adhd awareness month: my october challenge roadmap

September 30, 2016 • by kerri

Most people that know me are aware that three (and a half) years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and learning issues primarily affecting my visual memory and processing speed. Since then, I’ve tried to engage with as many other adults with learning and attention issues as I can. For girls especially, it’s common that ADHD especially is missed, since we present differently than boys—more often we have the inattentive subtype, so we are less noticeably hyperactive!

October is ADHD and Learning Disabilities Awareness Month. You may also notice that things look a bit different around Kerri on the Prairies in celebration of neurodiversity—which is just the cool way of saying that everybody’s brain is different, whether you have ADHD, learning issues or autism… and that it’s okay to not be “neurotypical”!

But hold up, that’s not all! A guy named Jesse d’Eça from Quebec is taking ADHD Awareness month one step further, and he and the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada (CADDAC – don’t get thrown off, they probably existed before all ADD became ADHD) have come together to get Canadians doing things to raise awareness of what ADHD really looks like. Challenges can be whatever you dream up: CADDAC recommends: a) Something physical—like exercise, daily b) Something cerebral—like meditation or mindfulness practice for a predetermined amount of time once or twice per day, or c) something educational, like reading or writing.

Here’s my challenge:

Planking. Opting to follow Jesse’s lead, I’m going to be trying a plank challenge for October—the app I did the initial test on today (where I made it 55 seconds… just couldn’t make a minute!) claims I’ll be able to sustain a plank for 3 minutes and 25 seconds (or 205 seconds) by the end of the month. While I understand the whole rest day thing, I’m going to try to skip the ones the app requires taking because part of the whole challenge thing is to do something every day! Unless I like, injure myself.

Blogging. Hi there, people reading my blog. I’ll be here every day in October blogging for ADHD/LD awareness month. I even have a plan for this! Some days will be longer posts, some will just be pictures, but hopefully everything will share a bit of my story of living with ADHD.
I mean, look, random t-rex pictures? Yeah, that explains my ADHD life pretty well, right? 😉

Okay and you know what, since we’ve got column A – something physical and column C – something educational(ish) covered, let’s set the bar high.

Meditation. I meditate using the Smiling Mind app. The fact that they are led by an Australian dude does not hurt the app one bit. It’s something I’ve been trying to get into a habit about, so… Let’s do this. (I’ll give myself bonus points if I can manage to get in all 42 of the remaining meditations in the Adult track ;).)

Want to support the challenges I’ve set up, and support the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada?
The site is quite non-intuitive, so you’ll have to go here, select your donation amount, and then search my name (Hi, I’m Kerri MacKay if we’ve never met and you’d like to donate money. Thanks! How are you?). Want to do something yourself? Register your challenge here.

And as always, have questions for me about my ADHD, the challenge, or about anything else? Drop me a comment or e-mail me at KerriOnThePrairies [at] gmail.com.

books / faith / life / music / writing

faded reflection: last week, from now.

July 28, 2016July 28, 2016 • by kerri

I spent last week at the cabin.

I spent some time on the water in the kayak, some time reading [new books: Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature, On My Own (Diary of a Teenage Girl), The First Part Last (Heaven #2) (unsure of what Heaven #1 is); reread Falling Up (Diary of a Teenage Girl) although i remembered none of it), and continued on Islands and Insulin.

Something also sparked in me to pick up the Bible again. What a concept for me. Picking up the Bible, in this case, was putting the Bible Gateway app back on my phone. And here’s the thing, I was actually excited about it.

I journaled. Not a ridiculous amount, but I got my head back out of me or back in check in the way that only writing seems to do for me—really, the best therapy. I considered stuff I need to work on, and “iterations of myself I need to get back to”. Like the whole exercising/nutrition/journaling/mediating/praying thing.

I saw a sunrise—it moved me to stumble back to my bed on the way back from the bathroom at 5 AM for my phone to take a picture—to not miss the moment and not think it was just a dream in the morning.

