Oh, the SHAME!!!! :(

[fakeittilyoumakeit]

So I am slowly plucking away at a degree (Yaaaaay for me).  It took me 7 years to fill out my application, NO JOKE.  I was accepted to begin my part time studies fall of 2012.  I have 3 credits YAHOOOOO!  HOWEVER, I signed up for 2 online courses for the WInter 2013 semester.  I signed on to begin my courses 4 days late (pretty good for me actually) and I got SERIOUS stage fright when I read the outline for the one course and decided to drop it AFTER the deadline so I only got 75% of the tuition back.  The other course seemed not too bad so I decided to go for it.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  Online courses are sooooooooooooo difficult to get started on and are soooooooo NOT stimulating for me.  I am a professional procrastinator too.  SO needless to say, there are 4 weeks left of the course, I’ve done the reading for the first 3 lessons and that is it.  I decided to drop the class before the deadline for academic penalty but of course there is no refund.  I just wasted $500, and the course itself was not even difficult, the subject was right up my ally.  I am so ashamed and embarrassed and am dreading telling my husband.  He is going to be so upset with me.  I can’t even use the excuse that I’ve been too busy because I’m not even working right now.

 

This is a serious all time low in my ADHD life 🙁

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[Evelyn]

fakeittilyoumakeit, I know you don’t know me from EVE, I’m new here and facing a whole bunch of little catastrophes of my own making too. I’m trying to learn, and I hope you don’t mind if I throw my two cents worth in here. I don’t even know if you wanted a conversation… you can tell me not to reply I’ll be ok with that.

 

It’s just this website, and the people on it, brought me from a really low spot and I want to help if I can.

 

Facing an uncertain task, is difficult, even for people without ADD. My friend Jaime, loved literature, and could write very well. But found herself always stressing about not having the work done. It was her third year and she thought she was getting a cake course… If I heard her vow once, I’ve heard her vow a hundred times–never again!

 

I am going through something similar, myself with building my website. I am taking the free on-line course in HTML at w3schools, No teacher just the samples and a “YouTryIt” button for their online editor.

It is very difficult to make it stimulating enough to turn off the morning news. Especially when every time I go in to turn it off, the weather is on. And I like to know where the sun is shining and when. So I watch, then get sucked into the next story …well you know the pattern.

 

I have to take out notepad and make my own HTML page in order to be stimulated enough to keep going. The I have to use my own pictures my own links (I made one for my website email:) ) You get the idea. I have to make extra work for myself, a learning experience, but work none the less, just to get it into my head. Otherwise I would go through the motions without absorbing a thing.

 

I don’t know what you found more interesting than your schoolwork, but you can always try again and maybe involve your husband so he can guide you back when you get off course. ———– )  Just a thought!

 

I know there is a really big world out there behind the screen you are looking at on your computer, but it will be there in 20 minutes, or an hour too!

 

Listen to me talking like I follow my own advice. Yeah, well it’s difficult like you said, but all we can do is keep going, and growing. One day you will make it but for now just look at your hubby with your best puppy dog eyes and tell him he can help next time (If you want him too, that is)

 

Did I overstep?

 

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[Evelyn]

OK did somebody adjust the paragraph settings. I know I’m spacey but woha! that’s some spaces.

 

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[Robbo]

Oh cool, an online HTML course. Do they have a WYSIWYG code writing program? I used to really dig on using Netscape Composer. It was all “mouse-work”, and just writing in a word processor n copy paste… super easy, n fun. Open up the HTML page in a text editor, then copy n paste some Java Script into the code. Presto!!! annoying pop up windows to mess with yer friends… N then piss off others cuz they need a dang sense of humor.

It was my computer playground. My Internet folly-land, windows95 play toys.

A veritable cornucopia of self expression and Ego-maniacal bliss. Mostly it just kept me from climbing the walls in my lil cell.

 

 

Wow, those’re some freaky spaces, ya got there Evelyn    hehe

.

.. . .  .. (-;0   (slobber chops)

“what you see is what you get”

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[Evelyn]

Chocoate covered Seattle roast coffee beans

This post got a little out of hand, sorry.

Thanks I was writing long blocks of type when I first started here and Larynxa told me it would help to break up the text so it would be easier to read–) tiny habit I didn’t know I was forming. Now the editor in  this  forum does it for me. Who’da thunk!

The w3schools is teaching HTML so no their editor isn’t  WYSIWYG but they have links to them. Just google w3schools and look around a bit, scrolling down the page toward the lower portions of the pages is where their recommendations are. They also have a page in the tutorial that has three recommendations  the normal ones like Dreamweaver and another popular one, and one called CoffeeCup. I think those are all ones you have to purchase.

