Browse Category: life

Check!

I went to the first part of a 3-day workshop today and discovered that my instructor was deaf. I didn’t actually realize it until she started signing while she spoke. Huh? She’s speaking perfectly with just a bit of a Virginian accent. (I only knew it was Virginian because she told us.) It just sounded a little Canadian to me. (Pronounces “mouth” more like “mooth”). Anyway, it was amazing. I guess she was born hearing (which she loved), then became hard-of-hearing (which she hated), and then completely deaf (which she’s fine with). I suppose it’s better to be one or the other. She also had an interpreter seated in the audience to act as her ears whenever we asked questions. It seemed so natural. She was an effective speaker, an entertaining teacher, and as we saw in the video clips she presented, a great therapist.
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On a side note…much of today’s lecture was going over normal development of an infant from birth to 18 months. She had an awesome handout that laid out gross motor, fine motor, oral motor, language, and cognitive development for each age group (clusters of three months). It was a very good review and now I have something to easily refer to when I have my own rugrat. I can just imagine having a crumpled version of the handout tucked in my back pocket to constantly keep track. Oh…I’m sure the therapist in me will be feeding my baby and saying, “Tongue lateralization? Check. No rotary chew yet?! Oh no! You’re behind!” How annoying is that?!

I’d like to file a complaint.

For those who have been to my house or know my husband, we have a house filled with gadgets, gizmos, and random hard drives and do-hickeys lying around the house. Let’s just say my “Network Administrator” may need to be fired. Here are several examples:

When my dad comes over and wants to watch tv he sits on the couch with a puzzled look on his face. Why? Well, it’s because we have 4 remote controllers sitting in a glass vase like a bouquet of buttons to push. Well, it usually takes holding down one particular button to get the tv/cable to turn on. But, if you don’t live here you would never know that.

Most people have speakers or something that they can plug their iPod into so they can enjoy their music at home. We have something like that…sort of. It usually involves turning on my laptop, connecting to the network, using some random url that changes frequently, and learning a new “iTunes-type” program to play my favorite songs. *sigh* Just two minutes ago, I was happily listening to the Black Eyed Peas to find it cut off abruptly. I look over at the Admin and he says, “the network will be down momentarily for rebooting”. Once again…*sigh*. Oh yeah, did I mention that I would also need to find the special button among the bouquet of remotes to switch the input on the dvd player so I can hear my music? Yes…another step.

Anyone have a printer that’s connected to their computer at home? Well, we have three printers upstairs in our “library”. One of them usually works. The other two? Questionable. It depends on whether the network is working properly or if the server is turned on or not. I admit that it’s pretty cool when everything is working but that’s been pretty sketchy lately.

Ever been to my house on a lazy Sunday afternoon? You’ll find me digging in the backyard or doing some laundry and the Admin comfortably seated on the couch hacking away. We sort of have a “fun with compiling” song and dance now. I don’t really understand Linux but apparently it takes a bit of trial and error and lots of compiling for it to all work. If my Admin ever gets up to do something productive in the house (i.e. take out the trash or walk the dog), it means his laptop is running a long string of letters and numbers that I don’t understand and he’s just looking for a way to kill time. Interesting.

Oh what fun it is to live in the “Futuristic Gadget House of Tomorow”. I need a new Admin.

Hold on to what you have and embrace it.

I don’t get it. These past 6 months have been a little eerie.

Back in December, Marie travelled to NYC with her parents, 9-month old baby, and grandmother. On their flight home, her grandmother had a stroke. After a couple days in the hospital she recovered with a little bit of weakness on the left side of her body. Phew!

A couple weeks ago, I found out that my grandmother in Thailand had a stroke in her sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning. My dad and uncle dropped everything and flew a red-eye to Thailand. Fortunately, she woke up a few days later with her memory intact and no major complications. Yay!

Just yesterday, we find out that Jes’ grandma has cancer in her thyroid. So far, she’s had two surgeries to remove the malignant tumors and will start radiation treatment as soon as she regains her strength. She’s alert and already walking around but it’s going to be a tough road ahead for her and the family. *sigh*

All of a sudden mortality takes a front row seat in my life. It’s as if God needed to bonk me on the head real quick to help me realize that life is short and that we have to make the most of what we have NOW. This sure does put a little spin on Mother’s Day this year.

When in doubt…

hit it with a hammer. Today, Jesse decided to be a responsible homeowner and flushed out the water heater. It started out well. He turned the heater to “Pilot only”, hooked up the garden hose to the front of the heater, and started to drain the water out of the tank. There were a couple hiccups involving releasing the pressure but turning on several different faucets in the house but all went well. That is, until it was time to refill and heat it back up. All I know is that I was in the livingroom folding laundry and I hear this water spraying out of pipe that sticks out of our patio wall. I never knew what that was for and nothing ever came out of it…until now. Apparently it’s to release water when there’s too much pressure in the water heater. I then heard some banging coming from the garage. Uh oh…that can’t be good. Then I saw Jesse checking his laptop, running up the stairs, out the door, back to the garage and back up the stairs with a hammer in his hand! A hammer?! Well, then the water stopped dripping out of the pipe and the banging stopped. Jesse came back to the livingroom with a proud look on his face. I asked, “Is everything ok?” and he said, “Yep, when in doubt, hit it with a hammer!” Hm…then I asked, “where did you get that idea?” and he replied with, “the internet”. OK, boys and girls, the Lesson for the Day is: Google can teach you anything.

Mellow Day

It’s officially my last few hours of Spring Break. *sigh* What to do?! I guess I can say that it was nice to have the week off. I was kinda productive, yet I’m not sure where all the time went. Fortunately I had a pretty mellow Sunday.
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In the morning I dragged the husband, brother, and dog to the river bed for a 3-mile jog. Since it rained the night before, there was plenty of flowing water in the river and a few ducks and birds to see. Once we got home, we had breakfast and watched a little TV. Then we went to the mall to buy some new livingroom furniture to replace the set that we gave to Johnny. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazying around and going to the dog park. I thought it was a pleasant way to end my Spring Break. I’m just dreading all the work I have to do tomorrow. I didn’t do a lick of work this week. I’m gonna get my butt kicked this coming week.

sittin’ all day

Luckily I went for a run this morning because I pretty much made a dent in the couch from sitting in the same spot all day. Dayantha also made his own dent on the other couch too since he spent the day with me at home. He was doing research on rentals in Hawaii for our August trip and I finished Holly’s invitation (my first official Photoshop CS2 project!). I think the only time we got up was to have some lunch. What a great way to spend my last day of Spring Break. Oh yeah, I ran a 30:05 5K today…I’m getting close!