ADHD + me part uno

I have ADHD. I've wondered it for years and I learned recently that I was right. I told my church people that in a sermon this morning. It's a little vulnerable for a few reasons:

1. Sharing struggles is just kind of vulnerable.

2. Trying to share things in a way that gets the sweet spot of "that was important to share" and not "icky oversharing" is hard to do and makes me kind of nervous. So trying to be good vulnerable is kind of vulnerable.

3. I'm pretty sure like a lot of people just think ADHD is made up, so that part too.

I was going to tell you about what ADHD is like for me, but this blog is called 10% serious, so I decided a better way would be to show you a bunch of funny memes to describe it. But then I looked at them for an hour and now it's too late to do that. So, that was a pretty ADHD thing to do. 

Anyway, part dos tomorrow!

My fav church games

My favorite game to play with the church kids is: Will You Be My Ducky Wucky? The best part is this: it's also THEIR favorite game. We play it with the middle school students basically every other week. Here's how you play:

1. Sit in a circle. That can take a while, especially if middle school boys are playing the game.  
2. Pick one person to be "it" in the middle.
3. They pick a person in the circle to walk up to and ask, "will you be my ducky wucky?"
4. The person asked has to say without laughing OR smiling, "no, I will not be your ducky wucky, quack quack quack."

It's hilarious. I laugh every time. Some of the kids give up a little too quickly, before the person says, "quack, quack, quack" and that's really when it's hardest to keep a straight face. The trick of winning is you have to laugh while you ask the question to get them to start laughing and you can't break eye contact until the end. 

My favorite game at church when I was in high school was called, "No Holds Barred." It was well named. Here's how you play: 

1. Everyone partners up.
2. Sit in a circle with all of the other pairs.
3. Partner one sits in front criss cross apple sauce.
4. Partner two sits behind them with their legs in like a v.
5. One person is "it" in the middle. 
6. The person who is it spins around in a circle with their eyes closed and their hands pointed out straight and then stops on two pairs of people.
7. The partners in front have to crawl to the person who is it in the center.
8. The partners in back have to try to stop them.
9. Whoever gets there first wins and then gets to be "it."

It's basically a wrestling game. It was super funny. We got massive rug burn every time. It was my favorite. 

Also, it didn't age well. 😅 And, probably always was problematic. So, I haven't played it in a long, long time.

All the Fashion

I like to hit a trend at the very end, make sure it's been worn in a little bit, and then hang on to it a little longer while people try out another one. Like for example, I tuck in my shirts sometimes now. It was a big day when I tried wearing boots that went over my pants. I have three pairs of Tom's that I wear now, like fifteen years after they started being cool?

Here are some looks over the years:

• 1990: Pink bunny dress
• 1991: This very very ruffle-y blue dress that had a secret bell underneath and also dressing up as Ariel at Grandma's house
• 1992: The blue sailor dress that everyone little girl had in 1992 and a side pony.
• 1993: mix and match shorts and tank tops with various stripes and dots and colors.
• 1994: baggy lion shirt and baggy tiger shirt with biker shorts
• 1995: whatever was in my closet that was closest to what I imagined TLC would wear, with Vans, that had a hole in the big toe. 
• 1996: that style continued, just would occasionally get new Vans when the toe hole got too big.
• 1997: I had a terrible pair of plaid pants that wore a lot but started to hate pretty quickly
• 1998: "pedal pushers" I got them for Christmas and was DELIGHTED and I saved my allowance money forever for a pair of Adidas
• 1999: bell bottoms and also an Adidas jacket that I barely got to wear because it was Southern California
• 2000: sandals that were like 3 inch heels and so hard to walk in
• 2001: jeans, brown shoes, and a brown cardigan and taking my hair out of braids so my hair would be wavy
• 2002: jeans and a sweatshirt with a bun in my hair and my hood up
• 2003: jeans and a sweatshirt with a bun in my hair and my hood up and also too often just trying to wear pjs to school
• 2004: still jeans and a sweatshirt
• 2005: less sweatshirts, but still always jeans.
• 2006: a tan "jean jacket" 
• 2007: heels with jeans for some reason and sometimes putting fake ugg boots over my pants
• 2008: these brown shoes that were kind of terrible but I loved them
• 2009: trying to keep wearing all of my clothes from college until they had holes
• 2010: business professional, because I was doing my internship and I didn't know that I was a better pastor when I wore jeans.
• 2011: back to jeans and sweatshirts
• 2012: nicer jeans for work and like a different scarf every day
• 2013: probably when I was brave enough to wear boots over my jeans

It's all about the same from there, the only change is that sometimes I tuck in my shirt and also I bought a pair of shorter boots, so that was a change. And less scarves. And mostly regular jeans.

