LOL– seriously! I love me a good picture on the top of the blog… I’ve been having fun doing that for the last few months, but, well… I’ve only got so many pictures of the kids (and I do need more, I admit) and the knitting, while being accomplished, doesn’t really get the ol’ juices flowin’ like some nice, professional, erm, FREE clipart, yannowhatImean? Anyway, if anyone’s got some good pages of clipart that you don’t need a computer degree to save to your hard drive, I’m all thumbs. Erm… Ears. Yanno… whatever… Hey– I still have lots of files of sleeping animals to put up, right? And the creepy little sleeping hamster doesn’t look dead AT ALL, I swear!
I’ve got another ADD class for Zoomboy tonight– hey, let’s see if I can pay attention long enough to actually start applying this to Zoomboy instead of my own manky-arsed self. Still, it is sort of amusing to look at all the symptoms and think “A-ha! I’m not weird, I’m learning disabled!” And, let’s face it, saying, “Do you mind if I knit? It helps me control my ADD,” sounds a LOT more grown up than “Do you mind if I knit? I’m pretty sure this is going to be as boring as hell and I don’t want to doze off.” Anyway, I’ve got my knitting packed and good to go, and I’m thinking I might get a goodly bit of a scarf done this go-round. Let’s hear it for health improvement classes–now, if only we got units for them!!!
And, I think I’ve figured out the secret to keeping mama happy–it involves enough sleep and time in my own head. Seriously–if I don’t get time in my own head, to read, to write, to create to just BE, I turn into a really grumpy bitch. Just do. Being alone–go figure, it CAN be a mood enhancer! Yesterday I met a friend for coffee, and to go shopping at a yarn store (I told her next time we meet, we should meet at my regular yarn store because Babetta SERVES coffee in the store) and even though I forgot Squish’s coloring books (BAD MOMMY–Squish would have had SUCH a better time if I’d remembered!) it was lovely to talk to an adult. The only problem was, I also talked to Zoomboy’s best friends’ mom (one of THE loveliest people on the planet–I am firmly convinced. I don’t care what faith you walk, some people are destined to be angels, and this woman is one of them. Pure goodness. I adore her,) and that was great, but I came home and my crazy friend Wendy called, and then the kids all seemed to think I’d want to talk to them (go figure) and, well…
By eight o’clock, I didn’t want to talk to another living soul, and I made sure the feeling was mutual. Funny, how you think you’re a social person and then you realize that it’s all a sham. I love being social–but it needs to be followed by intense periods of being curled up in my own shell. I know that now. I’ll be careful whom I inflict my nasty ol’ self onto in the future.
Anyway, writing continues apace. I finished another Gambling Men short mostly because my editors like them, and not really to publish. Although we all see the stories being published in the future in some way or another-a collection, a novella, something–what they really boil down to is being fun to write and getting me in the headspace for something a little more difficult and a little more serious.
“I Love You Asshole”–the Marcus and Phillip novella– is finished, and has been accepted (YAY!) and will probably be out around March, but it has a LOT of tightening needed before I send it to Jennifer (for whom it was written) and let it be edited for publishing. I’m going to give it a couple of days before I start the editing… I’m on a roll on Living Promises, and don’t want to break that again so soon. It took me a while to get my head back into that one, since I let it sit for two months to work on other projects, and I want that puppy to start rolling like a moss-covered rock!
And to that end– Littlewitch DEMANDED more Deacon, and we’ve already sort of determined that sometimes, I’m just her fast-typing bitch, so I wrote thiswhich does contain a plot spoiler, but which is also a quiet, Deacon/Crick moment. No sex, but some sadness, so beware.
And, well, that’s ’bout all! The post-Christmas quiet (sort of) continues, and it’s already been a productive new year!
We have the ADD gene in our family, too. I can point my finger squarely at my husband for this. When Elanor was diagnosed, we realized all his report cards said things like "doesn't work up to potential…." and words to that effect. He learned to cope and made it through school but there are a lot of unfinished projects in our house because he loses focus.
We were lucky and got a wonderful teacher for El's first two years of school who helped her learn to focus and pay attention and stay on task. Good luck!
You'll find what works for Zoomboy and he'll be fine.
There's a lot to be said for ADD, but it sure doesn't help with sitting still in a school room for hours on end and not bothering anyone else around you. My dad, two brothers, and a slew of nephews and great nephews have had good, successful lives, but none of them can sit still for an hour.
Who needs clipart when you have Zoomboy as sleeping dragon?
It's good that you are identifying the ADD early – I think it will help – hell, it has to help or at least not hurt right?
In terms of clip art – I really like a google image search – use it for work (seriously, the government pays me to do that – well it pays me to do research and I use clipart in my research…) – you can also limit the file size which is useful. MSword also has some clipart.
I definitely need lots of time to myself to feel grounded.