Beyond Distracted
We're Christen and Rachel, two friends who were diagnosed with ADHD as adults. For most of our lives we couldn't figure out why we seemed to struggle more than other people did. But with our diagnoses we had more clarity and explanations for why we do what we do. It turns out we aren't stupid or lazy or "less-than"... we just have ADHD!
Join us as we talk about: all the ways ADHD unknowingly affected us as children, and later as young adults; the coping skills we are learning post-diagnosis and how we are reframing what we think about ourselves; our crazy and hilarious ADHD moments of the week; and the songs we are listening to on repeat (because don't you listen to the same music over and over?) Oh, and we might get a little distracted along the way!
Beyond Distracted
Episode 09: ADHD and Hyperfixations
From being so focused that we neglect our basic needs, to turning our closets into what we affectionately call "hyperfixation graveyards," in this episode we discuss how our tendency toward obsessions can lead to extraordinary discoveries, knowledge, and skills.
For most ADHDers, hyperfixation shapes the way we interact with the world. Often, it's all or nothing. We meticulously research almost everything we do, and we tend to move on from hobbies frequently. So join us as we reveal some of our silliest hyperfixations and talk about how this is actually one of our ADHD superpowers!
Article: ADHD & Hyperfixation: The Phenomenon Of Extreme Focus
Embroidery artist: The Artful Possum
Songs On Repeat:
• Rachel: Fourth Wing and Iron Flame audiobooks
• Christen: Blurry by Puddle of Mud
Things That Made Life Better:
• Rachel: fancy playing cards (more fancy decks here, too!)
• Christen: rainbow pill organizer
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Write to us at beyonddistracted@gmail.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, please submit a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Thank you for your support!
Produced by Rachel Smith and Christen Everett.
Please talk to your doctor or primary care physician about any medical questions or concerns.
Hey Chris-san, hi Rachel, how are you? I'm great. I just want to know how often do you hyperfixate on things? Every?
Speaker 2:day, every day, every every five minutes. Does your hyperfixation change? Oh, of course. Of course it changes because it gets boring at some point yes, it does or it gets annoying, like I'm pretty sure that the hyperfixation of this podcast would have been broken probably last week if our audio, or two weeks ago, whatever it was. Yeah, because of our audio, but we powered through Because it's all began it also helps that there's two of us? It does, but this all began because of hyperfixation. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, so today we're going to talk about ADHD and hyperfixation. Yay, god bless, let's go my favorite thing. Okay, so what.
Speaker 2:You're talking about ADHD. Is your hyperfixation, yes, interesting? Tell me more. I actually didn't expect that Continue.
Speaker 1:I personally think this is a superpower. Oh, I think, yes, okay, continue. I mean, it can be a hindrance sometimes, but I do think in general it's a superpower, because for a long time I didn't know why I could hyperfixate on things or like it was weird, but now I understand it a little bit better. So, okay, the website addorg defines. God bless, add defines, which, by the way, add is an outdated term. Now it is, but it's a dot org so that's hard to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So they define hyperfixation as an intense and often prolonged state of concentration on a particular activity or object. This may lead to happiness, satisfaction and, at times, increased productivity.
Speaker 2:What do you think about that? That makes sense, I mean, because if you are doing something productive in your hyperfixation, of course, well, yeah, so I always find that a common misconception about ADHD is that we have a lack of focus.
Speaker 1:We mentioned this last week too, and that was something that, when our daughter was first diagnosed, both my husband and my father were like but she can sit and read a book for hours on end Like she can't have ADHD. But that's the misconception is that we have zero focus when really it's a lack of regulation of focus, and that is what becomes. The problem with hyperfixation is that we ignore everything else around us, including I need to eat, but I forget to, or I really need to go to Like. We are the only people in the world who would put off going to the bathroom because we don't want to stop what we're doing and we're so focused all the time.
Speaker 2:But isn't that so weird? Or you miss? I even sometimes see it as the and I think I Of course I'm going to be a horrible person as I read this somewhere but the fact that our bodies miss the cue of when we have to go to the bathroom, so the fact that all of a sudden we're like, oh my gosh, I have to go to the bathroom so urgently, and it's like, but even then I still put it off.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, I know Because I'm working and if I stop what I'm doing to go to the bathroom, then I'm going to lose my motivation.
