OMG! Is she pregnant too? 🐐

Happy Saturday friends!

When I was a kid, adults called me picky.

I was a picky eater from the early days. Mom used to talk about how I wouldn’t eat much of anything when I was a toddler—how she was scared I was going to just starve.

I was picky about my clothes (too scratchy or tight or they touched my neck), the tags, the seams in my socks, the way my shoes fit and God forbid if they were tied too tight.

In school I was considered too quiet, too shy. But I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood with a big group of other kids. We had all known each other since kindergarten so we knew each other’s little quirks and no one cared. When I was 14 though, we moved across the country from California to North Carolina and that’s when I began realizing how different I was. All the issues were chalked up to culture shock, a valid excuse, but in my mind there was something more and I never could figure it out. My parents bought me a horse and I credit him with surviving my lonely teen years as I often didn't want to be alive. That was the first experience I had with a horse being my therapist.

As a young adult and out of the house, I was often too literal, I wore my heart on my sleeve, I was too honest. I remember thinking that it felt like my skin was on inside out, nerves exposed. I was too emotional.

It felt like I was too much. Too much and not enough.

It always seemed that the thoughts in my head never came out verbally like I thought they would. It seemed like people didn’t understand exactly what I was saying. I learned to give every bit of context so I was understood. It was (and is) exhausting and I think I wear others out with it too. I could tell stories in a linear way but always with sidebars throughout, in an effort to make myself understood. It often didn’t help.

Huh, maybe that’s why I turned to writing. I never thought of that until just now. I can't believe I never recognized that!

In my 30s I learned about HSPs or Highly Sensitive People. That label (it’s not a diagnosis) helped me understand myself and I didn't feel quite so weird, unable to cope with everyday life, kinda broken.

I was texting with a friend this week and we got talking about labels and diagnoses and it was interesting to see how we both thought about it.  We both had things placed on us as children: my label was “picky” and her diagnosis was “ADHD.” As adults we both also identify as being Highly Sensitive People. As I am continuing my journey beyond my own late diagnosis of ADHD and obsessively researching what is known in the autistic world as “late diagnosed, high masking autism,” she gently asked why I needed the label, or the diagnosis? I think it’s such a good question and one I’ve been mulling over for a couple of days.

It sounds like being diagnosed as a child with ADHD made her feel misunderstood—so it makes sense that, to her, getting a diagnosis would be a negative. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 52 and it made me feel more understood—I understood things about myself that I never had before—well for heaven's sake, I was even less broken than I thought. The lens that we are both looking through is so different.

So, I’ve been deep in research mode and I’ve never felt more seen. Yesterday I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts and one of the hosts had asked a bunch of people in her late diagnosed, high masking autistic community—if they had had a choice, when would be the perfect time to be diagnosed? Do they wish their autism had been found as a kid? Teen? Or now, as adults? All of them said they were glad that it happened as adults. Being diagnosed as a kid, especially as kids of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s when autism was so misunderstood, just yikes. Back in the day they used to institutionalize autistic children. Those that weren’t institutionalized were separated, put into special classes, treated as less than. How traumatizing.

What is this term “late diagnosed high masking autism” and why haven’t we heard of it until now? While the idea was put forth in the 1980s, it was only recognized in the DSM in 2022. And of course now we have social media, where these late diagnosed folks are talking about it. It’s kind of interesting really, we were hearing a lot from neurotypical parents of autistic children but we weren’t hearing from autistic adults until recently. It’s as if autism is a childhood diagnosis only:

If you are late diagnosed you are pretty likely to be of the high masking variety and these are the ones we are all hearing about on social. They pop up everywhere and it feels as if it’s a fad. All I can think of are the decades and decades of adults who just thought they were bad at human-ing, failures. I felt I didn’t fit, like I was an alien from another planet and that I was wrong and bad for being who I was. Oh dear.

Realizing that you might be autistic isn't something that you go out looking for. For me, I stumbled on it by way of ADHD. I started to read about women and late diagnosed autism and it was as if they were inside my brain. It was eerie. I've been back and forth, disbelieving and believing, over and over. Why? Because my knowledge of autism was mainstream society's knowledge of autism aka autistics are either Sheldon from Big Bang or nonverbal or intellectually disabled. Period. End of sentence. But there is so much more to it.

