Amy is asking Jake ‘Who’s ready for some non-stop, totally scheduled fun?’
GIF description: A scene from tv show Brooklyn Nine-Nine in which Amy Santiago is asking Jake Peralta ‘Who’s ready for some non-stop, totally scheduled fun?’

Sunflowers…to be

Sunflowers and daffodils are two of my favourites and I have always wanted to grow some of my own.

And while that seems like a straightforward thing to do, deciding to start planting flowers actually involves a fair number of steps and a bit of planning.

Thanks to ADHD, multiple step projects and long-term planning are two of my nemeses.

I’ve bought daffodil bulbs and then found myself in December with the bulbs still hanging in the bag in my shed.

And I’ve planted sunflowers two years in a row…too late for them to bloom.

But this year, thanks to a better level of meds and the resultant capacity to plan, I have planted sunflowers early enough.

Today, the seedlings peeked out of the soil!

(I’m doing container gardening, obviously!)

A tiny green seedling emerges from the dirt in a terracotta coloured pot.
Image description: An terracotta coloured oblong flowerpot with dark soil inside, and a green seedling just starting to curl upwards.

Now to buy some daffodil bulbs!

Piece by Piece

One of my biggest challenges with ADHD has always been with breaking projects into smaller pieces or in understanding how small efforts will add up to a larger whole.

I’ve referred to it before as a ‘reverse forest for the trees issue.’ It’s not that I get so caught up in the trees that I can’t see the forest, it’s that the forest is one solid unit – I have to work hard to see that it is composed of a series of individual trees.

However, a combination of a food level of medication and some excellent systems has made piece by piece planning and work readily available to me for the first time in my life.

It really takes a lot of stress out of things, doesn’t it?

No wonder you can all work so steadily!

A GIF of red lego blocks being added together to build a larger block.
GIF description: red lego blocks are added one by one to make a larger lego block.

Gold Stars

Over the past few years, I have been giving out gold stars to coaching clients and to friends to celebrate their efforts towards whatever they happen to be working on.

I also give them to myself when I have put effort into something that is challenging for me.

Today, I’m celebrating my efforts to find a schedule that works for me.

(And for posting on my blog for 6 days in a row. Now that the habit is forming, I’ll move towards more variety and actual writing in my posts. 😉 )

GIF of a star being drawn in neon lights on a background
Image description: GIF of a star being draw in neon lights on a black background.