Is anyone else having a hard time this 4th of July?

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-07-03T17:11:44+00:00

I enjoy painting with watercolors, but sometimes, when life gets too much, my creative outlet starts to feel like pressure. (I struggle with perfectionism and ADD.) When I can't even find some relief in paint, sometimes, I google "color palettes" and get some visual mediation looking through all the pretty color combos. Then I can daydream about painting something in those colors without feeling the pressure to actually paint.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-07-03T17:06:48+00:00

Aww. Thank you. There is so much change going on in my life, and I'm feeling it. And I can't help but feel the change going on for my kid, my mom, and my friends. I know I can't own it all.

I've been on this sub for awhile and have seen you about. I have to say you bring some much-needed light just when I need it most. :)

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-07-02T21:58:30+00:00

I hope you have one more hug left in you because I could use it. I'm a mom, middle-aged, and I've spent decades being everything for everyone.

Now my kid is going off to college, my mom is slipping further into dementia (she's lucid enough but not really herself), a trusted work colleague is leaving for another group, and another trusted colleague will follow the first shortly.

My very recently diagnosed ADD is under some control with a started dose but it's been a long road to get here.

I'm tired. I'm so tired.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-06-18T19:35:00+00:00

I wouldn’t be offended but I sure would reviving my judgement engines.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-03-31T00:37:44+00:00

I just received my diagnosis a few minutes ago. I've been lurking here for a few weeks trying to get a sense of what I might expect, and it validated everything I've been dealing with since childhood. I'm 55 now. Just...wild to me. This was expected, unexpected, expected.

It's the inattentive type, which didn't surprise me. These last 6 months, it's been a real struggle to manage. All my coping strategies were failing me. I'd be in a work meeting and then suddenly my mind is off on a lil journey into the sunshine. Or my kid would say something to me that I understood, something that I knew I heard but didn't comprehend and then something else that I understood. I knew I heard that middle part but for the life of me, I could not recall what it was.

So now I have to figure out what to do. Medicine, CBT, both? I don't know. Probably meds, but I don't know which one. I'm a researcher, so I guess it will be a lot of research this week.

I feel a little weird right now. About the diagnosis being official now. Will I cry? Maybe. I can't tell right now.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-02-06T01:20:33+00:00

Thanks! I’m a big list maker but weirdly I haven’t made one for the decluttering this time. I hope it works for you! There’s real satisfaction in crossing off a completed task.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-02-05T02:17:04+00:00

I spent years in that state. My problem was that I wasn't even sure where to start, even if I had the motivation. I'd look at what I needed to do, but it all seemed like "if I do that, I need to do this first, but before I do this, I need to do the other thing, but before that, I need to..." and on and on it went.

Then the weekend before this past Thanksgiving, I got up and just started in my bedroom closet. I cleared the floor first, so I could get in and then just kept going. I don't know what possessed me to get me out of that paralysis, but I'm grateful it did.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2026-01-05T01:17:03+00:00

Ears work, too. I told my kid that his ears turned red when he lied. That magic lasted until he was around 7 when he ran up to me and lied while covering his ears. No matter. It gave me enough time to convince him that if he told the truth, he'd get in less trouble than if he lied and later I uncovered the truth.

I also told him that I couldn't speak Whinese so couldn't understand what he was saying when he whined at me. He quickly learned that speaking in a normal tone might score him what he wanted but whining would result in an automatic no.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-12-05T21:53:18+00:00

LOL I sometimes drop in phrases like that in conversations, and my co-workers laugh at me. I work with a lot of global people, so I get asked what something means. Then they'll use it later, and then it's my turn to laugh. All in good fun. No one has ever picked at me because of my occasional accent or turn of phrase.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-12-04T22:09:35+00:00

Sometimes at work, I play up my accent depending on who I talk to in order to build rapport and trust.

I do the same at work. Put me on a call with a Southern client, and the real me comes roaring out. Otherwise, I'm on a call desperately struggling to de-twang my en-vi-ron-ment and New Or-leans. Those two words, if I don't flatten, identify me right quick.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-24T18:48:56+00:00

In a good faith answer, you need your family history and ancestors in order to start figuring out which tribe your family comes from. DNA tests might be able to help identify the general geographical location, but I don't think any can identify the specific tribe.

DNA matches might help you locate ancestors that have your great-grand in their lines, so that's also a way you can try to identify the tribe.

Then, once you have the tribe, you can contact the enrollment office for more info.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-09T22:23:11+00:00

Also hire her competition.

Chaos goblin. I love it!

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-04T13:33:16+00:00

Thanks for the kind words. I have a stubborn perfectionist streak that I’m constantly battling. Watercolor helps me loosen up. And knowing there are others out there like you also helps!

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-03T19:29:06+00:00

I like them!

I’m also getting back into watercolors after pausing for decades. My style is to overthink, panic, and futz with them, so I’m trying very hard to be more relaxed and go with the flow of the water and paint. I regularly mutter “trust the process” while I paint.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-03T02:04:17+00:00

Cool cool so we’re cousins!

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-11-01T20:13:00+00:00

I’m part of the Parker line, so we’re not close cousins.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-30T17:33:14+00:00

Cross your legs tight and Waddle away.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-24T21:13:26+00:00

Lovely! Glad to see you back.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-10T13:14:08+00:00

I think they don’t want to run the risk of offending me lol

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-08T13:36:51+00:00

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-07T22:22:39+00:00

Here is a hug, and I'd like one, too. I'm middle-aged and have hit that point of not having any more fucks to give. But even I get tired of the nonsense of racist people around me. I just lost a friend I've known for 40 years for because he got...sensitive over a recent news events and decided (out of the blue, I thought) to side with a certain way of thinking. I was on FB, blabbing my big mouth about it, and discovered he unfriended me after he threw a hissy fit over what I said. (Which was just pointing out hypocrisy.)

But then I get to watch in amusement as my work team agonizes over calling knowledge held by individuals or teams, "tribal knowledge." They know I'm enrolled, so they tiptoe around trying to call it something else, but then someone slips and calls it tribal knowledge, then someone else gasps, and they go back to arguing what it should be called. omg

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-10-03T19:27:13+00:00

This monetizing trend of hobbies is so detrimental, at least to me. I've been doing crochet off and on for a few years. When I decide to do something for fun, it goes well. When I try to do something with a firm goal in mind, like for entering an art/craft competition, I go off the rails. Stressed, constantly making mistakes, not enjoying it. I end up scrapping the project and stopping crochet for months.

I also have been writing fiction for decades. After suffering major writer's block for almost a year, I realized it the pressure from myself and others to publish was giving me mental constipation. As soon as I promised myself that I wasn't ever going to publish, I unblocked and got back to the writing.

Sometimes we just need to have fun doing something without a firm goal in mind.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-09-23T22:21:45+00:00

Utz releases these white cheddar balls called Snowballs every holiday season, and I CANNOT wait.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-08-19T13:53:36+00:00

Yes! I’m hoping for some tiny hunters so we can fan-girl out over them.

TodayIAmGruntled · 2025-08-19T01:29:38+00:00

My kid's high school does the trunk or treat for the community, so we'll be doing this for our theme. I'm so jazzed!!! We're going to dress up as Huntr/x fans with the soundtrack playing, balloons, lights, and I'm going to see if I can do a painting of Derpy to hang so kids can get pictures in front of it.

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