Speaker 2:I did it just this afternoon. That's hilarious, I do use it as an incentive sometimes, like if I have to do something at work, I'll be like okay, I can go to the bathroom after I do this one thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but see, isn't that ridiculous that we Probably not normal, probably not healthy. It's fine.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's probably it's fine, but it's, and I also think sometimes too that we can when the hyper fixation is. It can seem like a good idea at the time.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it is, sometimes it is yeah, okay. So I saw this funny reel on Instagram. I am a huge Avengers fan and this is from the Avengers movie like the first Avengers movie. And so it is Maria Hill. They're all up. Have you seen the Avengers? Yes, okay, so they're all up in that spaceship of Samuel Jackson's character.
Speaker 2:I don't know what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so they're talking Fury, fury. Yeah yeah, they're talking about what Loki is doing, whatever. And Maria Hill, Tony Stark, walks in and he's like going on and on about all this physics stuff. And Maria Hill looks at him and goes when did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics? And he replies last night. And I think that is me To a T. I mean not with thermonuclear astrophysics, which is a really hard thing to do. I'm really proud of you.
Speaker 2:I'm really proud of you.
Speaker 1:Would you like to?
Speaker 2:try saying it. No, I do not. I had a hard enough time last week saying circadian rhythm, which I'm still not 100% sure I said correctly. So you can have that one this week.
Speaker 1:Well, so that I feel like resonates with me a lot, because I didn't ever know what how to describe it about myself. But I love to research things right, and I've kind of coined the term information glutton. Yes, like I love to learn new things and even the smallest random thing, I will go down that rabbit hill, rabbit trail, rabbit hole, that one, one of those, and I will just, I will just keep reading and reading because it makes my brain happy, until it's not interesting anymore and then it's boring and I'm like onto a new one. Yes, so I feel like I'm kind of a jack of all trades and a master of none for the most part. I don't remember if we talked about this before or not.
Speaker 2:We may have done it personally or here on the podcast, but the game trivia crack oh, I've not heard of that. Okay, so it was a game. It was pretty big nine years ago and Chase and I used to play against each other. Because you could play both like real people who you didn't know, or you could play against people you did know. And it would be you'd get a, you'd spin this wheel and you'd get a category and then you'd get trivia questions. If you answered them correctly, you got more points. If you lost, it then went to the other person and then they had to play, which is like their term. Is this online? It was like on your phone, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And so there would be times that Chase and I would be playing, especially when we first started dating, and he'd be like how do you know this? I'm like I don't know, or I would. Just I could, I could even do process of elimination of like. I know that they're putting that answer out there and that's not what this is tied to. So I could just process those certain things out and it was very upsetting to him that I could do that with like these things, because you could definitely do like the sports one, some of the other ones, but I could do all of them and it was very upsetting to him and I was like he stopped playing with me as a sore loser. I'm also not a good winner, so there's that, but I'll, I'll, I'll suck up to that one, but yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 1:Well, this is again how I ended up on Wikipedia at 2am reading about King Tutankhamen.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, cause you can say that name and I don't want to try. Yeah, yes. Lastly, I also think that the one of the interesting things that we can do, other than just retain certain information that is not helpful to us a lot of times in life, is that we also, when we're learning things, the reason that we're doing it is because we're going down these pathways that make sense in our brain, for whatever reason, but also the fact that then we can connect that information to things and then it helps us remember it. But also then that's why we jump to certain things, and so we have these pinpoints of why we know things, like whether it's like a sound or a person's voice or whatever. And then we're down a rabbit hole on IMDB, on a project that they initially started, you know, in the fifties, for some apparent reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just chasing the dopamine. Basically, you know, it's the novelty of it oh yeah, new things, right, that is, I think, a big part of ADHD and our brains are so. We don't get a normal amount of dopamine for doing everyday tasks like quote, unquote. Normal people do right, and so for us, I think, this idea of hyperfixation we're chasing Whatever dopamine we can get, right, yes, and so our brains. It's kind of like this all or nothing thing where, where, like, we either can't focus on anything or we are the other extreme and we are too focused sometimes.
Speaker 1:But you know, I think if we go back to our Emergency situations yes, episode that can be a superpower when we can just focus on one thing and block everything out. That can be a real benefit in times of crisis. That would make sense, or when we Need to get something done Mm-hmm, you know we're at crunch time. And or even, just, I Don't know, some people like I love someone will tell me something and they're like, yeah, I don't really understand it. And then I'm like, got your back, jack, and I get on the internet and I read all about it for Three hours and then I'm like, oh yeah, here's how this, here's how this works, yes, or why it works or it works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. No, I think that makes sense. Yeah, do you have any? I enjoyed how you noted this Hyperfixation graveyards. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that first on Instagram because people talk about like. They have a closet of like where hyper fixations go to die.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, you know cuz we get super into something and we buy all of the supplies. I saw a funny Instagram post that was like it was like a business idea where we need to have like a website where we can just trade hyper fixation supplies. So you know like, oh, this month I was really into water coloring and then I've moved on and so I have all these water coloring supplies that I've paid $300 for. Well then, someone else is just getting into that. You can just like trade that's very interesting.
