Welcome!

I'm not new to talking, sharing ideas, or stating my opinion, especially stating my opinion! After all, I taught elementary school for 30 years! However, my audience has typically been smaller,just family, the classroom, or just talking to myself!

My blog has two goals: be an outlet for sharing thoughts on writing children's books and the path to publication (got my fingers crossed that I'll get there) and a place to chronicle my journey of losing my sight. Sometimes I imagine these two paths will overlap .


Friday, November 20, 2009

Visualeyes 6

It will be hard to top my last post! I just loved all those reasons to be happy without a car :-) Although I suspect the day the car gets sold and goes away permanently(gulp) will be an emotional day, I am trying to embrace this new phase with "vigor." The dictionary gives the following definitions for vigor:
1. Physical or mental strength, energy, or force.
2. The capacity for natural growth and survival
3. Strong feeling; enthusiasm or intensity.
4. Legal effectiveness or validity.
 
I think I've really picked the exact word for my actions. I'm heading to the mass transit office (not right this second, but next week on Monday) to obtain a monthly pass for those with disabilities. While I don't classify myself as "disabled," legally I am, so I'm taking advantage of the 40% savings. Who wouldn't prefer to pay 90 cents instead of $2.00 for a bus/train ride? A monthly, unlimited rides bus pass is usually $60, but now I can get 40% off that. (You do the math, percentages make me goofy.) There's definitions #1 and 4 in place.
 
As for #3, well, I'm taking on the city of Dunwoody. On their web site, there's a place to suggest city repairs. The sidewalk between my condo and the the street I must walk on in order to get the bus has many cracked sections and parts where the sidewalk has dropped lower. Twice I have twisted my ankle in walking over this area. So I've put in a repair ticket today suggesting it needs to be fixed soon. The ticket has a place to list the level of importance for the repair- low, medium, high, critical. I started out with high trying to be fair to all the other tickets I assumed were out there. But by the time I finished writing the description and mentioned that someone I knew HAD fallen there and broke an ankle, plus the fact that when I begin to use a white cane, the tip can get caught resulting in falling, I decided the need was definitely critical. Well it is to me!!! So we'll see if the city follows through on this issue. They don't know me yet, but I have a tendency to be persistent about things that matter to me. Yeah, yeah, I hear some of you out snickering and saying "you mean obsessive, don't you?" You use your words and I'll use mine. OK? Fine.

Definition #2 is the most important of the four to me. I am all about survival and for me, survival means I need to grow. This journey can be frustrating and painful and makes you want to scream sometimes. But in the end, I either grow and make the necessary changes and adapt, or just become a hermit and stay in my jammies all day, everyday. While staying in your jammies doesn't sound so bad, I'm the kind of person who needs to be out doing SOMETHING every day. I don't have to go shopping, but I do need to go somewhere, even if it's just for a walk. I get "cabin fever" in record-setting time. So the second definition of vigor is the one I like the best. Onward blind voyagers with vigor!!!!  Okay, I took literary license there, I'm not blind yet but would it has sounded as good if I'd said" onward voyagers with limited vision, with vigor"????? I don't think so.

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