How do I remember all of that? Fashion is very memorable and like 70% of my fashion choices are jeans.

Trick Exercise

My last two posts were about how I don't know how to play any sports and how I trick my son into hiking with me without knowing he's hiking. This one is going to be somewhat related- it's about not being bored while exercising by tricking myself.

I recently learned that I actually really like exercise. It was always this thing I tolerated for health's sake, but in the last few months, I've really enjoyed it. I like how my brain seems to finally focus afterward. I like the feeling of my muscles stretching a bunch. I like endorphins. I like my pants fitting slightly better. I've been going to the gym like 3-4 times a week even?

BUT here's what I learned: just going to the gym is really boring. The only way I can enjoy exercise is by tricking myself. It would be great if I DID know how to play any sports, because that's basically what playing sports is all about, tricking yourself into exercise by playing a game. Oh, also teamwork and resilience and encouragement and stuff. 

But I still don't play sports, so I trick myself in other ways.

If I'm going on the elliptical or the bike, I have to watch a good tv show or listen to an audiobook that I'm into, so I don't think about how I am kind of tired and winded and would like to quit now that I've been doing this for 4 minutes. It has to be a good enough book or show though, otherwise I'll gloss over and think about how I'm kind of tired and winded and would like to quit now again. 

My new favorite thing though are classes where we mostly dance the whole time. I have been doing zumba which is a delight and a class called "dance jam" which is kind of dancy aerobics to loud music. I also have been taking a class called pound, which was super fun- you drum to music for an hour and trick yourself into doing a lot of squats. 

In conclusion, exercise can be boring, but trick yourself into liking it because it's good for you. 

Trick Hikes

I love to go hiking. It's probably my favorite activity. Especially in the sunshine in pretty places. Aaron does NOT like to go hiking. He thinks it's boring. He throws a 6 year old version of a fit whenever we tell him he has to join the rest of us on a walk or a hike, which is like: look sullen and don't speak unless its to ask if one of us will carry him. When we went out to CA last, we were trying to figure out a low-key outdoor activity and so we decided to walk around the outside part of the Chumash Museum. It was basically a hike, but we told him we were actually going on an "exploration." He loved it. He ran half of it. He noticed pretty and cool things. It was great. In conclusion, he likes hiking if he's tricked into thinking he's not hiking. 

Sporty

 Here's a list of the sports(ish) I've played:

• Kindergarten- gymnastics class at the parks and rec. When you're 5, you basically just walk a balance beam that's on the floor.
• 2nd grade- karate class. I got bored, so I only made it to a second degree yellow belt, and also I beat the boy down the street in some kind of karate challenge we had to do.
• 4th grade- some stupid cheerleading class I was so embarrassed to be in.
• All of elementary school- handball during recess. I was one of the bests I think. 
• 6th grade- tall flags. We spun flags to "I will walk 500 hundred miles" for warm ups.
• 9th grade- cross country.
• 10-12th grade- dance class. It was like the dance team, but not as good. It was fun though and I didn't have to take PE. 
• High school- our youth group played volleyball (with like 30 people) once a month in the church gym and a few times a year we played broomball with duct taped brooms. I choose to just run a bunch and cheer everyone on whilst holding a broom. I also slid on the ice with bike knee pads.
• A few summers ago I played sand volleyball with some camp friends- it was the beer league and my role was basically to make sure we had enough people to play.
• Last summer Aaron and I kicked a ball around and he said I was "a really good soccer player." and I said, "one day you'll realize that's really not true." :-)

So, in conclusion, I don't really know how to play any sports. 

Here are some pics from a broomball "game" in college one time:

Oh ya, this thing!

 Hey friends.

