Day...I lost count

So, I guess that once I decided to stop blogging daily, I just decided to stop blogging altogether. So I've been doing alot since we last talked. I've finished my Christmas shopping except for a few items. I scanned in my first 7 pages of my comic and tinkered with some digital painting. Now, I'm watching Once Upon A Time and fading in and out of this post. So I will devote my attention to just one of them. *click*

Day 33-ish

I didn't blog Friday or Saturday. I'm strangely comfortable with that. Friday we had dinner with Tom and Jenny and the baby, then my wife went to Adoration while I sat on my butt playing video games and watching Batman cartoons. Yesterday we had a very busy day and it would have been a good day to post a to-do list. Here's all the stuff we completed:

• Went Christmas shopping and brought home a sizable haul
• Made a meal plan
• Went grocery shopping
• Got a haircut
• Moved all of the Christmas decor upstairs from the garage
• Put up and trimmed our tree
• Wrapped presents

Pretty productive day. Today will be less so, but still pretty productive:

• Get breakfast
• Go to church
• Help mother-in-law put up tree
• Bring presents over to her house

So I'm counting this as my weekend post. I don't think I will be posting daily. I think every few days will be more interesting. I will only post when something of interest occurs or I have an actual to-do list.

Day 32

Class tonight. That's about it. We will have a busy weekend of Christmas shopping and tree decorating and all things holidacious. Hopefully I will finish the inks on all of the pages of my preview for my comic.

Day 31

It was the end of the month, but not very stressful. It started like it was going to insane, but I got some helpfrom a coworker in the deburring department, and she was a big help. The end of the month always makes me nervous since I got written up for shipping 2 pieces of a certain part to Boeing instead of 3 pieces. Now I have end-of-month anxiety. Tonight I will:

• Clean the kitchen after dinner
• Clear off my nightstand (it's a dumping ground for me)
• Blog
• Guest blog on my wife's blog
• Try to blog on my comic book blog
• Spent 20 minutes inking my comic
• Watch Restaurant Impossible

I'd like to do some research into caffeine. I know it can lead to anxiety and nervousness, but I want to see how it interacts with the sedating anti-anxiety supplements I take.

Day 30

Happy one-month anniversary to ADDiary! What a day to have a learning disability! I tried to log into the website for the community college that I'm trying to go back to, but frustration took over when I ran into login issues and then an overall lack of understanding of the process. It's been really tough. It's bringing back many of the terrible debilitating memories I have of the first time I did this 7 years ago. My wife and I have the 8th off from work for a holy day of obligation, so we will go to Front Range together and try to figure out what's going on.

• Go online and register for class#@&*!#!
• Work on inks instead
• Watch Chopped
• Go to bed and have nightmares about someday having to watch my children struggle is ADD

On a lighter note, I came across this Wiki article about Hunter Vs Farmer Theory. Basically it tells me that I am so evolved that I have developed a genetic mutation that enables me to have certain advantages in the hunter/gathering activities of my daily life. Terrific.

Day 29

Tonight I have resigned myself to just sitting down and doing. I'm great at planning to do things, but they never get started. then I just say "Well, now it's so late." So tonight I will:

• Clean up kitchen after dinner
• Log into school email and actually sign up for some classes
• Pencil page 8 of the comic
• Relax, have some tea, and get to bed at a decent hour

Yesterday, my order of theanine powder came in from purebulk.com. I've discovered it's cheaper to get inositol from Swanson rather than purebulk.com. I can get an 8oz(227g) can of inositol powder from Swanson for $10.99, and it's significantly more expensive on purebulk, but the theanine is only available in pill form, which is a much smaller quantity as the raw powder. The only think I order from purebulk is the theanine. I get the rest of my supplements from Swanson.

Again, I have found what works for me to relieve anxiety without taking SSRI's and other such anti-anxiety drugs. If you are on a drug regimen, the advice of your doctor is the foremost informed.

Day 28

Today, I told myself that I was on lockdown so I could get some pages done on my comic. Well, after I finished the inks on one page, my Castlevania cravings took over. So I got about an hour of inking done, and about three hours of useless gaming done. Oh well. I posted on my comics blog as well, so I was a little productive. When I get one more page done on my comic, I am lettering and posting my preview. It will be black and white, but at least it will be something to sate the fans...once I get fans. I've also got to figure out how I want to publish it. I think a weekly page webcomic is the best idea.

Day 27 - First miss!

Well crap. I forgot to blog yesterday. It was a three week streak that I broke. I blame society and Castlevania. I even remembered to post on my comics blog. I'm going to logically say that it's probably my cat's fault. Well, since I got nothing done yesterday, here is my to-do for today:

• Get some pho with the wife
• Finish scripting the first issue of Power Horse
• Draw....something
• Make a meal plan
• Go grocery shopping

I had no idea that they give Ritalin for thyroid problems. Seriously.

Day 25 - Happy foul genocide day!

We did Thanksgiving with Paige's family on Sunday, so we did a small dinner today with just the two of us and her mom. We had a Cornish hen each stuffed with portabellos, which turned out to be wonderfully juicy and delicious after the brine that I did, and we had roasted Brussels sprouts with chopped pecans and her mama's au gratin potatoes. With a pear/pecan/feta/bibb lettuce salad and a bit of Laughing Cat Riesling, makes for a fantastic dinner. We haven't even had the hazelnut tort yet. Today, my to-do list will have visual aids.

Day 24

Last day of work before the holiday! Wooo! Actually, I feel like I've been working since I got home. Tomorrow will be the first time we host Thanksgiving at our place. That is, just Paige, her mom, and myself. It's still a pretty big deal and we want to make some good food. Tonight to prep, we:

• Cleaned kitchen.
• Prepared the brine for the Cornish hens and brined them for 3 hours.
• Mixed dough for tort and prepared filling.
• Baked tort.
• Drained hens and rinsed.
• Cleaned kitchen again.

Tomorrow, we are going to church at 9:15 and then I will try to stop by my parents to say hello before we start prepping the rest of the food. Now, time for sleep.

Day 23

So it's been about a week since I've devoted any serious time to the comic. I'd like to blame the busy weekend and the holiday, but to be honest, I've been afraid to go back to it because I have to plan out the next few pages and I am stuck. I have a four day weekend for the holiday, and I plan on making the most of it t. I want to get some Christmas shopping done, but I'm not going to do that until I get some work done on the project at hand. ADD is taking over at the moment, but that doesn't mean I can't just sit down and try.

