I did it again. Acted without thinking of the consequences. Big Ocd no no.
Situation: Dogs saw the neighbor dog outside so we went over there to play for a few minutes. Not a problem usually. But today was garbage day so the neighbor was putting her garbage can and recycle bins back where they belonged. I do believe she patted Zoe. Because Zoe sticks herself in front of any and everybody to get patted. She was also right by their recycle bin. I dropped the leash and it fell about 2 inches from the bin. I thot I had to clean it but when I got closer noticed it wasn't touching anything but the driveway. Whew!
But did the dog touch the bin? Did the lady touch the dog? Must I wipe down the dog? I don't want to (I'm lazy) but I don't want the whole house contaminated with garbage germs. I don't hardly let the dogs touch our clean recycle bin in the house! Bruce puts a bag into it and then washes his hands and I take the bag of recycle stuff out and throw it into the outside bin on garbage day.
Funny thing tho- the dread isn't very loud. It's mostly " you've never liked this before, why now?'
So I rate this a 60/100 even tho it should be 110/100. This confuses me but the calm I feel is fine with me.
I called Bruce and asked him what he would do if it were just him and the dog living alone- would he wipe off the dog? He says no. He says the outside of the garbage cans aren't dirty except maybe dusty. I have noticed the garbage men don't usu.. throw the whole container in the truck (that's gros) so the situation is better than it could be. BTW, the dogs are outside enjoying the sunshine so I have time to think this thru. I really want to just forget it and go on my way but I don't want to feel upset later on when I see the dog in the house or being patted by someone who then touches the fridge etc. Because sometimes I get a delayed OCD reaction. I think everything is ok, but then go wash the fridge etc. and finally the dog after the damage has been escalating. So I don't want to overreact to these calm feelings, which could just be my lazy -don't-clean feeling that then gets superceded later by dread.
So I'm going to imagine Kat touching the dog an then touching her computer etc. See how that feels.
Not too bad.
Picturing myself touching the dog- more intense dread feelings. I'll sit with this one for awhile. While I'm imagining this I keep having ' no one else cares. Why should you care' thots running thru my head. Over the 'eww gross, I'm kissing the dog's head right where she was probably touched'' thots also going on.- I guess those are the ' reasons against or balancing reasons' on the proverbial thot record method of examination I've been taught.
And the verdict is: touch the dog and see what happens. Then touch 1 thing and see what happens. Then touch - ooh I'm getting resistance now, just thinking about going that far. Up to this point I could still wash everything if needed but touching more than 1 thing means I've made the decision. I think dread will happen at that point.
OK here's the results: I went out and patted the dog all over so I couldn't tell myself that I 'might have missed where she was touched by 'garbage can hands'. Then I closed the door, touching the handle- so far ok. Then I touched the broom handle, still ok. Then I touched the art canvas that one of the birthday party kids might use. Not so ok- what if I contaminate someone else? That's not nice. Put the contaminated canvas on top of other things- Katrina's origami book, some ribbon etc. That would be hard to want to wash all that off. Not too bad. Touched the fridge door but didn't touch the water spigot. guess I'm a bit unsure still. Went to the bathroom and brushed and hairsprayed my hair. Not sure if I want to touch the hairspray can again. Brushed my teeth and washed my hands. Went back out and touched the broom to re-contaminate myself and am now at the computer. I think it's fine.
I am supposed to go to my exercise class now so i'll have to bring the dogs in and leave without washing up. Anxiety is going up as I think about it but it's not too bad. I think I can push thru that. Wish me luck!
Evening Update:
I did all that, came home from exercising and was only a bit hesitant about touching everything I contaminated. The problem with noting the items is that it makes it harder to touch them because they are now noticeable. While I got back in my car after exercising with no problems, (it wasn't on the LIST) I did have a twinge of 'ick' before touching the fridge.
Oh, and just after 5 pm I fell asleep til 7:30. So I guess it all tired me out! We don't have a tv to vegg in front of and Katrina wanted to use my computer. I was too tired to read once I finished reading to her, so my default event is sleeping. I'll have to take a melatonin pill tonight to get to sleep at a decent hour or i'll probably be up til 3 am.
