Parable of The Toilet Seat

Once there was a family who lived all together in a big house, on a nice street, in the good part of town. One night the wife went to use the toilet in the dark as not to disturb her sleeping husband, as he was a hard worker and she knew he needed his sleep. She was very tired also from watching their children, taking care of their home and all the numerous volunteer duties she had. In her weariness, and the pressing urgency of her bladder (brought on in part from the numerous children she had bore), she forgot to check the seat and fell in with a splash.

The howling awoke the whole family as Mother, vocally expressed her shock at the cold, wet, water that now drenched her lower body and nighgown. The husband and children all had a good laugh at poor Mothers expense, Mother cleaned herself up, got all the children put back to bed (all by herself I might add because hubby was already snoring loudly by this point) and then she was able to go back to bed herself.

Little did she and her family know what lay in wait for them……From that simple fall into the toilet bowl had set in motion a chain of events that would lead to tragedy. As the family slept so peacefully, a tiny germ, introduced through the act of falling into the germ laden toilet bowl, took hold of Mothers body.

A few days later, Mother noticed that she did not have the energy she usually possessed. She shrugged it off , as we all know that Mothers do not have time to be sick. By the time the rest of the family noticed the toil the germ was taking on dear Mother, it was too late!

The germ took over her body and then her mind, poor Mother was not herself anymore. Father came home to find dirty dishes in the sink, clothes piled knee high in the laundry room, a message on the answering machine asking that Little Johnny be picked up from Day Care. Mother had simply vanished.

As for her Family, the dishes and the clothes eventually took over the house, as there was no one to clean them with Mother gone. Little Johnny was adopted by the Day Care Center Owner, as no one ever bothered to retrieve him that day. The other children have grown up to wander aimlessly around, begging from neighbors and friends. Father has taken to finding comfort in a bottle, as there is no one left at home.

So what happened to Mother? Some say she ran away to Tahiti because she knew she was losing her mind and did not want to harm her family in any way, others say she found a cure in Fiji along with a handsome young lover who does not take her for granted and NEVER, EVER LEAVES THE SEAT UP!



--This was written in response to Niki's blog about toilet seats, it does not reflect any problem in my marriage. My sweet hubby never leaves the seat up!

Remapping

I haven't written about my cochlear implant in a while so I thought I would post an update. I have made some real progress with it over the last few months. I was picking up a lot of background noise that was driving me batty, so when I had the remap session yesterday I had her change the sensativity. It seems better today.

I still struggle in noisy environments but I think I am doing pretty good in quieter settings. Music still does not sound so great to me. The audiologist says this is pretty normal and it will take longer for my brain to process the music just because it is more complexed than voices. She did make a special program that is supposed to make music sound better and it did seem to sound a little better when we tested it in her office.

Right now, I am really more interested in becoming more proficient with understanding speech. So I am not too concerned about the music, although I do miss having music in my life. I have come so far since last year, when I first started this long journey.

Hope you are all having a blessed week. Say a little prayer for my hubby as he is sick with a sinus infection and not feeling so well. Time for darling daughter to get off the school bus so I better go! Blessings!

There's got to be a morning after.....

We held on thru the night and survived the Birthday Sleepover! Whew, glad that is done with and peace returns to this house. Baby Girl celebrated her 9th Birthday yesterday. Hubby and I took Baby Girl and three of her closest (and noisiest) friends to dinner last night.

We took the girls to The Magic Time Machine. They had a blast, we were seated in a booth shaped like a hut with little windows and the girls spent a large portion of the time hanging out the windows trying to get the cast members (waitpersons) to sign their autograph (menu) books. They would scream everytime the Johnny Depp character from Pirates of the Carribean came by. He autographed by putting his sword thru the menus, err I mean autograph books. Basically, you don't go to this place for the food but it was an evening of fun.

We returned to the house for cake, presents, dress up play, movie and some impromptu dancing by the girls. One little girl elected to go home, rather than spend the night but the other two camped out on the family room rug. We seriously started trying to get them down by midnight and I think for the most part succeeded by 1 am. It was our own who had the most trouble winding down.

