work
Today […yesterday, technically] is World Asthma Day. Much the same as at 12:05 AM, I have no riveting thoughts on this. I took my inhalers, I went to bed. I woke up, I took my inhalers, I went out. I took my inhalers before coaching, I came home, I went to the pharmacy and picked up more inhalers, and I’ll take medicine again before I go to bed.
And I wore this shirt that I wear one day a year.
World Asthma Day? It’s gotten boring. Just like this disease. I feel like the organizers aren’t putting the effort in, even. The theme has been “You can control your asthma” for as long as I can remember. Guess what? That hasn’t changed much either.
Maybe people with asthma would think differently about choosing to manage their disease, if they were given something to think about. We need some fresh air, y’all. (Bad puns…)
Fortunately, I’ve got a fresh announcement to make up for that.
Asthma.net launched TODAY.
Way back, I signed a blogging contract with Health-Union, LLC, which oversees Asthma.net. They took their time getting their ducks in a row—which is, as a contractor, super nice because since starting to submit work to them, everything has been SUPER ON THE BALL. I honestly do not have enough good things to say about working with them!
Asthma.net stands for the same things that I do: writing for Health-Union, I retain all credit for my work, and I get to choose my post topics—but, I have people to fall back on if I’m stuck for topics. And yes, of course, they pay me. Not only that, though, but they treat patients like experts—who knows our world better than we do, right? Health-Union has been at this awhile—and it’s clear they’ve done the work to get their relationships right.
Please, check it out. I highly recommend checking out other contributors as well, but here’s where you can find my posts.
…By the way, I freaked right out when I saw one of my posts as a featured post earlier. Whaaaaat.
So, as I try (again) to write my patient story for our National Asthma Patient Alliance executive meeting in Toronto this weekend (again. I can only talk about myself so much… Said the blogger…), I’m reminded of the importance of our stories.
And I’m grateful that more and more organizations are seeing the importance of sharing patient stories in empowering patients, too.
Disclosure: I am provided per-piece compensation by Health-Union, LLC, for pieces I publish to Asthma.Net. Health-Union allows me full choice over what I contribute, as long as it falls within their guidelines (which are basically like, don’t be mean to people). I was not asked to write this post, nor was I ever asked to share Asthma.Net on social media.
I mean… If they googled me for all of 5 seconds they’d know I’d share anyways. But, they never asked me to.
1:12 am | kitchen. Felt like making something around 11:45. Still making something.
1:19 am | kitchen. And this is where I stop for the night. Pleasantly surprised with how the hair is coming. (I’m responding to the “draw a song” art journal prompt I saw online, using Feels Like Forever by Lacey Sturm.)
2:00 am | bedroom. Tweet – “1:58 am seems like a good time to buy the @Smiling_Mind book right? Yup. Now to use the app and go to sleep.”
I did not end up using the app before I went to sleep, but I did almost also buy the November Project book… I restrained myself.
10:17 am | Perkins. Sam and I went to Perkins to plan practice, because my Starbucks card reload failed during the upgrade to #Crybucks Rewards. Starbucks is refunding it, but why would I go to Starbucks with it not resolved? So, Perkins. And these delightful crepe things filled with strawberries and cream cheese.
12:23 pm | Kitchen. I should really just start saying office instead of kitchen. I started the process of checking off many things from my to-do list with “file taxes”. As you may recall, they’ve been done since March 12… Submitted.
3:39 pm | Kitchen. After filing my taxes and scheduling my tooth extraction (being a grown up is AWESOME. Like I wrote the other day, I’ve got a cavity in a wisdom tooth so it gets to get pulled out. Which is better than getting it filled, really.) I got a 20 minute dance workout on. Except I did it wrong and ended with a peak heart rate… Poor music choices (actually due to the song linked above)…
Anyways, yeah, I then did another grown up activity and did some work, which involved writing a blog post about why warming up and cooling down is important, and how despite having a degree in kinesiology I’m not smart sometimes.
