Saturday morning began with a young little pup wagging her tail and it going “thump, thump”. So no sleeping in for us. It wasn’t too much earlier than when our alarms went off. But I have a built in alarm, in my pup. She always knows when it is time to get up, go to bed, and eat breakfast or dinner.
We had a nice breakfast of oatmeal and bacon. After breakfast, I got ready to work with the field rep again. Hubby was looking through a bin of Jell-O’s to find the right flavor and kind. He used his IPhone with the Digit-Eyes app. The Digit-Eyes app is an app for the IPhone that will allow a blind person to scan the bar-code, and find out what the product is. The app costs about #20, but is well worth the app. It’s very easy to use, and has found every bar-code we have scanned. Even better if there is information from the manufacture, there can be instructions on how to prepare the food or how to use it. We love it! When I say we are looking through a bin of Jell-O and Jell-O puddings. Let’s just say we have every flavor on the earth of both puddings and jell-os. We found the flavor we were going to use for our church’s pie social.
Around 11:15 the field rep arrived at my house. So we had some time to kill. So he and I walked up to the Giant near my home. It’s a several block walk, with curbs, street crossings, and wildlife including people and dogs. LOL So we made it there and back, we didn’t actually go into the store, no time on this day. So we headed back home, we were planning on catching the 12:45pm train to my university. Once we got back to my house, we both grabbed our things and drove very quickly to the train. As we were sitting at a light, with the train on our left, it passed us by. And before we could get up to the train station it was gone. We missed it but just by minutes. Grrrr! This meant that the online, mobile app, and schedule on the phone were all wrong! When we got to the station we confirmed the time, and looked at the schedule for the next day. We decided to work on Sunday after church.
In a way this was nice it worked out that way but not too. He took me home, the field rep. and he went on his way. At this point I wasn’t hungry, so we skipped lunch. I had a few phone calls to make. And hubby worked on his treasurer duties. The one call I made, lasted a long time, to the client I am working with up in NY. I will be going up to NY to work with her on parenting skills and attend a convention. There is a lot of planning for both weekends. Sadly all of the calls took up most of my afternoon, and before I knew it was 5pm. We were schedule to leave for church walking at 6pm. We ate a quick dinner, but then a friend from church called to offer us a ride. We took them up on their offer. I was taking Missy with us to church.
The pie social at church was fun, there were not as many families there as I had expected. But it was still fun. I lost count of how many different pies. We took Jell-O Jiggler’s for the kids. The kids played lots and lots of games, find the candy in the corn, pin the leave on the tree. At least I think that was the game. And then there were other games. I only participated in one. They put donuts on strings, hanging from a pole. We could not use our hands, and was blindfolded to eat the donuts. There were 3 adults that did this alongside me. I did not win, as I was laughing too hard to chew too much too fast! But it was fun, and by the end I was covered in sweet icing.
Sunday was about the same. The difference was that Missy did not wake us up. We woke before her. We had to wake up early on this morning, as my hubby plays in the worship team at church.
Our walk to church was fine for only one part with Missy. On the way to church she did not want to walk again in the gutter because of those stupid leaves. Then we could not find a sidewalk, because someone was not paying attention and thought she would rather go play with the wildlife. We made it to the church in one piece. Hubby had his practice and then the regular church began. Missy was very well behaved. She slept during most of the service. You could not hear her snoring, because an older woman was snoring behind us louder. After church we, Missy and I were the main attraction. Lots of people had known that I was gone. So then all of a sudden, I come back with a new pup. We got back home in about 20minutes and then rushed around for me to get ready to go on the train. The field rep was at our house a bit early, so we got a head start.
When we got to the train station, the train was delayed. LOL We worked on some platform stuff. He showed me another way to walk on the platform. At the school, they trained the dogs to walk on the edge of the platform. The edge is where there usually bumpy dots to say it’s the edge. The field rep changed it so that we are walking just to the right or left of the dots, on the concrete. Up in NY, the tactual bumpy dots on the edge of the platforms, are wide, here they are narrower. If I have my pup walk on the bumpy dots, and then I get pushed, I will go over. I already do not like platforms.
