Yup I'm Still Alive

So what has been going on since October.  Well we decided to go to Disney World and what a fiasco that was.  I don't need to see Disney again for at least another 10 years.  Then Thanksgiving with my parents in Florida.  I decided I wanted to move to Florida with the rest of my family.  I loved the fact it was 75 degrees at night and I was able to walk around the neighbor hood without the fear of getting smooshed by a car or attacked by a bear.  Kenny was not moving to Florida.  I told him his business would flourish with al the old people in nursing homes and on hospice, but alas he shot me down.  He did however agree to move out of this tomb we are in now.  I so hate it here.  I've been saying this for years but did he listen when it was a good time to sell.  Of course not.  We've only been on the market for 2 weeks but he's freaking out that no one is going to buy it and will miss out on the house we've already put an offer on.  For some reason I think we are going to get something pretty quickly.  It's going to be lower than we hope for but I definitely think something is going to come soon.  I don't know why but I'm crossing my fingers that it is more than just wishful thinking.  My house is very unique so you are either going to love it or hate it.  All I know is that I am sick of cleaning it. Do you know how hard it is to keep wood floors, in an open floor plan with a 4 and 6 year, spotless.  It's driving me insane.  I learned how gross my kids really are.  Then Hubby keeps making comments like "now that it's clean and everything is fixed, I want to stay!" I immediately fly off the handle and freak out that I am not spending one more day than I absolutely have to in this place.  It's just too much.  It's too isolated it's too big and it's too much money and I'm just not a big house kind of person.

On the medication front D-man and I have changed doctors.  He costs hundreds of dollars and doesn't take insurance.  However, so far it has been worth it.  My son and I have been on at least 3 different medications a piece and gone through a whole lot of configurations.  I am now down to one medication for the OCD and one for the ADHD and two to sleep at night.  Still can't fall asleep without help.  I'm doing really well though.  Other than when Hubby says stupid things I am very calm and laidback about pretty much everything.  It's so weird being this way.  No anxiety, no irritability so weird.  And and, I'm an optimist all the time.  So crazy!  D-man on the other hand not as good as we hoped but we are still working on it.  I've been learning to parent differently though  behavioral therapy and some of the little tools I've gained have been working.  Hubby needs to work on some of his skills though.  The medication isn't completely working either but I just think it is a matter of increasing his dose.  We shall see.

The only thing that is really bothering me now is that I'm trying to find time to do my damn roots!  Ugh!  They are awful.  I either have to wait a few more days until after our open house this Sunday or get it done by tomorrow with hopefully minimal staining and scrub down the bathroom (which I would have to do anyway).  I dye my hair black in a light colored bathroom so it's a little bit of a concern.  Nothing has ever happened before but I don't know if I want to chance it right before an open house.

Hope you all out there in blog land are doing well!

Happy Updates - Holy Neglected Blog

So a lot has been going on in the last couple of weeks and I think we are now on the right track.  D-man and I were both having issues with our medication.  He was like a zombie with no personality and all and that was breaking my heart.  When his medication started to wear off he was a super hyper, impulsive lunatic.  We also noticed this would happen if his patch came off to early or if we tried to skip a day, the AD
HD was ten times worse.  The same thing was happening with me (though not as bad) with my meds.  On top of everything else my son was getting so so skinny.  He were's a 6 slim and i had to adjust the waist to the ends on both sides.  With this new medication he's making up for lost time and I've had to let out the adjustable waist just a little bit LOL.  My meds are okay but they seem to be making my OCD meds not work as well.  I have a new compulsion (besides shopping)  I am washing all of my dishes by hand *GASP!*  You heard me right.  I have a perfectly good dishwasher yet for the last month I wash my dishes by hand every single day.  I think it soothes me in some way and on the ADHD side it makes me feel like I at least accomplished one thing during the day.  So yes I was dishes and I enjoy it, go figure.