No to-dos tonight. I know there have been alot of days like that in the last week, but I need to relax a little bit in order to be productive.

Day 22

Today felt like Wednesday, because I have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving. I guess if it felt like Wednesday, it would really feel like Friday, because this Wednesday is my Friday, but if it felt like Friday, then I wouldn't be at work because I have Friday off. So will Tuesday actually be Wednesday? What would that make Monday. I think we're done talking about this.

• Write passive-aggressive note to noisy neighbor
• Tear up the passive-aggressive note and write a more diplomatic one
• Have Paige rewrite diplomatic note because the letters looked too angry on mine
• Bake some potatoes
• Eat some potatoes
• Blog
• Write out remaining pages of issue #1 of the comic
• Relax and listen to obnoxious singing from neighbor and remember that they will get my note tomorrow

I haven't really had time to organize any research or educational stuff lately. I've fallen off the wagon with Dual n Back, which is probably why I haven't been as focused. cognitivefun.net is now blocked at work for some reason, so I can't do exercises at work. Maybe it's time to dust off the old Brain Age games on my DS.

If you missed my purpose for this blog, please read it here.

Day 21

Today was truly a day of rest. I did nothing eat a feast at Paige's aunt's place, and lay on the couch. This will just be a filler post to keep the streak going. Three weeks of uninterrupted motivation. This calls for a celebration! I will celebrate with sleep. I'm excited for a three-day work week. Tonight, I have one major to-do that has been on my mind all day.

• Write a note to the guy living in the condo below us informing him that we don't appreciate listening to him watch Die Hard every night at 8 with the volume maxed out. Especially after having to knock on his door several nights in a row asking him to turn it down and still having to listen to it the next night. I've never heard a peep from any of the people that have lived in the short-term rental until he moved in. Also, it would be nice if he could not set his tv to go on at 6am in his bedroom(below ours) at, again, the volume maxed out and leaving it on for hours. ALSO, please tell your daughter or whoever that even if she had a good singing voice, which she does not, that I still don't want to listen to it at 11:30 every night. ALSO, while it thrills me to hear that you might possibly close on that house you looked at recently, it also doesn't thrill me that I can hear every conversation you have on the phone, and I'm sure the blind paraplegic gentleman living below you would tell you that the noise is unbearable if he could, but he can't go up the stairs. So, on behalf of your upstairs and downstairs neighbors, please, with all due respect, shut the hell up and let us live in peace. 

          Thank you and be silent.
          Your neighbors


          P.S. We know where you live


Ok, so I might not phrase the note exactly like that, but the message will be the same. Be quiet. You know, it would be one thing if the guy was willing to talk to me, but every time I have to go down there, he opens the door about 5 inches and says 'Sorry!' and closes it in my face. I don't know what the deal is with this dude. I just wish he would get the point, but he never gives me time to talk. I hate noisy neighbors so much.

Day 20

While the to-do list kind of strayed, my wife and I did get much of what needed to be on the list done.

• Make meal plan
• Grocery shopping
• Clean out office closet
• Clean bedroom closet
• Tidy living room
• Clean kitchen
• Gather up laundry
• Make artichoke dip for tomorrow
• Start drawing page 6

Thank goodness it's a three day week next week. I feel like there's just no time to work on the comic this weekend.

Day 19

We had a meeting today at work and, apparently this guy that's been out all week has MRSA. So now I'm all freaked out. If you read the article, it's clear that this is really serious. I'm a little worried. Flesh-eating bacteria that's resistant to antibiotics just seems like a kind of super bug from a scifi flick.

Tonight we ate at Noodles. Then we came home and watched Grey's Anatomy and had a beer. Then my wife played around on the laptop while I watched some episodes of Batman Brave and the Bold. This cartoon is so fun. I dig the 'I am the night' Batman, but I also like this campy stuff. It's like watching The Tick.

Tomorrow I have nothing to do. So I will clean the house and then slave away on the comic.

• Gather up all the laundry
• Strip the bed and wash sheets
• Tidy bedroom
• Tidy living room and kitchen
• Run dishwasher
• Clean bathroom
• Buy cat litter
• Make meal plan
• Grocery shopping
• Vacuum house
• Finish inking page 7
• Layout page 6 and 8 and start drawing

That's all. Saturday is my productive day usually. Then I can relax on Sunday and just leisurely work on my comic. Except this Sunday we are going down to Littleton for an early Thanksgiving with Paige's family. So I will bring along a notebook so I can work on some scripting in between food comas.

Day 18

Cripes. Well this comic is coming along slower than I would like it to be. I've already got several more ideas for other comics, but I want to finish the 5 issues of this one first. I think one of the problems is in regards to my prep work. I will script one page and then immediately want to draw it. That hinders my progress because I don't have a clear idea of what the next page will lay out like. Maybe I should take a hiatus on the art and focus on the scripting.

I had my class tonight, so I didn't have much time for to-dos. My only goal was to get dinner on the table and clean up the kitchen, then go to class and blog when I got home. I think I'll get ready for bed and sit up for a little while with my notebook to see if I can't flesh out this comic's script a little better.

Day 17

Work was productive. Dinner was fajitas. Kitchen is clean. I inked pages for 20 minutes. I watched Restaurant Impossible and am now watching Superchefs. I find that my free time is more enjoyable when I know that I've been productive. If I start relaxing before I take care of my to-dos, I feel guilty. I think it's that way for most people. It's like completing tasks resets my feelings of restlessness so I can relax.

What I did today:

• Cooked dinner and cleaned kitchen
• Inked for 20 minutes
• Put my feet up and chilled out

I don't have any scientific or insightful tidbits tonight. I'm in cool down mode. G'night!

Day 16 - It's lookin' up

I started the day with a very Zen-like calm. That's because I anticipated a 'talking to' or straight up 'get the hell out' at work today. That didn't happen, exactly. I was getting more nervous as the day went on and finally my supervisor comes out to the shipping department, with the quality manager, and the plant manager, and the engineering manager, and the shop manager. So no pressure, right? As it turns out, we all had a pretty good meeting in regards to procedure and I feel like it's finally understood that we have been so busy and overwhelmed, and we're going to implement some changes to how we do things. It sounds like I'm going to get to spend more time doing just the main responsibilties of the shipping and receiving, and less of the side-job stuff and running around in the company truck. So, things went pretty optimistically, in my opinion.