Hubby got up and fixed them some breakfast this morning letting me sleep in, (he is such a sweetie, I think I will keep him!) The last girl went home about 11 and took baby girl with her! So it is quiet here again. I am glad they all had a great time and I am very glad it is over with for at least another year. You would think noise would not bother a deaf person but it just adds chaos to confusion for me.

Happy Birthday to my beloved Baby Girl, we are so glad that God has blessed us to be your parents for the last 9 years. You are growing into such a sweet young lady and we are very proud of you!

Monday Musings

Hello all, here's hoping you had a great weekend. Ours finished better than it started out.

To those who care for "rest of the story" regarding the plumber. He called about 6 pm on Thursday and asked to come out and finish the job. He arrived at 6:40 and soon was working in the dark. My daughter being the sweet thing that she is, was worried that he might cut his finger or something and wanted to go hold the flashlight for him. I assured her that if he cut himself he would come to the door and I would (maybe) call 911 for him. I was not too sympathetic towards him having to work late due to the number of bright sun shiny hours I spent waiting on him. He finished the job about 8:30 and presented me with the $225. bill, then graciously took $20 off because he was such a sweet guy. I am glad to be finished with him and do not plan to use that company again. He never even apologized for all the time he kept me waiting.

Friday we had planned to leave as soon as darling daughter got out of school for a trip to my parents house but Hubby did not know if he would be able to make the trip due to problems at work. Fortunately, he was able to work everything out and we got on the road by 5pm. The only good thing about leaving here late is that traffic thru Houston was not as bad. We arrived at my parents home around 9 45.

We celebrated darling daughter's birthday on Sat. with a family party. Granny made her a doll cake, which thrilled her. I wish I had a picture but forgot to bring the camera. We visited with my brother and his family and watched the Aggies beat Missouri! Darling daughter has money burning a hole in her pocket now, as both my parents and my brother gave her money for her birthday. We keep trying to explain to her that she might (will) get some more money for her actual birthday and if she waits she might be able to buy something really nice, rather than just nickle and dime-ing it away.

Sunday, we went to church with my parent for a Homecoming Celebration. My brother and his wife came also (quite an accomplishment as my brother does not usually go to church) and we were able to see the refurbished building. The church building lost its roof in last years Hurricane and due to the delay in being able to repair it developed mold, so it took a year to refurbish and clean up the mess inside. The church had been meeting in a little annex building for the past year and there membership had dropped way down. It was great to see some old friends and renew some relationships. I guess it was fitting that it rained all day but we enjoyed the fellowship anyway. They provided a good BBQ lunch and lots of homemade desserts.

It rained on us all the way home, making the trip thru Houston rather "hairy" but we made it home safe and sound. This week will be filled with appts., birthday shopping and birthday celebrations as Darling Daughter will turn 9 on Friday. We are having a slumber party, so please pray for us as these little girls take over our home for the evening! Blessings to all for a great week!

Why I need Prosac!

I really wanted this to be a funny post about how service people keep you waiting for them but basically I am just really ticked off about this and I can't think of anything funny about it right now. This will be a rant rather than a comedy essay (feel free to check out now)

RANT BEGINS

Monday while I was out, the yard guys came by and left a message on the machine that we had a water leak in the yard. Lo, and behold , they were correct. So I called our lovely plumbing service people to come fix it. They told me they would be there in an hour, then they called and said they would be there in a few hours, then they called and said they would be there the next morning.

Hubby came home took a look at it (I wasn't sticking my hand down that hole with frogs, snakes and who knows what else) and figured out that it was a crack in the pvc pipe leading to the pressure regulator, that above mentioned plumbing service installed last year. He had us take our baths and fill up the tubs with water so we could flush the toilets and then hubby turned off the water.

Plumber came next morning and starts working on part and it begins to rain. So he put a temporary patch on it and turned our water back on. He assured me that he would be back out early the next morning to fix it, as long as it was not raining. No problem, I even had him look at the leaky shower in the Master bath. He said he would bring the part and fix it when he finished the outside job.