Speaker 2:I thought that was that. Hasn't that has that has? There's an idea there? Yeah, there's an idea there. Granted, I do, I Would love it, except for I think one of the things that we enjoy doing is Researching and picking out the stuff we get to do for that hobby. Oh, absolutely, and so I don't feel like I would have the exact same, like I have to research the exact paintbrush.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, or the best paint or the best paper. Can you tell that this was one of my hyper fixations?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I can definitely tell this one here. Yeah, but it also upsets me to win, like especially for going to buy something. We just bought a Electric shovel. It's not an electric snowblower, is an electric shovel that throws snow. I don't want to get into it, but what was like a?
Speaker 2:snowblower. Yeah, but one of the first things I did was I was like, okay, well, what's like I need to find an art? There's always an article. If I just find the article, that's like you know, you know the most expensive, best overall, most reliable, you know best, cheapest option. And I'm just gonna read the article because somebody else already did it, I don't have to go do it myself. Yeah, and so I did that and it's sometimes really I Don't want to say infuriating, but infuriating.
Speaker 2:God bless Chase, my wonderful partner and husband. Because he's like, well, why this one? And I'm like I already done research, like why are you even asking me questions? Like I already read it? If you want me to send you the article, I can. Or if he's like, well, I need to buy he needed to replace his phone. He had a phone. It was like six years old how it was still alive, I don't know, and I was like I need you to get a new phone because he wasn't getting text messages, he had no battery. It was alarming, and I said you need to pick a phone and I sent him a link. I was like here is the difference between, like the two new latest phones that are out right now. Hmm, pick one and go buy it. Because I was just so annoyed I was like just read it and figure it out. I don't. I don't want to make the decision for you because unfortunately he's not an Apple person. He can't just like buy them.
Speaker 1:Green. My husband is like that too.
Speaker 2:Honestly.
Speaker 1:But it's fine whatever I'm over it and but I was just like, can you please just pick whatever phone you're gonna purchase and be done with this Now and forever well, okay, as you're saying this, I'm thinking about these microphones, these stupid microphones, because you kind of just purchased them on a whim. Did you research them at all? Because I would not have ever landed on these had I been the one to like Research and decide which ones to get so these ones were picked on a few different things and they had.
Speaker 2:They had good reviews and they were noted for podcasting. They were within the imaginary budget that I gave myself and aesthetically I thought, guys, we were gonna make money off. This Hasn't happened yet. Well, we're still going to Europe, but in the negative. But I was like I also liked that they were like aesthetically pleasing to me.
Speaker 1:So yeah, did you? Did you just read Amazon reviews or did you read, like website articles about the best podcast microphones?
Speaker 2:um, both, but I Think, picked these, I can't remember what my final. I think the two deciding factors were, unfortunately for you, aesthetic and Price.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, yeah, well, when we were considering different ones, when we were having all of our mic issues, you know, yes, you were just on Amazon looking at these random no-name things and I'm thinking, kristen, we can't buy no name, like we have to look at what the best podcast people are using and base our decision off of that.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't do that, which and it's funny, because some it's interesting how not that it's the same every time, but sometimes, when I'm researching things, I do it correctly. Sometimes I do it incorrectly, yeah, not, it's not a good system, but here we are.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes the researching part is the fun part about it, because a lot of I was thinking about this earlier when I was trying to think of some of my past hyperfacations. Oftentimes it's just reading about. It's not necessarily a hobby, but it's just. There's a topic and I'm like I was a couple weeks ago. I was reading about CTE, mm-hmm, and so I spent an entire 24 hours when I didn't really think about anything except that and I was reading about it and looking at posts online and you know, seeing what other people were talking about and and and. So there have been hundreds of those scenarios where it's just been and it's like you said. Now we just have all this random knowledge like and stuff. By the way, don't put your kids in tackle football till they're 14. Oh, that's the. That's the recommendation by the all the CTE people.
