"A" is for "ADHD"

This week was supposed to be all about "A a Apple".  Instead I spent the better part of it engaged in a battle with the bad parts of ADD or bipolar or whatever you want to call what I struggle with.  

It's a cycle that progresses the same way every time.  And every time I am surprised when I get to the end of it.  It starts with me being really on top of things and excited about life with a rush of ideas and a ton of energy to accomplish them.  I'm so excited about these ideas, in fact, that after a while I start to neglect the more mundane tasks that keep family life going, because really, what could be more important that spending an entire day cutting out felt leaves?

That's what I did on Monday and everything was downhill from there.  I lost all my drive and energy. For the rest of the week, every room in the house stood in various degrees of hurricane:

From time to time I would manage to work up the gumption to set a timer and focus my efforts on cleaning up for 20 minutes.  It was a small victory.  But then I would again neglect to stay on top of things and by the end of the day we would be back to living in chaos.  I just cannot function in disorder.  I would be totally overwhelmed and unmotivated to clean up, so I would just head to bed and wake up to a compounded mess.

During this point of the cycle, if I can manage not to wallow in despair, I usually become very reflective and experience insights into things that I want to change which eventually ends up exciting me enough to motivate me to rise up and get back on top of things.  The cycle continues somewhat normally for a while and I stick to a schedule.  A very regulated sleep, exercise and eating schedule helps immensely.

Thank goodness I married an "Aspie".  Our personalities and the things with which we struggle are pretty much opposite...  My hero.  I have to say it... He completes me.  Awww.  Well, someone's gotta keep this Shockey show running!

Here are the pictures of the week:

We did some activities with the felt leaves involving  matching, ordering, counting, colors, shapes, etc.  Not quite worth the hours that it took (I made a lot more than what is shown here) but fun nonetheless.

We had dinner with Mika and Granddad.  We took this picture for Ellie Surgener who is our dolly benefactress. Thanks for passing your treasured doll collection down to the Shockey grand kids, Mrs. Surgerner! We love Manny Moe, Jack and Suzy.

We went to visit Katie.  I do love that girl.  I just had to take a picture of some of her Halloween decorations. How can I not want to be all creative when I have friends who set up Gothic still life in the door way?!

We snuggled a lot.  I think the kids really like when I am like this.  It is the only time I sit still!

Hobbit

Visiting Mommom and Poppop - a ride on the "swirly chair"

I finally got up the energy to do something fun and set up an apple pie bake shop.  I got the idea here.

It didn't take her long to start painting herself with apple butter

Playing in the mud pit turned homemade creek