Yeah- call me a failure...

Those goals were very little achieved. urgh. However excuses there may be, going to pick myself up now and get back on the wagon.

Some of the goals I'd set for myself:

1. Weight loss- well I'd been doing real well until we hit the summer season and thus lots of travelling. Yeah, completely fell off the wagon there. But the kids are all heading to school next week- yes- ALL three of them! KT, MD, and AC will all be in the same school for one year. I know everyone keeps telling me to enjoy it, as soon they'll be gone. I keep wondering though if I'm just getting old or the visual loss is really starting to get to me. I find myself worn out more and more these days when I've not done nearly as much with people. Not liking that one bit. :P

2. Spending more time with God- This is one area that I did succeed in. I began reading more and more, not entirely with my Bible, but with other books that I'd been wanting to read. I've given up the notion that I have to start one and can't start another one until I finish it. I'm finding that I'm reading one on my Ipod touch, one on the puter, and one a hard copy and then my Bible. So I'm actually making progress in all of them, just not all 4 of them at the same time. :)

3. Spending more time with my hubby- trying to make time for us. We've taken several times to go out and have a dinner and so forth. It's really been good to do so and thinking we may have a set up with a friend here that we might be able to try to do something like this once a month. We'll see.


The course of our year- it's been a pretty busy one this year. KT took part in travel basketball and we were all over central IN last winter and early spring.



(photo of KT bringing the ball down the court, dribbling the basketball with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and focusing on where she's about to head)

Of course Rei was faithfully at my side and watched in on all the action too. :)


(photo of Rei watching the game, laying in the bleachers with chin on the bleacher in front of her, intently watching what is going on)

We started the year off in February with a HUGE snow storm bringing us nearly several feet of snow and 5 inches of ice. Mike and I did what we could to help friends and neighbors chip themselves out of their homes and to be able to safely get out of down their driveways. February was also MD's birthday- which she is totally into horses right now, so we were creative with a horse theme for her party.



(photo of the island decorated and with the cake that has horses on it, a brown horse pinata with a black mane, and a vase of flowers)



(MD about to blow out the candles of her cake)

At the end of February, both girls chopped off their very long hair that they'd been growing out to donate to Locks for Love. Both of them went with really cute bob cuts! :)



(close up head shot of KT with hair short just longer than the ears.)



(close up head shot of MD with her bob cut- just below the ears)

With the warm up of the weather in March, the sillies began to set in and AC had fun with a roll of toilet paper- in fact he decided to be a mummy. Here he is wrapped up and having a blast!



We also saw several 4 legged friends in March too. First Honey came to visit and we loved seeing her again. Of course she remembered me and had fun playing with Rei too. She was cute too, watching the gerbils running around in their tank too.



(A really good picture of Honey and Dan together- Honey sitting in front of him gazing up at him.)



(Photo of Katie looking into the gerbil tank and Honey to her right side, nose to the glass looking in with intense curiosity)

Laney and Pippa also came by for a visit too. It was good to see the girls and see how much they've grown. Unfortunately we haven't been able to get together this summer at all, so we'll see if we get to visit some during the school year for some training sessions and play dates too. Here are all three dogs in front of Mike/



In April-MD and AC took swim lessons to work on teaching them how to swim. MD learned to swim so that she can float and not sink if she finds herself in deep water. AC is unable to swim on his own yet, but knows what to do now if he gets into trouble to help himself.



(MD looks into the water as she's about to dive for the plastic ring that her instructor threw into the water.)



(AC holds the pool wall with a smile on his face and ready for the next thing)

May saw us busy, busy, busy with Pup Putt (www.pupputt.org) as we worked with the school in setting up the mini golf course and Mike built another poker table for the silent auction.



(photo of dark colored oak wood with topper on the game table)

We even had Ice Road Truckers terminal manager, Lane Keater here for for the first few days of the week too. It was an amazing week with the kids and event raising approximately $16,000 over the course of the week.

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mike came out one evening too and had fun with the kids and putted through the course as well.



The month of May in Indiana also means racing here in the Indianapolis area. We took the kids to the Motor sports open house, where we met and got to see inside several of the NHRA team garages. The kids enjoyed seeing all of the funny cars and drag racing cars as well as meeting several of the drivers.



(a photo of all three kids kneeling in front of a stack of tires)



(one of John Force's trailers and cars)



(a photo of John Force and his younger daughter signing autographs)

We also went to Schumacher Racing's garage and there was a body of a car hung on the wall:


Mike also took KT to the Indy 500 this year for the first time. She's been excited to go for several years now. KT has always LOVED Indy car racing and so the excitement for her was almost unbearable for her! The weather was great and they got to see the amazing finish and crash in the homestretch on the final lap of the race.

