Of Overreactions and Simple Things by Konnie Enos

 

My husband is the sort of person who overreacts. If something stops working it is always the worst case scenario. Generally, whatever is going to cost us the most money or completely inconvenience us. Most often both.

The second any appliance stops working, my husband figures we’ll have to replace it because whatever it is, we won’t be able to repair it. This is his reaction even when we’ve manage to repair every single appliance that broke this year except the stove.

I’m talking dish washer, fridge, clothes washer and the dryer.

When we had the floods (two of them in less than a year) in the garage, he was positive it would cost us money we didn’t have and require us to focus all of our time and energy on the clean up and repair. We honestly didn’t have to do much at all because insurance covered most of the damage.

And when I had multiple doctors order tests or do biopsies on me to check for cancer, he assumed we would be dealing with cancer treatments. (Okay, to be fair, valid assumption because I have a lot of family members who’ve had several kinds of cancer. My dad and his mother had multiple kinds of cancer before bone cancer took both of them.)

Don’t worry, every last one of those tests came back clear. I do have health issues, but so far cancer isn’t one of them.

But the big one with my husband is our cars. Whenever something goes wrong with one of them it is always the most expensive repair and/or a harbinger of more catastrophic issues that would be expensive and eventually having to replace the car. None of which we can afford to do.

But I think the worst is when he invents issues that aren’t even there.

Case in point, our current car.

Almost from the time we got it he was finding reasons to take the car into the shop because something wasn’t working right.

He insisted the transmission was slipping and needed expensive repairs all while none of the rest of us had ever noticed the issue he described. He also insisted it’d be thousands of dollars to repair. The same goes for the car radio, which he is still complaining about and my daughter, who drives the car almost as much as he does, cannot replicate. And in both cases it was covered by the warranty.

Now yesterday, he insisted the car had a leak, like a major one, leaving a streak of oil from our driveway and up the road which he found because he turned around to get something he’d forgotten. Apparently, he’d checked where it was coming from and even the fluid levels under the hood and decided we had a break in our brake line and the car was completely out of brake fluid.

He refused to even drive it to the shop and instead opted to pay nearly $100 to have it towed in. He was also sure there was no warranty and it would cost us thousands of dollars. He was also absolutely positive we would be needing to do these costly repairs monthly now because the car is pushing a whopping 7 years old.

Do you know what the skilled and trained mechanics found?

Nothing!

They not only couldn’t find any sort of leak, but the brake fluid levels were also good. There was seriously nothing wrong with the car.

So, my dear husband skipped work and spent money we couldn’t really afford because he overreacted and invented issues that weren’t even there. Not only that but we spent an entire day without a car and wondering if we’d have it back in time for appointments and such we have Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Not to mention next week.

In comparison, I have found that it is rarely the worst case scenario when things go wrong. There is usually a quick, easy, and far less expensive fix.

If the car is sputtering to a dead stop the engine is not failing, it’s simply a clogged filter that needs replaced. (I’ve seen this one multiple times.) And just because doctors order tests to check for cancer does not mean it will be found. Something breaking isn’t the end of the world because a solution can be found without breaking the bank.

I’ve even told him it is not always the worst possible outcome, but he will inevitably forget this wisdom in the moment.

Then, of course, my brush goes missing and it’s the end of world. I just under react for the big things. I think that might be an autism trait.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Procrastination and Time Blindness by Bonnie Le Hamilton

This has been quite a week, starting with Konnie’s youngest son calling me around 9 PM last Tuesday night to inform me their house was experiencing internet issues which had yet to be resolved. That is basically all he said. I groaned but let him know I got the message and I would see what I could do.

I was tired, I wanted to get some sleep. I did actually try to get some sleep at first, then I finally gave up and opened my laptop, still thinking about Royce’s call.

His rapid fire statement still ricocheting in my head. Why me?

The answer was of course, our blog is just the two of us, it is after all about life as mirror twins, which we are. But dang, last-minute warnings are no fun.

Honestly I figured I deserved that for spacing what day of the week it was the week before. I told myself at least I got a warning, unlike Konnie the week before, and tried to get my mind to concentrate on something to write.

It was getting late, and I didn’t have enough, but it was better than nothing when last Wednesday morning less than a half hour before the post was supposed to go up Konnie called.

I answered telling her I was still working on it.

She called to inform me her internet was back up, and she had managed to get to a post up.

All that panic for nothing!

Konnie told me to look on the bright side, at least I had a post started and I had a whole week to finish it.