Damien's new meds make him a little tired but his loving,considerate and VERY funny personality have all resurfaced.  He now acts like a normal little boy and I can't be happier with his new meds.  It's in pill form which makes things much easier. We taught him to take pills by teaching him to swallow tic tacs.  I swear it took about 2 minutes for him to get it.  If you or you know anyone with the dilemma of teaching their children how to swallow a pill, definitely try tic tacs.

We are  going to Disney World in November and spending Thanksgiving with my family.  My father, my stepmother, my sister and her SO (I don't know why they just don't get married).  This has not been  done since 19-- well 1996 with my parents and 1980 with my sister. It's a long story.  this will be a first almost lol.  Should be fun, we are going out to dinner.  I was really hoping to have the whole family together so my children know my side but unfortunately my aunt, that hosts everything won't be around.  Maybe we can do it again next year!  I might need an entire year to recoup.

Happy Days and Peanut Butter

Lately I was in a little bit of a slump but really it's just trying to get me to the right medicine and the right dosage.  My OCD kicked into a little high gear and I have been compulsive organizing, compulsively/impulsively craft shopping, and obsessing over peanut butter (really, I can't stop eating it).  I can't wait till my kids (and husband) so I can take out the jar, the largest size jar they had at the grocery store, and a spoon and go to town.  I've always liked peanut butter but the last few months it's peanut butter everything.  And yes, I do have a stash of miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups stashed in the refrigerator downstairs.  Weird right.  Luckily, even though I am eating it most of the time, I'm only eating a little bit at a time so I'm not downing a whole 48oz jar in one sitting.  I save that for ice cream, lol.  Okay enough about peanut butter.

I finally finished my course of Accutane (it's not the brand Accutane but another brand but no one would know what I was talking about).  Woo hoo!  Five months of over dried cracked lips and chin, scaly, itchy dry skin but not one pimple in a very long time.  Hopefully it doesn't come back.  I'm just so glad to be off a medication.  I'm also weening off of another one.  I take 3 different meds to go to sleep at night which I know is ridiculous but when even with a sleeping pill you're up till 5 am we had to try it.  Well my doctor forgot to give me the prescription so I just decided to break the pills in half and ween down and see how I do.  So far so good.  I think it helps that I am coming off of amphetamines and basically crash at night.  With the medications I'm on I'm doing a little better but I need to still get some kind of program or coach or whatever to help me work with my ADHD.  I'm still all over the place but I've been able to reach some goals.  I need to set budgets and schedule my time to be more efficient but I'm much better that I was.

Guess what, just as I was about to sign paperwork to become a referral agent and not a full time real estate agent anymore, I get a phone call from someone in California looking to move here.  Well low and behold I actually had someone buy a house through me.  We can close next week but he want's to take advantage of some things that his company is offering and is actually pushing off closing another week or two.  The funny thing is most people wouldn't be ready to close so soon and we would probably go longer than his asking date.  A normal closing in the state of NJ takes about 45 days.  We are at day 14, how crazy is that. I just lucked out by having better than normal buyers and they are awesome people as well.  To top it off I got them this humongous, beautiful house for $35,000 off of asking price.  

I can't tell you how perfect I needed everything to be and how stressed that this made me and it was a better than perfect transaction.  Many agents would kill for this type of transaction because it was so easy going.  So it will be my last and as soon as it officially closes I will be handing off my paperwork as a referral agent.  I'm going to be full time mommy.  When Ava reaches kindergarten and the economy gets better I may try to find a part time job somewhere to keep me busy.  Until them I'm going to get my self together and enjoy my life.

Hyperfocusing

I was upped on my adderall dosage last month so I'm not so much a zombie any more and I'm feeling a little better.  I didn't mean to get anyone down, in my last post, I was just releasing some steam.  I'm actually still in good spirits through this whole thing.  It's just that sometimes it gets a little overwhelming.  They are probably going to have to up my dose again though.  Increasing the dose actually took away the zombie like side effects but now I'm hyper focusing on things like the computer and organizing things like crazy.  My impulsive spending has slown down immensely but I am still completely out of focus.  I'm not sure if it's the medication or the knowledge of what I have but I am so much more aware of when I am completely out of focus.  It's a hard fight but I'm getting through it.  Thank god I'm on medication for OCD because that helps me not be such a perfectionist, which causes extreme anxiety, and allows me to give myself more patience.  I just stop and focus on what I need to do right at that moment.  My memory is still shot but that could also be attributed to volumes of alcohol I inhaled over the 4 years in college.  I'm just gonna keep on truckin' till I get it right.

