Heartbeat on the Prairie

01/02/2025

New premium post on substack, talking Tolkien and modern literature.

28/01/2025

15/01/2025

Life is uncertain friends.
Be very sure.

In times like these.... this is a time in history when we can truly say this phrase and it have meaning to every one of us. If there's ever been a time in th...

14/01/2025

One of the things I'm working toward this year is being more in my Bible.

Sometimes that means accepting the chaos and making time for it even when it's less than ideal. I've learned to let go of this image that things should be just so before I can take in the Word of God.

In the Bible we see over and over again that God meets us where we are. It doesn't have to be perfect with coffee and candles and a clean table. Just open it up and trust God to meet you there.

13/01/2025

As some of you know, I've long struggled with consistency.

Interestingly, I learned recently that this isn't just some character flaw on my part or something where I was just "missing the secret sauce" that everyone else had somehow figured out. Turns out, one of the things about ADHD is the brain doesn't make habits in the way that other people's do. Nothing is "mindless" or "by rote" to the ADHD brain--we have to think about every step, every time.

A common example is brushing your teeth--for plenty of people, you just go brush your teeth. But the ADHD brain has no process for "brushing teeth" that looks like one simple task. The ADHD brain has to say "Go into the bathroom. Take out the tooth brush. Get out the tooth paste. Apply the toothpaste. Turn on the faucet. Brush teeth. Rinse mouth. Turn off the faucet. Put away the toothbrush and toothpaste."

If your brain hasn't made a rote system for "brushing your teeth," suddenly the task seems a lot more complicated, and it never happens on autopilot.

This isn't some longwinded excuse, just some information that feels worth imparting, because it caused a huge paradigm shift for me. I realized that it's not some shortcoming, that the things that seem to come easily to other people never have to me. And it allowed me to step out of a space of self criticism and into a space of curiosity that says "In that case, how do I make habits anyway?" With the understanding that habit would never mean autopilot the way it does to others.

Everyone is different, and it takes a ton of trial and error. I've known for a long time that I loved a list. For years, I kept a "bullet journal" which at its heart is just making a million lists for your life, but make it look pretty. I've learned that it might be shallow, but if it's not appealing to my eye, I won't use it. I loved bullet journaling for the creative outlet and it being tactile, something I could touch. As I've grown busier, it's harder to find the time to set up a bullet journal in a way that's pretty enough for my brain to say "yes we want to use this" and so I've somewhat reluctantly gone digital.

Artful Agenda is a super aesthetic planner app that offers a lot of what goes into a bullet journal, all from the convenience of a phone, tablet, or computer. I have a widget that puts my calendar on my home screen which is super helpful for the "object permanence" issue of the ADHD brain, (which is where something being out of sight causes it to completely cease to exist in your mind, and for me applies as much or perhaps more to appointments and schedules as it does physical objects.) It offers a ton of customization options, from covers to font styles and color coding, as well as offering to do lists, meal planning and more. I honestly don't use it to its full capability but it's been helpful nonetheless.

For to do lists, though, I've come to rely more on an app called Finch. Where my 90s kids at? If you were into Tamigotchi, or NeoPets, or any of the other weird little pet simulators out there, this is for you. You can build to do lists, the app will send you reminders if you like, and all your tasks earn "energy" to send your little Finch pal on an adventure. I know, this sounds a little childish, but it's been a game changer for reminding me to take meds with the push notification option, and the novelty of "what will Skittles discover on her adventure today?" helps keep my brain motivated.

I've included a couple screen shots of what these apps look like and I'll include links below.

Any of my other neurodivergent peeps out there, what are some of the best tips, hacks, or apps you've found for keeping up with life when your brain functions just a little "left of normal?" 🤪

12/01/2025

"And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace."
-- John 1:16 (NKJ)

11/01/2025

Saturday check in!
How are we doing?
Any big wins this week? Or some areas that could use improvement?
Let's celebrate the wins and bring encouragement to the struggles.

10/01/2025

This dog....

Honestly, this dog stays closer than my shadow. If I'm doing dishes, she's laying between my feet. If I'm moving, she usually finds somewhere between the kitchen and dining room where she can see me. She'll lay on the floor close to me rather than find a comfy spot on the couch or recliner out of sight.

Even in the dead of night, if I get out of bed to help one of the kids, here comes Phoenix, tippy tapping along after me and up the stairs.

She's pretty sure her entire purpose is to be in my presence (and maybe occasionally snarl at my husband if he tickles me too long 🤣)

We might stand to learn something from that. If I was as committed to staying in God's presence as Phoenix is to staying in mine, what might my life look like?

If my Master was more important to me than creature comforts, if I was willing to forego certain preferences as long as it meant I was closer to God, I bet most aspects of my life would turn on their heads.

Dogs are man's best friend as they say, and we can sure learn from them, too.

09/01/2025

I know this photo doesn't look like much, but to me, it was a landmark day.

I took this after dinner one night while my kids were home for Christmas break. I had this moment, after clearing the dinner dishes so that we could play games, that my table was CLEAR.