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Pre Art- Party Fun
I believe in trying things out before i have to get a group of kids doing it. Lesson learned from many years of supply teaching where I'd get this science experiment I was supposed to do with the class and it doesn't work out the way it is supposed to. And I have to explain what was supposed to happen as well as why it didn't happen.
So these past few days have been trying out the art/ crafts i have found on the internet.
http://babbledabbledo.com/art-for-kids-cosmic-suncatchers/
I tried it once with lots of glue and once with a thin glue film. It was fun swirling the drops of food colour around. Then it had to dry. The thin one came off thin and wrinkly. Not something I want to hang on my window. :( I looked at the one that had more glue and it worked out quite well. It took at least 3 days to dry- maybe more, so it's not really good for a party. It would be quite messy to take home a margarine lid full of coloured glue!.It would be my luck that every car with one of the party kids will have to stop hard and fast so the glue will spill all over the kid and Katrina would hear about it the next day! So while I now have one hanging in my window, we'll do something else.
So next we got some small sun catchers from the dollar store and my daughter painted one of them. I had to paint over what she did because she didn't fill in the holes very well, just painted it with lots of streaks, bubbles etc. They are rather small- 3 inches long and tall. It worked well tho, so it's on the list of possibilities.
Katrina and bruce did this activity: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/candy/picasso-pops/
I thought that wax paper would be better than aluminum foil so they did it that way. The 6 min. suggested made the candy all melted and frothy. They didn't want to peel off the wax paper very well either. Kat. did like eating them. She said: ' this is so good. I am definately doing this at my party!' Kat. got bored and bruce did the next try- using the aluminum foil. He only did a 4 minute melt. They came out pretty. Now they are cooling. The fruity hard candy melted into each other more, leaving a more finger-painted look rather than a variety of colours next to each other like on the website page. After cooling the red/ white mint candy bits came off very easily. They didn't get runny so they looked more like the candy on the website. Aluminum foil it is! ONly takes a few minutes per kid, tho. On the plus side, no handwashing needed after this artsy activity!
Speaking of finger painting, i tried it with shaving cream. Put some shaving cream on a paper. Add food colouring. Swirl around with fingers. Wipe of shaving cream off and you have your work of art! It was fun. However, wiping off the shaving cream using a ruler ripped the regular paper. It worked ok on the bristol board tho. So when I saw some finger painting paper at our local Creative Learning Toy Store, I figured for 6 or 7 bucks it would work better and there'd be plenty of paper left over for Katrina to use during the summer. Katrina was nervous because she was afraid the dog would lick her hands and get sick from the shaving cream. I think we used too much cream & too many colour drops. Not sure whether to do this one. Kat didn't seem to enjoy it. I think she'd like it better with edible whip cream. Can you imagine all the kids licking their papers clean to see the art work under the cream?! That would be worth a picture!
I found this neat ' self portrait' art class here:
http://missmancy.com/wp-content/plugins/category-grid-view-gallery/includes/CatGridPost.php?ID=2909
I bought a 12 x16" canvas already wrapped around wood ($2. at dollar store) to make sure Kat could get her hands and feet painted on. When i tried it with a regular 8 1/2 by 11'' paper, i got my hands traced but then had to draw on small feet. It did turn out kind of cool tho!
Katrina is on an origami kick so we found a simple ninja disk that turns into a star here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcCS86eikJs
that is easy enough and repetitive enough that everyone can make it. And it looks cool! And you can throw it, if you want! So this one is in for sure. Oh, and it will take at least 20-30 min. to make.
And finally- marker art! found here: http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.ca/search/label/Coffee%20Filter%20Circles
We tried these last night and they turned out really well. It also works if you colour 1 side with the markers, not using dots, then wet it so the print goes thru to the other side and then colour that side using dots. I found that if you don't use dots on the wet filter all you get is a dried up marker which you then have to lay aside until it re-inks itself. For whatever reason, dotting your wet filter does not do this.