While I am learning the HTML I am trying to put together my website elements. I can see why someone invented WYSIWYG editors. This is very detailed stuff, but when it works the magic is fascinating. Then —I want more, I want more, I just want more— .

“Damn’d annoying commercials, they stick anyway!”

I did download one called NVU it has a free WYSIWYG editor, but I haven’t used it yet. And my site is hosted on bluehost.com. I bought my domain name and space from the same host back in February of 2008. And I have essentially let it just sit most of the time not making any money, or entertaining anyone. Just because I was overwhelmed by the task. “My SHAME, keeping with the topic of this forum”

I’m not plugging, or recommending anything here just informing. I like this site too much to risk getting kicked off.

My skills are in CorelDraw and some of the Adobe products Photoshop, Indesign and my favorite PageMaker. In fact I got a Desktop publishing certificate way back in 1996, using PageMaker, I was going to use the skills to publish my book of poetry. And I did but not formally.

Now I have to make a living. Should have been doing this a long time ago, “hind sight is always 20/20” my dad used to say. I say it a lot now too, as I look back with the full realization of what he meant. As a kid Dadisims were just something dad said they didn’t mean anything then. boy they do now!!

So I’m looking for a job to pay my bills, setting up my website so someday I can stay at home to work, and generally trying to live on my own. You’d think I was a twenty-something, I’m a fifty-something. I wasn’t diagnosed as an adult until 2010 I think. I knew I was ADD but my doctors were stubborn. I was diagnosed as a kid, but my parents didn’t tell me until I was in my 40’s, They didn’t want their kid on speed. I think it might have been OK if they would have followed the other recommendations, like teaching me structure or something.

Ahh! Hind-sight!

 

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[Robbo]

Wow!, very cool Evelyn.

I gonna have to put a lil bit of butter on you.

So I can put my web-site back up on the net.

Butter Butter.

rub rub.

How’s that feel?

lil more on the left huh?

😀

How’s dat gal?

this is encourgement…

Please drive to the next window

7.99 please.

Thank you, please drive through

Robb-Eye @Robbo

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Fakeittilyoumakeit, I always seem to get tripped up by that lack of structure, feeling overwhelmed, and fizzling out.  I’m learning that it’s something that ADD’ers tend to be really prone to…which is why so many of us crash & burn at university, when we get our first taste of that lack of structure.

I’m also learning that it really helps to have a support team, to help you make a plan/structure, and help you stick to it.  @Evelyn ‘s idea about maybe asking your husband to help keep you on track makes sense.

A lot of universities now have experience with helping people with learning disabilities, including ADHD.  So, your university’s Student Services Department may be able to help you with the trouble you’re having now.  Why not contact them (today!) and ask?

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[Patte Rosebank]

Listen to me talking like I follow my own advice. Yeah, well it’s difficult like you said, but all we can do is keep going, and growing.

@Evelyn, it’s like Alice in Wonderland, isn’t it? “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

I guess that’s why even the best coaches have coaches of their own to help them.

Sometimes, you can’t see the forest for the trees, so you need someone else to point it out to you and help you find the right path…and give you the push you need to get going on it.

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[Evelyn]

Weiners n beans Thank you (curtsy), Well I’m glad I can help.

You are encouraging me too. Feed-back is good for the ADDsoul. I even blushed a little.

I found another little trick tonight, it took me several hours going from interest to interest on the internet before I finally got to the w3schools website, to start my studies.

That was a ridicules waste of time! So I went looking for a free multi-alarm for my computer that would go off every so often to snap me back to reality (yes I know it felt like another distraction to me too!), pulling me out of “wonderland” so to speak. I found one and got a bonus, I can set the times my self, and put a message in it to remind me of why I set the alarm, I got it at “free alarm clock software” dot com.

This little toy is really cool, It might even help me stay on track a little better.

It’s what I discovered after I got this thing all installed and set to the times I wanted that’s got me all excited. The premium version “Hot Alarm Clock” will open programs, web pages, and what-not but I’ll have to take a rain-check on that one. I was all bummed as I hit the big red x for this must-have program.

Then it hit me –I use Chrome for visiting flash websites. Which means I use it to come to this website, to watch videos. Any way I set the pages for w3schools, the tutorial page I’m working on, and my wordpress blog to open when I start-up Chrome.

Wa-La! There it is staring me in the face, it’s instant. All three pages load.

How I did it…

I went to the little “customize and control” button at the far right top of the Chrome page, the one with the three horizontal lines, click on that and go to the second setting “On Startup” You’ll see three radio buttons with descriptions next to them. The third is marked “Open a specific page or set of pages.” I hit that button, then I clicked on the set pages link. I pasted in the copied w3schools URL and it closed, it kept the page but it only let me add the one, so I clicked on the set pages link again, there it gave me the dialog to put in more pages.