So tonight I decided to:

• Make dinner and clean up the kitchen afterwards
• Watch the new Chopped episode
• Post to my food blog
• Post to my ADD blog

All done and ready to get to bed.

One thing before I go. I work in a noisy machine shop and I tend to be a pretty noise-sensitive person. It's difficult to concentrate while the sounds of high-speed mills bore into titanium. Listening to music or a podcast sometimes works, but when I'm in a real crunch and can't even focus while music is playing, I opt for earplugs. Plain ol'earplugs. They turn the volume down on everything so I can focus on what I'm doing. It seems to calm me during those really busy times. Try it!

Day 15

Works sucks. It really sucks. Basically, the consequences for any mistake I make are dire. Once I labeled a part incorrectly and shipped it to Lockheed Marten. So I got a written warning and was suspended for a couple days. A couple months ago, on the last day of the month, I was so slammed with stuff that had to get out the door that I shipped two parts instead of three on an order to Boeing. I was sent home and given a final written warning. Today, I found out that I did that twice that day, so now I'm basically scared that I will be asked to get my belongings together and never come back when I go in tomorrow. Needless to say, I'm a little stressed.

Maybe this would be the shove that I've been needing to get me to find a less challenging job and go back to school. Maybe this job is actually making me less productive because it's so taxing on my focus. Whatever needs to happen will happen. Wish me luck tomorrow.

I decided to do a little updating of my comic collection on comicbookrealm.com since I was feeling a little cranky.

• Add comics I have acquired the last two months to my collection on ComicBookRealm.com
• Blog
• Get to bed early.

Done. Good night.

Day 14

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Well today was uneventful, yet interesting. Alicia (our friend who happens to be a Fine Arts and Graphic Design major) came over to show Paige the website she built for her wedding planning business. I always feel kind of like a loser who will never achieve anything or fully learn my trade(thanks mom and dad) when I see someone either making a living with art and design or just knowing how to apply the knowledge. I just feel like I missed the boat. Many times, this overshadows what I have accomplished. Today, I finished the inks on page 5 of my comic, and got a good start on page 7. Page six isn't penciled yet because I didn't know there would be a page between 5 and 7 until I finished 5. Don't ask.

Despite accomplishing what I had planned on doing today and then some, when I see the wonderful things Alicia has done, I feel disheartened. She is supportive of my work and very complimentary, but I can't help but feel like there is an anchor tied to me that she doesn't seem to be weighed down by. Maybe it's the degree. Maybe it's the fact that things in the design industry are ever changing and my spectrum disorder is preventing me from keeping up. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. The only thing preventing me from doing what I aspire to do is myself. I mistake 'slowly-but-surely' for 'never-gonna-finish'. I seem to put aside the fact that I didn't have a comic two months ago and today I have finished inks on 5 pages of a comic.

Today I:

• Went to church
• Started and finished inks on page 5
• Started inks on page 7
• Wrote a blog

This disorder is costly in ways greater than mere learning problems. It also disables us from recognizing our achievements. I don't know if this is related to the disorder directly, or if it is a personality flaw. Perhaps it's poor nurturing. I'm not here to whine about my parents, but I feel that I can't properly analyze my condition without also including psychological development.

There's many things I can say about my parents. First off, I identify 5 parents that contributed to my development as a son.

*WARNING DEEP EXISTENTIAL CRAP AHEAD*

My mother. The Martyr

My mother will tell you how much she has sacrificed for us kids. She will tell you that family is the most important thing in life. She will tell you how under-appreciated she is. She'll also tell her son that he's a loser. That she doesn't have a son, but she'll also tell him that he's all the family she's got. This isn't true, exactly. She's got two brothers, a sister-in-law, and a nephew that she doesn't speak to. Remember, though, that family is important. Remember that you don't treat your family badly. She takes care of a developmentally disabled girl. No one said she is not a decent provider, just maybe not for her own kids. Being in and out of jobs and psych wards with lapses in memory of these events tends to draw time away from the kids and the husband that is so busy trying to keep her together and keep dinner on the table, that he really can't provide emotional support for them. I have taken so much from my mother, but she doesn't remember saying that. I'm not sure what one would expect all of this to do to a child's psyche, but I know what the cost is. Unfortunately, it's damaged my self-worth to the point of not being able to appreciate any work that I do to better my life. It's the friends I have that have taught me to value myself after the damage my mother did to me. I want one thing to be understood. I love my mother very much. That's why I'm all she's got.


My Dad. The Saint.

When I say 'dad' I'm referring to my step-father who I asked to adopt me at 16. He has always said to my mother 'I married your family, not you'. That's absolutely true. He did more to provide for me and my sister than anyone. Never a complaint. Never a sigh. Never a question when we needed something. This man is my dad, and I'm proud to call him so. However, over the years, I feel that he has gotten tired. I feel he's weary because my mother uses him to validate herself. Whenever I had an issue with my mom, it was always 'your dad doesn't deserve this treatment' or 'how could you do this to your dad'. I have an example. When me and my wife got married, as is customary, my parents were willing to host the rehearsal dinner. I was very happy. We wanted it at The Melting Pot, which would have cost $900 for the 20 people that we would have, but that was too expensive. So my mom said we are having it at Pappy's Sports Bar and Grill. I said to them that if money is an issue, then maybe we can come up with another solution, but I didn't want to host my new in-laws at a sports bar. Well, weeks later, I walked into their house to see a brand-new 57" LCD on their wall, and a new leather living room set, and a couple of new laptops. Then my mom proceeds to show me the new deck they had installed in the backyard. In my boldness, I brought up the rehearsal dinner. Well, as it turns out she decided 'my father works really hard and he deserves all this'. I agree, but I don't think a man that has always put his kids first would spend so extravagantly when his son is about to get married and you offered to host a rehearsal dinner. This is getting off subject, but I feel it represents a problem with the saint. He is an enabler. My mother is a victim and he enables her, much to the chagrin of his children. So I ask; did he marry my mother or did he marry the family? Again, I love my dad, but I think he's become complacent with my mother. He has been so busy taking care of her, that the kids suffered. My mother's wants have become the standard, and his children's needs have become sub-standard.

My father. The Sperm Donor.