For several years when my kids were small, my dining room table was consistently a landing zone for all the stuff and detritus that collects throughout the day. The dining room table was the purgatory of activities abandoned or things waiting to be put away or stuff that I picked up and then dropped because it didn't have a designated "spot" to BE put away and I didn't have the brain power to try and figure out a permanent home for it.

Dinner was consistently a chaotic mash of sliding stuff off the table and dumping it somewhere, ANYWHERE, else, so that there was enough room for the family to sit down to a meal. For a season, in the trailer house, there was no dining room table at all.

On this evening, midway through Christmas break, I was stopped in my tracks by the realization that I had cooked dinner and brought it to the table with only a minimal, brief tidy of the things that had been in progress before it was time to cook dinner. All of those things had a place.

We didn't have to shove stuff to the end of the table to make room. We just had full, complete access to the table.

And then the kids put their dishes in the sink (or garbage can, we have no dishwasher so paper plates for the win) and I wiped up the table and we played a game.

This is such a small thing for so many people, a task that happens every day that they don't even think about, but for me it was a monumental moment of awareness that I have made progress.

It's still not perfect. My house is no "Better Home and Gardens" spread.

But it functions. It functions pretty well, actually. Over the holidays, it was filled with people, with laughter, with joy. It was the first time in years that we hosted a holiday and it was so much fun.

This cleared dining room table was a reminder that I'm making progress. I'm getting better. I'm higher functioning. And it's good to take a moment to bask in the triumph of progress, instead of just dismissing it instead of sitting in criticism of all the things that could still use improvement.

Take your wins, friends. You don't have to live in a state of constant criticism in order to keep making progress.

08/01/2025

Of course, there's a lot of parenting that involves teaching our kids, but I was unprepared for how much my kids would teach me.

This child has the horse crazy, the way that I did when I was a kid. She wants to catch the pony, even if she can't ride, just for the joy of being around a horse.

I started riding with my good friend in elementary school, and I was happy to go over and muck out stalls, for crying out loud, if it meant I got to pet some soft horse noses in the barn, or groom one.

Riding was just the cherry on top.

Somewhere along the way, I became focused on riding as the job. And to be fair, we do a lot of riding that is work. Of course we enjoy it immensely, but the job is the point, the end goal. It can be great, and I still love to do it. I love the purpose it gives both me and my horses.

But watching my middle girl beg me to go catch her horse so she could use her new brushes reminded me of the little girl I used to be, who wanted to be WITH horses just for the sake of being near them, the girl for whom the horse was the point and riding was just a fringe benefit.

In the name of grace, I have to remind myself that kids and horses can be a difficult combination, and that it was hard to enjoy being around horses when my kids were too small to know the basics of how to be safe.

But they're bigger now, and I'm older, too, and at least wise enough to let the flame that burns in my horse-hearted kiddo relight my own banked coals.

I think my goal for this winter, while the horses are right out my back door, will be to remember how to just enjoy horses for their own sake, and let go of the expectation that we should always ride and be doing or accomplishing something. Now that I've written that out, it sounds entirely silly anyway.

So, here's to teaching our kids, and more importantly letting our kids teach us.

07/01/2025

They say that the key to success is in consistency. I'm inclined to agree, based on the simple fact that I have struggled to find success, and also struggled with consistency, as any of you who have followed this blog for any length of time surely know by now. Erego, there must be a connection between consistency and success.

However, I also think that life tends to move in an ebb and flow, like the tides. Sometimes the tide is in, sometimes it's out. Some days you're up, some days you're down.

The question then becomes, how do we find consistency in the ebb and flow that's in the very nature of life. How do we remain consistent in the things that matter even on the down days?

I'm not sure anyone is actually consistent 100% of the time. Is that even humanly possible? I'm inclined to think not. So then, success can likely be found in the highest percentage of consistency, which does not have to be 100%. We don't need to strive for PERFECTION, just to keep the trajectory of our consistency either level or on an increase, and to at least prevent it from decreasing.

A huge part of consistency is figuring out what's manageable. You can't be consistent if you're doing too much. We have to pick and choose what we're striving to be excellent at. And then we have to build in time to rest so that we can keep being consistent instead of burning out and putting our trajectory in the tank.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. I'm still trying to figure it out, how to do everything I NEED to do with all the things I want to do.

I haven't quite managed consistency yet, but I do come back and keep trying, and I have to hope that plain old "not quitting" counts for something, too.

06/01/2025

A while ago, my mom mentioned how I was so brave with horses when I was a kid. I kind of laughed and told her I wasn't really that brave. Truth be told, I was notoriously cautious, I just had a pretty appropriate level of confidence in my ability, my seat and my balance. But if I was uncertain of an outcome, or worried in any way, my first response was always to either slow down or opt out entirely.

