Pause

I did vision therapy from the spring of 2019 until January of 2021. My vision doctor, Dr. Davis, underestimated how much time I would need in vision therapy. 

A few weeks before vision therapy ended, I felt sad that it was ending because I felt like I was finally starting to make progress. And I also started to feel that we were building stamina and beginning new habits with my eye muscles. 

My vision therapist asked me if I felt I could use more therapy and I completely agreed. 

We talked about it and both mutually agreed that my life has been in turmoil in so many ways and maybe taking a break from therapy for now was a good idea. And give my life some time to calm down. Then I could have some healing space in my life for the many ways I need that. 

After a while, I could resume therapy for another 6 months to a year. 

So I am taking a break with vision therapy. I am now concentrating on things in my life OTHER than therapy, including trying to find a new home for my boys and me to live in. 

I find a nice place that checks all the boxes, and by the time I find out about it, 4-5 people have already applied. It costs $30-40 for each application for me. It turns out that now that my son is 18, I will have to pay this same fee for him to apply too. Sigh. It’s so expensive. Did you know that this application fee is also a way to keep a neighborhood more, well, snooty? A poor person couldn’t afford all this nickel and diming and application fees (over and over, only to be refused each time as I have). The fees add up!

So I found another house. Loved it. Checked all the boxes. And 4 applications were already in. I didn’t even get the opportunity to apply for this one — they chose someone the next day. 

It’s a crazy housing market right now. 

I hope, in the Spring, that enough houses will come on the market and I can get one for my boys and me and others can get their houses too. 

Anyway, so, for now, I am concentrating on finding a new home to live in. 

I hope you’re having a nice and cozy winter and I will post again next week. 💛

Spinning

Do you remember being a little kid having fun spinning in chairs?

 

My grandparents’ house had these cool wicker barstools at their kitchen counter and I spun and spun and spun on those things. 

Growing up, my favorite summer fun fair ride was the one that is a big cylinder. Everyone lines on the inside of the wall of the cylinder. It gets spun and the centripetal force keeps everyone glued to the walls. And the floor drops down. I loved that ride!

On the cool playgrounds, there was a big metal circle merry-go-round with metal bars to hang onto. I loved those too! I had my own technique of sitting pretzel-legged around one of the bats and hugging it so I could stay on and spin extra fast. That was my talent. 

As I have grown up, my life has given me fewer and fewer times to exercise this fun spin experience. I see astronauts in movies or tv shows in those spinning contraptions and I have to admit, I am always jealous. I would love one of those things in my home so I could spin any time I want to. 

Early in my vision therapy journey, one of the things I was diagnosed as having issues with is proprecoception issues. I think that’s the right word. It has to do with either my inner ear or where I am in space. One or both of those. 

The first time my vision therapist had me spin, I stood up and looked about a foot or two away from myself, at the ground / carpet. And she had me spin once. Slowly. I got dizzy. It made me feel so sad that I couldn’t spin like I used to. I used to be able to stand up in my grandmother’s front yard by her garden where she was weeding, and spin and spin and spin until I got so dizzy. And I would try to stand up, dizzy, but sometimes I would fall down. 

And here I was at the vision doctor therapy room and I could barely spin 2 times in a row, slowly. 

My therapist had me turn very carefully with my feet, a slow quarter turn at a time. 

Later, she put me on a big, square wooden plank suspended from chains overhead. I sat on it, pretzel-legged, with my eyes closed, and she spun me so slowly. 

The first few times she did this, I could only go maybe 70% or the way around. Not all the way around. 

As time went by, we were able to get me up to 3 spins around I think. Nice, slow spins. 

I need to remember to try to spin myself in my own office chair at my desk. It would be fun to remember to do it more often, and see if I can get back to the place I remember of spinning on those wicker bar stools at my grandparents’ house when I was a little kid. 

Centripetal force is so much fun. 

Parenting

I may or may not have mentioned that I have 2 kids. Well, this week, one of them stopped officially being a kid. He is now 18 years old!

Earlier this month, he passed his drivers license test so now he can drive without me helping him. And now, all of a sudden, he can vote, travel, get a job and open a bank account without my signature. Holy moly. 

I read a few years ago that with parenting - days are slow but years go fast. I agree completely. 

To celebrate, I am taking both of my boys to pizza for dinner at our favorite locally owned pizza place. It was the birthday boy’s choice to go to pizza. I am so glad that he hasn’t outgrown a love of pizza. 

His school has been full-time remote this years thanks to the whole Covid-19 situation. Today is his first school activity in approximately a year - he is on a team sport. They have met over zoom a few times and tonight they are doing a 15-person practice together. My son drove us to the school. It happens to be his elementary school from way back when. 

It is his senior year in high school because holy moly, of course it is, and he is one of the two leaders on this sports team this year. 