On Memorial Day, we took the kids to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum as they had a once in a lifetime exhibit of 75 of the 100 years of the Indy 500. They actually took several of the early 1900 cars out and drove them around the track before the race and while we were there, we got to see them bring several back in into the museum itself.



(a photo of a line of cars from the early 1900's)



(a line of cars from the 1980's and foward)

June began our crazy summer of travels and running. KT started the first week of June by a weekend of going to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. She went with a group from school and also good friend Ms. N from basketball too as they were roomies all weekend. She came back having enjoyed the entire weekend.



(a photo of one of the simulator rides that spins you around but not in the same direction more than once)



(a space shuttle made completely out of kinect pieces)

We ended June with Mike serving on the first Indy West Awakening team, which is an amazing spiritual weekend for teens, age 15 to 18. Learn more about that here:
http://www.indywestawakening.org/

The kids, Rei, and I spent the Saturday of Father's Day weekend with Grandma and Grandpa and Dan as Mike was particpating in the Awakening weekend and I was soon to leave for Ft. Mitchell, KY for my first AADB (American Association of the Deaf Blind) conference.

The weather was good and thus the kids donned their swimsuits and the kiddie pool was brought over along with all squirt guns in possession for a massive water gun fight.



(photo of the kids and grandpa dipping water guns into buckets and the kiddie pool to "load up" with water)

Rei joins in by getting in the pool and splashiing on her own too!


(Rei standing in the kiddie pool and looking out at everyone playing- water dripping from her belly.)

All three kids- water guns in hand and aiming for Grandpa:


After several hours of water play, we ate a hearty dinner and the kids all crashed on the couch to watch some tv together. All slept well that night! :)

The next morning, on Father's Day, I took off with two Support Service Providers to the AADB conference for a week. We arrived that afternoon and Clara and Kim both went to the SSP training as I hung out for a bit and got some stuff unpacked.

We had the opening Ceremony that first night. On Monday night, Clara and I got to talk to the Teen Program group about guide dogs and we both felt that this was the highlight of our week, to see the kids reactions and amazement of what these dogs do for us. Since we both have some vision, we took the harnesses off the dogs and Clara led the kids around in the hallway that was cleared out for us to give the kids a feel of what it was like to hold the harness handle. I held the dogs as the we opened it up to the kids to ask any questions they had.



(a photo of Kacie and Rei on the left- Kacie in a blue shirt and khaki pants, Clara and her yellow lab/golden cross from leader dogs on the right. Clara is wearing a dark shirt and a floral skirt. Both dogs are laying at their feet.)

The kids enjoyed the dogs so much that they asked for a group picture and all of them pulled out their cameras! Here's the group shot of all of us!




I also got to meet several long time online friends that I've known for several years now, but have never had the opportunity to meet in person. It was an amazing experience and even a relief to be somewhere where everyone absolutely "got it" in terms of my vision and hearing.

Coming home- rather heading back to Indiana and straight up north to a friends house for the weekend and then to Mike's family reunion proved to be quite difficult for me. While it is no fault of our friend and her family of 3 young children, it was not deaf blind friendly. I found myself tired, stressed to the max, and becoming short tempered. The drive home was not a pleasant one, as I'd reached my breaking point and wasn't hearing well, seeing well, and was frustrated with things not working as I was trying to get them to work. I was flat out in overload and the more tired/stressed I get, the more my vision/hearing diminishes and fluctuates. So once we got home after the reunion and a couple of days of good nights sleep in my own bed did absolute wonders for me. :)

Voting as a deaf blind person

Yeah, it's been a little longer than I promised, however I do have a good excuse. ;) Unfortunately the sickies went through our house and ugh, I don't think I've been that sick in a LOOOOONG time! Too gross to talk about, so we'll just leave it at it was BAD.

I've been thinking a lot lately about having Rei and being a person that is deaf blind and some of the things that I used to take for granted, that these days are starting to become a challenge for me. This all kind of started as a note was posted on my GDF list with an inquiry of how DB people vote and such, as a situation occurred in NY where a person asked for a braille ballot and the election board of that precinct falter and simply replied saying- well, no one has ever asked that before.