I created. This was, actually, before the sunrise sighting.

I played mindless games (actually, Cooking Fever is kind of stressful, my goodness), and looked for Pokemon.

I tried to be present, mindful, as much as my lack of routine and ADHD allows.

I did some work when I felt like it. It’s part of my life, no matter how much on “holidays” people kept saying we were on. I chose to not be on vacation for the times I spent working. It’s easy when you like what you do for work and can work anywhere.

It was really, though, about coming back to where I need to be; about reflecting on self-care and seeing what I want more of in my life. And, I found a lot of good stuff in the process—stuff I need to work on. Like talking to God and seeing Him in my world—opening my eyes and allowing Him to open my eyes.

Edit: After I published this, I found this live set from Lacey Sturm on YouTube, at one point she says, “God is always pursuing you, but do we always pursue Him?”
I think my answer is obvious; but that the question is perfect.

i feel Your eyes crawling over me
as though i am something more than me
but i don’t have anything good enough to say
i did not make myself this way

i’ll show you what He did
but i won’t take the credit
it’s not mine anyway
i just held the pen that day

and i don’t deserve this
this time right now
it’s not something for which
i can take the bow
and i don’t deserve this
it wasn’t me
i can’t take glory
for something that i can’t be
i don’t deserve this

i know what perfection is like
and i cannot stand before its might
and i’m so far from what You think that i must be
i just drown myself in mercy

and all the art that i supposedly create
is simply a faded reflection of something He’s already made.

penholder, flyleaf

But the further I go, the further I wander, the more I realize I need God. My friend Jessica posted a picture on Instagram last week that I needed—it said “Prayer is not a ‘spare wheel’ that you pull out when you’re in trouble, but it is a ‘steering wheel’ that directs the right path throughout life.” This is something I know, but I fall off track, and a reminder I need. I want to be well.

my scars are Yours today, this story ends so good
i love You and i understand that You stood where i stand
[thank You.] […] no matter what You’re going to break my shell.
i’m done healing—i’m done healing
i’m sorry, flyleaf

Oh and totally out of the vibe of this post, but this makes me laugh so much:

Such doge.

asthma / life / work / writing

world asthma day 2016: hello, asthma.net

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016 • by kerri

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.

Today is #WorldAsthmaDay. #Asthma is way more than a blue inhaler… But I still have that blue inhaler everywhere I go. #asthmaawareness #ownasthma #asthmaawarenessmonth day 3

A photo posted by kerri (@kerriontheprairies) onMay 3, 2016 at 8:28pm PDT

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.

create / writing

camp nanowrimo: not halfway there.

April 16, 2016 • by kerri

Okay yeah so remember how I had all those grand plans fifteen days ago? [Sixteen days ago if you’re really counting, because obviously I start writing all these blog posts at 11:45 pm on the day I meant to write them. Yup.]

Yeah, nope, not happening already. I’m realistic. (I wasn’t 16 days ago but whatever. Details.)

Nanowrimo? It started off strong. Like usual. Then I lost interest. Even though I liked my story. I think I lost interest anyways, maybe I just got distracted writing all the other things.

I changed my goal even earlier in the week at some point (I forgot to write that down, but maybe Sunday or something). And then I kind of plateaued…

It looks like I’m way ahead of the curve for awhile, but that’s only cause I shifted my goal down. I was trying to do 2000 words a day instead of 1666 or whatever the regular goal is, to compensate for the 5 days I’ll be away this month. But yeah, nope…

I was pretty pleased when I hit the 10% marker on time, before I changed the goal number. That’s better than I’ve done previously, honestly.

So, lesson learned: the research is true—don’t try to do too many new things at once.

Especially when a lot of your work is writing already, maybe. 🙂

12 of 12 / create / life / wellness / work / writing

12 of 12: april 2016

April 13, 2016 • by kerri

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.

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