3. NEEDLES, The Easiest of the Three

POSTED BY HERZIG

Finding 'things' belonging to my HC can be a daunting challenge. She's not a hoarder and she has worked very hard to conquer her 'pack rat' habits. But she is and will never be cured of her ADHD. The flock has learned to live with a HC with Severe Combined ADHD, which can alternate between frustrating and funny. Well, that would be 'funny' and 'frustrating' for us and 'Uber Frustrating' for her. What we truly find outrageously funny is when we hear other HCs speak about how focused and insightful she is about something. And she is, externally. Internally she is a huge whirlwind, Or as she describes it.....inside her brain is a big room which contains thousands of ping pong balls and filled with static electricity causing the balls to fly around non-stop day and night. So while she is amazingly creative and obsessively engaged in organizing items and schedules, sheoften gets sidelined before completing a task. When she is knee deep in a task any distraction can overwhelm her causing great stress. And should her 'flow be broken' it will cause complete failure UNLESS. 

UNLESS, we have come to learn, means 'time'. Our HC requires 'processing' time. For example, our HC loves nothing more than sitting and frolicking with the flock and can spend hours with us, which we love. But if we plan to sit and frolic at 1500 on Tuesday and on Monday Ellis says to her, "Hey lets just all frolic right now." She falls off the pasture fence. Ellis has learned and is very adept at saying instead....."HC? I know we planned on sitting and frolicking Tuesday at 1500 but perhaps and only if you want, we could say~~frolic in about an hour? If you decide it is OK just let us know." As Esme is very astute also and takes great care to teach us all, we generally have gotten much better at 'processing' time also. So ADHD is a system about which we are very knowledgeable.

Oh yea, finding things belonging to our HC. One of the little quirks of ADHD can be clutter. Add to the our HC also suffers from OCD-Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Which means even with clutter she is always working at organizing the clutter just so. This is great if the organization has reached a good place but not so much if she hasn't 'gotten back to that' due to her high distractability issues. Clear as a fence post, right?

How does this relate to the 3rd and final item I must find. Fortunately the needles she uses for knitting are generally collected and organized in one spot, if a needle isn't engaged in a project. Ah, maybe I'd best correct the collected and organized statement. The needles are 'collected' although not precisely 'organized'. But the system works for our HC.

We know just where to find the place the needles are stored, in a rolling cart in the second drawer. And as we all go to school, I am a dap hoof at numbers. The pattern said SIZE 3 DP NEEDLES. Although still baffled by the meaning of DP the '3' should help me find what I needed.

Then when I was looking through the drawer I noticed although all the needles had pointed ends to move fiber around, some were pointed on both ends. While others were pointed at one end with a sort of lid on the other. AND some had points at both ends but flexible ropes in between 2 pieces with pointed ends. Pointed? The 'P' might mean pointed. AH HA, another flash of insight. Maybe the needles with 'points' at each end.....meaning 2 ends.....and if 1 point meant SINGLE perhaps the 'D' might stand for DOUBLE. 1=SINGLE AND 2=DOUBLE. Well, might as well give it a try. So I selected different sorts of needles in cases with the number '3'.

I selected one with a flexible rope between the pointed pieces as that seems to be the sort of needle our HC usually knits with and a packet full of needles which had a 3 on it. The rope needles were in a packet so I knew they also were 3's but decided it might be easier to transport all to the pasture to join the fiber, if I removed the rope needles from the packet.  Now I would need to  developed my approach with my HC.

Part 1 of the Plan was completed. 1. YARN 2. PATTERN 3. NEEDLES

Next, getting our HC to cooperate,

HERZIG

DANIEL SENDS WORD via HANNAH

posted by Bobble H. Ovine

FINALLY! Word from our GFBFHD, advising the flock that our Daniel is safe in the Dennison Pasture. I have been very worried about my best friend. Oh, me? I'm Bobble H. Ovine, but Daniel calls me Bobble, which is fine by me. Guess now that Esme assigned me to post the news I will soon be tasked to post about myself on MEET THE OVINES. But in the meantime there is the really IMPORTANT NEWS. Daniel and his bed~bowl arrived safely in California. Our Hannah had been doing 'author' stuff in North Carolina but arriving home quickly informed us of Daniel. {Hope Hannah didn't return with some of that southern accent. I can't imagine what an British way of speaking accent wise combined with a southern drawl may sound like?}

We received 2 photos from Hannah to verify her news so we share one with all of you. Daniel, of course, is safe in his bed~bowl beside which the other 2 Mache Triplets stand. I couldn't tell which was Duncan and which was Dennison.

I had met the Mache Triplets when they first arrived but once I observed the way they treated Daniel I just kept my distance. And for that I am so VERY sorry. I haven't really told Daniel how horrible I feel that I didn't do the RIGHT thing. By that I mean, I didn't help Daniel. I didn't speak up when his brothers bullied him. I mean, I have never bullied ANYONE. But over the last 2 years, while Duncan and Dennison have been learning about how their behavior hurts others and worked to change their ways, I have also been learning that it is just as bad to stand by and watch as someone is bullied. When Daniel comes home I will apologize and because I have learned how wrong it was to not try to stop the bullying.......I will never stand by silent again.

Opps, think I was just suppose to announce that Daniel has arrived safely. And he has.

For my bestest friend in the world~Daniel,

 BOBBLE H. OVINE