The dollar store also had cute little bird houses for painting. I would think this is a straight-forward paint job but you never know, so i bought 1 as a sample for katrina to do at home first. They are the most exp
OCD alert:
When i was buying the stuff from the dollar store, the lady who was at the checkout was using a broom to clean their checkout area. Then she gave the dustpan which she pulled out of nowhere to the other person in the booth while she was doing MY order!!! Ocd wasn't thrilled but Karin said: it's OK. It's not a dirty floor or broom or dustpan. A few years ago i would have had an internal fit and likely went and washed all the stuff when i got home, or threw out the container/ boxes stuff came in if i could. Unfortunately MY broom and dustpan at home are 'dirty'. But that could change...
Sent out 11 invitations. If everyone comes it'll be a house full!
So these past few days have been trying out the art/ crafts i have found on the internet.
http://babbledabbledo.com/art-for-kids-cosmic-suncatchers/
I tried it once with lots of glue and once with a thin glue film. It was fun swirling the drops of food colour around. Then it had to dry. The thin one came off thin and wrinkly. Not something I want to hang on my window. :( I looked at the one that had more glue and it worked out quite well. It took at least 3 days to dry- maybe more, so it's not really good for a party. It would be quite messy to take home a margarine lid full of coloured glue!.It would be my luck that every car with one of the party kids will have to stop hard and fast so the glue will spill all over the kid and Katrina would hear about it the next day! So while I now have one hanging in my window, we'll do something else.
So next we got some small sun catchers from the dollar store and my daughter painted one of them. I had to paint over what she did because she didn't fill in the holes very well, just painted it with lots of streaks, bubbles etc. They are rather small- 3 inches long and tall. It worked well tho, so it's on the list of possibilities.
Katrina and bruce did this activity: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/candy/picasso-pops/
I thought that wax paper would be better than aluminum foil so they did it that way. The 6 min. suggested made the candy all melted and frothy. They didn't want to peel off the wax paper very well either. Kat. did like eating them. She said: ' this is so good. I am definately doing this at my party!' Kat. got bored and bruce did the next try- using the aluminum foil. He only did a 4 minute melt. They came out pretty. Now they are cooling. The fruity hard candy melted into each other more, leaving a more finger-painted look rather than a variety of colours next to each other like on the website page. After cooling the red/ white mint candy bits came off very easily. They didn't get runny so they looked more like the candy on the website. Aluminum foil it is! ONly takes a few minutes per kid, tho. On the plus side, no handwashing needed after this artsy activity!
Speaking of finger painting, i tried it with shaving cream. Put some shaving cream on a paper. Add food colouring. Swirl around with fingers. Wipe of shaving cream off and you have your work of art! It was fun. However, wiping off the shaving cream using a ruler ripped the regular paper. It worked ok on the bristol board tho. So when I saw some finger painting paper at our local Creative Learning Toy Store, I figured for 6 or 7 bucks it would work better and there'd be plenty of paper left over for Katrina to use during the summer. Katrina was nervous because she was afraid the dog would lick her hands and get sick from the shaving cream. I think we used too much cream & too many colour drops. Not sure whether to do this one. Kat didn't seem to enjoy it. I think she'd like it better with edible whip cream. Can you imagine all the kids licking their papers clean to see the art work under the cream?! That would be worth a picture!
I found this neat ' self portrait' art class here:
http://missmancy.com/wp-content/plugins/category-grid-view-gallery/includes/CatGridPost.php?ID=2909
I bought a 12 x16" canvas already wrapped around wood ($2. at dollar store) to make sure Kat could get her hands and feet painted on. When i tried it with a regular 8 1/2 by 11'' paper, i got my hands traced but then had to draw on small feet. It did turn out kind of cool tho!
Katrina is on an origami kick so we found a simple ninja disk that turns into a star here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcCS86eikJs
that is easy enough and repetitive enough that everyone can make it. And it looks cool! And you can throw it, if you want! So this one is in for sure. Oh, and it will take at least 20-30 min. to make.