So far, so good, everyone is happy. This morning I wait for him until about 10:30 and when he does not show I call his company office. Oh, he will not be able to come untill 4 pm. Why didn't he tell me that before instead of having me wait all morning for him?I had several errands to run and had lost the whole morning waiting on this guy. I told them that it was fine if he came at 4 but he had to finish the job by 5 :30 because I had to leave at 5 :30. They did not know if that would give him enough time, so they said he would come out between 8 and 10am on Thurs. That would be fine as long as he is here and finished by 10:30 because I have to leave to go to work(at the school) at 10:30. Oh well, then they will have the tech call me at 3 pm because that may not be enough time, I can talk to tech and work something out. Fine.

4:15, still no call from Tech. So I call company again, oh they just talked to Tech and he will come out between 8 and 10 tomorrow morning. "Well he better come at 8 because I will be leaving at 10:30". Oh they will give him the message but he should be there before 10 or will call me and tell me he is not going to make it. I thought I was the deaf person here! Did I not just say, he had to come early that I would leave at 10:30 and they are saying he will be here at 10 am.

So tomorrow for the 3rd day in a row I will be waiting for the plumber to show up, Anybody want to lay wagers as to if he will actually show up this time? I guess they just assume that since I am a stay at home mom that I just sit around and eat bon bons all day and have nothing better to do than wait on the %$#@ plumber!

END RANT

So say a little prayer for me tomorrow that I can control my temper and my tongue as I deal with my less than punctual plumber!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!

I know everyone thinks they have the best Mama in the whole world but I really do! I appreciate her more than she knows. She has always put me and everyone else before her own needs. She has been a wonderful Christian example and her grandaughter thinks she rocks!!!!! I hope she knows that I love her and I am so thankful that God made her my Mama!

Happy 70th Birthday Mama! Can't wait to see you next weekend!

It's Officially Fall!

I told my hubby that Fall had officially arrived last week, because I had my first "Pumpkin Spice Latte" from Starbucks! Yummy! It is funny that I like Fall so much because yellows, browns and oranges are not my favorite colors. However, I love the smell of apple cider, cinnamon and pumpkin bread baking. My favorite air freshener is the pumpkin spice oil from Bath and Body Works. I don't really like Halloween but love having pumpkins (prefer them uncarved) on the front porch. I love that I need a sweater when I walk out to the bus with darling daughter at 7 am. Here's hoping that you are enjoying this great Fall season where you are. Won't be long until it's "Soup and Chili Weather" but it needs to get a little colder.
Blessings!

First Interpreted Service

We had our first interpreted service for the deaf and hard of hearing yesterday. I think it went great. There are things we can do to make it better and to help it flow smoother and we are working on implementing those things this week. I think God was pleased with our work.

I was able to see some folks from A&M, who were in town for the A&M/ARMY game. It is always good to see familiar faces. The Aggies and the Cowboys won this weekend (how often does that happen?--Never!!!) So it was a good football weekend for our household.

Hope this week is filled with blessing for you and your families!

Crying Babies!

Tonight was my first night in Cradle roll at church in about 9 months. I usually help teach every other quarter but had to sit out the Spring quarter due to teaching a sign language class for the kids. Anyhow....it was good to be back.

Turns out there are only two kids in the class that were there when I left, all the others are new babies. The first one came in, a chubby little fellow about 4 months old, I think it was only his second time to be left in the nursery (Mom seemed a little nervous about leaving him) He was a cutie and it was great to be holding a baby again. Then the second baby came, a little girl about 6 months old. The third baby was a little boy, about 11 months old and then another little boy about a year old. Then all four started crying at once.

Fortunately, we had four sets of arms to hold them, but then we got two more, both about 18 months old or so. They were old pros at cradle roll and soon they were happily playing with the toys. There was actually one point in the evening where all the babies were happy and quiet. It did not last long though!!!!!

It is sweet to be with the babies again. I miss having a little one in the house. It is great to be able to give them back to Mom at the end of the hour too!

Pray for us!

Well, it is official now, there is no going back. Starting next Sunday our church will have interpreted services. This is really scary to me. I want this to happen, I want to open up these new doors but I am really scared of failing. We had a meeting after church this morning and had 6 or 7 that showed an interest and 3 people who were not able to come to the meeting. From that group, we have 4 people who are able to interprete so hopefully no one will burn out from too much work.

