KATHRYN R. BIEL: AUTHOR

So, I've seriously been meaning to write.  For, like 2 weeks now.  About Mommy ADHD.  But it's taken me this long because I keep getting distracted. No joke. Mommy ADHD is a serious problem, affecting up to 100% of mothers.  Ok, I don't really know that, but I'm just guessing because every mom I talk to knows what I'm talking about. Mommy ADHD is commonly noticed when trying to accomplish an insurmountable number of tasks in an unreasonably short period of time.  For example, prepping for and cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  With young children around.  While working.  For those 0.0001% of you not familiar with Mommy ADHD, here is a typical (and pretty true) case study. Task:  Clean off the dining room table (45% covered with miscellaneous items) to be used for Thanksgiving dinner (or actually any meal, for that matter). Estimated time start to completion: 30 minutes Actual time start to completion: 4 days Task analysis for catastr...

So, thanks to Election Day (which can barely be counted, considering many of the candidates in Colonie are running un-opposed) and Vetrans' Day, my kids have a really short week.  They are home on Tuesday and Friday.  Which happen to be my two days off.  Which means childcare will not be an issue.  But which mean I get no time to do my mommy things, like grocery shopping and cleaning.  Also, my husband is in California, so it's all me.  Ok, it's all me with some help from my parents.  But I have 12 days of being on duty, 24/7. So, today was day off #1.  I blissfully turned the alarm off last night.  Silly me.  I was awakened suddenly to Jake's face about 3 cm from mine at 6:00 am.  After my heart started beating again, I tried to get him to go back to bed.  Instead, he laid down with me.  I don't know if he fell back asleep, because I certainly did.  Until 6:20 am when Sophia came noisily bounding in.  That was...

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind.  My grandmother went from having an"upset" stomach to passing away.  On Saturday, she was dusting her apartment. By the following Saturday, she was being buried. Despite the fact that she had 93 years on this earth, it went all too quickly.  I just can't believe that it's all over.  Now, we have the unenviable task of cleaning out her apartment. We moved my grandmother into her apartment 6 years ago.  I am thankful that we had sort of weaned things out then.  My grandmother was impeccably neat.  However, she hid a great secret. She was a secret hoarder.  The woman saved EVERYTHING.  While that is charming when it comes to birthday cards, drawings, school show programs and obituaries, it loses something when we are talking about the tags from clothing.  And the free address labels sent to her by any charity that thought she would give them money (and this includes the address labels from he...