I know this was the bane of one of my best friend's existence in that season of our life. "Come ON, Erika, it's FINE" she would insist, with all the confidence I so admired. Meanwhile I was contemplating all the ways things could go horribly sideways and trying to determine if I could troubleshoot or if it was better to just avoid it altogether...she did push me to the limits of my confidence, which, to be honest, I desperately needed, because I was the very opposite of brave. Thanks for your patience in those days, Sarah, and also, you're welcome for keeping you alive and in possession of all your limbs, probably 😉

I'm pretty sure I come by this trait from my dad, who places a lot of value on avoiding as much trouble as possible through the merits of observation and foresight. I grew up listening to him point out things that would be hazardous in slightly different situations; "this gate is pretty narrow so you better be thinking about folding up the rake before you get to it" or "look at that wet patch--it will probably freeze by the time we come back so watch out for ice when you're headed home." I learned to watch, perhaps not as closely as Dad does, but still, and I learned a lot of critical thinking skills just by osmosis, or by his directly questioning the things I'd observed.

I think Dad thoroughly accomplished his goal, because I have thus far in my life managed to avoid any serious wrecks or accidents, even with horses, who are a bit risky by their very nature. That's not to say I've never come off or been hurt; I've fallen plenty, and it often hurt a bunch, but that critical thinking, looking ahead, has I think kept me out of a lot of trouble I might have otherwise stepped blithely into, were it not for my dad's voice in the back of my head saying "but wait...look...what if...?"

I guess I'm unusual in how deeply I took some of his warnings to heart. We shared a good laugh recently, because back in the day dad told me very seriously, with my freshly minted drivers license, that I should only drive 65 at night, so I didn't "outrun my headlights." Ya'll I took this as absolute gospel and would feel a little worried if I ran 68, until I was probably 25, an entire grown adult with children of my own. It was about the time the Montana speed limit increased from 75 to 80 mph, and I figured 15mph below the speed limit in the dark might be more of a hazard than outrunning my headlights.

I was THIRTY before I told Dad this, and he kinda laughed and said he just didn't want me speeding at night, so he told me 65, anticipating that I would push that. I sputtered, and said I LOVED knowing boundaries so I could stay twelve feet away and avoid any trouble, so by golly when my dad told me to only run 65 at night, I only ran 65 at night!

I get THAT quality from my mom, who shook her head, entirely unsurprised that I had, indeed, set my cruise control at exactly 65 for almost my entire driving career because that's what Dad told me to do.

So you see, on every level, I've never been interested in pushing boundaries or exceeding my comfort zone. The trouble is, horses are almost entirely outside my comfort zone these days. Hopefully, 2025 will be the year for riding more, expanding my comfort zone, and living a little more bravely.

I absolutely believe that caution is oftentimes the better part of valor, but I don't want to live fearfully, either. So here's to figuring out how to use that critical thinking to ride smarter, stay safe, and do the thing without letting the anxiety eat me up.

What are your goals for 2025? What are you working on? Do you need to be more brave or perhaps learn a little caution? We need all sorts in this life; honestly, every cautious friend like me needs the fearless bestie, like Sarah, or my husband, to say "Come ON, it'll be FINE" and every fearless friend needs someone to say "but wait, maybe we shouldn't..." here's yet another aspect of life that we find is all about balance.

05/01/2025

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bo***ge.
-- Galatians 5:1 (NKJ)

04/01/2025

Here's to our weekly check in!
How are we doing on this first Saturday of 2025?

Tell me about your goals for the year! What are you doing to crush them?

03/01/2025

My middle child is a force to be reckoned with when she wants something.

She's recently learned that she can go catch the pony all on her own. I supervised the first few times, watching anxiously from the gate, reminding her to "watch the big horses!" and "make a big circle, don't get close where you can get kicked" and probably twenty other things she was rolling her eyes and telling me she was already doing.

As some of you who've been here with me for a while know, fear has been a truly deep seated battle for me when it comes to my horsemanship, and it's also trickled down to my kids. I've kept a strangle hold trying to keep them safe, and then lamented how little they ride. Well, of course, because it's exhausting trying to keep my two eyes on three kids and three horses and the heart palpitations have probably shaved ten years off my life.

So we haven't ridden.

And then I've felt guilty and frustrated because we're not raising the handy, born in the saddle kids I always dreamed of.

Of course, much about my life is different than I expected. Having a kiddo who's less mobile than average really makes it tricky to get outside. She's improving all the time, but for years, she found it difficult to walk across uneven ground without me holding her hand, which makes it a real challenge to get anything done with horses.

She's more independent now, though, and watching my middle daughter wade through these horses, using the skills I taught her, using her quietest voice to say "Hey, Vicki, hey girl" and "eeeeeasy boy, eeeeeaasy" is a reminder to me that at some point, I'll have to let go, at least a little, if I really want these kids to have success.

Don't worry, grandma and grandpa, I'm not just kicking her out there totally unsupervised, but I'm trying to learn the balance of letting go of my anxiety and giving them some rein to figure things out, while still keeping them safe to the best of my ability.

It's a dang tough tightrope to walk, but this kid especially makes me want to keep working at it.

If you have kids who ride, what's your best tip for getting them in the saddle while keeping them as safe as possible?