And finally- marker art! found here: http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.ca/search/label/Coffee%20Filter%20Circles
We tried these last night and they turned out really well. It also works if you colour 1 side with the markers, not using dots, then wet it so the print goes thru to the other side and then colour that side using dots. I found that if you don't use dots on the wet filter all you get is a dried up marker which you then have to lay aside until it re-inks itself. For whatever reason, dotting your wet filter does not do this.
The dollar store also had cute little bird houses for painting. I would think this is a straight-forward paint job but you never know, so i bought 1 as a sample for katrina to do at home first. They are the most exp
OCD alert:
When i was buying the stuff from the dollar store, the lady who was at the checkout was using a broom to clean their checkout area. Then she gave the dustpan which she pulled out of nowhere to the other person in the booth while she was doing MY order!!! Ocd wasn't thrilled but Karin said: it's OK. It's not a dirty floor or broom or dustpan. A few years ago i would have had an internal fit and likely went and washed all the stuff when i got home, or threw out the container/ boxes stuff came in if i could. Unfortunately MY broom and dustpan at home are 'dirty'. But that could change...
Sent out 11 invitations. If everyone comes it'll be a house full!
Thursday, May 01, 2014
It's Birthday Party Time Again!
Our daughter Katrina is turning 8 in 2 weeks. Our first plan was to NOT have a party and take the money and pay down our credit card - think cruise costs a lot- Kat's party last year went wayyyy over budget! It was a Pokémon party and I went all out with copying pokemon characters off the internet to put over our regular pictures, bot lots of stuff to do activities with and generally had a great deal of fun. The plan was to put the pic's, the painted pokeball mobile etc. into her room as decorations since her butterfly room was getting babyish. It took a while but we actually did do that, so I don't feel so badly about the high cost of that party.
Katrina, naturally, has other plans. She wants a party! So we decided on an art party. I figured a few crafts, differently coloured cupcakes and some crafty stuff in loot bags. We have LOTS of art supplies upstairs from past parties, that if they got used up and out of my house would be wonderful! Katrina also has lots of clay for creating things with and legos and other toys for kids to play with when we run out of ideas.
Then I looked up art party on the internet- hoping I'd get an idea or two. I was shocked at how many people's kids love art parties and all the different foods, crafts, decorations etc. My eyes started having that 'oooh, this could be FUN' gleam in them. Bruce told me my budget hoping I'd stay within it. Snicker :P Actually, I do plan to not get too overboard. We're making the cake this year; that will save 30 dollars right there and Katrina likes to bake with her dad! We need to cull down all the different art activities and snack foods and come up with a couple of art--type activities for those active kids to run around. I thought of a relay race where they dress up as an artist, run to a paper, draw a flower or something and come back, undress and next one runs. But that's only 1 game. Any ideas?? Bruce suggested an obstacle course but I haven't figured out how to make it art-related. Again- any ideas??
So far I've made a sun catcher out of glue & food colour, finger painted using shaving cream & food colour and done some origami for the ninja star and bangers (both found on youtube). So my problem now is to cut out the activities that are more expensive or not working out, as I try them one at a time.
Tonight we are working on the cards. I scoffed a pile of different coloured paint sample cards, had Bruce cut them in half lengthwise, knotted them together with a link-looking ribbon and put the info on the cards. Cost: $1.13 for the ribbon. Katrina decided she wanted bird post to deliver these cards so she decided to make each one an origami bird to go with it. So add to that $1. for origami paper, which I bought both for the party and for Katrina's use. Keeps her entertained too...except that it's bed time now.
-picture of card: I wanted to add in a pic of the card but I can't seem to get any pictures to get uploaded. I push the picture button, push the upload button, open the picture I want, it uploads. I select it to load into the blog and nothing happens- except a circle keeps going round and round on the window. To close it, after 10 minutes of doing nothing I have to exit the internet. I just don't get computers some days.