It is not a full blown deaf ministry yet, just an interpreted service on Sundays. It has to start somewhere though, and God will control how fast (or if) we continue to grow. Please keep us in your prayers. Most of the responsibility will fall on my husbands shoulders but I am his support team. Pray that people continue to show an interest in this ministry and that God blesses us.

Busy,Busy, Busy!

My In Laws are coming today. I am going to work in the copy room at school this morning. I need to pick up donut holes for Grandparents Day at school tomorrow. I need to mail a birthday present to my sister in law. I need to buy my Father in law a present for his birthday, because we are going to celebrate it early while they are in town. I should probably clean the house a little more. I need to fix something good for dinner, but will probably just pick up BBQ. Darling daughter has a doctor's appt this afternoon. I am still dragging from the cold that I had all weekend. I have already done all the laundry, changed the sheets on the beds, and cleaned the bathrooms! Whew, I am a little busy today but Praise the Lord I am able to do it all! I am blessed with so many good things in this life. I have a beautiful family, a lovely home, an exemplary school for my daughter to get her education at.

So why am I blogging when I have so much to do today?
Whoops! Better Get Going, Bye......

It's Raining!

It's raining, it's pouring!
I can't wait to start snoring!


Finally, we are getting some much needed rain.
Thank You Lord!

I hope it continues thru the night,
as I love to sleep during a rain storm!

Blessings everyone!

Blogger is having problems!

I apologize for the last post. I fixed it but blogger isn't correcting the post for me. In fact it will not even let me look at my post without going through someone elses blog to get here. I think it is a plot to drive us all insane!

The Computer Swallowed Grandma

The Computer swallowed Grandma,

yes, honestly it's true.

She pressed "control" and "enter"

and disappeared from view.

It devoured her completely,

The thought just makes me squirm.

She must have caught a virus,

or been eaten by a worm.

I've searched through the recycle bin,

and files of every kind;

I've even used the Internet,

But nothing did I find.

In desperation, I asked "Jeeves",

my searches to refine.

The reply from him was negative,

not a thing was found "online".

So if, inside your "inbox",

My grandma you should see.

Please "copy," "scan" and "paste" her

and send her back to me!

My Mom sent this to me, don't know the author or where she got it but thought it was funny and wanted to pass it on.

My Hearing History

Two people commented on my last post that they wanted to know more about how I lost my hearing and what got me to this point. I think I have covered it somewhat before on this blog but will try to give a synopsis of it.

I lost my hearing when I was 5 years old and caught the mumps from my brother. At the time, about one in every 200 cases of the mumps causes an infection in the inner ear. I was one of those lucky cases. I developed virus like symptoms and my Mom called the Doctor. He felt that it was just a virus and not related to the mumps so he did not have her bring me in. About two or three months later, my parents noticed that if I was not looking at them I could not hear them. Children adapt and I had learned to lipread.

My parents took me to the Speech and Hearing Center in Houston (about a 2 hour drive) every day for two weeks. My Dad would work the graveyard shift, get up and drive us to Houston, we would spend most of the day at the center. They were testing my hearing, fitting me with a hearing aid and counseling my parents regarding my hearing loss. Then they would drive us home and Daddy would go to work that night, only to do it all over the next day.

My hearing loss was such that the hair like nerves that line the cochlea looked like someone had taken a lawn mower and mowed out patches. The doctors recommended that they place me in the School for the Deaf in Austin. My parents refused. I was fitted with a hearing aid in one ear, the other was considered un-aid able because there was no speech recognition. I could (and still can) hear sound in my right ear but can't understand words.

So my parents sent me to a private Kindergarten (they had already planned to do this, as my brother had attended this school 5 years earlier) I did well in kindergarten and even skipped the 1st grade completely. I was mainstreamed into public school. I took some speech classes because of problems with the S and SH sounds, but I speak remarkably well for someone with such a profound hearing loss. I sound like I have an accent but I do not sound hollow like profoundly deaf people often do. I was a very verbal child and that helped me retain my speech.

