As I have mentioned in previous entries, hubby and I are taking sign
language lessons. During the summer we had a nice Christian man, who was a free-lance
interpreter. I will use his sign name of Turtle. We had about 8 lessons with
Turtle. It really helped us to get started. With Turtle we learned about 400
signs. So about the vocabulary of a 4 year old, except that we could count to
100, but could not say our colors or the months, but we could have a small
conversation. LOL Well turtle had to stop our lessons as him and his family
will be a missionary soon, and to get ready for that there are alot of things
he must do. That is fine, so I put out some feelers for another instructor.
Another SSP, from our DB group volunteered. Well not volunteered but was available
to instruct us. We do pay them a small amount, of course not as much as they
would get on an interpreting job, but a small amount. I will call this new
instructor CD, because she lives in south Philly we also give her gas money.
She comes about once a week. We have been having lessons with her since the beginning
of September. She is an awesome lady, and gets right down to the task at hand,
not too much chatter. We go through, learn about 40 to 60 signs at a time. So
as you can see our vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.
The reason for me writing about all of that was that up until September
16th, when our living room was finally done, we could not have our lessons in
there, but in the basement. After work, hubby and his dad put all of the big
furniture back into the living room. Pieces like the piano, couch, red chair
recliner, love seat, coffee table. So on this night we had our first lesson in
the living room.
On Tuesday I spent moving other items back into the living room, like the
lamps, the end tables, the speakers. I also had the task of cleaning up the
dining room, the room in which all of the living room items went and were while
our living room was being fixed up. It was two months since we began the fixing
up process. I was extremely happy to have back our living room and dining room.
The funny thing was that we had something planned for every single night of
this week but our nights began to become open. Like hubby had an elder meeting,
but because an unfortunate death in the Pastors family, the elder meeting was
cancelled.
On Wednesday, September 18th, hubby's mom and SFIL came into town from RI.
They arrived late in the afternoon, before hubby got off of work. We went out
to our favorite Italian restaurant again with them that night. It had been
planned that hubby had worship team practice, and we would just go to dinner,
but that was cancelled. It was a blessing in disguised that it was cancelled
and we spent the time with family. After dinner we took a quick trip to Costco.
After our Costco trip we headed back to our house. Hubby's brother came over
and we hung out until late. Hubby's mom brought with her Wisconsin cheese, and
some other yummy treats. As if I was hungry, which I wasn't after eating such a
big meal, but I did try some of the yummy treats.
By this time, I was able to open up the house and keep it open during the
night. It was more perfect weather.
So now with the living room, its more open design, we needed a few more
furniture items. Eventually we will be getting a TV, and at some point a
fireplace. Not a real fire place, but probably a gas one. Right now I am using
wood, TV trays for end tables. And although fine for now, I would like more
normal end tables. So on Thursday afternoon, MIL and I did some furniture
shopping. We could not spend a whole lot on the furniture so we went to all of
the consignment shops. We did not find one thing. I was very upset about this. Later
that evening we met up with hubby's sister, and all five of us went out to
TexMex, a nice Mexican restaurant here in North Wells. It’s nothing of course
like the real texmex from Texas, but it’s the best I have found up here. Just
like the night before, we went back to our house and hung out with SIL. We
didn't stay up as late, but it wasn't early that we went to bed either.
Friday, MIL and SFIL had plans to play golf with my SIL, so they went off
to do that. I hung out at home. That evening we had a life group. Hubby's
brother and his kids, the in laws were all going up to spend time with them at
his house, so they left right before we left for lifegroup. MIL and SFIL would
go home the next morning.
Saturday, hubby had a men's breakfast planned, but was cancelled. I thought
I would be gone all day, as I had planned on participating in a walk to raise
money for hearing loss. But I just got the date wrong; it was actually Sunday
and not Saturday. Ooooops!
So instead hubby and I hung out at home, enjoying a nice day.
Sunday September 22nd, would have been a normal church day for us. Well it
was for hubby. He was playing on the worship team, but I was off for my walk.
An SSP picked me up at 8:15am, yes too early. And we were met at my house by
another DB gentlemen who was walking with us. The walk was being put on by the
HLAA organization. HLAA is the Hearing Loss Association of America. The DeafCAN
group, which was about 12 of us, met at Riggly Park, which is in Chester
County, about a 45 minute drive from my area. The walk began at 10am. It wasn't
one of those walks that you were racing others; it was a walk to raise money.
It was on a trail that was 3.1 miles. I was guided by an SSP the whole time.
The crazy thing is that, there were alot of hard of hearing people, alot of
deaf, hearing impaired people there, but it was extremely loud. I had a hard
hard time hearing anyone. Again the weather was absolutely perfect. We walked
at a leisurely pace, not in a hurry at all. There were alot of families, the
young and the old there. The hearing and the hearing impaired. There were only
2 of us DB people there. The rest were SSP's or interpreters. One of the team
members made T-Shirts for us, as each team had their own design. By the time we
headed home, I was pooped out, tired.
Like I said hubby went to church, played on the worship team, went to discovery
class, and then home. After church BIL, BIL's kids, BIL girlfriend, and SIL all
came over with food. They had a nice lunch. I arrived home shortly after they
had finished lunch. They hung around for another hour or so, and then went on
to their own things. Hubby and I laid down for a nap. A nap that was supposed
to be only one hour and a half, but turned into several hours. We both needed
it apparently, as it was hard for both of us to get up.
The rest of the day was relaxing.
The only other few things for the end of the month is that hubby and I
attended another funeral, this time for the Pastor at our church, his brother.
In a small world, that family is related to the blindness organization president’s
family. It was a beautiful service.
We did have one more sign lesson of the month, and learned 60 more words.
More words that have kep hubby and I just finger spelling things to each other.
Hubby and I started reading a book, called Shouting Won't Help: Why I -- and 50 Million Other Americans -- Can't Hear You."by Katherine Bouton. It was
a book we downloaded from the Library of congress. It was a long book, about 15
hours to read. We would read at meal times, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Of
course not when other people were around, but when we had meals together. The
lady who wrote the book, had been a journalist at a New York paper, and then
had lost her hearing in her 40's. She talks about her challenges, her
adjustment, and how she dealt with it all. She was not deafblind, and had only
the one disability. But it was very very interesting. Reading through the book
was very hard in some ways for me, mainly because it made me think about my own
troubles. Because I have many if not every single other problem she has or had.
It did make me feel as though what I describe with my hearing loss to be the
same, like I wasn't the only one, or that I was crazy. When she would describe
that if she is having a conversation with several people, she could not follow,
but if it was a one on one conversation, then she was fine. She describes the
lengths she goes to fake, deny, and get by not telling others of her hearing
loss. In the end she did get a CI. The book was a real world description of the
process, and I had almost been sold to just get an evaluation, until she said
she can't hear music with an CI. Not that listening to music is the most
enjoyable thing for me to do now, but I still love love music. She also talks
about the grief process she goes through. In many ways we were very similar,
she worked up to getting a CI, I work to just function as a now deafblind
person. Just to mention she could lip read, so there was alot of things she
could do with her vision, that I do not have the luxury of being able to do. I
plan on writing to her.
Other plans that were sorted out in September were our plans to go to Texas
for Thanksgiving. I will be at HKNC by this time, so hubby is going to come up
and we will leave from JFK and fly to DFW. We will leave on Wednesday and
return on Sunday. I am extremely excited for this little get away to spend time
with family and the kids.
Well that ends September. I hope I didn't leave anything out. More to
come...
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