That's what my mother calls him, anyway. My biological father was present for my life up until I was informed of some very disturbing things that he'd done. I was about 15 when I severed contact with him. The more I think about it and talk about it(it's important to vocalize), the more I recognize that this man tried very hard to be a good father. He took interest in my life and he genuinely wanted to do the dad stuff. It's taken a long time to understand that. He always supported my drawing, but he failed in ways that are nothing but unacceptable for my sister who he abused before the divorce. I feel as though he was trying to make up for it with me. Unfortunately, my sister is too important to me to look him in the eye as a man who abused her and call him father.

My Sister. The Saving Grace.

With all that I have told you so far, you should understand that the adults in my life were pretty mixed up. My sister looked after me. She made sure that she talked to me about things that were necessary for my emotional development. The downside is that she was also living with my parents. She was also six years older than me, so when she met the man of her dreams, she moved away. I was alone. The focus on my shortcomings was concentrated by double. That's pretty much where I started my downhill slide. My grades dropped. My self-image floated out the door. I pretty much became what my mother called me. A loser. A deadbeat. A rotten son. My sister harbors alot of guilt for moving away. She would say that she left me behind. I disagree. Who the hell wouldn't get out of there while they had the chance? She didn't leave me, she left the situation. She moving on with her life. Something that was  near impossible for someone growing up in such an emotional retarding environment. My sister doesn't save cards. For Christmas and on birthdays, she just doesn't want to have to hoard them. My mother says she is just not a sentimental person. I think my sister is the most caring and loving person I have ever known.

The reason for this diatribe about my family serves to show that there are sometimes forces that can nurture a destructive self-image. Pair that with the symptoms of ADD, and a person can grow to feel pretty worthless. Be there for your kids. Not just to keep them fed and in shoes, but also to see to their emotional needs. Help them. Sacrifice for them. Put them ahead of yourself. They didn't choose to be here. You chose to bring them here. So appreciate your children for every second that you get to spend with them.

Day 13

The new washer is officially installed and going for a test run. It's nice to have that over and done with.

• Make a meal plan for the week
• Make a grocery list
• Go grocery shopping
• Wait for Lowe's guys to get here and install washer
• Post ADD blog
• Post food blog
• Start red sauce
• Build lasagna
• Work on page 5 of comic
• Watch Superman cartoon

It may seem silly for a grown man to have a cartoon on his to-do list, but I rented it and I do need to watch it because it was a one-day rental. I will always like superhero cartoons. I don't find anything juvenile about that. Comic books are written mostly for the adults that grew up with them, after all.

As a person who has a hard time finishing things, I have found that the hardest part is starting them. I feel that my ADD has also given me a complex about failure. Starting things and never getting around to finishing them has left me with low confidence in my abilities and talents. People can see a drawing I did, and tell me that it's great, but the enjoyment is robbed from me because I know it took so much will to finish it. The truth is that I know that starting is the hardest part.

So this is what I have done to change that feeling of dread that wells up when I think of an impending task that I could either start and fail to finish, or avoid that feeling altogether and refuse to start it. I change my mindset from 'must do' to 'must start'. I find that if I commit to starting something, I am more likely to build up the focus to make progress and actually finish it. People with ADD have what's called Hyperfocus. This means that once our brain finds something to work with, it's all we can actually focus on. On the down side, we do not retain any other stimuli while we are intent on that single item of focus. That's why we can play Halo for eight hours, yet not remember what you said to us five seconds ago. It's important to understand that this is a real disability. If you read the short Wikipedia article on hyperfocus, you will see the term autism spectrum disorder. This suggests that ADD, ADHD, and Hyperfocus are true developmental disabilities. It was very difficult to find in my research that my condition is considered to be a spectrum disorder, yet it was also somewhat of a relief to understand that there is a legitimate reason as to why I struggle with reading large blocks of text and can't retain what I learn.

It's been a journey and continues to be so. The more I learn, the more in control I feel. I think many people feel that ADD is kind of a cop-out. That we're just lazy or stupid. I'm sure some lazy people try to tell you they have ADD. We should all feel sorry for Michael Phelps because he struggles with ADD, right? I don't think ADD gets in the way of swimming, so I don't feel that he should it should be considered a handicap in that sense, but he probably does struggle to focus on academic endeavors. I don't want to get to far off the subject, so I'll save it for another post. Just be aware that there are people that, because of a physiological disorder, cannot, for all of their intelligence, read a chapter of a textbook and successfully apply that information to a test.

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Day 12

Date night! Actually we just ordered pizza and watched some $1 rentals. A perfect evening with my lady. Our movie selections were Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. It was strange. Then we watched Red with Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman. That was pretty interesting. I'm trying not to break my streak of posting, so I just wanted to give a quick what-we-did tonight. The new washer is coming tomorrow and Paige has a dentist appointment. I'm planning on watching a Superman cartoon and getting some pages done on the comic before making some lasagna. The red sauce has to cook all day, so I'll be home stirring it. Since I had nothing to do tonight, I'm posting my to-do for tomorrow. Maybe this will be more affective than writing it down after the day is over. I guess what I've been posting have been have-done's as opposed to to-do's.

Saturday:

• Get grocery list together and go shopping
• Start red sauce
• Watch Superman
• Work on page 5 and 6
• Clean house for lasagna guests
• Make lasagna

It should be a pretty productive day!

Day 11

Had our class tonight. Lots to learn. I made grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. Other than that, I plan on resting and getting to bed early. I had some crazy dreams last night. I basically woke up every two hours after being jarred by some either strange or disturbing dreams. Once I was awoken by a zombie apocalypse. I can trace this to a vignette I viewed on comicbookmovie.com about how they shot a scene for The Walking Dead. Another dream I had was about my wife trying ecstasy. I equate this to the fact that I did ecstasy a few times in my early twenties and decided that I enjoyed it too much to continue. Maybe my mind is trying to consolidate aspects of my life before I met Paige with my life after. Another dream I had was an X-rated dream about a drunken ex-girlfriend and in the middle of it she started vomiting. Don't know what that's all about. Maybe some more getting rid of old baggage. Then another dream I had was kind of like an adventure-style video game. Then there was this weird little witch or something that looked like a creepy talisman or something and she pushed me into some lava. So I cast some kind of ice spell on her that hit for 200 points of damage. All I can think of is that this is just a bunch of video games that I have played all rolled into one. Maybe it's more baggage. I don't really play video games anymore and maybe it's showing me how weird and chaotic my brain gets when I do.

