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This Monday is Victoria Day in Canada. Its origin is a celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday and it occurs on the weekend prior to May 25. (Canada still has a British Queen, why I don’t know. Maybe we’re just too polite to point out to the Brits that we’re Canadian, but I’m just speculating).

In lieu of ousting the monarchy, we’ve created an alternative name for our holiday: the May 2-4 weekend, thus named both for the date, and after a 2-4 case of beer (hey, we’re poetic like that.)

With the first summer-ish holiday looming, and Canadians across the land opening their cottages for the first time in our short summer season, I thought this would be a good time to review some do’s and don’ts of holidaying with ADHD.

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Life was so messy and topsy-turvy before my ADHD diagnosis, these days I make a conscious effort to notice how (and when) things have changed for the better. Otherwise, I might just notice the places where I’m still messy, still awkward, still completely incapable of assembling small furniture or a batch of cookies in under 15 hours.

And that would just be depressing.

If you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult – don’t despair! Things do (and will) get better. Just give it some time. And effort. And chocolate.

Here are a few signposts along the way to – perhaps not recovery – but to living better with ADHD.

Lisa Aro and husband Mark

I’m happy to report that our Mother’s Day with ADHD: How to Keep It Happy! webinar went off (almost) without a hitch.

On a personal note, I was terrified before we started. I’d planned to create a visual presentation but only had 3 hours to create it – right before the webinar!

With minimal time, I decided I’d keep it simple, and let the content be the focus of our session. I knew my special guest had great content, having read her excellent blog, Queen of the Distracted, and having had a preliminary phone call to plan what we’d cover in our webinar.

But – what I didn’t count on was for three friends to drop in – all at the same time – and all needing my attention just before the webinar!

Wisteria and MInt – Mother Nature and a lesson on ADHD procrastination

I accidentally spent the whole day gardening and landscaping today.

As I worked, I thought about ADHD and procrastination. Am I procrastinating? I thought, knowing I had many other projects lined up, none of which had to do with spending the day in the dirt.

Then I realized some things can’t wait. Like Mother Nature.

If I wait to pull out weeds, the things I want to live, will die; the things I want to die, will live.

Did our ancestors procrastinate?

As I worked the land, I thought about our ancestors. Our pioneering forefathers and foremothers spent their days in hard physical labor just to survive.

t horizontal.integration via Compfight

It appears that my little rant on spanking has struck a mighty chord.

In addition to readers and comments here at my blog, I’ve received a lot of input on my Facebook page and elsewhere from those weighing in on the weighty topic of how the heck do we deal with our ADHD kids?

It’s distressing to see that some of you (and I suspect many more whom I haven’t  heard from) are suffering and agonizing over what the right way to discipline your ADHD children.

The blog comment that tipped the scale was (excerpted here):

“…how in the world do you get an ADHD kid to learn the social skills required to get along in life before their parent finally finally [sic] loses it and spanks them..” [read molbiomom's full Comment here]

How indeed?

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Hands up if you know what I’m talking about when I say hyperfocus.

I thought so.

There’s a general consensus that adults with ADHD hyperfocus. The exception comes from ADHD expert Dr. Russell Barkley. In this video clip, Barkley says we perseverate, not hyperfocus. But (with all due respect) we’re going to pretend we don’t know about that and go ahead and talk about hyperfocus anyway, okay?

Pascal via Compfight

Ok. That’s it. I’m down the rabbithole again.

The more I learn about ADHD, the more complex and interconnected everything gets. I’m totally overwhelmed by the plethora of theories, webinars, tools, and tricks of the trade.

Not to mention the amazing, fascinating, infuriating, and fabulous personalities representing a myriad of contrasting, conflicting, and concurring opinions available through blogs, articles, Twitter peeps and peeping twits (including those who randomly steal and re-post my writings without so much as a by-your-leave).

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Did you know today, April 19 is bicycle day? That sounds like something super-wholesome, doesn’t it?

There’s tripping, then there’s tripping

Wrong. It’s actually the anniversary of the first-ever deliberate acid trip in history, taken by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann while riding his bike. Hofmann, a chemist, created the psychedelic drug Lysergic acid dethylamide (LSD), commonly known as acid, in 1938.

Thanks to you-know-who, biking and illicit drug-taking is now old hat. But when Hofmann experienced his acid trip, his description of the event was diametrically opposed to that other famed cycling druggie. According to an International Business Times article, Hofmann described it as an experience of reality without an ego.

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Don’t panic! I’m not talking about housework.

I’m talking about a Buddhist expression, “polishing your mirror.” It means clearing up your personal inner gunk, so you can shine more brilliantly.

After my ADHD diagnosis, I realized my mirror was more spattered with toothpaste than I thought.

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In Spanking Hurts ADHD Kids More Than You Think, Part I, we considered the first 2 of 7 critical factors that suggest that spanking may be especially detrimental to ADHD kids.

Having considered an ADHD child’s heightened sensitivity and their parent(s)’ possible undiagnosed ADHD as two reasons to rule out spanking, let’s move on to the 5 final considerations.