Wednesday, November 12, 2008

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Blog

Wow, it appears my last post was in February! So much has happened since then!

My husband lost a job in February, got a new one in July. I went out to work full-time in April, then lost my job in September. Our bills got very behind, our savings dwindled to nothing, our credit cards got maxed out, and our house went into foreclosure. My homeschooled kids started public school in August.

I don't believe our little family still knows what hit us!

For the time being, though, I am home. Though I am still applying for jobs, there appears to be little hope of finding something in my field. Mike has a regular office job and appears to have given up his career as chef, but what he brings home is somewhat less than what we must pay out monthly, even if you don't consider that we're behind on everything and owe everyone.

I have applied for unemployment, but thus far have been denied for lack of 20 weeks of work in the employment period, which is crazy because I have been working since June of 2004! Apparently they couldn't find that work history and so now I am appealing their decision and waiting.

I am trying to find daycare clients, since I did that gig in the early 2000s and liked it a lot. Hopefully daycare clients will be easier to come by than jobs in my field!

I am just today applying for welfare, and for HEAP, and for free lunch for my children. My experience with Ohio Job and Family Services is that it's a nightmare for a neurotypical person, let alone an ADDer. I went back and forth trying to get paperwork together for them this past February so my children could have health insurance, and they kept doing things like losing my application and making me reapply. Then, I would miss a deadline and have to reapply. Rinse, repeat. My children never did get the heath insurance - I became employed in April and the subject became moot. I'll keep you posted on how well I do with them this time around, between the unemployment appeal and the application for welfare.

Here are my challenges:
  • Keeping up on the phone calls. I have terrible phone phobia and don't even want to talk on the phone to friends! Which means, I can't keep up with my friends, much less keep up with the calls I need to take, like from potential daycare clients or the many, many people to whom we currently owe money.
  • Keeping up on the housework. Luckily, I have slaves children (kidding!). Let me tell you, though, shepherding the big kid husband and the little kids (kidding again, honey!) through picking up after themselves, doing their chores timely, and getting along with each other is a full-time job in and of itself. More on that later.
  • Keeping control of the paperwork monster. I instituted a binder system to corral the monstrous mass of billls and collections, and the even more monstrous mass of papers the children bring home from school. This is a simple, five minute per day process. Unfortunately, if you go a MONTH without doing it, somehow it gets overwhelming and papers take over the universe. Go figure.
  • Keeping up with the laundry. You might have seen my earlier blog about my laundry system. I have now refined that system and combined it with a family closet to kill forever the "clothing lying all over the house" epidemic. Unfortunately, it mutated to a "clothing perpetually lying at the bottom of the stairs" disease, which is not quite so bad - at least it's all in one place - but I can't seem to remember to go down there and do laundry every day. More on my wonderoo fanterific laundry system in a later post.
  • Keeping sane. When you have to worry about your vehicle being repossessed, when you bounce the rent check, when you owe people money, and when your children wish they could have their old, homeschooled life back, depression really tries to get in there and sabotage all your efforts at keeping it all moving. 5HTP is my friend. And boy, somehow it really helps to pray and read scripture (again, go figure!) but I can't seem to remember to do that as regularly as I'd like.
So there's the last ten months in a nutshell. On the continuum of "things you can do in 10 months" I'd say less fun than gestating a baby, but infinitely better than undergoing chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation therapy for breast cancer.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Good Idea

Marc and Angel have advice especially important for ADDers like us. Ten handy numbers to save in your mobile phone.

Now if only I could keep from losing, dropping, or leaving behind that phone!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Start with What you Know

I wanted my (also ADDled) husband to know more about the way things work around here, because his work schedule is so varied. This week, he could be working evenings and be home during our homeschooling hours. Next week he could be working mornings and be home for dinner. As a result, he felt an outsider in his own home because he never had time to fall naturally into the rhythms of the household. He found himself standing around a lot, asking me what he should do to "help." Of course he meant well, but I didn't want a helper. I wanted a fellow adult partner in making decisions and shepherding the children through their meals, lessons, and chores.

Because my husband has worked in restaurant kitchens all his adult life, his default modus operandi is something called a "prep list." So I took my basic household lists, charts, routines, and notes and used them to put together a "prep list" for my husband, just like he uses at work.

I think this could be extrapolated to anyone's husband, using something he uses so often it's second nature to him. The underlined words link you to a second list, or a "recipe" in restaurant speak. In a restaurant, the "prep list" would say "prepare twelve gallons tomato sauce" and the "recipe" would say exactly how that was to be done. On our household "prep list" it might say "clean up kitchen" and if you follow the link you would find a "recipe" for cleaning up the kitchen (e.g. -load dishwasher, -run soapy water in sink, -wipe d.r. table, etc.).

Our prep list is printed out in multiple copies. It occasionally needs to be tweaked, so we handwrite the changes on until we can edit it and print more. There are occasionally special things that need to be done, and we handwrite those in as well (just like in a restaurant kitchen, or so he tells me).

We don't try to do everything on the prep list every day. As things get done, they get crossed out with a sharpie marker, just like in a restaurant. If I've been to the grocery and Mike's been running the house, when I come home and Mike leaves for work, I can see from the day's prep list exactly what's been done and what's left.

It's not the way I'd necessarily have chosen, or even thought of on my own, but we've found it's a nice way to collaborate, communicate, and get things done.

PREP LIST

Morning Routines


School Day

Off-School Day

  • School starts about 10 a.m.
  • Lunch happens about 12:30 p.m.
  • School should be over between 2 and 3 p.m.
  • Kids have free play after school UNLESS we have somewhere to go this evening
  • Sawyer takes his long-ish afternoon nap around 2 or 3 p.m.





Evening Routines

  • Dinner (usually around 5:30)
  • begin evening routine by 6 p.m. when possible (right after dinner) or by 3 p.m. if we have an evening activity away from home
  • pick up boys' room
  • clear floor in living room
  • clean kitchen
  • run dishwasher
  • clear downstairs surfaces
    • dining Room table
    • end tables
    • sofa console table
    • computer table (contains computer, keyboard, Amy's inbox, napkins)
    • mantle
  • bathe children (all 3)
  • Think through tomorrow and pack bags or lunches if necessary
  • shower (Mike) and wipe bathroom
  • Children read around 8:30, lay down to sleep around 9

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Welcome to my New Home

I've switched from Xanga to Blogger. I'm a code-newbie, and I'm finding Blogger easier to navigate as I'm slowly learning more code.

Please don't forget to fix your bookmarks and RSS feeds.