Will I decide on getting a diagnosis? Maybe? Right now I’m still checking boxes and feeling like, “Well damn. How could I not have known this?” And immediately after I tell myself, “Because society doesn’t know yet. The research hasn’t yet caught up. It’s not your fault.” Getting diagnosed by a private psychologist is expensive and often takes a year before your appointment comes up and if you go the insurance route, it can take years.

So, I’ve decided to take you on my journey of figuring this out. I've been sitting on this for 6 months now, debating on telling anyone but I'm excited to start sharing what I've learned so far!

AND! Don’t worry, my newsletters will stay the same! I will be writing about different stuff occasionally and I will put links to it in my newsletters. Check them out if you are so inclined :-)

ON TO THE RANCH:

Well I'm completely shocked and still kinda disbelieving but Denali (who gave birth to our gorgeous buck Poppy in 2019) might actually be pregnant. As always, this picture does not do it justice. Her belly just popped out this week. I went out to say hi and she just looked different. I said, "OMG! Are you pregnant??" and she just turned to look at me over her shoulder and gave me this knowing look.

Here's the issue: I bred her 3 times. Twice in November and once in January and well dammit, when's her due date?? Ok, since she's not looked pregnant until this week, I'm going to guess it was the January breeding that took which would mean her due date is June 3.

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Did you guys see the fabulous full moon?

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B-Rad put on his electrical engineer's hat recently and has been working on new batteries for the golf cart. Here he is, making sure they work before he rips it all apart to take the old batteries out, sandblast the rust off, weld a new platform for the new batteries and put it all back together again. He loves this kind of stuff. He's very happy and very mellooooooow lately. 😁 For those interested, he took out the lead acid batteries and is putting in lithium which besides being better, are hundreds of pounds lighter too. Look at his happiness oozing out of his very pores (gawwwwd, he is so cute!):

Ripped apart, awaiting sandblasting:

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Carolina Jasmine is growing wild all over the forest:

The pine pollen is HERE (make sure to click on the video at the top of this post!)

We had a bunch of rain the other day and the pollen gathered in the puddles and we were left with piles. It's ridiculous.

The ferns are unfurling!

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Sweetness and Wynter said, "Stop taking photos of everything and just feed us already.":

This photo of Wynter was fun—I was out in the evening, just about dark when he went over to roll in the sand. The camera picked it up but with the funny light it turned out like this:

And last but not least, check out this palm sized, perfect spiderweb covered in pine pollen:

MEMORIES:

I was going through some old photos of my parents and found a couple of good ones:

See the camera in Mom's hand? It has a flash cube on top! Who remembers those?

This is my hippie, flower power Aunt Katy and me ❤️:

Meanwhile back in Colorado...(actually this was also March, but 8 years ago). Believe it or not, I really miss that wild weather!

I Love Lucy as a spotty bellied pup:

ManChild was about 2 here, miss those days so much!

And then...one of those days that had me he-hawing in laughter! Poor Raynie!

And let me tell you, she put up with me pulling those burrs out (with some special silicone based gel made for just that) for a long time before I caved to her wishes and shaved it all off! From the minute I started working on them she was telling me, "Cut it off."

I kept telling her, we can't, she wouldn't have any protection from flies in the summer! Oh no! I continued to work.

"Cut it off."

This went on for quite awhile before I was like, "I'm sure this doesn't feel good. Are you sure?"

"Cut it off."

Consistency is key lol

So, I did. Honestly she looked pretty cute! You could see her pretty face and her pointy little ears clearly with no mane or forelock :-)

THE MEMES:

This will forever by my most favorite meme of all time!

Aka, rolling around in my bed, reading, writing, watching Netflix.

It happens to our pants in our kitchen too!

It never occurred to me that this could have even been a thing:

Noooooooooooooo:

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Let's talk about the Women's Group I'm starting in the spring! For those of you who are thinking about it, would you answer these questions for me:

1. What interests you most: 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks?

2. Are you only interested in an in-person group, an online group, or either?

3. If in-person, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

4. If online, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

5. What is your biggest fear for attending a weekly group?
a) fear of strangers/talking about your life to strangers?
b) fear of art/perfectionism/newbie?
c) fear of committing to how many weeks the group is held?
d) fear of being out at night?
e) I'm a little nervous about new things but I've been following you for awhile and I can't wait!

Just reply to this email to tell me you are interested and/or to answer questions! THANK YOU

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