ADHD Homemaking and Very Dirty Pillows

Someone asked me recently if I’d talk about my late-onset ADHD diagnosis.

I don’t have one, actually.

I just have a very good friend, who is a therapist, who also has ADHD, who diagnosed me, informally.

Actually, when my friend informally diagnosed me, I took it with a grain of salt. Ehhhhh, she sees the world through an ADHD lens! I’m just like, normal and scattered. Normal-scattered! I’m functional! Whatever!

But I am not actually sure that I am functional. I get done what needs to be done. But we are talking… needs to get done. Like, bare minimum need, at the last moment.

I’ve actually been trying to get on a better, structured schedule, now that I am married, staying home, trying to write still, and trying to clean and cook far more than I did before.

And though I love the freedom of staying at home and being able to spend a whole day doing very little, I would prefer if, most days, I actually felt accomplished and got done far more than I usually do.

In the very least, every day I need to…

1. walk or exercise (usually it’s my little loop in the woods with my dog),

2. write (I have been horrible at it)

3. figure out what to cook for dinner and go to the grocery store if need be

4. and now: I need to clean.

5. (Plus all the other things that come up and need to be done that you don’t plan for.)

I have been pretty consistent with walking and cooking. But I am awful at also fitting in writing and cleaning. I always think I’ll get those done in the afternoon, and then I rarely do.

What I usually spend half the day doing, is thinking I can look up something on the internet quickly, usually something to buy, and then after comparing products and pricing and reviews for 1 or 2 hours, I realize how much time I’ve wasted, get extremely frustrated, and often don’t end up buying anything at all, because nothing is clear to me.

The cooking is something that needs to be done, if we want to eat well. And we are trying to budget and eat out less/never. Which is why cooking gets done. It must.

And I’m cooking more than I did before, partially because there are more people. But also, when I was single, I could eat the same thing almost every night. Now, I don’t want to bore my husband (and stepson) to death with the same thing over and over. I almost bore them to death with the same things over and over, still, but I’m at least trying to vary things a little more, which is a bit of a learning curve, and hard for my brain to add a bunch of new things all at once. It’s amazing to me how quickly the meals come at you. Omg how is it dinner making time already.

The cleaning is something that I am actually forcing myself to do more of.

I’m good at tidying. But I am not in a routine to actually clean all the areas in a house that need to be cleaned. Like, I’ll wipe down the kitchen counters daily and bust out my little handheld vacuum every so often to scoop up some dog hair dust bunnies. But I have no full house routine. And that’s because I used to have a cleaner come 1-2 times a month to do a once over of the bathroom, and the floors, and everything else, but upon further review, that’s not in the current budget. So, I’m taking it on for now, for the most part. Which is normal. I’m just not used to it.

Nobody has complained about the cleanliness (meaning, Mike is not a clean freak.) But it’s clear to me, now that it’s largely up to me, how dirty the house will get.

Mike and I have a similar level of tidiness, I think. Which is nice. We are tidy, but also kind of lax. Like, we will fold our own clothes, and put them away, about twice or three times a month. For the rest of the month there are piles of dirty and clean clothes in our room. The clean clothes pile up. It’s not ideal but it’s also kind of ideal, if you know what I mean. It’s a pleasant home to be in, because no one is too militant.

But anyway, that’s just tidiness. But actually consistent cleaning? Dusting. Vacuuming. (Mopping?!) Showers. Toilet bowls. Ideally these shouldn’t just be manically attacked right before you have people over.

Then baseboard?! WALLS! How do the walls get so dirty? Then deep cleaning of like… cabinets and drawers?

It’s become clear to me that cleaning is a very important part of the health and air quality of your home. Not only that, but I’ve read that dust is a food source for mold and that mycotoxins hang out in the dust in your home.

So, I’ve realized that I’d better do something about all the dust and grime that I usually ignore and let build up.

However, that’s not even what I was going to say today.

I was going to say, that I woke up, ready to tackle the day today. And I was going to be productive.

I was going to walk around 8 am, then pray, then write, then with a half of the morning still left, I was going to clean. Then, the afternoon could be for whatever other responsible activities I wanted to continue with. Getting groceries. Returning the shoes I bought from amazon that don’t work. Whatever.