School was hard for me, I was teased a lot for the hearing loss and because of my weight, some of which I am sure is genetic but a good portion I am sure was a coping mechanism too. I passed everything in school but only excelled in the subjects that I was really interested in. Everything changed during my Jr. year in high school.

The Aggies For Christ came to our church that Fall. I loved everything about it and decided come $#&& or high water I was going to A&M. Everyone told me it could not be done. My grades were not good enough, I would not score high enough on the SAT, my Dad even tried to bribe me into going to a local college (with a car and a phone in my room) but I was determined. In the end I was accepted into A&M University.

I did not recieve any special help while I was at A&M. I went to class just like everyone else, I tried to sit in the front so I could understand better and I made sure my professors knew that I might have to ask more questions than most students. It took me a little longer than most to graduate (I changed my major a few times and took a year or so off right in the middle)

While I was at A&M I became interested in learning Sign Language. I had never learned to sign before, but the A&M Church of Christ was developing a deaf ministry and offered classes. My husband and I both took classes while we were there.

We have been involved in deaf ministry ever since, with the Clear Lake Church of Christ in Houston and then later (after a job transfer) with the Fairfax Church of Christ in Fairfax, VA. I know sign language well now but have never relied on it for my sole communication.

Last Fall, I was at church and my hearing aid quit working(or so I thought). The next day I became really sick, virus type symptoms again. After many doctor appt with specialists, they still do not know what happened or why. But the end result was that my "good" ear(the one I wore the hearing aid in and could understand speech with) was gone.

The doctor told me that my only hope for hearing was with a cochlear implant. I had always resisted an implant because they often destroy what is left of your hearing when they put in the implant and I never wanted to give up what I had for fear it might not work. I had the surgery done on Dec. 29th and it was turned on in Jan.

You can go back in my blog and pick up the story there if you want to. The progress with the CI has been really slow but seems to be picking up recently. Maybe my brain has finally clicked on and is understanding the signals a little better. Hope this is what you wanted to know, feel free to ask questions. I might even answer them for you! :)

Implant Update

Several folks have asked me to update what is going on with the Cochlear Implant, so for those of you who care I will fill you in (for those of you who don't care, GO AWAY, why are you here anyhow?)

I have been doing Auditory Therapy for a few months now and had a session yesterday. The Therapist is quite pleased with my progress. She put me through a series of exercises (verbal, not physical!) to test how much I was hearing with the implant. I would guess that I was getting 75 to 80% correct.

She would cover her face and read things off to me or ask me questions from a prepared list. I am also quite surprised that I was able to understand so much. You have to take into consideration that this was a controlled environment, it was a quiet office and she was speaking very distinctly. She also tried reading newpaper headlines and that was harder for me, I had a much lower success rate with that.

Next week I go for remapping of the processor. I am hoping that this will help me enjoy the sound more, as it is quite distracting and irritating to me now. The sound is "echo-y" and very "tinnish". This program seems to amplify certain sounds while dropping others, so I am hoping for more success after the remapping next week.

Thank you to all of you who ask about my progress and encourage me with your support and prayers. Please keep them coming as this is still a very hard task which lays ahead of me. I commented to the Therapist yesterday, that hearing with an implant is hard work, it does not come easily or naturally, you have to focus and really work to understand. She agreed with that statement and said that is what many implant patients struggle with.

I miss having the little one home all day but am enjoying the peace and quiet of having the house to myself. I am able to get more done without hearing "Mama, I am bored, play with me" or "I'm hungry" or "Can I go to ______'s house?" ALL DAY LONG!!!!

Hope you are all having a great week!
Blessings

"Nuff Said!

Go back two post, do not pass go.....

For some reason, blogger posted my latest post behind my blue mama post. If you want to know how the Hawaii trip ended, go back two post and read all about it.

Been In A Blue Funk Lately!

I hurt my neck this past weekend and have just been in a blue funk all week due to the pain and just not feeling up to par! So I decided to change the template of my blog and make it match my mood. Do you like the blue or the rose better?

Oh well, it won't be long til my neck is all better and I am back to my happy self once again. Blessings to you all!