6:54 pm | Special O. Sometimes, we play games like Capture the Chicken that the parents are more intense about it than the kids (it does get the athletes stoked though..!). Yes, this guy is also my sport medicine doctor. 😉
9:31 pm | kitchen. 4 things checked off the month’s to-do list today.
9:49 pm | kitchen. This is my buddy Guide Dog Murray, aka Steve’s guide dog. You should vote for him in the Guide Dogs for the Blind photo contest. He’s raised $25 so far, because he’s cute (and because humans are nice).
11:00 pm | kitchen. I had a bath, and then put on clean socks… except I have no idea why there is red on this clean sock or what it is… Obviously I was like whatever and did not like, put other socks on or anything. Maybe it’s from that string anklet I’ve got on, but I’ve had that on for, like, months.
11:34 pm | kitchen. Classic. Cookies and milk. (There was another cookie but you don’t expect me to, like, save them both to take a picture of, right?)
12:38 am | kitchen. Technically no longer the 12th. But still within 24 hours and back to creating stuff. Because it’s like, therapeutic or something.
Now that I’ve started using Bullet Journaling to try to organize my life (post on that to come), I seem to have begun tackling (or at least scheduling to tackle) a few big projects for April.
First, you’ll be seeing me more here. I’ve got a schedule (!) mapped out for the month, although this post is already not the post I said I’d write today (because, duh, it’s me).
I’ve also decided to take another plunge into Camp Nanowrimo (aka National Novel Writing Month, aka trying to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days—like, nonsense, really!). I made it like 26% or something last time, so, I’m curious if I actually will succeed this time (this will be proof of the magic of the Bullet Journal). I’m trying a different story that will hopefully not get me as bogged down in researching very specific things (because I am great at that—distraction FTW). With a few travel days on the agenda for April as well, I’m trying to do 2000 words per day on that project… and that’s just one component of my writing life. I’m going to need to get this standing desk setup rolling, stat.
And, this is on top of a few other blog contract gigs, coaching, and my other regular life. It’s mildly ambitious, but hey, I’ve made a timetable (!) for my life (!) and it still has, theoretically, plenty of free time. And workouts scheduled. And… Oh, God, what am I doing here?
Oh well, let’s give it a shot.
It’s on, April.
PS. The snow has already melted twice, yet it’s supposed to snow again today.
PPS. None of this is an April Fool’s.
PPPS. I love WestJet
ADHD doesn’t define me, but it does help me understand who I am.
from What ADHD Feels Like to Me.
I’m stoked to finally share my first post on Understood’s “The Inside Track” blog! What ADHD Feels Like to Me shares a glimpse into my life with undiagnosed learning and attention issues, and what finally identifying my ADHD and learning issues means to me.
The experience I’ve had working with the Understood team has been a brand new one to me. For the first time, I’ve worked with an editor—and, while he changed every ‘university’ to ‘college’ in this post, ‘cause America, he is beyond fun and the process has been awesome. (Hi, Andrew!).
Understood gets me.
I found the weekly #LDchat on Twitter run by Understood not long after my diagnosis. From that point forward, until I entered a contract agreement with Understood in September (and, let’s face it, even since then. Also, disclosures here), I would continually and politely remind the Understood team about the existence of adults with learning and attention issues.
Unlike so many groups, Understood listened. We threw some direct messages and e-mails around, and on September 1st, I signed my first contract with Understood (renewed January 1, 2016). While Andrew and I work together to rework and polish a piece to go live, honesty is as important to Understood as it is to me: everything I write on Understood reflects my experiences, feelings and opinions—Andrew made it clear that nothing would go up that I wasn’t 100% on. And, he’s been equally 100% solid on that.
What ADHD Feels Like to Me has been awhile in the making, but the process to get here has been awesome. I’m thankful for Understood: both for this opportunity to share my story with a bigger audience, and for what they offer parents of kids with learning and attention issues.
Disclosure: I receive compensation to blog for Understood.org (note: I would have done it for free but they offered me money). I am under no obligation to share these posts on Kerri on the Prairies or via social media. (But, you know, I like them, so why wouldn’t I?)