I spend the bulk of my days just trying to get through them, thanks to my disabilities, end also parenting and the perpetual feeding and cleaning up after feeding 2 teen age boys. (Don’t start lecturing me on making them clean up - they do a LOT now, because they know I can’t do everything and they are capable, helpful and kind. Maybe how we worked that out could be a future blog post. Remind me if I forget.)

Wow. I am now a parent of a full grown 18 year old adult. 

The night before he turned 18, before midnight, he brought me a cup of tea and brought himself one too. We sat in my bed together, those last 15 minutes of him being 17, talking about the end of his childhood and how it went too fast for both of us. Around 11:58pm, he told me he was ready. But mostly because it was inevitable. 

Then at midnight, we sort of looked at each other and realized he could now legally vote in the next election. He told me some plans for the future. Those plans seem to change every time he tells them to me. I am fine with that. 

I realized that my parenting isn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. It’s just going to start looking different at some point here. 

Improvement on my Light Sensitivity

I may have mentioned that I have a sensitivity to light. When I first went to Dr. Tod Davis of Virginia Vision Therapy, he diagnosed me (for over an hour) with all kinds of things including suppression, diplopia (this means "double vision"), dissociation, and light sensitivity. He asked me if I keep the house kind of dark. I laughed, because it has long bothered the room mate I have been living with for quite a while. 

Yes. I keep the house dark. I may have mentioned in a previous blog post that I had a declutter expert come, and she uncovered the windows. I believe I talked about the fact that I had windows covered thanks to something that folks who are older (as I am - I am rapidly approaching 50) who dissociate. 

Well, she took down various things from all of my windows. Her whole message for decluttering is to Lighten Up! She likes to let the light in. I thought I did too, but between her decluttering with me, and Dr. Davis teaching me that folks who dissociate cover their windows & like the dark ... it's true. I had covered my windows. One window was covered completely with a 5 rack shelf holding spindly plants. I didn't think about it blocking the light - but it truly was. 

After my declutter expert left, I covered the windows back up with some rather opaque contact paper. Then I got to thinking about it. (I learn things a bit slowly, over time.) 

I bought myself a light therapy lamp for helping with Seasonal Affect Disorder (I am just coming to terms with the fact that I may have this too). My friend Katie of the Fellowship of Former Christian Scientists recommended a lamp to heal with Seasonal Affect Disorder. I mentioned this in a post about Light Therapy. 

Well, I bought a similar one to hers by the same brand - "Happy Light." I haven't been using it every day, but I use it regularly. Maybe 3-5 days per week for 15+ minutes. I just put the lamp on and do my paperwork or look at the clothes in my closet or play with my dog or something. I would like to think it's helping. 

Well, between that lamp and the Syntonics work I did, I believe I am getting less light sensitive! 

I used to drive down the road at night and be so angry at the headlights blaring at me. They hurt my eyes and I couldn't see a thing. Or I wasn't able to sleep at night if the room wasn't completely dark. I had black blinds up and those were covered by heavy brown curtains. The room still wasn't dark enough. 

I have covered all those infernal lights that electronics all seem to sport these days - those hideous blue lights that burn my pupils. I covered all of them (at the suggestion of a smart friend who knows about such things) with red electrical tape. Every tiny little effort I did, made the room more and more dark. And I still wore a black, silk sleep mask and still suffered from the room that had too much light. Maybe it was a bright moon that night, or maybe the hall light was on, peeping in under the door, who knows. Drove me crazy - FOR YEARS. 

Well, I think all of the efforts I have been making now have had really good results! 

I am now able to sleep with the black blinds on the window, partially open. And I have pretty sheer curtains over instead of the heavy brown curtains. 

I haven't been angry in awhile at cars with their headlights blaring at me at night. Come to think of it, I don't drive at night because I actually have lousy night vision. (I know it's lousy, because my kids can see just fine and I feel completely blind.) I am driving less and less at night, when I can help it. Thankfully, my older son is starting to drive now. So if we need to go somewhere at night, it's likely he can drive us. He drove us to the grocery store last week and to my friend's house to deliver a present, last night!

I don't know how to explain or quantify this, but I can tell I am no longer sensitive to the light the way I once was. I don't know if it's the syntonics that I did or the Happy Light that I am using these days. But it's nice to wake up in the morning and have some light i
n my room so I don't have to figure out how to get a lamp on when I can't see anything. 

My windows aren't nearly as covered up as they have been for so long, either. That's nice too. I like looking out the windows and seeing Mother Nature. I have beautiful trees in my yard and I love looking at them. 

I guess that's it for this week's blog post. 

I have a lot lot lot LOT going on in my life right now and I apologize that I have missed a blog post or two. My focus hasn't quite been on my vision therapy as it once was. 

I only have 3 more sessions to go! Then my son will start. While he has similar challenges to mine (diplopia, lack of 3D), his issues manifest with different symptoms to mine. He walks into furniture a few times a week. I feel sorry for him. I still walk into furniture too, but not nearly as much as I used to. I hope vision therapy will help him with that. I am confident it will, in fact.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! Happy 2021!