———————)     WooHoo!! Yay for me!

Sometimes ADDcations pay off.

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[Evelyn]

Am I aloud to put a link from my blog to totallyADD.com? Or does it matter where I put it if I am aloud to?

 

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[Evelyn]

Larynxa

“Sometimes, you can’t see the forest for the trees, so you need someone else to point it out to you and help you find the right path…and give you the push you need to get going on it.”

Yes!

Though, (hanging head) I didn’t get to my studies today, I learned, but not what I set out to learn. And from Weiners n beans‘s post I did a little teaching today too. So the day was a success, at least in my book. Yeah, I’ll take that and put it in my rainy day book for when I’m feeling down on myself.

Thank you, I have never felt so close to a group of people as I do here.

I want to go to Pennsylvania for that “12th Annual Disability Symposium” just to meet Rick and say thank you to him in person. Maybe next time.

Maybe he can come to Cobo hall here in Detroit some time. Or wherever they hold Conferences/Symposiums around here.

Actually I’d like to meet everyone. But I know you are all here and that’s really comforting.

Yup, getting all sappy again.

I getting a little tired too, I was on a really weird schedule for a few days– sleeping ’til 1:00 in the afternoon, but staying up ’til 4:30 or 5:00 am. So finally Monday night I decided to stay up all night, to sorta reset my internal clock. Boy was I tired most of the day, ’til evening I started to get my second wind. (or 5th). But I went to bed anyway. I thought I’d have trouble but I didn’t.

…my clock is re-set, Thankfully!

Good-night All.

 

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[mulegirltx]

@Evelyn, Wow–I had never even though of trying to reset my internal clock that way. When left to my own schedule, I inevitably creep to the to 4:30/5:00 a.m. bedtime, and waking at 1:00 or later.

But I’ve been caring for my landlord’s two dogs for 2 weeks and one of them is an old gal (who is also diabetic) who has trouble holding her pee for more than about 6 hours at a time. So she’s been woofing me awake at 7:00 or 7:30 am for many days now. I was so exhausted earlier tonight I though I might just fall asleep in my dinner. But, whadda ya know?, I’ve gotten my umpteenth wind now…*sigh*

I so agree with your sentiments about this place. 🙂

I’m curious about your online alarm clock, too, but have to wonder if it will become like my task reminder on my smart phone, or my bedside alarm clock, both of which I have an astonishing capacity to completely ignore. In fact, sometimes I don’t even HEAR the alarm clock.

 

@Larynxa, OMG yes I know too well about the fallout of sudden unstructured time. Mine led to a complete crash and burn of my whole life, which I’m still crawling out of. In fact, the co-writer I went longears on suggested adding an addendum to our contract detailing out specific weekly goals, etc. I went even further than she had suggested when I realized such a legal commitment may be just what I need to kick my butt into gear on that project.

 

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[fakeittilyoumakeit]

Hi Evelyn,

 

Thank you very much for your support and encouragement.  No over stepping at all, very my appreciated.  I still haven’t told my hubby, but I’m sure he knows because he would be expecting me to be scrambling and pulling all nighters knee deep in research by this point in the semester.  I do need to tell him tho.

I need to celebrate the positives, and the positives here are that now I know that for the time being, on line courses are not for me AND that I have 3 credits under my belt.

 

I see your courage and determination ring loud and clear in your posts. It sounds like you are on quite a journey. You are an inspiration, keep on posting 🙂

 

 

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[Robbo]

Hi @Evelyn, I’m just one vote, but I vote you go ahead and post a link to your web-site, or heck… anything else ya like.

People will let ya know if they don’t like it. It’s not like any of us read the directions around this camp. But I’m guessing the directions say something like “it’s all good gal” or some quirky thing like that.

Plus you got us curious about your web-site too.

I’m gonna have to warn you. We’re an enthusiastic bunch, so just be sure and brace yourself for some very enthusiastic encouragement, and the sensation of having a bunch of freaks watching your back… Fore-ever!!!.

In other words. Prepare to be stalked!. lol

Only kidden of course.

Love n peace to ya gal

R-

PS, call me any ol name ya like. Umm, oh I know. Pick one! 🙂 (Pick your favorite ingredient n stick wit it) [or not, this ain’t directions or nuthin]

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[Evelyn]

Robb-Eye @Robbo, I just went by what was under your Avatar at the time. I apologize for not looking at your signature, I do like using a persons name I feel they choose a name for a reason. I respect that.

Thank you for the vote, I look forward to some visits. But the link I was referring to is one that sends people “from” my website “to” this one.

A link to my website might be a week or two in the future It is so not ready for prime time.

Love and Peace back at ya.

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