But just before I got out the door to walk in the woods, I looked up a good list of deep clean tasks I should be breaking up throughout the year.

And this is where I went wrong. DO NOT ADD ANOTHER LITTLE THING, BEFORE DOING THE THING YOU JUST DECIDED TO DO, BECAUSE YOU WILL TAKE HOURS TO GET BACK ON TRACK.

But I thought it would only take 5 minutes, max. I googled “what’s a good deep cleaning schedule, to add to my home cleaning schedule?”

And I saw a list that said to wash your pillows every 6 months.

And I froze.

I bought an awesome pillow, the only one that I have ever actually liked sleeping on, maybe… 15 years ago. Maybe more than that. I bought it at Bed Bath and Beyond with my mom when I was in college. I am 37.

And, I have slept on that pillow every single day for my entire adult life.

I change my sheets consistently enough.

But I have never ever ever washed the pillow. I have never considered that I could wash a pillow. How does it dry? What if it isn’t dry in time for bed?

I have heard people mention that you should replace your pillow often to minimize allergens, dustmites, and mold that could build up in a pillow. And I’ve thought, shoot I need to find a new pillow. But how am I going to find another good pillow like this one that I love so much? Good pillows are so hard to come by? I hate almost all of them?

So, I have put it off. Until this morning.

I decided to go onto zola.com, where we still have some money credits from monetary wedding gifts. I would get a new pillow “for free.”

But actually I already did that when we first got married. I order a few new pillows. They all sucked.

So, I set out this morning to quickly find another pillow through zola that looked like it may be similar to my 15 year old one that I love so much, and… all the reviews seem bad, or part of a promotion. How do I decide what pillow to get, when every other pillow I’ve ever gotten has been horrible? I spent about 45 minutes reading through pillow reviews, and came up empty.

Also, can anyone tell me what a healthy pillow is? Feather/down cause it’s natural? Unless you’re allergic? But also what about when the feather sticks through the pillow and stabs you? Are the down alternatives completely toxic? Are there certified non-toxic down alternatives? I feel supremely stupid and uninformed and SO SCATTERED. AND UNPRODUCTIVE.

Also, pillows are so expensive?! Are the expensive ones even good?????

Also, while we are at it, smooth cotton sheets are also close to a million dollars, especially if you want a spare set.

So now, here I am two hours later, with no pillows. And still have yet to start my entire to-do list.

While I can do what needs to be done, my current problem is that it is not clear what needs to be done right now.

Do I NEED to buy new pillows? To wash my pillows? To write about this? To write something else that’s better and more interesting? Is it ok if I’m just writing on substack, or should I also be trying to go back to writing that book? Is it important to do things in the order that I set out to do them? Should I try to do 3-5 responsible tasks a day? Just 2? Or more like 10? Is walking enough or do I need to be weight training more? Yes? How much? What if I hate it? How much time should I write a day? How much time should I clean a day? How many new recipes should I try to tackle? How much sunlight should I try to get a day?

I think you catch my drift. I’m actually not trying to complain. I’m just explaining how my brain is working these days. It’s working in scatter and overwhelm over almost nothing.

The only smart thing I did was try to channel this ridiculous time-wasting pillow stupidity into writing. So I’ll cross that one off my list.

So here is my updated list, in the order that I was going to try to do it:

• walk + pray (at the same time if possible)

• return amazon stuff

• go to grocery store

• write for 1 hour

• record the audio for this post and send it

• lunch

• clean for 10 minutes minimum: window sills, mirrors and glass in the bedrooms

• shower

• fold sheets

• put in my load of laundry

• wash pillows?!?!?!?!??!?!

Thanks for reading or listening.

And, if you have any pillow advice, let me know ether in the comments, or if you’re a free subscriber, here.

Yes that is AI and that was my prompt.

Bye!

Paywall is just for voiceover (where I add A LOT OF EXTRA STUFF AND COMMENTARY, including a package delivery mid-recording where I was sent BABY FORMULA, because I guess some marketing list has me as being due to give birth next month :-( Strange. Sad.)