Needless to say, I've felt kind of strange all day from both lack of sleep, and just trying to figure out why I dreamed all that weird stuff up.

To do:

• Class
• Blog
• Make up for lost sleep

Tomorrow is Friday! Woooooo! I find that Friday is my least productive day. This is probably because we have dinner with our friends Tom and Jenny every Friday. Saturday we will have to stay home since we are getting our new washer delivered and making lasagna. I will probably spend alot of time on my comic that day.

It's supplement time! Tonight I want to talk about Theanine. It functions as a neurotransmitter and is found in green tea. What does this mean? Well, it means drink green tea. It also means that it has a large role in how the brain processes stimuli.

From the wiki article:

Able to cross the blood-brain barrier, theanine has psychoactive properties. Theanine has been shown to reduce mental and physical stress, and improves cognition and mood in a synergistic manner with caffeine.

While structurally related to the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, theanine only has weak affinity for the glutamate receptor on postsynaptic cells. Rather, its primary effect seems to increase the overall level of the brain inhibitory transmitter GABA. Theanine also increases brain dopamine levels and has a low affinity for AMPA, kainate and NMDA receptors. Its effect on serotonin is still a matter of debate in the scientific community, with studies showing increases and decreases in brain serotonin levels using similar experimental protocols. It has also been found that injecting spontaneously hypertensive mice with theanine significantly lowered levels of 5-hydroxyindoles in the brain. Researchers also speculate it may inhibit glutamic acid excitotoxicity. Theanine also promotes alpha waveproduction in the brain.

Studies on test rats have shown even repeated, extremely high doses of theanine cause little to no harmful psychological or physical effects. Theanine showed neuroprotective effects in one rat study.

So, basically, it makes you a Zen master. Not really, but it does calm and help cognition, which is really a big deal when it comes to becoming a master of one's ADD.  Also, since it crosses the blood-brain barrier, it can actually make it to your brain. I have a theory that other chemicals and vitamins might piggyback on theanine on its trip into our central nervous system. Chemicals such as inositol and minerals such as magnesium. 

I have tried powdered theanine in large doses and the only side-effect I've had is a heightened sense of well-being and a general relief of muscular tension in my entire region above the neck. It's as if my brain was clenched like a fist and I didn't know it until it released it's iron grip. I remember describing it in that exact way to my wife when it first occurred after supplementation. As with all supplements, if you are on any medication, it would be prudent to speak with your doctor before starting a supplement regimen. I buy my theanine online in it's powdered form from purebulk.com. I have taken the upper dosage of 3000mg daily and seen nothing but beneficial effects. I decreased it to 1000mg, just so I wouldn't run out as fast. I also have taken GABA with theanine at two doses of 500mg each in pill form. It's seems redundant, since in the theanine article it states that theanine increases levels of GABA in the brain, but I decided to try it anyway. I feel that the theanine by itself was sufficient.

You can get some theanine from green tea, but a cup of green tea only has about 20mg in it, so if one wanted to get a high amount from tea, about 100 cups would need to be downed. I'd just as soon plop some theanine into my one cup of green tea with a couple grams of inositol. I forgot to mention in my inositol rant that inositol has a naturally sweet character. It's actually pretty tasty!

By now, if you've read my last 10 posts, it might appear that I'm some supplement junkie. Well, I am, but it's helping. My brain is not chemically the same as someone with more focus and less anxiety, so I balance it. I've done my research and I've chosen a safe supplemental route in tandem with brain exercises and a little self-discipline. It has been less than a year since I started my supplement regimen and I have seen only improvement. I'm calmer. I'm much more productive. I feel more confident and I enjoy my life without all of the clutter in my mind that used to be there. I have been out of theanine for a couple months, now actually and after those wacky dreams last night, this particular excerpt has reminded me of another reason to take theanine:

L-Theanine has been shown to both reduce the time that it takes a person to fall asleep as well as decrease the number of nighttime awakenings.

There is a citation after this statement that says [unreliable source?], but I have found this to be very true, so I'm using my own experience as a reliable source. In any case, it's working much better than any Amphetamine or Anti-Anxiety drugs that I have been prescribed in the past.

Day 10

I scanned three pages of my comic at work so I could clean them up and add color in Photoshop. That's really all that happened today. What a thrilling day!

To do:

• Scan comic pages
• Blog
• Plot the next few pages
• Get to bed by 10

Day 9 - That Infernal Gas Cap

So, my registration check for my car was returned to me explaining that I failed to get an emissions test and will be charged a late fee. I got said test today to find out that my car failed due to a faulty gas cap. So now I have to get a new gas cap and get another emissions test. So, that's fun.

In other news, I managed to get most of the inking done on page four of my comic. I will finish it shortly after I finish this post.

Tonight's agenda:

• Get emissions test
• Blog
• Finish inks on page four
• Start pencils on page five.
• Watch Chopped
• Get to bed by 10

I've noticed that I sometimes get songs stuck in my head, and they stay there for days. I feel as though this is digging a memory trench in my brain. The song is just looping and looping. I think it would be a good idea to listen to music that I don't have archived and just listen to radio stations. That way, it may not be a song I know, so it can't loop. I played Castlevania on Saturday with Cam and I've had about five tunes from the game playing on shuffle in my head since. It's pretty fast music, so it's not the best thing to have to listen to when, say, I'm trying to sleep. Maybe I'll find an iTunes station with some classical music. I hear that Mozart increases your intellectual output by seven percent. It's worth a shot!

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Day 8

Today we got to go shopping for a new washer! Hooray! I love being forced to dump 450 bucks on something that was working less than 2 days ago. I'm going to stay positive. At least we had the money to replace it. We had planned on replacing it within the next few years when we sold the condo, so now that's money we won't have to spend while we're looking for a house.

I had a few ideas for some characters while I was plotting my comic today. Why do the best ideas always come to me when I'm at work? That's what breaks are for, I suppose. Anyway, the characters are wacky and I'm going to have a blast drawing concept art for them. I'll be working on some inks for my comic tonight. Basically, this whole idea came about while I was listening to my favorite podcast about comics. So I emailed them with they idea and they thought it was awesome. That's something that's important when trying to get motivated. Tell people you want to do something. It may set you up for defeat if you don't follow through, but you can use the knowledge that someone expects you to do something as a goal.