I forgot about my Lent blog! But then I remembered it again. Here's some random things I thought about writing about, mostly just now:

• Questions From a Sermon One Time
• Crowded Table
• TV Shows
• Adhd+Me
• MTV Jams
• When is it Monday again?
• Fashion Over the Years
• Life Hacks
• Puppy
• Perfect Friday Night in 1994
• 3 Stripe Adidas VS 2 Stripe Payless Vs 4 Stripe Kmart
• Walls and Tables
• Trick Exercise
• Little Dancing Baby
• Fav Church Games
• Have To Vs Get To
• A Day By Myself
• Hiking is Fun, Tell My Kids
• Chain Mail Questionnaire So That I Don’t Die Alone
• Sermon Walk Up Song
• Exclamation Points and More Exclamation Points

Happy Lent!

ARE there any other Lent blogs? If so, a ranked order of all the Lent blogs

I spent like ten minutes searching for other Lent blogs. There's really not much out there. Well, there is if you're looking for Lent blogs actually about the season of Lent. But, if you're in the market for an irreverent and random assortment of topics for 46ish days in a row in the late winter/spring each year, this is really your only option. I could rank the blogs ABOUT Lent, but if I'm really honest, I don't really want to read them.  

Hometown Buffet and Sizzler: Fancy Dining in 1995

Let me tell you about my favorite restaurants in 1995: their names are Hometown Buffet and Sizzler. I just read Aaron some Junie B Jones and that last sentence was a very Junie B thing to say. I also AM Junie B. Jones. 

Anyway, Hometown Buffet was a magical place. There was an entire salad bar. I'd always make a big salad and then add a bunch of not salad salads like potato salad and a crab/seafood salad (there is nothing more terrifying to me in 2022 than eating a seafood salad from a buffet). THEN there was a whole table with a make your own taco station. Do you know how much I love tacos? Do you know how much I loved assembling my own tacos with every topping as a child? There were other things too if I had enough room in my stomach. The best part of all was that there was a whole dessert section. They had soft serve, cakes, some kind of chocolate mousse, and no grown ups ever told me I couldn't get more than one dessert. 

We often went to Hometown Buffet when we were having a sleepover at my grandparents house or for one of our birthdays. So, besides the many desserts and seafood salad (again, WHY), it was special for those reasons too!

Sizzler was exciting in it's own way. There was a salad bar, not nearly as extensive as Hometown Buffet's whole buffet, but they had salad, soup, and make your own tacos. All the essentials. And also they had cottage cheese and pre-Kelli who has to curl up in the fetal position after eating cheese because her stomach is so mad just loved cottage cheese. Sizzler was also special because it was a sit down restaurant. Grown ups could order like a steak and a salad bar or shrimp and a salad bar. Or steak AND shrimp and a salad bar. They gave you the salad bar plates like right away, but usually our parents made us wait a little for the cheese bread to come before we could do the salad bar. The cheese bread is just the best bread ever. It's like texas toast with cheese broiled on it? It is one of their specialties. I think there was a kids meal, but I never got it. Because I was pretty big into salad bars. 

My dad worked at Sizzler for a minute and I can't tell you how proud we were to go to Sizzler when he was working. I told every other staff person THAT IS MY DAD WORKING BY YOU. Like he was a celebrity. 

Now that Sizzler is closed and has been a Fuddrucker's and a Hooters and some place with excellent breadsticks. It's something else now but I can't remember what. Basically, nothing has had the longevity like Sizzler has had in that spot.  

One time me and my friend JR went to a Sizzler when we were in college because he also loved Sizzler as a kid, and you know what? It was still as good as I remembered. I haven't been to one since then, but I'm going to hang on to those special memories.      

Why finish a book when you can stop part way in a fury of excitement and tell everyone else to read it and then lose interest and never finish it yourself?

I've got a book here in front of me. It's really good. I am on chapter four. This is the part in a book where I am really excited about it and I want to tell everyone to read it and I'm really close to not picking it up for a while or ever again. I'm not really sure why it happens, but not finishing a book seems to be my spiritual gift. I really can't tell you how many books I've recommended that I've only read half of. I'm determined to finish this one because I told my whole congregation they should read it for Lent.