I’ve been feeling like my brain is broken lately. I’m swamped with Coffee clients (and even had to turn a potential client down). I’ve been trying to get some things around the house taken care of. I’ve had a lot of errands to run. I’ve been trying to get some holiday projects and shopping done early. I’ve also got Mama Note’s Body After Baby challenge going on. And I’ve been combating my ADD and the blues for a little while which definitely makes even the little things much more difficult.

I did so-so on the Body After Baby mini-challenge to drink water. I definitely started strong. But I haven’t done a single minute of exercise thus far. I’ve been stretched so thin lately between my blogs and my graphic design projects that fitness has been left by the wayside. I’m not sure how much that bothers me. Something’s got to give and maybe this should be that something. However I don’t want to be completely inactive. I want to at least be training for my running goals.

I’ve got a lot of clients right now, which is great but stressful. I have a pro-bono client that I really want to work on to return a big favor she did for me last year. But my paying clients obviously take the priority, especially since some are in a bit of a time crunch. I also have a few of my own projects I’d like to work on and can’t right now. Plus I’m always unsure if my prices are fair {to me}. I like being affordable because I know a lot of my clients are SAHMs like me and can’t afford to spend a small fortune on graphic design. But, depending on the project my wages are as low as a dollar an hour. So yeah, it’s a bit frustrating at times.

I have one more post about bullying I’d like to write. And I’ve got a list of posts I want to write for my other blog. Plus NaNoWriMo is coming up and I know that is going to take a lot of my free time. I also have some reading I’d like to do. And of course there’s a long list of random to-do items that need to be taken care of {e.g. open a RESP account for Lucy, return some borrowed items, sort out all the clothes Lucy has outgrown, etc.}. With so much to keep track of I think even if I didn’t have ADD I’d feel overwhelmed. But I do have ADD and it’s been bad lately. I feel like I’m in such a fog. I’ve started taking fish oil supplements again because the Omega 3’s are supposed to help. But I don’t know if it’s enough. I may have to ask the doctor about using antidepressants {which can be used to treat ADD} since I can’t take the normal ADHD meds while breastfeeding.

I’m also considering shutting down Coffee for the duration of NaNoWriMo, or maybe for the month of December. But I can’t decide if I want to do that. I’ve even considered retiring this blog but I know I would regret that in about 24 hours. If I were rich I’d just hire a personal assistant/maid. Yeah, that would be perfect.

Anyway…that’s just some random stuff I wanted to put out there.

Are you a mom?

Yes?

Then you know all about “Mommy Brain.” It begins in pregnancy. Brain gets fuzzier, memory takes a vacation. It doesn’t improve much after giving birth because your mental resources are depleted by sleep deprivation and (if you’re a SAHM like me) having a person whose vocabulary consists of “AAAAAAAAH” as your only conversation partner for the majority of your day.

You know what’s even more fun than “Mommy Brain?”

“Mommy Brain” and ADD.

I have always been forgetful. When I was a little kid my mom used to pin notes for my teachers onto my clothes. It was the only way the teachers would get said notes. In fifth grade I got detention {twice} for forgetting to do my homework.* And the distractibility! Let me tell you about the distractibility! Lets say I ask a question. By the time the answer is given I’ve been distracted and totally miss it. Then, like an idiot, I have to ask again. Seriously. It can happen at any moment. I can be mid-sentence and…Oh! Did I tell you we are picking up our digital photo disk from the photographer tomorrow morning?

I’m really happy with how this last photo session went. I’ll be sure to post some pictures over the weekend! I can’t wait to get them printed and in frames so we can hang them all over the house.

Anyway, have a great weekend! We’re headed to Calgary tomorrow to get passports for Bear and Lu. I’ll be back and posting again Saturday!

*Don’t even get me started on what I think of teachers who dish out the same punishment for innocent forgetfulness that they do for fighting/stealing/other rule breaking activities.

Did I mention that tutu project I was so excited about?