All Good Things Must End!

Thought I should finish up the saga of the Hawaiian vacation since we have been home for almost a month now. So here is the final installment: Our last day in Maui was pretty uneventful. We had breakfast at the hotel and then Hubby went and had a massage on the beach. (I put the censored in because he is a little shy about being topless on the blog!) They had a little cabana set up and he got an hour long massage. He was feeling pretty good for our trip home.

The plane left Maui on time, we had a little mix up with the gate number for our departure and for some reason we had to change seats after the first leg of our flight home but we made it to the plane and we did get First Class seating on the way back. We flew from Maui to Kona and had about an hour layover there. There was a cute statue of two Hawaiian children. That airport is built on top of a lava flow.The picture is hazy due to the airplane windows but the dark strips are lava.
This Lava looks like what you typically see in pictures. Black tar like rocks with deep cracks in them. The airport looks like they just poured the concrete airstrips right over the top of it. It was not tilled up or anything planted on it. The airport is open air with just pavillions to wait for your flight under.

The flight left Kona a little late and was running late getting into Chicago. The seats were okay but not the great beds that we had on the trip from LA to Oahu. I was spoiled after that ride. Some people slept on this flight but we were mostly awake, reading our books or watching the movies. I could watch them but could not understand the dialog, fortunately they were pretty simple movies. Ice Age 2 and The Shaggy Dog, so most of the gags were visual. We were late arriving in Chicago and had to run to a different terminal to catch our connecting flight back to Houston. They said that it would be a 2 1/2 hour flight but in reality it was only about 2 hours from Chicago to Houston. It was a little hopper plane but had the nicest flight attendants of all the flights we flew. That is probably due to the fact they were not United Employees!

We arrive in Houston about 9am and lo and behold one of our bags does not show up. So we hike over to the lost baggage desk and I stay with the other luggage while Hubby goes to the counter. Guess who is behind the desk--Rude Employee #1- the same lady who was at the ticket counter on the flight out 8 days earlier. There was no mistaking it was the same woman, she had a freaky half afro/half corn row hair do! She had not become any friendlier in the last week either. She practically threw a claim ticket at Hubby and said the bag should come in on a 10:30 flight and to call that number to have it delivered to us. So Hubby and I call the hotel to come pick us up (minus one bag) and take us to get the car. Then we decide to go get something to eat and call the airline to try to get the bag delivered to Hubby's brother's house (where we are going to get some sleep because we are both exhausted by this point)

Oh, I should meantion that brother and family are not home, they are already in Dallas waiting on us to get there to have family birthday party for Hubby's grandmother and for us to pick up darling daughter. So we stop to eat and call airline about lost bag. There was no one intelligent enough to even take the address down and tell us when the bag might be delivered to us. So hubby was getting a little hot under the collar (BTW--hubby is the calm one in the family!)He finally told them to just forget about it, we would return to the airport and pick up the bag ourself. So hubby drops me off and I go into the baggage claim area to get the bag. Now, I have my ID, my claim ticket, and my luggage stubs all ready because I figure it is going to be a hassle to get this bag. I walk up to the baggage carousel and Rude Employee #1 is pulling bags off the conveyor belt. I see my bag, walk up to her and say "that is my bag, may I have it?" She says "I guess" and I walked off with the bag. She did not ask me for any ID or Claim tags, nothing! I don't believe she knew who I was because I had not gone up with Hubby to the lost bag counter. She just let me walk off with the bag. Once I got the bag in my hand though, I high tailed it out of there before she could change her mind.

We went to BIL house and took a shower and crashed for about 4 hours. Then we went out to dinner and came back and crashed again. We got up at 5 am the next morning and drove 6 hours to hubby's grandparents home (on the TX/OK border) and surprised his grandmother at her birthday party! Darling Daughter was happy to see us and waited a whole 90 seconds before asking "what did you bring me"? We enjoyed spending time with hubby's extended family before heading back to the Dallas area to hubby's parents house.

The next day was Sunday, so after going to church with his family (13 of us) we had a nice lunch at his parents before returning home (5 hour drive) Boy was it good to be back home and sleep in our own beds.