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We are finally in a temporary lull of summer–baseball is over and we have a few days before school begins. I took the kids up to Christie Lake to spend a few days with my parents and sister and my cousin, her kids and her mom from Missouri.

The lake was unbelievably empty. Twenty years ago, the lake was so busy that one had to weave a path through the boats and the skiers. There were several of us who skied a couple times a day. Today, it seems as if families are so busy that they only spend a few weekends at the lake. I recall entire summers spent at the lake with a group of friends–we swam and skied all day and always managed to find things to do.

My cousin and I bobbed in the lake for over an hour while the sun was going down. The kids jumped from the pontoon and swam around us. Every now and then, the pontoon would drift away and one of the kids would drive it back. It was one of those rare summer days where one could sit back and appreciate the down time.

I remind my kids every summer how fortunate they are to have those lazy days at the lake.

Sometime last year, I did a search for authors who are deaf or hard of hearing. I came across Dawn Colclasure and her book, Burning The Midnight Oil: How We Survive As Writing Parents. A quick visit to her website, Books By Dawn Colclasure, and I found her email address. On a whim, I emailed her, asking her how she got started with her writing. We began emailing back and forth as I started my forage into publishing some of my own works.

That initial email turned into an online friendship. Dawn and I often chat several times a week via instant messaging. Author of five books, Dawn is hard at work writing a few more. “My first book was a novel called NOVEMBER’S CHILD. At the time I wrote it, I thought it would be a suspense or mystery book, but the publishing company made it a horror novel, which I wasn’t really convinced it was,” said Dawn.

One of Dawn’s popular books is 365 Tips for Writers. Her love for writing came at a young age. “I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember,” said Dawn. “I started writing poetry and then moved on to short stories, then longer stories and plays. It was never a matter of deciding to write; I just started doing it and kept doing it since.”

Rejection and frustration are a part of every writer’s life, but Dawn encourages other writers to keep trying. “It’s easy to get frustrated by rejections, writer’s block and competition from your peers. The hard part is trying to get published, writing your book, and getting yourself out there.”

“Once you reach those goals,” Dawn continued, “Once you look those frustrations in the eye and say ‘you will NEVER crush me!’ that’s when you’ll know that you’re on your way to making your writing dreams come true. Write what you want, when you want and be what you want with your writing. There’s no limit to how far you can go as a writer!”

After a full day of workshops at the Hands & Voices Leadership Conference last Friday, I headed over to the director’s cabin to kick back. We played a rousing game of “Truth or Lie,” where each person stated one truth and one lie about themselves and we had to guess which was which. It was a great way to get to know everyone else in a casual atmosphere.

I decided to hop into the hot tub in the back of the cabin with Stephanie, another deaf mom. I was hoping that the hot water would provide some relief from the pain in the my leg. We noticed a bird fluttering around the ceiling but we shrugged as we hopped into the tub.

A short time later, the bird settled on the window blinds. We took one look at the bird, one look at each other–and we both began to scream.

It was a bat.

Several people came running from the living room to find out what we were screaming about. Fortunately, Laura Godfrey from Minnesota was one of the moms who came in. She works at a zoo. Without batting an eye (sorry, I couldn’t resist!), she took off her jacket and wrapped it around the bat–releasing it outside. The bat wasn’t too happy and deposited a little smelly stuff on her jacket.

Thanks, Bat Woman–you saved the day!

Created by my 11-year-old daughter–need I say more?

Brought to you by: Wordless Wednesday.

At the Hands & Voices Leadership Conference, we joined in on an icebreaker activity that consisted of tossing a huge ball of colorful yarn around the room. Once you placed your finger on your share of the yarn, you had to share a bit about yourself or your deaf/hard of hearing child. If you landed on blue–you shared a recent success–yellow, a phobia–green, a struggle you encountered, and so on.

As I was reflecting about the conference, I was thinking about all the wonderful people I’ve been blessed to encounter through the years via Hands & Voices. My own journey of raising three deaf and hard of hearing kids has had some twists and turns while dealing with their education and I’ve learned so much in four short years of being with Hands & Voices.