Goals are imperative for success in stomping the procrastination, but be sure to set goal, attainable goals. If I say "I want to make a comic", then the task of doing this will become too daunting because it's too large. Also, try to keep your goals from being too ambiguous, such as "I want to be more organized". This really isn't a goal, because you haven't given yourself a starting action or end point. Use these big ambiguous ideas to break into smaller doable tasks. "I want to make a comic" becomes "I want to layout a page for my comic", or "I want to outline a beginning, middle and end for one single issue". If you find yourself still stuck, then try to break it down further. You need to know what your end point in each task is before you can effectively start and manage your tasks. Starting is always the highest hurdle, so if you can aid the process by setting small goals, then you will feel more accomplished when you start getting them done.

Speaking of getting started, tonight I will:

• Write a blog post
• Buy a new washer
• Ink page four of my comic (See? Specific goals!)
• Wind down and get in bed by 9:30

I have found that sleep habits are a major factor in controlling my ADD. I have worked every kind of shift imaginable, but now I work a day shift Monday-Friday. This is a pretty big deal. You need to have a routine in order to get a handle on that restless brain. This article outlines a few reasons for disturbed sleep and how it increases the problems associated with ADD, but not necessarily how to manage them. I have found that if I stay up till I want to go to bed, I won't fall asleep for about an hour or more, and when I do, I wake up, move around, and even get out of bed and check to see if the door is locked, if the lights are off, etc. This is the kind of compulsive behavior that is common in us. Luckily, my wife is a very heavy sleeper. Otherwise, we would have separate beds in separate rooms.

I've talked about magnesium and inositol which both help regulate and ensure proper rest, but winding down properly is essential to get that rest. Try doing something that isn't too engaging when you get to bed. Don't watch t.v. Don't play on your iPhone. Don't listen to any music. Do read a book. Do a sudoku or crossword puzzle. Sit up in bed and do some breathing exercises or say some prayers. Do things that aren't going to get in your head and bounce around for another hour. The point is that you are committing to winding down and not seeking stimuli.

Try to get your eight hours of sleep, but give yourself time to clear your head before you need to be asleep. If your alarm is set for 8am, get ready for bed at 10:30 or 11pm. Avoid that snooze button, too. Don't set your alarm 45 earlier than you need to just so you can roll over and go back to sleep 4 times. A full sleep cycle is the first thing you should think about normalizing before you try to tackle anything else.

If you like green tea, try some decaf. The theanine in green tea promotes alpha waves during the sleep cycle. You can also just take theanine supplements, and I'll talk about that next time. Now get to bed!

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Day 7

My washer piddled all over the floor today. Super fun! Guess we'll be getting a new one. Here's today's to-do list.

• Ink some pages of my comic
• Realize that the washer exploded and abandon inking project for the day to access the damage
• Pitch the idea that my mother-in-law makes us dinner while I sit on her couch and grumble about the washer

All done! Dinner was delicious!

Another supplement that I am currently taking is magnesium. Adding this helped to regulate my attention span by making my sleep more productive and calming me down. Again, this does cause some lower tummy upsets, but this tends to level out over time. It seems that most of us have magnesium deficiencies and don't realize it. here is an exert from WebMD:

Magnesium is also used for treating attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, leg cramps during pregnancy, diabetes, kidney stones, migraineheadaches, weak bones (osteoporosis), premenstrual syndrome (PMS), altitude sickness, urinary incontinence, restless leg syndrome, asthma, hayfever, multiple sclerosis, and for preventing hearing loss.

That's alot of beneficial uses! There are no side-effects listed for magnesium supplementation, but they did list it as a laxative, which isn't a bad thing. It will just make you go more. Well worth the beneficial effects, in my opinion.

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Day 6

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.
Don't forget to set your clocks back tonight! I already have. Extra sleep is always appreciated in our home. Today I played Castlevania with Cameron and drank beers. Then I came home and ate a delicious dinner that my wife had prepared. It was so nice. I really had no to-do list today, but Paige and I finished our meal plan for the week and bought all of our groceries. So I'm considering that as my to-do list.

• Make a meal plan
• Grocery shop
• Game with Cam and relax for a few hours.

Done and done!

I've mentioned inositol already. According to the Wikipedia article (cited below), there are a number of interesting applications for supplementation.

In a single double-blind study on 13 patients, Myo-inositol (18 grams daily) has been found to reduce the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) significantly, with effectiveness equal to SSRIs and virtually without side-effects.^[22] In a double-blind, controlled trial, myo-inositol (18 grams daily) was superior to fluvoxamine for decreasing the number of panic attacks and other side-effects

There are some resources that suggest taking 18 grams of inositol powder in three doses of 6000mg daily. This is the maximum dosage that is recommended, yet there is no upper limit that has been observed by any studies. Of course, it is a dose that must be worked up to to observe the effects. I started with 3 grams daily and increased each dose by a gram every few days. I made it to the 18g daily dose, and observed no adverse side effects other than some slight intestinal upset. Since I buy an 8 oz jar of the stuff (227g), at the high dose, I would go through the entire jar in about 16 days. I didn't want to have to buy this much, so I decreased to one 6g scoop in my water bottle daily. It took about two months to really see a big difference, but a difference I did see.

I am less irritable, I am calmer and generally not tense all the time like I used to be. I feel a bit more focused, but I think that is because of the relief in tension. I'm not running in the red, as it were. Two other major differences are the decrease in panic and compulsive behavior. I don't bite my nails anymore. Also, I didn't freak out and cower in fear when the weather turned ugly last spring. I have a debilitating dread that occurs when severe weather happens in the spring, and boy does it happen in Colorado. Well, it was so freeing to hear the hail start on the roof and to actually be able to walk outside and watch a thunderstorm. I couldn't do that the spring before last. So it's very clear to me that the supplements are doing their job. I think of it as a new lease on a life that was filled with anxiety and fear.

So do some research and find out if inositol is something that could help you. I was sure to find supplements that have no documented side-effects. I will talk about some more next time. I've tried several and I think I found a good mix of vitamins and mineral supplements that work for me.

. 

Day 5

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.
No to-do list tonight. We had dinner with Tom and Jenny and the Gabster (baby). Greek food has a way of making me feel grossly over-stuffed with hummusy goodness. Read some comics and sat on the couch with the wife afterwords. A good Friday night, in my opinion.