Once the train arrived, we boarded. The train was not busy at all, and it was an old train. The field rep showed me a few tricks and techniques to getting Missy under and in the seats. It worked this time because the train was not busy or crowded. On the way there, the field rep and I talked about guide dog schools and the differences. We arrived at my university station and departed the train. She went right for the elevator, with only one command of where to go.
Our purpose for the trip down to the university was to find areas in which I could take her to potty. Once on the ground level of the train station, he found the first place I could take her to potty. We started our 3 block, walk to the campus. And found another spot for potty breaks. We walked all the way to my building with my classes. I would say, if I were to estimate it’s about an 8 block walk. Once at the building we again were looking for more areas to “break” my pup. The one difficulty of this day was that the birds and squirrels were out in force. My pup loves the birds and the squirrels. So whenever we were walking outside I had to give her the “leave it” command. Several times I had to give her a hard leash correction to get her attention off the squirrels or birds. We found 3 more spots to relieve Missy on the campus. I am at school for a very long day, so I know she is going to have to go.
By the time we headed back to the train, I was exhausted. When I got home, hubby had a delicious dinner made. We had steak, potatoes, and spinach. After dinner we got some very important things done. Like we bought our tickets for our NFB state convention in two weeks. And then I also registered, guaranteed the hotel room, and bought my train tickets for the NY state convention.
I will be going to NY for the NFB state convention. I have been mentoring a parent up there, and this will be her first convention. The really cool thing about the NY convention, is that I will have the opportunity to go to a Broadway show. We will be seeing the Phantom of the Opera. Yipppppeeeeeee!
And the really really awesome thing about the PA state convention I get to spent a few days with my hubby. And this year I will be speaking to the convention floor about a subject I feel very passionately about.
The subject I will be speaking to the convention about is, parents who are blind. Now I know many of you all reading out there, can’t even imagine raising a child without being able to see. I have done it, and there are thousands of others who are doing it successfully right now. Just because a person can not use there eyes to see, does not mean that they are a less of a person, less capable. It just means we have some unique challenges to deal with. In particular in recent years there has been a number of cases of parents who are blind, are being investigated because of their blindness, and for no other reason. It is most of the time well intended social workers, school teachers, neighbors, doctors, nurses, other social agency services, adoption counselors, lawyers, and judges, who are not versed in the ways of the blind. They can’t imagine themselves doing it, thus it’s not doable. There are lots of different techniques that a blind parent might use to take care of their child. But this does not mean that parent should be investigated, or nor that the child should be removed from the home. Yes folks, children are being taken away from capable parents, because they are blind. It happens in divorces, in adoptions, supervision cases, in many other situations. Many times parents will find themselves in trouble, have no clue where to turn, the social worker has no clue what to do, because they have never worked with a blind person ever. The judge has no clue, the lawyer has no clue. I have been through this myself, not once, but twice with my teenage children. I will not go into a lot of details here, but there was an attempt to take custody away because of my blindness. This cannot continue to happen. I don’t want any other parent to go through what I did. I am 30something old, I am dedicating the rest of my living life to ensure that this does not happen. I am not also just talking about blind parents, but parents who are disabled in general. If they are capable, there is no abuse, no neglect, then leave the children in the home. If you didn’t already know from this blog, I live a very full life and am very active. I am blind, it hasn’t stopped me yet!
It was overall an awesome weekend. The weather was beautiful, nice and cool, not hot or humid. The leaves are starting to fall off the trees, and turn wonderful fall colors. The mornings are chilly. It’s a beautiful autumn in PA. Every weekend I can spend with my hubby is a good one. The only bad weekends are that they are entirely too darn short.
Thanks for reading my ramblings….More to come, next time…..
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