Category: ADHD

Garden Misadventures – Yellow Jacket Apocalypse

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My compost pile is being held hostage by yellow jackets.

Stinging little bastards!

My back yard is bordered by a retaining wall made of railroad ties. Somewhere around August, a yellow jacket hive set up shop behind some of the ties, literally next to my compost bin. I am thinking the blueberry syrup waste I tossed in there made it an attractive neighborhood. I have also since learned they are aggressive little bastards in late summer by nature.

I discovered this when I tossed some compost in the pile and was going to mix it in, and I got stung. I thought, no big deal, I would call Orkin, who I had a contract with, to come deal with it. First, I learned that my Orkin contract only covers the house, and I’d have to pay a couple hundred bucks to deal with the nest, and they’d have someone call me. After a month of trying to contact them I gave up, cancelled my contract, and decided to DIY it. I don’t need to pay for a service that ghosts me.

The first time I sprayed them with a single can of spray, early in the pre-dawn light, they came flying out of there like they were shot out of a bee cannon, and I got stung on the nose, flung myself backwards, and hit the ground. I was about five feet away, but had to finish spraying from about 15 feet away after I got stung. This seemed to kill a lot of them off, but there were still bees a couple weeks later.

I hope my back neighbors got the entire event on their Arlo camera that they have pointed at my yard. Someone should get some humor out of it. I feel like it was a flappy “OMG a bee is on me” dance that probably did not showcase what little grace and dexterity I actually have.

So then I bought six cans of spray and my wife and I went out. My wife has ADHD, which might explain while I was spraying the hive area, I noticed my wife spraying down the length of the retaining wall in a loopy pattern with the bug spray. She seemed to be enjoying herself, so why not?

This is kind of a thing for her. I once asked her to help me shave my backside, you know, as one does when they transition and realize that butt hair is the fastest and thickest incoming masculine hair you are getting. I realized after getting into a fairly compromising position in the bathtub that she was shaving down my thigh, and I had to ask her why?

So I am not sure, but I think targets are a little murky for her, and I am going to say that might be ADHD related, but it could also just be a quirk my wife has.

Back to the yellow jacket eradication project, we each had three cans, and I dumped my three in the crevasse with the nest, but my plans to get super close and really get in there were ruined as a half dozen bees came out while I was spraying. They weren’t bee cannon ferocious, and I sprayed them down the foaming bee spray. I felt I got a good coverage and into the hive, though.

Now, days later, I still notice a yellow jacket, here or there, coming in and out of the hive. They are still holding my composter hostage, and I can’t mix my compost.

My plan is to buy six more cans of bee spray and try again. Eventually I have to get them all, right? I am a grown ass adult, and I can keep buying bee spray until I have killed the stinging possessive bastards. I was going to move the composter to the other side of the yard this month originally, and now I have to wait until I get rid of the bees.

So Bees 3, me 0, in the war for the composter.

ADHD Kitchen Design

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My wife has ADHD. Amongst other issues, if she doesn’t see it, it ceases to exist in her memory. Sometimes this means she re-buys things she has in abundance, or puts things away in a fascinating way.

When we moved into this home, I wanted to make sure she could be as at home there as I was. She loves to bake and do cooking projects. She researches recipes, often historical, and makes them.

I wanted the kitchen to work for her. To this end I put in open shelves for the things we use day to day the most.

She would lose her coffee cups all the time, but now she always knows where they are. She can find everything, and doesn’t have to search.

I made sure the most used pans were visible, and I put a basket for the bread, and all the snacks. She has stopped losing the snacks now that I’ve set it up this way. She can find everything she wants more easily.

I also put a lot of the utensils she uses most on the countertop visibly, and so she can find them easily. She’s said having the utensils there has been so much easier to work with for her.

My latest effort is to make labels for the cupboards. This isn’t the most popping color right now, but I plan to paint the cabinets dark dusky orange. Then they will pop!