As it turns out, it was explained by someone from the NFB that in NY they have a law in effect that states their ballots must be a "full-face" ballot, which means ALL of the candidates and categories to vote for, must all be on one page/screen. Thus this combined with the law in printing regulations for paper size, there is just no physical way for the ballot to be printed in braille and meet all of the legal regulations. So in my advocacy experiences, I suggested that the person start with their legislative representative and that some work was needed there to see about getting the law changed in order to make braille ballots an option.

So then after the correspondences and the election that was quickly coming up, I began to wonder what my options are here in IN for voting as I continue to lose my vision. So I began to read the Indiana Code- which you can look up on the IN gov website and I contacted a fellow Partners grad who is very involved in working for accessible voting as well. We worked together last year with an email campaign and asking for people to voice and support that all satellite voting locations need to be accessible as well as during early voting and not just on election day itself.

I posed the question to him asking if braille ballots were even available here in IN. He responded that in Marion County that they were available but had to be requested in advance. He offered to contact my county election board and work on getting the process started for my county. I then began to wonder what I will indeed do as reading the voting screen becomes more difficult.

In the primaries, I had a hard time reading the screen not so much for the size, but because the background of the screen was a light grey and the text was a dark grey- not providing much contrast at all. So I began to research what the voting machines were for my county and found that our county has the Microvote Infinity machine in which has a screen that can be taken off and set onto the lap of a person in a wheelchair and has the ability to have a separate box plugged in to provide an audio reading of the ballot for the person, where a headphone jack is used to plug in a set of headphones. So my thought was since I'm using a set of Phonak Naida's with an ICOM, that I could possibly plug in to this- as I can do with any sort of device that accepts a headphone plug and be able to listen to the audio version.

So I'm thinking I've done my homework and I should be good to go. Election day comes and AC and I walk/ride about 3/4's of a mile to our polling place and we walk in. We were greeted as I have been each time very warmly and courteously and I sign in on the sheet and one of the judges comes up and asks, will you need assistance with voting, we can read the ballot to you and press the buttons for you if you need it. Now this is where it gets a little sticky. Indiana law states that the person with disabilities may designate someone to assist them in voting by doing this. However, the HAVA law that took effect a few years ago states that polling places must be accessible and where people can vote privately and independently if they choose to.

Since I had tried to be prepared I asked if they had an accessible machine. One of the registration ladies piped up "YES, we do!", but the other judge looked at her and was like well I don't think what we have will be able to help her. The accessible machine we have is for a person in a wheelchair. I then asked if they had a machine that would either enlarge the font or have audio capability. Then everyone began to stutter and scramble- several talking at once trying to determine if they did, the first judge that had offered to help me went to the back of the room and started digging through a Rubbermaid tub. Quickly he comes back and hands me an 8"x10" scratched up plastic magnifying sheet and says here's what we have, will this work for you? I looked at it and replied that I'd give it a try and see.

So I was fortunately able to still read most of the screen however I did have some difficulty, but I was able to make my way through it and cast my vote. I thanked them for their help and came on home a little frustrated and disappointed at what had taken place. I gave my friend a call and he and I both agree that it's more a training issue, that the polling place volunteers didn't know how to use the equipment that they had.

So that brings me to where do I go from here? I placed a call to my state representative and he quickly called me back and promised to look into it as well as ask about the braille ballot for me. He contacted the election board and called me back saying that they thought they had covered this in the volunteer training, however apparently some of the people didn't completely understand it. They would be sure to cover it more thoroughly in the next training and thank you for making them aware of this. As for the braille ballot- the person was on a committee where they were working with other counties on how to handle this and getting ballots printed ahead of time, however they weren't sure how that was going to work out. My rep called back and also suggested going to early voting at the county courthouse where the employees would definitely know the accessibility features of the machines, however that is 20 minutes away in order to get there. However he did say that he agreed that all of the polling places should be accessible though and that they'd work on it for the next election.

While it was an answer, I hope it was an earnest one. I find myself wondering how much longer will I be able to go and cast a vote on my own. While I know there is the absentee ballot process, there is something to be said for being able to independently go and vote. I really liked the comparison that my friend gave me when I mentioned some disagreement I had encountered from a sighted person about pursuing this. He said- tell the sighted person to give you their car keys. That he was sure the person had friends that would be more than willing to take them to the all the places they needed to go and that they'd be able to get there and the job be done, and then see what they had to say and if they were willing to hand over the car keys. It's about being able to be independent and even self dignity of holding on to the things in life that are slowly being taken away with the loss of vision.