I promised I would talk about supplements, but I will save that for the next post. Tomorrow we will be running errands so I can have the entire afternoon to game with my hetero life-mate Cameron. If I have a few too many beers, I'll probably skip blogging.

I just placed an order with Swansonvitamins.com for some Inositol. It's vitamin B-8. I use it primarily for anxiety and panic problems I have in association to certain weather phenomena that occur in the eastern part of the state of Colorado. The anxiety is gone and it have actually proven to help with many other issues that have been a part of my life, including ADD. I'll talk more about this in the supplement discussion.

Day 4 - Potato head

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.
Five posts without skipping a day! No one ever said that people with ADD don't start strong. It's finishing that we have a problem with. The to-do list is small again tonight because I had a class. I've had several busy nights now. It's kind of redundant to say I'm busy this week. I'm always busy! I stand up alot, and I walk around. I pick things up and put them down. I open the fridge and I close the fridge. I go into other rooms and look at stuff. Dividing one's focus takes up quite a bit of time! So you never really need to ask the ADD kid if he's busy, because we are always busy. Our minds are like little sponges soaking up stimuli and squeezing it all out, just to soak up more. A simile may put it in perspective.

Think of a person walking through a buffet and browsing through the various items in search of a few things that they didn't know they were in the mood for, but know when they see it. This person walks the entire buffet before deciding on an entree and two or three sides. Don't forget the dinner roll! They will finish up their circuit and be seated and enjoy a nice meal in which every item on the plate compliments the one next to it. Simple.

Now it's time for the person with ADD to go to the buffet. The first thing he sees are some roasted potatoes. They look delicious and so he takes some. Right next to the roasted potatoes, their are mashed potatoes. If he had known there were mashed potatoes, he would have gotten them first, because he loves mashed potatoes. So he piles them on. Next to the mashed potatoes are some sweet potatoes. He likes sweet potatoes, so he takes some. Sweet potatoes are more like a carrots anyway, so why not? Then he spots the baked potato bar. Baked potatoes are so awesome! So let's get one of those and dress it up. He'll come back to check out the other sides when he's done dressing his baked potato. So now he has to decide on toppings for his baked potato. He likes the standard butter/sour cream/chives application, so he loads it up. Then he sees some bacon bits. Loves those. Loads it up! Then he sees that there is a yummy looking broccoli and cheese mixture to top it with. Well, if he had known that was available, he might have skipped the sour cream and butter. So he grabs another potatoes and loads it up with the broccoli stuff. Then he sees that there is chili. Could have put that on the potato, but he already has two potatoes stuffed with goodies. Maybe he'll put it on his mashed potatoes. Then he realizes there is probably various gravies available to smother the mashed potatoes with. So now he has to rethink his whole strategy. He returns to the other sides where he found the first batch of potatoes and realizes his plate is completely full and there is no way he is going to get any more sides on there. Wait, all he has is sides? Why didn't he start with the main dish items and work from there? This is so impossible to figure out. He is now overwhelmed by all of the items on the plate that he considers just throwing the plate away and starting over. No, he shouldn't do that. That would be wasteful. So goes back and sits down and eats his potatoes, never to understand what else is on the buffet. He forgot to get a fork, too.

This is kind of how my mind works. It's full of potatoes. There's pending projects and to-do's. Grocery lists and lines of text that I may have read a week ago. There's conversations that I'm going back over and several images that are in recent and distant memory. There's probably one or two songs on repeat in there too, only the choruses probably. The expression 'clear your mind' is something that I am mentally incapable of. So in conclusion, I am always busy.

Things I did tonight:

• Cooked dinner and cleaned the kitchen.
• Blogged
• Went to class and retained the about half of the group discussion, little of the lecture.
• Played with the cats

Tomorrow night we are most likely dining with the couple that we dine with on almost every Friday and watching a movie or playing Scrabble. Hopefully potatoes aren't on the menu.

As a young lad I was prescribed, as many lads with ADD are, Ritalin. Upon starting the medication, I saw a slight increase in my performance in school (this was 8th grade). This tapered off by the end of the year and I was left with only the anxiety and aggression side effects it has on teenagers. I stopped taking it.

As an adult I once more sought out medicinal solutions to my attentive failings. My doctor perscribed me to Concerta, and later a generic form of Adderall called simply Amphetamine. This, again, helped for several months to keep me on task at work and finish jobs. The beneficial effects started to wane within a year and I was left with severe anxiety and panic side effects. I went back to the doctor and said "No more, please".

Recently, I have researched a more supplemental route for easing my anxiety and stumbled upon some ADD and compulsiveness remedies in the way of plain old vitamins and minerals. I'll talk about that next time. I don't want to run out of things to talk about in this part of my blog. Until next time, then!

Day 3

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.

Sweet potatoes for dinner! Yay! It can now officially be called fall. Today was painfully slow at work. It's such a stark contrast to the pandemonium of the end of the month. I spent tonight relaxing with my wife and we watched some Food Network. We saw an episode of Restaurant Impossible and then watched the premier of Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs. I'm already sucked in. I'm fully aware that this is probably a rigged competition and most of these chefs don't want to be an Iron Chef, but it's still fun.

Today's to-dos:

• Clean up after dinner
• Blog
• Snuggle with Paige

So I've had a couple of nights with small lists. Last night I went to Mass for All Saint's Day, and tonight I just wanted to reward myself and spend time with Paige. I will be busy tomorrow, too. I have a class at 7pm, so the only thing I'm committing to is making dinner and cleaning the kitchen.

If you haven't checked out Dual N Back yet, be sure to try it. Try to do it without outside distractions. Don't do it while your watching t.v. or talking to the cats. It really demands attentiveness, which is what we're trying to improve, right? Try to fit some N Back exercises in a few times a week. Every day if you can manage. I like to do it on my lunch breaks at work after I'm done eating and have about 15 minutes. It only takes about a minute or two for one test, so take it a few times to track your progress.

Day 2

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.
I'm going to consolidate my personal stuff into main points of interest. Reading over my last post was putting me asleep.

Today was was much slower at work and I was able to finish many things that I had to put on the back burner yesterday. My wife and I had to eat a quick dinner in order to make it to church tonight. It's All Saints Day, which is a holy day of obligation for us Catholics. We walked out of the church into a blizzard. It was a slow drive home. We decided to watch the tail end of Chopped when we got home and just relax for the rest of the evening.