I think she’s forgotten that I am diagnosed with both ADHD and Autism. In other words, I tend to be time blind. Everything is either now or not now. I have a hard time seeing things any other way.

One week to tweak and edit a post? Plenty of time.

Five days to work on my post? Other things need done first.

Two days away? I’ve still got plenty of time.

You get the picture.

I’m now sitting here in the middle of the night typing away because I didn’t bother working on it during the day. After all, noon on Tuesday is a long way before 9 AM on Wednesday.

It’s Wednesday, and I should be asleep.

Yes, I’m a bit of nigh owl. Not this bad though. At least not every day. And I am trying to get to bed earlier. The problem would be that I didn’t sleep much on Monday night, so I slept off and on Tuesday instead.

I’m awake right now. This is going to throw my sleep schedule so out of wack it may be weeks before I am back on the schedule I was trying to establish.

Then again, I was only trying to establish a better routine. Habits take four weeks to become routine. I may never reach that mark.

This is the problem with being both ADHD and Autistic. In the ADHD mind routine is bad and to be avoided, in the Autistic mind routine is necessary. The battle is to establish routine that works without annoying the ADHD side of me.

Anyone who is both knows how hard this is.

I also suffer from executive function paralysis. Meaning, I know what I need to do, but I can’t seem to get my body to start on it.

Let’s face it, I finally got my shopping done this month because my neighbor needed to go shopping too, and her car isn’t working. I literally finally made it to the store because my friend needed to go too. I’d been telling myself to get up and go to the store for three weeks at that point.

I mean I’d been out of bread for two weeks by that time, and I still hadn’t made it to the store, even though I could have, if I’d gotten off my duff and left my house.

This is the problem with having my issues, and I’m not alone with this. Anyone with my diagnosed sensory issues will have the same kind of issues.

Okay, Konnie’s oldest admits to having these kinds of issues, and she’s got two little girls depending on her!

I honestly thought getting a diagnosis would make life easier for me, but all it has done is give me insight into why I do (or don’t do) the things I do.

The biggest one is it explained why I like my collections.

I’ve had people see me bring more books, or Nativities into the house, and ask, “Don’t you have enough already?”

Uh, maybe? I’m working on it. I have actually stopped buying more Nativities, but am still acquiring more books, and Barbies.

Anyway, happy writing, everyone!

Of Internet Outages and Spotty Cell Service by Konnie Enos

Yesterday, I woke up fully realizing I had to write a post today, but figured it was something that could wait until after I did other necessary things, like balancing the checkbook. And I wasn’t going to do that until after I’d done my normal morning routine.

I was in the middle of said routine when my son came into my room, barely awake and grumbling.

What was he grumbling about?

The internet was down. Estimated repair time was a couple of hours. Okay, so I wait to do the finances. And while I could write my post with the internet down, I could not set it up while offline. So that was waiting too.

I then dilly-dallied around because I had nothing to do that didn’t require internet access.

At about the hour that it should have been repaired, my son returned grumbling to my room complaining that it’d been pushed back four hours. This repeated two more times until we are sitting at the dinner table wondering when we will have our internet service back.

At this point, my son was aggressively trying to figure out what was happening, repeatedly checking our internet provider’s site from his cellphone. This is when he noticed that our cellular service, which could give us mobile data, was being spotty. Spotty to the point, he wasn’t able to refresh the information he could access for any updates.

It got worse as the evening progressed and the internet was still down.

My son was panicking. Talking about if it was a cut line it could be days until the repaired it.

I was not far behind him.

I still had to balance the checkbooks, and I knew one account had the statement out for the month, so I’d need to reconcile that. Plus, you know, my post. Which I had not made any attempt to write yet. I actually had not come up with a topic yet.

Then my son came into my room and told me the newest estimate for repair wasn’t until this morning.

Okay, now I was in panic mode too.

It’s my turn to post. And if I had no internet connection in the morning I would not be able to do a thing about it.

Then my persnickety phone died.

This phone functions perfectly but recently it decided it must be completely turned off before I attach the charging cable for it to actually start charging. Even more annoying is it will not turn back on until it was at least 15% charged.

So, my internet is down for an unknown length of time which I do not trust to be anytime soon since it had been out all day. On top of that, my post is due and my phone is dead.

My one and only thought is that I cannot tell Bonnie what the problem is with my phone down too and at this point it’s late enough that calling her any later might wake her up. She is an hour ahead of us after all.