Oh, I did?

Yeah, well, I guess I'm a little too excited. So excited in fact that I couldn't sleep last night, not for a very long time. See, and this is very much an ADD thing, my brain obsesses about things very easily. So I was laying there thinking "shut up Brain!" while my brain had plans of her own, tutu plans.

{And this is the part where you get a frightening glimpse into the way my mind works.}

It went something like this:

Hmmm...let's see...I could make a red and white one for Canada day, and a blue and white one for Halloween*, and a Lorax one for Lucy's birthday**, and a red and green one for Christmas, and ooh! I could take pictures of Lucy in the red and green one to send out with Christmas cards, and a pink, red, and white one for Valentine's day, and one in different shades of green for St. Patrick's day, and maybe I'll make one for myself for Halloween, and I should try cutting triangle points on the ends of some, and I want that thing on Etsy so I can learn how to do fancier ones, and I need to make a different, smaller one in purple and white for Lucy's pictures because Adam doesn't really like the yellow and purple and he's kind of right, and I so want a Bedazzler, and I'm so excited about finding that online source for tulle, oh! I should get a plain white onesie and freezer paper stencil a little Canadian flag with a heart instead of a maple leaf and Lucy can wear it with her tutu and we'll go to the fireworks or something, and I could do a pink heart for a Valentine's day shirt, and...

Someone stop me before I make tutus for the whole world! Hmmm...I bet Sasha and Malia would look adorable in red, white, and blue tutus for the Fourth of July!

*Lucy's Halloween costume is going to be "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and you will think it is the best costume ever. My magic 8-ball and iPod Macro cannot compare!

**I'm thinking of doing a Dr. Seuss theme for Lucy's first birthday. The tutu would match the colors of the Truffula Trees from The Lorax.

For a while I've had only a vague understanding of the financial crisis that's happening. Every time I'd try to read about it my brain would kind of fog up and my eyes would glaze over. The cure? A fancy, animated video of course! Here's an explanation for those of us who are ADD (video from Vimeo via The Consumerist).

Well, my two week trial of the Motivated Moms planner is just about up. So tonight I'm giving you my final review.

Definitely worth 8 bucks.

I'm positive I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again: I'm ADD. Like many adults with ADD I have tried a million different things to organize the different aspects of my life, homemaking being no exception. I flunked FlyLady. I've read books on housekeeping and seen no improvement. I've tried making my own chore charts. Most things I tried were just too complex to mantain without getting overwhelmed.

Herein lies the beauty of Motivated Moms: it's simply a checklist. If, like me, you love lists and checking things off motivates you to do more then it can't get much better than Motivated Moms. Well, a full time maid and cook might be better but that's gonna cost a whole heck of a lot more than 8 bucks.

Actually, I like to think of it as a "mom" in paper version. "She" knows all there is about keeping the house under control. "She" knows what needs done and when. And "she" tells you without nagging or guilt tripping.

I have noticed that not everything applies to me (so I just ignore those items). And (as some have commented on other posts) the frequency with which certain tasks are listed might seem strange. Here's what Deann at Motivated Moms had to say:

"Then the kitchen cloth/towel - it just gets soppy a lot and the dishcloth will smell 'sour' if I don't change it every other day. I grew up having to SMELL the dishcloth before using it because my Mom didn't change it often enough. Ewwwwwww. LOL But trust me, we don't live in a germ free environment that looks like a museum. We live here, it's not a show place, so there are things that get laid down "just for now" and right now there's dishes in the sink because I made homemade pizza for lunch and haven't gotten in there to clean up yet (hey, at least I put everything in the sink and wiped all the sauce and cheese splatters off the counter and stove, that counts, right?). I think most people would be surprised at how normal (sometimes messy, sometimes clean) my house is but with the planner and keeping up with bits and pieces as I go through each day helps it to be at a reasonable level of tidiness at all times. There's still messes but they are reasonably contained and I know I'll get to them eventually as things come up on the planner."