Speaker 2:Rachel can send you links, I can. She said I have no children and I was sent links. It's like I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't see as been doing, tackle football anytime soon, but you need to care about this because I'm gonna do that. So that's just. The idea is like oh, so you should obviously be obsessed with us too and sometimes we don't recognize that other people do not care.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think the other thing too is that I can recognize why you're sending it to me and I'm like okay, that's great, and I can. I know how to properly respond, versus like, again, our wonderful humans. They're like what are you doing? Why are you talking about this? Absolutely not, and yeah, it's a, it's a great time. Some of mine have been. Mine are so odd sometimes, but it's. I was. I was going through both mentally of what I've gone down, but also I was also thinking in terms of, like money I spent, but oh, I enjoy oils and things like that. Like I enjoy how they like smell and stuff Like essential oils, Essential oils.
Speaker 2:thank you Essential oils. I believe that they have a lot of positive things. I do not believe that they are fixals. You just lost half our audience. No, I am happy. If that is where you are, that is where I am. And so I at one point was like I can do all this mixing I can do. And I did, I did. I mixed my own like roller balls. I mixed my own scented stuff. You got all the recipes.
Speaker 1:I got all the recipes.
Speaker 2:I had a whole day one time that my friend came over and we mixed the most amazing smelling like pre-sleep spray. We genuinely both went home and took a nap afterwards because it was so good. Like we both were like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. And I was like, and I was looking the other day and I was like I have this giant thing of lemon that is. It's this big. Why did I purchase that? Why it's unnecessary and so it's a good one. The other one that I also went down was like cleaning TikTok and cleaning Instagram and buying all of the cleaning things that I could possibly ever use.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they get on like the organization. One that's kind of mine is not so much cleaning but like organization.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have. I don't want to say how much money upstairs in those like fancy, like pop containers that I purchased. Pop containers, the airtight containers, oh yeah, and I have them upstairs. I have plans for that, I know exactly what I'm going to put in them and they just haven't been cleaned for a year and a half.
Speaker 1:And she's Can you put them?
Speaker 2:in the dishwasher. I don't know if I can. I probably could put like the. I could probably do them on like a delicate cycle. I think the biggest thing is that the lids you want to like wash them a certain early. At least I want to wash them a certain way. Those things are annoying, yeah, but like you, I mean, I also don't want it just like nasally touching my food. Oh yeah, and so it's a whole thing. And Chase was like, are you ever going to do anything with these?
Speaker 1:And I was like shh Shh, I have plans. So one of my big ones was years ago. Let's see, it would have been probably six or seven years ago. I got really into embroidery, which sounds like a grandma thing, but there are really cool embroideries out there, yeah, and there are like embroidery paintings that people like it's so cool. I have a whole box at home that is just there's books about like pattern books and there's all the. I have two boxes full of just like embroidery floss all the different colors. Interesting Like.
Speaker 2:I could you know. So I actually there's a few different accounts that I follow. There's one that I really love. I can't remember what it is, I'll make sure I post it on our account, but it's like a possum based embroidery thing and it's really cute. It's really unhinged, which is my entire personality.
Speaker 1:So there are a lot of like cross stitch and like just needlework. In general, Needlework is kind of it's having a revamp and I like it. Yeah, and there's a lot of funny, snarky ones that you would like that have, like the afforded numbs. Oh, I love those. Those are my favorite. I knew you would.
Speaker 2:But then I also really liked. So there was one and it was they took like a really casual pair of jeans and they like embroidered flowers on it. It was really pretty. And then there was another one that they embroidered like a little skeleton on it and I was like that's so cute, yeah, and so I don't have the patience for that thing. Also, I know where my skills lie, and that's not it. It's not that hard. It did Mm-hmm. Okay, but here's the thing Maybe, well, maybe you should give me or not give me, but like I could borrow your embroidery box.
Speaker 1:We could do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we trade these One of mine was I really got into like chia seeds and like constantly I would use to make both chia seeds and overnight oats, like every single night or every single week. I would like batch them and make them. I had containers, I had lids, I had the measuring cups, all the things.
Speaker 1:Do you find that you hyper fixate on certain foods?
Speaker 2:Oh, I have eaten Mexican six out of six nights. Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:It's not healthy.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's not healthy, but like I'm officially over it. It's actually really funny. You asked that because even today I was like I would really love to eat X and I was genuinely like I cannot eat that again. I'm starting to have the revulsion now and I'm sad because I'm like oh, I was having such a good time.
Speaker 1:Right, yes.
Speaker 2:I 1,000% hyper fixate on foods, Hence my overnight oats and chia seeds. That was a big one, the other one there's been a lot, but at one point I may or may not have had a TikTok slash Tik Tok account. That kind of went viral and so I was like doing that and I was doing like lives and stuff. So that was a little bit of an obsession of mine for a while. And then you stopped because I was depressed oh. It's so loud. I was depressed.