Ocd news: yest. I went to my exercise class but instead of wearing my gym shoes, I picked them up and carried them. Doesn't sound like much, I know, but I still remember when I just HAD to wash my hands if I touched my shoes. I didn't believe in laces anymore cause that meant touching my shoes. I still like slip-ons just for laziness sake, and have for years but now I can - again- stick my figure into my heel to put my shoes on, or horrors! pick shoes up by the heel, carry them outside, put them ON the seat of the car and without washing, drive the car to the gym, put them on and do my exercising. A small thing, but oh so significant to me! I remember when I couldn't stand having anyone's shoes accidently go on top of mine (think a pile of shoes just haphazardly thrown in a pile) at a party in case they had crud on their bottoms which would then magically get on my shoes and contaminate them.
My daughter is slowly progressing on her ocd path. At therapy this week she finally made the connection that OCD (or Muck- as she calls it) is what is telling her that fruit or veggies make her dirty. So hopefully things will start moving along in her path to freedom from ocd.
Katrina, naturally, has other plans. She wants a party! So we decided on an art party. I figured a few crafts, differently coloured cupcakes and some crafty stuff in loot bags. We have LOTS of art supplies upstairs from past parties, that if they got used up and out of my house would be wonderful! Katrina also has lots of clay for creating things with and legos and other toys for kids to play with when we run out of ideas.
Then I looked up art party on the internet- hoping I'd get an idea or two. I was shocked at how many people's kids love art parties and all the different foods, crafts, decorations etc. My eyes started having that 'oooh, this could be FUN' gleam in them. Bruce told me my budget hoping I'd stay within it. Snicker :P Actually, I do plan to not get too overboard. We're making the cake this year; that will save 30 dollars right there and Katrina likes to bake with her dad! We need to cull down all the different art activities and snack foods and come up with a couple of art--type activities for those active kids to run around. I thought of a relay race where they dress up as an artist, run to a paper, draw a flower or something and come back, undress and next one runs. But that's only 1 game. Any ideas?? Bruce suggested an obstacle course but I haven't figured out how to make it art-related. Again- any ideas??
So far I've made a sun catcher out of glue & food colour, finger painted using shaving cream & food colour and done some origami for the ninja star and bangers (both found on youtube). So my problem now is to cut out the activities that are more expensive or not working out, as I try them one at a time.
Tonight we are working on the cards. I scoffed a pile of different coloured paint sample cards, had Bruce cut them in half lengthwise, knotted them together with a link-looking ribbon and put the info on the cards. Cost: $1.13 for the ribbon. Katrina decided she wanted bird post to deliver these cards so she decided to make each one an origami bird to go with it. So add to that $1. for origami paper, which I bought both for the party and for Katrina's use. Keeps her entertained too...except that it's bed time now.
-picture of card: I wanted to add in a pic of the card but I can't seem to get any pictures to get uploaded. I push the picture button, push the upload button, open the picture I want, it uploads. I select it to load into the blog and nothing happens- except a circle keeps going round and round on the window. To close it, after 10 minutes of doing nothing I have to exit the internet. I just don't get computers some days.
Ocd news: yest. I went to my exercise class but instead of wearing my gym shoes, I picked them up and carried them. Doesn't sound like much, I know, but I still remember when I just HAD to wash my hands if I touched my shoes. I didn't believe in laces anymore cause that meant touching my shoes. I still like slip-ons just for laziness sake, and have for years but now I can - again- stick my figure into my heel to put my shoes on, or horrors! pick shoes up by the heel, carry them outside, put them ON the seat of the car and without washing, drive the car to the gym, put them on and do my exercising. A small thing, but oh so significant to me! I remember when I couldn't stand having anyone's shoes accidently go on top of mine (think a pile of shoes just haphazardly thrown in a pile) at a party in case they had crud on their bottoms which would then magically get on my shoes and contaminate them.
My daughter is slowly progressing on her ocd path. At therapy this week she finally made the connection that OCD (or Muck- as she calls it) is what is telling her that fruit or veggies make her dirty. So hopefully things will start moving along in her path to freedom from ocd.
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