D is doing great.  We are getting along much better.  I need to spend more time with him though.  Being hyperfocused on the wrong things leads me to be a little withdrawn from everyone.  Up a mountain down a hill.  I'll get there.  Tomorrow we are going to check out a place for piano lessons.  My 5 year old has been begging me all summer to enroll him.  I called the perfect place to find out the instructor died last winter.  It would be nice if someone would take down her website so people won't call looking to sign up.

Little A is starting dance lessons in Sept.  Of course all of the dance studios in NJ are all geared towards competitive dancing and the moms get really scary about this.  I just want her to have fun.  I don't really think I need to have too many worries about that at her age.  She will be taking ballet and tap.  As if she doesn't were her tutu around enough.  She has this bright multi colored mardi gras looking thing and it's huge and fluffy and I have had to endure many errands with her dressed in full ballet garb in 90 degree heat.    Makes for interesting conversation with strangers.  However, I would never deny her or my son because I'm a true believer of self expression.  Obviously at there age there will be no tattoos or piercings but dressing themselves in kelly green polka dots and purple plaid is just fine with me.

I hate that the summer is coming to an end.  I don't think I've ever enjoyed summer so much.  Even with all the trials and tribulations.  That and I have to deal with D going to kindergarten, I just don't know if I'm ready to let him be ready, even though he is ready.  What happened to my little boy?  Hope you all are having a great summer!

Could I Be Anymore of a HOT MESS?!

So ADD doesn't exist anymore it's all different types of ADHD but really I could care less.  All I know is that it sucks.  The medication sucks even worse.  I went from being flakey, flighty and stupid to a complete zombie.  However now when I start a project the project gets done and gets done right.

I don't know how I was a really good student.  Very rarely would I get anything lower that a B.  I gotta couple of C's in gym which I thought was pretty ridiculous to begin with and a problem with geometry in the beginning, that was about it.  Every time my parents when to conference night they said the same two things, she talks a little bit too much in class and sometimes she doesn't put in a full effort.  Those are the only two things that showed I had it and back then no one would even speculated that there was an issue.  It was the kid who sat behind me that used to blurt things out in class and was constantly fidgeting that had the problem.  It only came apparent something was wrong with me in college.  This is going to be too much information but I read that increasing estrogen can sometimes make ADHD worse.  I started to go down hill in my sophomore year of college.  The exact same time I started to take the birth control pill.  I don't know how true it is but coincidentally that is was happened.  Had great skin and a barely existent period but I was dumb as a stump and a complete under achiever.  I think that if I had caught it back in the 70's I would have ended up with a full scholarship to Princeton and be running for president in 2018.

So now I have OCD and ADHD.  It's like being punched on both sides of your head at the same time.  Many tell me "at least you know what it is now"  yeah, well it never goes away.  It's not a mental disorder its a neurological disorder that I now after almost 39 years have to figure out how to deal  with.  I was so depressed for the first week of knowing and the fact that I passed it down to my son (great job mom!)  I didn't know what to do but for me apparently that is normal.  My shrink told me that this explains why my son and I clash so much.  Poor thing.  I can't wait to get him into therapy.  And as crazy as this might sound I may invest in some kind of life coach, personal organizer type thing.  I just need someone to help me schedule my life and help me learn new parenting skills for me to use and help my son.

Speaking of which I hear him screaming and pounding up the stairs now.  I hate this time of the day when both are medications start wearing off and he becomes unfocused and EXTREMELY HYPER and I become completely unfocused and lose all the patience I've ever had.

The good news is there is no where to go but up.  I just have to figure out how to get there.  *Ugh*