Speaker 1:Content creation is hard. Content creation is so hard.
Speaker 2:Especially on social media where you have to do it like all the time and people making judgments about your life, people making comments about your life and I'm not trying to say that it was. I didn't have a gazillion, whatever. I wasn't ever making any money. Oh, I did actually technically make money off of it, more than we made off this podcast, whoa but it was something that, like, it was so great. But then the negatives were. I mean, they're big negatives when you have people who are like threatening you or just like being creepy or argumentative or negative, and it just you have to have a very, very tough skin to monitor and process those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not that person and it's fine, so I dealt with it. But I also was doing it by myself and so when I hit the point of not being interested anymore, I was like, okay, bye, and I don't think I posted for months and it's fine, but it also was so. It was under a completely anonymous name, it wasn't linked to anything personal of mine and it was sometimes. It was cool when people would be like, oh my gosh, you made this video and they'd be like I'd be like, oh yeah. But there was one time I very vividly remember a coworker, like a very side coworker of mine messaged me one day and he was like do you have a TikTok? And I was like, why?
Speaker 1:I didn't even answer.
Speaker 2:I was just like why? And he was, I think he's like I either found your TikTok account or you have like the most doppelganger person. He had found my TikTok just on the FyP page and I was like oh okay. And I was like, was it okay? Like I didn't post anything inappropriate. But he was like yeah, like it was great. It was just like he was like I didn't know that you had like all these followers and I was like, yeah, crazy crazy.
Speaker 1:What do you have? Any other fun things? Okay, so at the beginning of the year, last year, I got super like this is not even. It's not even like a hyper fixation, it's like obsession. My husband, corey, bought a Nintendo Switch for the kids Like around Christmas time I think, and I started the game Animal Crossing, which I tried to get you hyper fixated on and you failed and I was so sad I did fail. But so for like five months probably.
Speaker 1:I played this game obsessively. But then you kind of get to a point where, like you have a million in the game. They're called bells.
Speaker 2:Yes bells, because I remember when I was like, that is the silliest thing.
Speaker 1:You have like a million bells and there's not a whole lot to do and I just, you know you kind of lose interest. And then actually a couple of months ago started a new one that was quite similar, called Stardew Valley, and I played that one kind of for a while. What was nice about that one is that it wasn't in real time. So Animal Crossing is like if it's January 1st in real life, it's January 1st in Animal.
Speaker 2:Crossing and that was very hard for me, that I couldn't leave it and come back to it, and then it'd be like you've missed all these things and I'm like go away.
Speaker 1:So Stardew Valley was better because it Interesting. Every time you logged on you played a day, yes, and a day lasted like I don't know 20 minutes in real time, yes, and so if you didn't play for two weeks, then you didn't miss anything. Yes so that was kind of cool, but I'm kind of over that one too Interesting.
Speaker 2:So I have. For those who can see, I have my handy dandy iPad. I love this iPad and the most ridiculous reason that I love this iPad is because I have online solitaire on here and you get a daily challenge. And there was a one point I had not missed a daily challenge for I'm not kidding you months, months and months and months. But now I've come away from the hyper fixation. Sometimes I go back into it, sometimes I don't, but one of the things that I love is that I can, if I'm on a plane or doing whatever, I can just go back and go play all the daily challenges.
Speaker 2:I love it I love it and it's ridiculous. I am an elderly person, I am genuinely elderly on the plane playing solitaire.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that kind of takes me into my like favorite thing that made my life easier. So we're gonna jump to that just because. And then we'll jump back. It's fine, but playing cards was actually my favorite thing of the week because we have worked. My family is kind of in the middle of this hyper fixation on playing cards and it kind of started last year because my in-laws play cards all the time.
Speaker 1:So they've taught our kids how to play. And so then my husband last fall got our daughter a really cool set of bicycle they're like purple, unicorn, rainbow, super nice cards and that was for her birthday. And then now, like every single one of us in the family has kind of gotten a good nice set of cards. Fun fact, I got Air Church cards.
Speaker 2:So actually I'm just gonna real quick. So you were texting me about this and I honestly, it wasn't even the price of the cards that upset me, it was the fact that you paid like $9 in shipping. That's honestly what upset me. And you immediately threw me under the bus with my Dyson. Immediately, there was not a GD pause, it was immediately Kristen, you have a $600 Dyson, I can buy playing cards. And I was like wow, I hope I didn't make you mad. No, no, it was hilarious, oh my God, it was so funny. But you just came out swinging, absolutely swinging. It was so funny Because, again, I'm normally the only one and you just you went full throttle.
