Blog-Ready

I have been attending many of my nephew's little league games, and one thing I keep hearing the parents and coaches telling their boys is to be "baseball-ready". Little league is about more than baseball, life lessons are folded into a game that they love.

I need to be blog-ready, prepared for when ideas come my way. I want this blog to be successful, and I promise to secure my cap, punch my glove to create a pocket, check my position and find my stance. And ALWAYS use two hands. When the content comes my way, whether it's a grounder, a pop-up or a line drive, it won't get by me.

The nine and ten-year-olds aren't the only ones learning some life lessons.

The Start Of Something Wonderful

When my mom passed away three years ago, I brought home all her photographs. I didn't have a chance to look at them before my vision loss a few months later. Now that I have my CC TV Magnifier, I have begun to go through them.

Amid the many photos of my grandparents at the age I am now (WOW!), people I don't know, my mom when she was a teenager, then newly married, and as a new mom at 24 when my brother was born, I found one picture I didn't even know I was hoping to find.

I stared at this picture for a long time, enlarging the magnification to study my mom's face, then decreasing the size so I could see myself in her arms. At this moment in time, we couldn't have imagined what our relationship would become. Heck, I didn't even know where my feet were. But fifty years later, she is gone and what we became was wonderful.

This is the oldest photo I have of us together, and there's not another one of us until my teenage years. My mom gave me the gift of life, and so many gifts during our 47 years with each other. Now, three years after her passing, one last perfect gift.

I'll Show You Scary

Because I cannot ride the stationary bike everyday mentally, I purchased a portable DVD player for watching workout videos. I can put the player on the floor or dresser, and get it close to my eyes and see it well enough to follow along, whether I am doing floor work or standing exercises.

The video I have been doing lately is Mel B's Totally Fit. Mel B is a Spice Girl and her name in the group is Scary Spice. However, she is very supportive and encouraging throughout her video, and with her British accent, even the word "bum" is soothing and sounds like something said around Downton Abbey's grand dinner table. 

The frightening part of this workout is happening not from within the DVD player, but from the person viewing and doing it, me! That's where the terror lies. And with my American accent, there is no gilding the horror. Not only is my body getting a workout but so is my unbecoming language arsenal and thoughts only brought forth by misery. 

Now I finally understand why people go to gyms. This way, all the suffering is centralized. No such luck for my family. Spooky Sister Rain works out at home. 

FREEDOM

Date:

July 4, 2015

Time:

8:30 a.m.

Location:

30 miles from Philadelphia

18 miles from Valley Forge

The Scene:

Two hundred little league players, three hundred spectators, at five fields within a seven-field complex.

Hats over hearts.

All eyes on the flag.

The Only Sound:

Our National Anthem

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!

A Par-fect Day

My husband and I spent the day with our 9-year-old nephew. It was a beautiful summer day and the boys spent some time at the batting cages and then we all played a round of miniature golf.

I had not played mini golf in ten years and although I had decided days ago that I would play, I had no idea how it was going to go. How was I going to aim for a hole that I couldn't see? I didn't even thnk about all the hilly walking and crooked steps with no railings.

Without any prompting, my incredibly smart, intuitive, caring nephew went to the green at each hole and showed me where the ball needed to go. He also took my hand and let me use his shoulder when the walking got tricky.

I never made a hole in one, but I didn't do too badly, and I managed to stay upright throughout the course. One thing I continue to work on is learning to savor my achievements and not downplay my accomplishments. Today I did something I didn't think was possible, and it didn't even seem as hard as it was. Par-tly because I wasn't letting my vision situation stop me from fully par-ticipating in today and par-rly because of  a boy with a huge heart.

The Universe Can Be A Brat

I was recently at an event with a mix of family, friends and strangers, where people came and went throughout the day. At one point, a very close friend arrived unbeknownst to me, and was talking to someone else, about five feet from me. When we both looked at each other, I had no idea who they were because I couldn't see their facial features, and yet they had no idea I didn't know them.

Of course this person knows I am legally blind, but I don't look it and I get around so well that even people closest to me, well, they forget.

A few weeks have passed since the event and still that feeling is with me. It hurt that that person didn't know the struggle I was in to identify them, and I hated  my complete inability to know who they were.

This was a small moment of time within this huge journey I am on. But it seems as though just when you are finding your stride, you're at this event with lots of moving parts and doing well within it, when the universe taps you on the shoulder, with its thumbs in its ears and fingers waving at you, and it sticks its tongue out at you and says, "You have limited vision, you have limited vision!"

Sure, THAT I can see.

Hold The Pickle

Riding the stationary bike between breakfast with a dear, wonderful friend and lunch with another dear, wonderful friend is like a sandwich on the freshest, most delicious bread but with tongue in the middle.