A Kid Just Like Me A Father and Son Overcome the Challenges of ADD and Learning Disabilities

This was a very interesting book about the challenges a father faced while advocating for his son. I actually learned a lot about myself by reading this book. I don't have a learning disability but I do have ADD and there were some similarities. The boy in this book had a lot more advanced problems than I have. I know that one day when I have kids that get ADD I can help them just as much. The only downside to this book is I don't know how Joshua is today. I would also like to hear a book from his perspective if that is possible.

10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD

This was a very good book about the struggles of Add and how to overcome them. Personally having ADD I found this very good and would recommend it to anyone who has ADD or is in a relationship with someone who has it. Sometimes the books out there have suggestions that I have heard over and over that I already use. I like this book because it focused on adults and gave some tips that I have never thought of before. There were chapters on reducing clutter and getting organized, stop losing stuff, managing time, managing money, self-care, finding the job that fits, improving social skills, and enriching relationships. There was also a chapter on medication and understanding the disorder.

People that have ADD tend to have problems with executive functions because they lack the receptors in the brain that regulate the frontal lobes. This results in a lack of organizing skills, processing information, making decisions, planning ahead, regulating moods, storing information, learning from mistakes, starting tasks, forgetting things, interrupting others, getting motivated, and having a proper place for things. Some of these things I found most interesting about ADD I didn't even know was an ADD thing.

For example

• Hate waiting for traffic
• Inner feeling of restlessness
• Hyper focus is the difficulty of switching tasks because we are so into focusing on the task we are in
• Frequent burn out because of tackling too much at once
• Overload of stimuli
• Losing your car when parked
• Constant interruption difficulty getting back on track
• Over estimate time needed to get somewhere
• Tend to get stuck in tv and computers
• Wired to be a night owl
• Tend to get so caught up in compensating for diffusivities focusing and following through we get Stuck in the cycle of perfectionism
• Very visual
• Difficulty sticking to a budget due to impulse buying
• Very creative and inspired
• Live a fast pace life and forget to slow down
• Lower levels of dopamine
• Variety important
• Like instant gratification
• Eat too quickly
• More likely to have a sleep disorder
• Don't wake up refreshed
• Difficulty falling asleep because of lack of melatonin
• More prone to grinding teeth at night
• Sensitive teeth
• Difficulty listening to the body
• Short fuse
• Need to escape
• Have a higher rate of being fired
• Jobs need to have a fast pace, have variety, can move around, support, intellectually stimulating, Multitask ability, firm due dates, frequent feedback, clear expectations, flexible schedule, social, and Have immediate rewards
• Take rejection personally
• The difficulty with the perception of how close something is to you
• Talk to loud
• Ramble
• Difficulty pacing myself
• Need to know the point
• Don't know when to end a conversation
• Difficulty recognizing people
• Bluntly honest
• Get bored easy
• Sensitive to people's' moods
• Give too much or take too much

It's Not Him, It's You The Truth You May Not Want to Hear But Need to Hear

This book explained the top 10 mistakes that women make when it comes to dating and then gave research based advice on how to fix them.

Top 10 Mistakes Include 

1. You Think Men Have a Clue
2. Your Attitude Sucks
3. You Think Rejection is About You
4. You Have Weak Standards
5. You Don't Get Men
6. You Think You Need to Be a Supermodel
7. Let Him Choose You
8. You Ignore the Red Flags
9. You Plan Your Wedding After the First Date
10. You Listen to Your Mother

There was a lot of good ideas in this book. I didn't agree with everything but it was very good. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants some more insight to date better. I think that we need to be proactive with looking for our forever mate but I have learned that the closer you are to God the more he reveals the stuff that you desire in a man and who is not right for you.

The Winter Ghosts

Freddie was in a car accident in France. He somehow manages to get out of his car and walk to the closest town Nulle. He takes a room in an in. The innkeeper invites him to go to a celebration in the village. He accepts and finds himself in a bar with all these people. He meets a girl and they both recount on their life. The next day he talks to the innkeeper about the celebration but she says that he wasn't there. He also goes out with a search party where he retrieves his car. He then finds his mysterious woman and she leads him to a cave. He goes in and rips down a man-made wall that was put there to entomb these people in the 14th century because of their religious beliefs.He solves an unknown mystery that no one knew about and helped him heal himself in the process. I really liked it a lot. The writer was very eloquent and it took you there.

Heiress for Hire

Amanda's dad cuts her off from her money and she goes to Cuttersville, OH to take a break from Chicago life. She doesn't know what to do without money until she meets Dan. He is a farmer who just found out he has a kid, that was dropped on his doorstep. He helps her out by giving her a job as his babysitter. They are resistant at first but eventually start a relationship and instead of going back to Chicago she follows her heart and stays with Dan.

Loving What Is

This book was ok. I almost didn't want to finish it because the writer had a lot of fluff and sometimes was boring. But it really helped me to see how to start working on looking at my negative thoughts and how to start working on them. She calls it the work which is a 4 question process to work through.

The 4 questions
1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know it's true?
3. How do I react when I think that thought?
4. Who would I be without the thought?

After analyzing 1 negative thought you then have to turn it around by finding examples of how the turnaround is true in your life.

Living Your Strengths: Discover Your God-Given Talents and Inspire Your Community

This was a very good book that helped me find my strengths. This book comes with an access code that lets you take the Clifton Strength Finder Test. It will give you 5 signature themes and then you can learn about how these talents fit into who you are and offer tips on how to utilize these talents. It also talked about how to serve others with your talents. It could be a very fast read if you read just the areas on your themes. There are 30 different possible themes. I read through each one just because I was curious.