Speaker 1:It was hilarious, oh my God, I didn't even ever think like to. I don't know. I didn't ever think that there would be playing cards that Eric Church put out. What happened to my microphone? It's falling.
Speaker 2:It's fine. It's been falling but it's okay. No, playing cards are definitely we played. I showed your eight-year-old daughter the speed game that was one that we played a lot as kids. That was a good one. And then Chase's family plays Uker a lot, lots of Uker, multiple different kinds of Uker.
Speaker 1:Didn't know that was a thing, man they tried to teach me Uker in high school. That was like it's kind of, if you grew up in like Nebraska, they play pitch, and if you grew up in like I, grew up in Ohio. Right, he grew up in Michigan and I think that part of the country plays Uker and I remember them trying to teach me and it just went way over my head Uker's hard.
Speaker 2:It's so hard and I am actually decent at it. Now I'm really good at double-bid Uker. I'm real good at double-bid Uker. I don't even know what that was. So my father-in-law has a very I don't want to say he has a, he's a quiet man. He's a quiet man. But he was genuinely both impressed and upset at how good I was at double-bid Uker. He was like he literally was talking to Chase. He was like I multiple times. He was like I've never seen someone play double-bid Uker like Kristen. And I was like I don't know what I'm doing, but that's fine. There we go Well.
Speaker 1:So that's my favorite thing, because my kids have been obsessed with playing card games. It's fun to play with them. But then even last night, cory taught us all how to play Freestyle. And so all five of us well, the youngest, the four and a half year old, he was helping he couldn't play. He can play Solitaire and he can play like we play Kings, corner and Solitaire, and he can sort of play Nerds. You know, he's really actually pretty good at cards. He didn't. He couldn't do the Freestyle. But so it was Cory and then the eight-year-old, and then me and then the 15-year-old, and we were all individually playing our own Freestyle games on the floor in the living room. And so it's just whenever they are bored they get out their cards. It's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and even I was over at your house for dinner one night and you were picking up, chase had left and the eight-year-old really wanted to play Nerds. And you were like, eight-year-old, I have to do the dishes. And I said, hey, how about we play Speed? And she had never played it before. But she caught on immediately and it was so much fun and she actually, unfortunately beat me and I was trying and I was very upset about it.
Speaker 1:So it was, it was a good time, yeah, but I was going to say something else too about this, and I can't remember what it was. I don't know. Oh, I know what I was going to say. They're okay, this whole hyper fixation thing. We're not the only ones, because, oh my goodness, there is an entire industry of playing cards you can buy.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he went down the road $70 playing cards and there are like limited edition playing cards and it is just this whole world. That is so cool that there are people who collect playing cards and it's really fascinating and some of them are very, very pretty so it was.
Speaker 2:I swear I didn't plan this, but Chase had a friend over Kyle yesterday and we had talked about cards and because of the cards that your 15-year-old got in and the fact that I thought she was going to cut me for not having those out of my mailbox yet, but the storm had prevented it, and so both Kyle and Chase were like, if she just needs a deck of cards, like we have a deck of cards.
Speaker 1:I was like no, no, no, no, it's a whole thing, it's a whole thing.
Speaker 2:And apparently so Kyle's. I think he said dad or uncle or someone grandpa used to work for the Native American Indian casino and so they have to punch all those cards to get rid of them and like they're in shock.
Speaker 1:We have a deck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, everybody, they're great. But apparently he would bring these cards home in boxes upon boxes, and I know right it. Actually this would have been a really great gift for you, but apparently they whipped out one the other day. That was a set of bicycle cards and it was from like 2002. Really, and I was like that's 22 years old.
Speaker 1:Do you know that all of the not all, but the majority of playing cards like the good playing cards, not like the shiny ones, but you know the really nice, like bicycle cards. There are multiple companies who like produce them, but they are almost all printed and like cut and whatever by one company. It's the United States playing card company Interesting, yes, and so they make the bicycle cards, they make the Hoyle cards, they make there's a King's project, something or other. There's like all these different brands I could not have named more than the bicycle.
Speaker 2:So I'm thoroughly impressed right now. Well, I told you.
Speaker 1:I went down the rabbit hole on the hyperfixation. So anyway, that's a fun fact, so that's amazing Now that we're hyperfixated on all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, my favorite thing that has made my life easier is specifically my rainbow med holder, because I have to take three different kinds of meds and I also like to take vitamins because I I think that they help and so I just I do my meds and matches and it's great and I cannot imagine trying to manage meds.
