Running Hard

I can't believe how fast some days can pass by. My last blog entry was 3 days ago.

Thursday was a full day. I was busy at work, mostly helping our Executive Director put together a slide presentation via PowerPoint. Then I had to stop by a client's house after work. Only they weren't going to be home, but at their daughter and son-in-law's home, which happened to be just off my route going home so we made plans to meet there. Then I stopped at Jo-ann to buy some butterfly appliques for a dog scarf I'm making. I ended up getting home close to 7pm.

The presentation was nowhere being done, and was needed by Monday at 2pm, so I volunteered to come in yesterday to complete it (this was after our ED said could I just show him how to put the photos into PowerPoint -- uh, he's nearly computer illiterate so that wasn't going to work). It took the entire day, I didn't take lunch, breaks, wasn't visited by any talkative coworkers. We ended up having to leave home at 4:40am because I had to take my dh to his sister's house, where he is repairing her barn. We arrived at her home at 6am, and I was at work by 6:35am. Everyone was saying we are crazy, but it was either that -- spend 2 hours driving, or spent 3 or more hours driving once the traffic got going or should I say the freeways turned into parking lots. I was amazed at the amount of traffic already on the freeways by 5am!

I took a LOT of pictures for the presentation. On Thursday, I tagged along for an orientation and mobility lesson for one of our clients. This particular client is a young man, who in spite of being blind (I'm not sure if he is totally blind, or if he can discern light from dark) walks very fast. I had to walk as fast as I could, just to keep up. But I needed to get ahead of them to take pictures of them coming toward me, and so I spent quite a while RUNNING. Plus the sun was in the wrong position and so I had to compensate my position when possible to accomodate that.

Now, at my weight, I don't run very fast, nor do I run very often. Also, since I was a child, I've HATED running with a passion. But I really needed to stay ahead of them, so run I did, in a dress and dress shoes no less (thank God I only ever wear flats). LOL. I would say I probably ran at least 1/2 of a mile. Because the lesson was a 1/2 mile away, and we walked down there and back. The client was practicing crossing the streets of a busy intersection. I took 138 photos on the way there and back. I got a LOT of excellent footage! I think we should just make a presentation on that alone! I know one of the secrets to getting good pictures is to take lots of pictures. Boy, digital cameras sure do offer that option. I seem to have a knack though for getting good pictures. I created a vision loss simulation a few years ago, and I only had four photos available in the camera. It was our first digitial camera, and we didn't even have a memory card for it yet. So it only held four high resolution pictures at once. I actually took the photos in the days following 9-11. I took the photos at our local zoo, which is near the airport. The planes were still grounded, and it was so serene and quiet without the overhead noise.

I digress. People don't know much about the travel procedures for people who are blind or visually impaired. For example, my MIL saw a blind man leaving our agency a week ago, and was concerned because he didn't have his DOG with him. I had to explain to her that people are not allowed to own a guide dog, unless they can travel alone with a cane.

By the way, if you are a young person, or you know of a young person looking for a good career in the helping field, tell them to look into becoming an Orientation and Mobility instructor. They are always in demand, they make *good* money (I've seen from $25/hour to $45/hour), they get to be outdoors, they are always very slender from all the daily exercise of walking their clients around and orienting them to their neighorhood, how to get to work, to the store, school, wherever they travel, they need orientation. Even around their home, job, school campus. You can get a job anywhere there is a blind agency.

Yesterday, I met our O&M instructor down at a building that has stairs, where he gave another client a lesson in how to climb stairs using the cane to guide her steps. I drove down to that lesson, and then gave them a ride back home. Then I tagged along while he trained a client in bus travel. We went down the road a couple of miles, got off the bus, then reboarded the next bus going back the opposite direction.

Turns out this client is a Native American who had a grandfather who was one of the last chiefs and they think he lived to be 130 years old! They aren't sure of his actual birthdate, but he always used his baptismal certificate as a birth certificate and he was baptized when he was 14 or 15 years old. He was 115 when he died in 1954.

Digressing again... It took me 9 hours to complete the presentation, between taking photos, then photoshopping the photos, sizing them and placing them in PowerPoint. The ED set up some photos for me to shoot, and he chose which of the 138 O&M photos we should use, and he chose pictures from our photo database. We got a lot of good pictures in the last couple of days. I'm excited about it! I printed out all the pictures he had to choose from, then cut them into individual photos (6 printed on each page) and then he put them in order. He's going to write the verbage for each photo in the presentation. I think there are almost 90 photos.

Anyway, I've just been really busy in the past few days. As usual. And this weekend won't be any less busy. I have to get the kidding/birthing kit assembled!! It is now TWO WEEKS until our first doe is due to kid. Today is grocery shopping, which always takes several hours.

We have also been hauling water for some of our neighbors whose well is down. Five people are on this well, and we've already taken them 3000 gallons of water. It takes 1 hour to get 1000 gallons of water. We are hoping that they are all being conservative with their water usage! They did pay us $20 for the first 1000 gallons. It costs us $4.00 from the well, then there is the hour of our time.

About the dog scarf. Apparently there is some little dog that is called a butterfly dog. Papillon. Anyway, I'm going to crochet a scarf which will be wider at the ends, then narrower around the neck. I'm crocheting it in neon colors, then I'm going to sew the little green butterflies I got from Jo-Ann to the ends of it. I'll post a picture when it's done.