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Liebster Award

liebsterawardIf there’s one thing writers really need, it’s community with other artists. I have this amazing friend, Emily, who shares my love of writing. We belong to the same writer’s group and have fun drinking tea and/or wine over topics involving creativity, editing, publishing, and the like. She writes a hilarious blog and recently nominated me for a Liebster award. Thanks Emily, for your encouragement and for being someone with whom I can share writing joys and frustrations and engage in super-nerdy conversations.

As part of my acceptance of the Liebster, I had to answer the following 11 questions from Emily: Continue reading “Liebster Award” →

Saying Goodbye to My Grandma Jean the Queen

The call came at 3am Wednesday. Grandma is dying. She probably won’t make it through the night. If you want to say your final goodbye, you should come.

The lights at grandma’s house were dim when we arrived, and the air was heavy. Short, labored breaths rattled out of her lungs, sounding like a child with croup. She lay tucked under blankets in a hospital bed in the middle of her living room; my cousin leaning over her, inserting morphine tablets under her tongue to keep her comfortable.

Being on hospice for the past week, the call had not been entirely surprising, though she had been so alert and responsive the prior few days that we had thought it might be weeks until the end.  But here we were, in the middle of the night, beginning our final farewells.  Some family members sat perched on the queen-sized bed near her hospital bed, while others lingered on the couch in the adjoining family room, taking turns leaning over her and whispering words of love and gratitude. Continue reading “Saying Goodbye to My Grandma Jean the Queen” →

News Flash

It’s been almost a full month since Joy or I have posted anything.  Shame on us! It’s not that we haven’t thought about blogging, but we’ve both been a bit pre-occupied.  Also, neither of us like to post out of any sort of obligation.  We like to write when we have something worthwhile for our readers.  Today I have something worth mentioning on the blog.  I’M PREGNANT!

Perhaps you’re wondering why I am wearing a mask in this photo and why the pictures to the right look blurry.  It’s not your vision (or perhaps in some cases it is…) It’s smoke.  I live up in the mountains and we’ve had wildfires over the last 4 weeks, which has caused a tremendous amount of smoke in our county.  Between morning sickness (which I think is misleading considering the nausea often lasts the entire day – not just in the morning) and the smoke stacks, I’ve been a bit distracted. But I’m happy to report that I am now 14 weeks along and feeling so much better, and the wildfires have subsided as well.

I will have more to share in a couple of weeks following my eye appointment in Seattle along with my first day of cane training.  I need to get as much done as I can before baby number two arrives in spring!

 

 

Accessibility Software Giveaway (first-ever doublevisionblog contest!)

To end our mini-series on “parenting”, we’d like to offer a chance for our readers to win a free reading assistance software, Kurzweil 1000 version 7, $1000 value (this version was released several years ago, but can be upgraded to a newer version if desired). The software is new, in package, and still shrink wrapped.

Here’s the challenge… this is for either parents of kids/adults with visual impairments or kids/adults with visual impairments to answer:

Kids/Adults:  Share a story/memory about how well a parent or teacher handled a situation involving your vision.

or

parents:  Share a favorite memory of how your child handled their vision challenges with humor, wisdom, a positive outlook, etc.

Email your submission to joy@doublevisionblog.com by Friday, March 2nd.  Submissions can be brief or detailed– it’s up to you!

We will post our favorite one as well as a runner-up to doublevision and will send the winner this software.

“Normal”

Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be “normal”.  I’ve wanted to just blend in and not make a spectacle of myself (which is pretty hard to do when you’re running into poles and such.) I’ve literally pictured what my life would look like if I was “normal”, and by normal, I of course mean perfectly-sighted.  I would live out in the country– or maybe I wouldn’t– but I’d at least have the choice to live in the boonies because the “normal me” could drive.  I’d have some job that required a lot of driving– like a pharmaceutical rep– or maybe I wouldn’t– but at least I’d be able to choose a career that involves driving.  I’d play beach volleyball– or maybe I wouldn’t– but at least it’d be an option on a hot, summer day.  You catch my drift;  “normal me” has a lot of options.The funny thing is that most of my “normal me” fantasies don’t envision my life all that different from what it is now– I’d still be married to the same amazing man, have the same sweet children, the same supportive friends, live in a similar house with a similar career path, but I’d be a much “better me”.  I’d look better (because I’d be able to do my makeup better if i could see it more clearly, of course!), act funnier and wittie (because I’d see funny things all around me), be a more-together and fun mom (wouldn’t lose a thing if I could see!), be more outgoing, athletic, involved…… I’d just be me with a little boost.Okay, so “normal me” is beginning to just sound like “perfect me”.  Definitely not saying I would be perfect, but I really can’t help but think I’d be BETTER.  I know that most people have their “thing” that makes them feel abnormal– the family they grew up in (probably half of America for that one), some physical trait that they don’t like about their face or body, some secret about their past, some act that they wish they hadn’t done or hadn’t been done to them…… there are probably very few people who would say they feel “normal”, whatever that word really even means.

But if so many people don’t fit into being “normal”, why do I sometimes feel like I am the only one who sticks out as “not normal”?  And if I really do enjoy most aspects of my life, why do I daydream about changing it?  Let me re-phrase that:  why do WE daydream about changing it?  Based on many of the RP chatrooms I’ve visited, I know that this is something we all struggle with, and I don’t think daydreaming about being perfectly sighted is necessarily unhealthy.  But I do think that we should pay attention to how we view ourselves and the vocabulary that goes along with those views, especially the “n” word.