I wanted to share an article written by Holly Thomas-Mowery which was a presentation at the 2004 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EDHI) conference in Washington, D.C.:

Honoring Each Family

I think article sums up beautifully the icebreaker activity–we’re all connected and we need each of us (parents, professionals, deaf and hard of hearing adults) so that every deaf and hard of hearing child can reach their fullest potential.

I spent four days at Peaceful Valley Ranch for the annual Hands & Voices board meeting and Leadership Conference. The photo above was taken from a bridge right outside the dining room. The area is incredibly rustic and simply beautiful.

Four full days of workshops and connecting with parents, professionals, deaf and hard of hearing adults from all over left me quite exhausted, yet uplifted. Just four years ago, Hands & Voices had only three chapters. Today, 36 states are involved and committed to “What works for your child is what makes the choice right.”

Every year, we show a short, but very powerful video, “The Time is Now,” which is a collection of individuals sharing a message: Now is the time to make changes for every deaf and hard of hearing child.

After the video, Leeanne Seaver, the executive director, asked each of us to stand up and give the names of the individuals that we are working together for.

One by one we stated them: “This is for Dane, Maddie, Sara, David, Lauren, Steven, Joshua, Danielle, Elizabeth…” and around the room we went until we were all standing together–

“And for every deaf and hard of hearing child in this world.”

Last week, I was having some intermittent leg pain. I complained to the hubby and he tried to get me to go to the doctor. I decided to wait it out, because I’ve had various pains in the past that go away after some time.

On Friday night, after my son’s baseball game, we were heading to the van to go back to the in-law’s house and my leg started to really hurt. By the time we reached the van, I was limping.

A few hours later, the pain was pretty bad. My mother-in-law had some Darvocet left over from a dental visit. Neither of us is into medicine and we rarely have any in the house. “Give it to me,” I told her. The pain was intense at that point and I was ready to down a bottle of tequila.

I went to bed and tried to do some hypno-breathing to work through the pain. I figured it was a charley horse of some type and would subside soon.

It didn’t. The pain became worse, a sharp searing pain. I couldn’t bend to get out of bed. My leg was numb from the hip down to the knee and knotted in pain. I’m no wimp when it comes to pain– heck, I birthed my youngest kid at home and that pain was nothing like this. I crawled to the van and we headed off to the hospital.

Joe and I debated whether or not to get an interpreter. I was in so much pain and I figured if we asked for one, they would delay treatment until the interpreter arrived. So we decided not to. The staff at Palos hospital was really indifferent to providing pain relief. X-rays and an ultrasound ruled out thrombosis and clots. It took hours to be seen by a doctor, who gave me all of two minutes and proclaimed it a muscle spasm.

While in the bathroom, I tried to get up and fell to the floor. I was doubled over in so much pain and couldn’t get up. I hit the nurse call button and waited. And waited. And waited. No one came. I finally hollered out, “Can someone please help me!” and then the door opened. Several nurses helped me up.

I ended up with a shot, Vicodin, Motrin and Valium and was still in pain. “There’s nothing more we can do for you” they said as they gave me crutches and wheeled me out the door. On the way out, I tried to explain that I was extremely thirsty and quite dehydrated. Maybe an IV with fluids would help, I inquired? They rolled a finger over the veins in my hand and said, “No, you’re fine.”

So for two days, I took three different pills and didn’t get much relief.

At home, looking up “muscle spasms” I discovered that they can indeed be triggered by dehydration as well as low calcium and potassium levels. A follow up visit to my regular doctor had him guessing tendonitis and admitting that he really didn’t know what was wrong. He prescribed more powerful pain meds. My purse now looks like a hypochondriac’s collection of orange bottles.

I jokingly told my husband that I should have stuck to the idea of hitting the tequila instead.

Back in May, 2007, I came across a compilation of books with deaf and hard of hearing characters on Myshelf.com

Now there’s more:

Sharon Pajka-West, Ph.D., loves books with deaf and hard of hearing characters in them. She provides extensive reviews on her blog: Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature. An instructor at Gallaudet in the Department of Applied Literacy, Sharon was diagnosed with Meneier’s Disease at the age of fifteen. A doctor told her she would be deaf by the time she was 30.

In her twenties, Sharon’s hearing began fluctuating so she and her mom enrolled in American Sign Language class together. Her instructor urged her to consider a career in Deaf Education.