I created the labels in Affinity Design, and after the first label was done, I just used it to make the rest as a template. Then my wife printed them out and laminated them all. She’s got a whole side project with 5 x 7 ” cards for the game she is running. She hands them to the players as a mission card, so I figured I’d commandeer her process for kitchen labels.

This will look so much better when the cabinets are painted. They are very 1980s right now.

I can’t label everything in every cupboard, because she would be overloaded by it all. So instead I tried very big summaries, and specifics that she uses the most. We are also old, and wear glasses, so I used a HUGE font that she can see without glasses.

So far, it seems to be working. My wife can see what she needs, and it works with her ADHD.

I am interested to see how this works for her going forward, and I like to keep checking in with her to make sure there isn’t something better I can do to work for her.

The biggest challenge is to make it all look like a design choice? However, I don’t care much as long as it works for her, cute or not. I think we managed to make it cute though.

Most Underrated Kitchen Appliance – Instant Hot Water

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This picture is my homemade instant hot cocoa mix in front of my wife and my coffee and tea set up. The white jar is for loose sugar for my wife, the dark blue one is for instant coffee, and the teal one is for sugar cubes for me.

This is not a sponsored post. I don’t have affiliate links. This is just me, in my first home, marveling at the small upgrades I can make in order for my life to be a billion times better. I just like to document and link things.

My incinerator. Ignore the gap between the backsplash and the counter. I have to fix that. It’s relatively mild here, but is like a 1/4 inch as it creeps larger at the end of the counter. I haven’t sealed it yet because I am waiting to fix it.

This is an Insinkerator. That’s the brand name of my infant hot water system. What it does, is deliver water hot enough to make tea out of. You can increase of lower the temperature to fit your needs.

In my home, my wife prefers instant coffee. That is probably horrifying to folks, but she grew up on it, and prefers it. Over our 30+ years of marriage we have had normal coffee makers, high end espresso machines, you name it. She always goes back to instant. This actually frees up a lot of counter space, and reduces waste from Keurig and espresso machines, presses and coffee makers.

I am a hot cocoa and tea drinker because I am a very high energy person, and caffeine takes me into the arena of damn annoying real quick, so I stick to my caffeine-free tea, and my hot cocoa. What little caffeine I get from the cocoa is about all I should ever have.

In the apartments we have been in, we were in a constant hot water kettle search. We would burn through one every year or so, because between the two of us, we would have tea, cocoa, and coffee all day long. We just killed them from over use. I was even considering one of those massive zojirushi how water dispensers.

Add to this, my wife has ADHD, and she would always come start the kettle, then leave, and an hour later come back to start the process all over. Just waiting for the water to heat was enough time in ADHD for her to end up distracted and not get her coffee. Some mornings she would realize she’d have related the task endlessly and never gotten her morning coffee.

With this in mind, one of the first items I bought for the house was a hot water on demand system. It’s like a mini on demand system that holds a gallon or so of water for your use. The Amazon listing says 3 gallons, but that’s wrong. I think it’s closer to 2/3 of a gallon.

This is like a $250 luxury. I can get my cocoa in the morning instantly. My wife no longer circles the kitchen in a remember & forget coffee dance.

I think this is the single most amazing item we have in our home. I had no idea when we put it in that it would help my wife so much. This was worth every penny. When or if it dies, I am replacing it immediately.

Being able to modify my home in such a tiny way, to help make our lives easier? I really want this for everyone. We were so lucky to get out of the rental racket, and into a home, and I just really want this for everyone.

It’s just so shocking to me that with such a relatively small purchase I can make such a huge impact on my enjoyment of my home.

I just watched my wife kick the trashcan, startle herself, then look for the source of the noise.

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She has no proprioception and was shocked to hear that the noise was her own foot. In the 30+ years we have been together I had always wondered why this happened to her, and I guess from reading other people with ADHD have the same problem. Proprioception seems to take a hit.