Speaker 1:I know some people just like have them like rattling around in their purse and I'm like, absolutely not, I also have like a, like a daily pill thing, and what's nice about it is that, if you, you can see whether or not you have forgotten to take something. Yep, and that's a, that's a big thing. Yep, I forgot to take one of mine last night, but I was like it's fine, yeah, it was it was okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I also have like a little travel one. Actually, I have two different travel ones. I do too. Yeah, yeah, and it's, it's very helpful, it's very, very helpful.
Speaker 1:Okay, we have. So we have to backtrack really quick because you have on here that you're currently in a juicing phase and I need you to like.
Speaker 2:I think I told you about it a little bit.
Speaker 1:I once. I once was also in a juicing phase. I did not buy a juicer, I borrowed one. Shout out, lindsey, I borrowed her juicer. I used it once and I put all the pulp down the sink and my husband was so mad, okay, and we had. We had issues like forever.
Speaker 2:So I went down a hyper fixation about juicing and I always liked the idea of juicing and juice. But, just like you said, like you have pulp and I also really like I don't want. I don't want to pay for a gigantic juicer and two, I would really like to be able to use a lot of the like extra pulp and stuff like that. And so I saw this TikToker who had essentially it was like an an espresso press, like a, like a coffee press, but it was like a juicer one. It was called a juve J-U-V, not sponsored. I bought one full price and it's specifically for juicing. So you use a blender, which most people have, a decent blender, or at least a blender, not me.
Speaker 1:We talked about that in a couple episodes back.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that? I don't even remember that, but I also completely forgot. I gave you like a blender, like a year ago, and I forgot about it.
Speaker 1:Like the well, I mean like.
Speaker 2:I let you borrow the one blender for a while, yeah. Okay, I have a blender that I love. I do not. I don't know how you function, but you get to use your blender and then you put that into the press and then you're able to just press out the juice.
Speaker 2:That's genius it is, and then you have like a canister of the pulp and everything. But then you can. You don't have this gigantic honking thing, you just have a or I have a blender and then I just pour it into the thing press juice. So I went down. Juicers are humongous, they're huge and they're like $300. I don't have time for that.
Speaker 1:Kristen tell me how many oranges it took to make a cup of orange juice First of all.
Speaker 2:I so then. So I got it in. I went with. The specific thing that I wanted to juice was to do ginger shots and I have, which is a not alcohol thing. Guys, I did not know, oh you, oh, that's right, you thought you were texting me about ginger shots and I'm thinking like, is this alcohol something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's funny because, like, I don't drink a lot, but I obviously drink more than you because you don't really drink at all and I was like, no, this is like a health thing. And you were like what? And so, yeah, no. So I got it to do ginger shots and one of the things I saw was like people will put some orange juice in it to make it better. And I was like, okay, I'll grab some oranges. Plus, chase loves orange juice. He drinks a glass of orange juice every morning. He has for, I think, the last 25 years of his life.
Speaker 2:And you have a greater appreciation for what you said to orange juice and yeah, and so my dumb self was like oh, I got a bag of oranges and you know, juice these oranges I genuinely. Which finger was it on? I cut my finger juicing these stupid oranges it was this one.
Speaker 2:I cut my finger juicing these oranges or cutting them to then juice them, and it was like the entire bag minus two and I got a glass of orange juice, a tall glass or like a medium sized glass, and it was delicious, do not get me wrong. It was very good. But was it worth all of that? Absolutely not so, for, like I would say, health shots or like anything else that I would need to do is great. I will say one of the things that I did that I liked about this slash from this creator. I was like obsessively watching her video, so I was. When she did her ginger shots, she saved the pulse and pulp and dehydrated it. So I did that. I dehydrated all of my ginger pulp. You did.
Speaker 1:What did you do with it?
Speaker 2:It's in my fridge and I used it today for the other day when I was making an Asian marinade and it called for fresh ginger and I just Because is it kind of like grated ginger?
Speaker 1:It is just ginger, it's just ginger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can have some, absolutely Well, I don't know that I use ginger, I don't know, yeah, I don't know if your humans would like it, but anyways. So yeah, it was great, that's really cool. Okay, so you know full purpose, but yeah, it was a good time. So we hit those things.
Speaker 1:Anything else. The only other thing I had on my list was I, a couple of years ago, went down a massive hyper fixation on Legos, huge hyper fixation. That makes sense. That's a very, very, very, very expensive hyper fixation. Nope, nope, yeah, no, I don't. I own both of the Friends sets. Did you know that there?
Speaker 2:were Friends sets. I knew that there were.