I try hard to focus on the things I can still do and trust me, we have a jam packed and busy life with three kids and all of the activities we are involved in. I just find myself retreating at times and asking myself- how much longer will I be able to do this? Is this the last time I'll be able to do xyz? I read of others like myself who have lost pretty much most of the use of their central vision due to blurriness and cataracts - which I was told at my last appt that I do indeed have the very starts of them, and I find myself trying from time to time to do things by feel instead. I have a hard time with being still and I pray that I am able to find some sort of activities that I will enjoy as much as I enjoy in sewing and scrap booking.

For now, I have been very, very blessed that my family has rallied around me and are learning ASL with me. Mike and I are finding that we are using it more and more in our day to day interactions as I am just not picking things up verbally much anymore and unable to pick up the visual cues to understand the sounds as well with the loss of peripheral field. The signing is much simpler and it has helped with understanding each other and providing relief in my struggle to catch what is going on. It has helped me in the frustration of being able to communicate with my family and the kids are also picking it up as well and using it too when they can.

My goal is to eventually take up learning braille as well, so this is where I do wish to pursue the availability of at least being able to request a braille ballot in the future. We'll see what comes of it and so forth.

So yeah- for the time being I'll still vote at the polls, however I reluctantly realize that my time is drawing near, much sooner than I care to admit, where I am probably going to have to retreat to the ranks of others who vote via absentee ballot in order to perform my duty as a citizen to vote.

All I can say for the Deaf Blind out there that keep moving along- keep at it, one day at a time, one situation at at a time. To the sighted- be understanding and ready to hand over those car keys for to walk a mile in different shoes. ;) Night and hugs to you all!

New goals...

Our bible study small group is trying to take on life in a new level, setting SMART goals and we paired off to be accountability partners with another group member.

As I got to thinking about my goals and what I wanted to achieve out of this, several things came to mind:

1. Personal growth in learning the bible and prayer journal ling at least 3 times a week and try to read from the bible every day.

2. Blog here at least 3 times a week. Even if it's just a short note.

3. Kick start the journey that Rei and I are beginning to our 2nd Mini Marathon with walking 2-3 miles 3 times a week and cross training on the wii fit on the off days.

4. I have several financial goals as well- including getting ourselves debt free except the mortgage payment within the next year. We are close- just have to keep at it!

5. Some other little things I wrote down for relationships with my family that I wanted to do as well.

So feel free to give me a shout out if you see I'm slacking on my messages here!


Rei and I are doing well. We've been busy here with kids, school, parent teacher conferences, the birth of a good friend's new baby boy, and a surprise birthday party for another good friend.

The girls have amazed us this year in their growth at school. KT is now reading at a collegiate level and is the top in her High Ability class for reading, at a Lexile of 1357. While it's a good problem, it's a little scary in trying to find materials she's able to read and still be appropriate content wise and still challenge her. Much to my surprise, her teacher says she's a powerhouse all around and is above average even in her class on the math and language skills too. She definitely didn't get that from me. LOL! Her teacher tells us that it's very rare to have a student of her abilities, where she's strong in both the Math and the Languages. Usually the boys get the math, the girls get the language stuff, but she's doing very well in all areas.

MD also had an awesome conference in that she is above average in her class and grade peers in her math scores and has excelled/mastered all of her skills she's to master at this point in the school year. We were surprised when she came home a couple of weeks ago and saying that she's jumped from a Guided Reading level of H to level L. Her teacher explained that the end of the year goal for first grade is to be at level I, so she's doing well there too.

We shared with her teacher too that we were amazed in the changes we've seen in MD's work ethics and abilities, as she's really taken off and is beginning to strive to achieve better, instead of laying low and only doing what she has to in order to get by, which is what seems to be what she's always done in the past. We can see her becoming confident in her ability to do well and striving to reach for more and this really makes us HAPPY! :)

AC on the other hand is downright scaring us in day to day activities. This kid has essentially taught himself how to read and is picking up from both of his sisters every day and trying to keep up with them on all levels. He's jumping on the computer and practicing all the math problems and spelling homework he can get to that MD has worked on and understands and loves it. He finds himself bored if I don't work to challenge him on various things. We are also working on ASL letters and basic signs that we can remember in our day to day activities. We shall see if he goes to school with his sisters or not next fall. If he continues as we foresee, we see him being in the High Ability class starting K next fall- which in turn would mean he'd be at a different school for K & 1st grade. Only time will tell...

Well, it's late and here's to a Blessed weekend to all of you readers! More to come soon!