So, I tell my son to call his aunt. I know for a fact that Bonnie is his only aunt that he actually has a number for and talks to regularly. I did not ask my daughter to call her, because I wasn’t certain if she had Bonnie’s number or not and with mine off, I could not check the number for her.

Now mind you, our cell service is still spotty.

According to my son, as soon as Bonnie answered he spilled out the entire issue. No internet which meant I couldn’t post, and spotty cell service which meant the call could drop any second.

Anyway, it was sufficient information for her to figure out it was extremely important to let him know she got the message and understood the problems quickly. Beyond her initial hello, all she said was that she would cover the post.

Fortunately, the internet was restored sometime in the night.

I woke up this morning and after attending to the needs of our furry family members I opened my computer. Internet is functioning.

I check out blog sight. No post from Bonnie. I’ve even refreshed a couple of times.

Yes, I began typing way faster than I usually do.

Now it’s about the time this post should be written, edited and set up and I’m still typing. This is going to have to. At least the internet and cell service seem to be fine now.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

OOPS by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Okay, I think I lost a day somewhere. I didn’t realize it was Wednesday until Konnie called.

This week has been something else. But anyway, Memorial Day clearly threw me off.

Happy writing, everyone.

Of Phone Calls and Memories by Konnie Enos

 

My son called me out of the blue the other day to ask me a question.

The question is completely unimportant to the point of this post, mostly because I forgot what it was before we even hung up. I only remember two things. I could not give him an answer, and I thought his sister could, so I told him to ask her. (I have no idea if he followed through with that.)

What is important was the rest of our conversation.

Normally when he calls me we talk for a while. The subjects vary but I generally get an update on how he is doing and what he’s been up to, not only at work but outside of work. We can also ramble into memories from his growing up, though occasionally we will also talk about things from my growing up years.

Our conversations, like those with Bonnie, tend to be long and a bit rambling but enjoyable. Most importantly, not short.

This one ended, in my opinion, rather abruptly.

If you know me at all, you know I deal with the financial matters in my household. This means I regularly spend time updating checkbooks and balancing statements, not to mention paying bills. And yes, it is multiple accounts.

My husband and I each have our own personal checking and savings accounts, plus we have a household checking and savings account. When my children were minors I also kept on top of all their checking and savings accounts.

There was a time when it literally took me several days to deal with our finances at the beginning of the month partly because of the sheer volume of accounts I was attempting to keep balanced.

The volume has significantly decreased since my children are all adults and I expect them to be able to keep their financial records up to date and balanced. I’m not completely sure if they are all handling that effectively but I refuse to adult for them.

Well, except for my youngest. He refuses to accept that he is old enough to handle setting doctors appointments and demands I still deal with those for him.

We have gone rounds about this. He actually insisted I did not stop doing this for his siblings when they turned 18. His siblings told him point blank, nope, she totally did.

Since he still demands I be in on such conversations with him, I am assuming this has more to do with his autistic traits than his actual ability to adult. I don’t think he even realizes that he has set his own appointments without any help from me.

Anyway, back to the recent phone call from his brother.

At the moment he called it was edging toward dinner time on the very last day of the month. I was also smack dab in the middle of balancing my checkbook. The one account that has the most activity each month because my daughter and I use it to keep our household supplied with necessities. That’s at least 2 different stores most weekends, plus gas and whatever I order online because we can’t find those products locally. Most of those products are because my daughter has such a long list of allergies and she has to eat.

As you can probably imagine, checking off each item that has cleared the statement takes a great deal of time and attention.

I did not have the bandwidth to focus on a conversation with him while I was I making sure there were no discrepancies. For this reason, after he asked his question and before we moved on to additional chitchat, I told him I did not have time to talk for the very reason that I was in the middle of balancing a bank statement.

Folks, my wonderful son immediately apologized. He told me he was sorry, but he hadn’t realized until that very moment that this week, being the first week of the month, meant I would be busy.

Anyway, we quickly said our goodbyes and hung up. Probably the shortest conversation I’ve ever had with him.

Not long after that I had a conversation with Bonnie in which she pointed out that it was my turn to post and that it had to be up on the second. She then got to her point that our baby brother’s birthday is the third.

We then talked about our memories of that day, with her telling me I should write about that. But I already have, starting with my post September 2017 “Of Holidays and Other Memories”. And yes, I have never forgotten that morning and how Dad woke me up.

Remembering that is easy. Realizing just how old my brothers are now is not.

Anyway, happy birthday, Dan.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.