Speaker 1:Friends sets. I didn't know you own them. I own both of them. I own a Harry Potter. I really do want to buy like the Harry Potter castle Are any of these like completed. Yes, okay, a couple of them. Where are they? In the basement, but see, I don't have a good place to display them either. That's the problem.
Speaker 2:Cory just needs to put up all these hanging shells. Yeah, I will say so in my. One of the things that I'm really good at with my hyper fixation is making spreadsheets. Oh, and I also love spreadsheets. That's great, they're so fun. They're so fun, they're so great, like for our Iceland trip. I already have a spreadsheet, and so I was.
Speaker 1:She's just keep we're talking this into the we're going to Iceland.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing. Also, if I keep talking about it, I have a documented notes of how long I've been talking about this. So when Cory's like wait what I'm gonna be like, we've been talking about this for months, cory, it's not my fault, you don't listen to our podcast. Seriously, cory, listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Anyways, so I met a new coworker. He was super chill, super great, shout out, brent. And he said, oh, my wife and I are gonna go to Italy. And I was like super cool, I've been to Italy. And he was like great. And so we were talking about that and I said let me know if you want my spreadsheet. And he was like what? I was like I have a spreadsheet. So one day I remembered it was like a few days after our conversation and so I went to my personal drive, found the spreadsheet, got like the view only link and shared it to him and he was like whoa. He was like you were not kidding. And I was like sir, this doesn't even have like half the stuff on here, because we did a little bit by the seat of our pants. But he was like holy crap. And I was like yeah, I have everything, because I don't mess around when it comes to my spreadsheets.
Speaker 1:So yeah, did you have an ADHD moment of the week?
Speaker 2:That was my ADHD. Moment of the week was the fact that I shared my spreadsheet and I scared a coworker. He was, he was. I scare a lot of my coworkers because they're men, so it just happens. But yeah, that was kind of that one.
Speaker 1:Well, what was your? Did you say? Oh, you already said your favorite thing. Well, what was your? Okay, so what was it? I don't have an ADHD moment of the week. I don't know. My life has been a blur this past week. That's valid. I don't even know. I mean with, I just don't know what I did this week.
Speaker 2:It's been a weird. It's been weird. Yeah, we're coming out of that timeframe, but I will say you have been a champ and you did finish two 20 plus hour audiobooks in a very short amount of time.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do not have a song of the week on repeat, because those were long books.
Speaker 2:They were very long books. It was Audiobooks, fourth wing and iron flame. Yes, I think fourth wing is like a 22 hour book and iron flame is 28 hours.
Speaker 1:Iron flame for sure is 28 hours, because I like about died when I saw that I don't fourth wing, I don't think was 20. I think it was like 18. Okay, I don't know. They were both pretty long Rebecca.
Speaker 2:Yarrow's no offense to her editor Could have cut that back a little bit. I feel like we could have cut this episode back a little bit.
Speaker 1:We're going to cut a whole bunch of stuff out. I know, I saw that.
Speaker 2:I saw the time but it's yeah, iron flame was good but it was a bit too long. I will say my song on repeat was Blurry by Puddle of Mud. It came on the radio the other day and I loved that song when it came out. And then it was on the radio and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to listen to this song a bunch. And then I also like to be the fun co-worker because I work remote and I will post questions of the day for people and I use this as my question of the day of what's a throwback song that you are obsessed with? Oh, yeah, and some people really were into it as a Is this a throwback song? Blurry? Yeah, it came out in 2002. I'll play it for you later. I'm going to have to go look it up.
Speaker 1:Is it safe, appropriate for young people, I think so it's an angsty rock song.
Speaker 2:So I wouldn't say super safe, but I think I'm not a good gauge of this. I know it's fine. It's fine. I accidentally let your 15 year old watch a rated R movie and I forgot that I was rated R. Awesome, I told you about this. You can't be mad at me. It was Don't Look Up.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't think I knew it was rated R. I specifically told you. No, you told me it was Three Hours and you forgot that. Okay, I left that part out. I'm going to have to cut this out, because her mom listens to this for us.
Speaker 2:It's fine, but anyways, okay, I love you Rachel, I love you Kristen, love all of you.
Speaker 1:Have great times and let us know what you're hyperfixated on Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We love hyperfixations Clearly, Clearly, and we'll talk to you all later, See ya. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. At Beyond Distracted. Write to us at beyonddistracted at gmailcom. If you enjoyed us, please submit a review on Spotify, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. Thank you for your support. Produced by Rachel Smith and Kristen Everett. Please talk to your doctor or primary care physician about any medical questions or concerns.