Today's to-do list doesn't have much on it since we went to mass.

• Clean up after dinner
• Blog

In my travels, I have searched for many different ways to improve or train my attentiveness and, in doing so, came across an exercise called Dual N Back. This is an exercise that uses visual and audio stimuli to test and train your working memory. I believe that working memory in ADHD sufferers is a key stumbling block in information retention. Our brain take in too much and often lose certain information very quickly to make room for all of the other stimuli that is being processed. What Dual n Back does is present a nine-panel grid in which one of the nine panels will highlight every couple of seconds. This visual stimulus is accompanied by an audio sound, usually a letter of the alphabet. The user has to respond with one key for a visual stimulus that is the same that occurred N stimuli back, and a different key for audio. For instance, if you were at a '2-back" level and the stimuli occur in this configuration:

Center square, "T" sound

Top Right, "P" sound

Top Left, "T" sound

Top Right "K" sound

Top Left, "T" sound

The user should have responded by pressing the 'sound' key on the 3rd stimulus, signifying that the sound matched the sound from two stimuli back. Likewise, the user should respond with the 'position' key on the 4th stimulus, and both keys on the 5th stimulus.

Now, this may sound very complicated, and it takes some getting used too when using it, but you will see an increase in performance with repetition. It automatically adjusts the level if you perform better than %80 accuracy or lower than %50. I went from performing poorly on the 2-Back level, to staying above %60 on 5-back level. I try to do these exercises for at least 20 minutes at a time.

Here is the official website for Dual N Back http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/

Here is another site with many different exercises  http://cognitivefun.net/

Also, here is a link to the wikipedia article about Dual N Back http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back 

Day 1

I woke up at about 6:30, after hitting snooze five times. My alarm clock only has a snooze option of five minutes, so it's really kind of pointless. I threw a banana and some soy milk in the blender and called it breakfast. My wife usually wakes up at 7, so I only get to see her long enough each weekday to say bye.

My drive to work in my 94' or 95' Chevy Lumina minivan is always a pleasure since I managed to break both the driver and passenger side door handles on a frozen morning last january. They do not open from the outside. You'd think a vehicle made in Canada would have better resistance to cold temperatures. So I have to get in through the hatchback. The heater takes about 30 minutes to heat up, too.

Work was super busy with month-end shenanigans. My job gets very complicated in the last week of the month. In most cases, we have to get as much as possible out the door to meet our revenue goals. Luckily, my supervisor volunteered to drive some jobs to Littleton, which is a three hour round-trip from Fort Collins. That helped me out quite a bit.

Everything went well and I left on time. I got home and got dinner started. Crockpot risotto tonight! This will be the first time we made this, so we'll see how it goes. It takes two hours, so even if it is terrible, we will be too hungry to refuse it. I took a shower, turned on the Jeopardy and here I am.

So here is what I hope to accomplish tonight:

• I want to start and/or finish the inks on a single page of my comic.
• I want to blog
• I want to completely clean the kitchen after dinner.
• I want to read the comic book I got in the mail today.
• I want to put the clothes that I left in the dryer overnight back in the dryer to get the wrinkles out.
• I want to make myself a sandwich for tomorrow's lunch.
• I want to pray a rosary.
• I want to get to bed by 10.

Now, you may have learned a few things about me from my evening to-do list:

I am Catholic. I have always identified as a Catholic, but have recently become more serious about my faith. I like comic books and am creating one, another recent undertaking. 

I am incompetent in doing laundry.

That's enough about me for one day. I will leave you with a tidbit of information I have learned about ADD.

Did you know that there are physical differences in the brains of people with ADHD? Here is a link to an article I found informative on the subject.

Welcome. What were we doing?

This is a project I decided to start a year ago, so we're making pretty good progress, in my humble opinion.

Let's start off with a a wiki description of symptoms associated with Adult ADD.
Individuals with ADHD have deficiencies with self-regulation and self-motivation, that cause problems with distractibility, procrastination, organization, and prioritization. The learning potential and overall intelligence of an adult with ADHD, however, are no different from the potential and intelligence of adults who do not have the disorder.

My name is Greg. I am 29 and I am an adult that has ADD. I am a high school dropout. I am a community college dropout, and I have been described as a 'loser' by some parental authorities. I am also a devoted husband, a home-owner, and a loving father to two behavioral cats. I work a menial hourly job handling the shipping and receiving at a machine shop in town that nets me about 25K annually, but my real vocation is that of a visual artist. I draw, paint, and do graphic design, with no college degree to nab me a job in an artistic industry.

I'm telling you all of this to explain who I am so you can understand where I am going. As the description of the ADD states, I am not stupid. You may think that someone who can read an entire chapter of a textbook and not retain any of it is stupid. Most teachers in my generation of adolescence would agree. I am here to say that we are not stupid. People with ADD(I drop the 'H', because I suffer from the more 'silent killer' type of Attention Deficit in my adulthood) tend to be intellectual, yet struggle with academic achievement. This means that I am smart enough to grasp concepts, but can't concentrate when applying them. I'll be talking about these things in further posts and will share some knowledge I have acquired about the physiology of the affliction. For now, let's just get into my mission statement.

I seek to gain a clearer understanding of my ADD by documenting my daily struggles and sharing what I find that works and what doesn't work to get through the block.

If you are a parent of a child with ADD, please understand that I am going to share everything with you. I sometimes drink. I sometimes swear. I sometimes act immature, but I need to include everything if I am to successfully gain an accurate understanding of this condition. I would be happy if you read the blog and used it to understand your child's ADD/ADHD better, but please read it before having your child read it.

The structure of this blog will consist of three main focuses. I will call these items personal, daily, and research. This means that I will talk briefly about some personal matters in regards to ADD and how I have dealt with them. I will chronicle my daily to-do's and have-done's, for reference. I will also include some information that I have researched about ADD and cite articles and such.

I hope this blog helps both people who have ADD/ADHD and parents of children that have bright minds, yet struggle with learning. Use what I learn to help yourselves and your children achieve more. That sounds very self-help, but as you find in a life with ADD, you sometimes have to depend on yourself. It's frightening and the challenges are great, but we can be great too. We are better than our attention-span.

I hope to see you tomorrow. Wish me luck!
-Greg