“I never wanted to be a teacher,” says Sharon. “My first ASL teacher, a graduate of Gallaudet, convinced me to go to graduate school there.”

Sharon taught for eight years, first at The Learning Center in Boston and at The Virginia School for the Deaf in Staunton, then a year in a mainstream school. “I like teenage kids, they’re fun!”

Sharon tries to instill a love for books with the students she teaches. “Many of my students hated English… which I could understand because I wasn’t a big fan until middle school when I discovered the Sweet Valley Twins series. Before that I was a struggling reader.”

On her blog, Sharon has a variety of information, including interviews with authors, book reviews and a newsletter for teachers. She keeps an extensive list of over one hundred books of Adolescent Literature Books with Deaf Characters.

When asked about her favorite books, Sharon shares, “From the hearing authors, I really like Jean Ferris’ Of Sound Mind. And from the deaf authors, I really enjoyed Nobody’s Perfect(Marlee Matlin and Doug Cooney– who is hearing).

Sharon has a seven hour commute to her job, four days a week. “It may seem crazy,” she says, “but I do take the train.”

“Lots of time to read!” she says, with a wink.

There’s a new music video out with the song, “Waiting on the World to Change” by John Mayer visually communicated using American Sign Language. There’s a little girl in there who is completely adorable as she signs “waiting for the world to change.”

It is not captioned, so here are the lyrics:

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could
Now we see everything is going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Its hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would’ve never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
When you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cuz when they own the information ooohhh,
They can bend it all they want

So while we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

We’re still waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population

So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
No, we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change
Waiting on the world to change.

I did write to the creators and asked them to add the lyrics to the video so that it would be accessible to those who are not familiar with American Sign Language.

One part that greatly saddened me was to see my friend Mary Koch quoted in a way that was taken completely out of context. Mary is a strong supporter of families with deaf and hard of hearing children and she works with all communication modes. Here’s what Mary had to say:

“I saw the beautiful video ‘Waiting for the World to Change.’ It is awesome. However, I was shocked and saddened to see a quote with my name associated with it: “We think the deaf need to be fixed.” I know where the quote came from, and it is accurately quoted. I was, at the time, working on a cochlear implant team at Johns Hopkins. I was, however, describing to a reporter the controversy between the medical and the cultural perspectives toward deafness. As an employee of Hopkins, I began my statement with the word ‘we’ instead of ‘the medical community.’ I am forever sorry that that quote is associated with me, and not with its proper context in the medical community.

As a Gallaudet graduate (masters in deaf education), I have spent my entire 30+ year career advocating for CONNECTION–any way we can, as human beings deaf AND hearing. I have fought for children’s rights to sign. I resigned from a job (as sole supporter of my family) because I was told I could not sign with a child. I served on the NAD committee to rewrite their position paper on cochlear implants. I have stood in the middle of the battlefield, and taken many shots from both sides–I, too, am waiting for the world to change.

The quote is everything that I am not. The video is beautiful and should be viewed by millions. However, I am so very, very sad that my mission in life will be so misrepresented in the process.”

UPDATE:

The staff from D-Pan removed Mary Koch’s quote from the video.

In the middle of dreaming about next year’s vacation, I stumbled upon RealTravel–a travel blog site where others can blog about their trips around the world.

I spent a good hour reading about other people’s trips. The travel pictures on this site are just beautiful. The site is addictive. For example, I clicked on Go_Girl’s entry about her trip to Potosi, Bolivia and I was transported to a city that I had never heard about. Go_Girl shared her day in Potosi with a few recommendations tossed in. She ended her journal entry with a Spanglish slip of the tongue:

Spanglish spoonerism/Freudian slip of the day (by the tour guide at the mint as she described the Spaniards conversion of the locals):
Catholicollision (instead of Catholicism)”

RealTravel.com also has a section featuring deals scouted by their travel editors:

RealTravel Deals

There’s also a section that gives advice on “Things to Do” and a forum where you can ask specific questions to other travelers.

However, the search engine on the site leaves a bit to be desired. While doing a search for Wisconsin Dells, it tossed in some irrelevant sites and didn’t narrow down the search as I had hoped. You’ll certainly stumble on even more travel articles using the search feature!

And finally, check out this couple that took a one year journey around the world: 365 Days Around the World.