Let There Be Peace On Earth

A special post. My family is now spread across the United States. (I also have family spread across Canada, but I haven’t met most of them, sadly. Some day!)

One of my brothers lives on the west coast of the United States. I live on the East Coast of the United States. 

I sent him this music. He played it on his keyboard - piano style. And I listened to his music on my earbuds and played violin. I put them together using iMovie. 

I hope you will enjoy this music. 

I wish you a beautiful and comforting holiday season!

https://youtu.be/ZR3fiAr2muM 

My son is driving

My older son has just started taking driving lessons. I have been remembering when I was his age, learning to drive. 

I remember being about 16 or so, and I had a babysitter for like a week or two when my parents were out of town. She was a friend of the family. Maybe in her young 20s or so. 

We were driving down a main drag in my large neighborhood, toward a traffic light. And no one was around. So she had me sit in the drivers seat and drive us maybe 1 1/2 blocks to the traffic light. At most, it was 3 blocks. 

I remember getting in the car, having never driven before, and saying “I feel like I am going to hit those cars!” (The ones parked on the right side of the road.) she told me, “you won’t”

And I drove us those miniscule blocks. It was so weird to me. 

Later, in driving class, I learned to gage where cars were to the right of me, by centering them on the hood. Like, if their left side is at the half point of the hood, then I won’t hit them. 

Do you all measure cars this way? I don’t know if I am adapting to my 2D vision by doing this, or if this is how everyone gages where cars are. 

I am not sure if I am in a position to teach my son to drive. Thus - him going to driving school. A gal picks him up and he drives her around. I saw her today and she said, “he needs to practice!” His dad has been driving with him, or rather, our son is driving his dad around in large parking lots. 

My parents didn’t want to teach me to drive, because they didn’t want a ton of arguments with me. That’s what they said at the time anyway. 

But now I am in the position they were in - my oldest is learning to drive. He has normal vision, as far as I know. And I don’t. 

Maybe as he gets better from the school and working with his dad, maybe then I will feel ok going with him. 

Ever since I became a parent, one of my big goals has been to “not screw up my kids.” I don’t want to screw him up by teaching him to drive since I may have things I have adapted to because of my vision, and he doesn’t necessarily. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic last week of December! 

Yuletide

In a week, it's a holiday I celebrate - my biggest holiday of the year, actually - Yule. December 21. The longest night of the year. It is the day the Sun is farthest away from the Northern Hemisphere. 

I just want to share my perspective / the way I see things around this time of year. Thank you for indulging me.

A bunch of years ago, I started re-evaluating my life to see if the way I was living harmonizes with my heart and my intentions. I suppose this is an ongoing thing for me. But one of the things I learned about myself was that I love Mother Earth and Mother Nature. And I did some research on Yule - the Pagan holiday celebrating the Winter Solstice. And I decided it harmonizes with me as a concept. 

We can all see the days getting shorter, the nights getting longer. Many people buy a sun lamp (I got one this year too, for the first time!). It helps to combat "Seasonal affect disorder." That's a time when people feel less happy than usual because they don't have the big amount of sun in their lives.

So my kids and I have come up with some ways to celebrate Yule that resonate with us. It's a simple and nature-forward inspired holiday. I can't speak for how others celebrate it. But I can share how we have celebrated it for the last 5 years, and you can see if you would like to do this next week, too!

First off, I love pinecones. I collect them year round and put them in various places around my front yard. They are my pinecone collection. I love the way they look after it has rained - all their colors come out and they are extra beautiful. 

For Yule, there are usually pinecones under some Virginia Pines on a path not too far from our home. So I pick up a few pinecones. Then, on December 21, my boys and I go out and watch the sunset. Just acknowledging that the shortest day has just happened, and the longest night is straight ahead of us. 

As the sun sets, we think about things we would like more of for the upcoming year, and things we would like to let go of for the upcoming year. We write these thoughts on tracing paper scraps. Then we roll up the papers and tuck them into the pinecones. 

Also during the sunset, I have done smoke cleansing of my boys and they do it for me. Taking a dried sage bundle and light the tip of it on fire. Then we "wash" off the essence of whatever is old and needs cleansing from us. Wash us in smoke. 

After that, we head home and start our Yule fire. We put our pinecones in to help start the fire, and we watch the papers burn. Then, we settle in for a nice family evening. The fire burns, we get warm apple cider with cinnamon (yum!) and my boys each open a few gifts. Every year, I give them a sketchbook. They love this and look forward to it every year. They use their sketchbooks all year long. I have always encouraged them to do art and I am grateful to say that they love it. 

Then, I have one other gift that is nature-themed for my boys. This year, it will be handmade pottery mugs made by a local artisan. So many artisans this past year had their fairs and shows cancelled and they couldn't make a living. So I looked for several months at different offerings offered by local artisans. I found some beautiful earthen ware mugs. One for each of us. 

You can see the mugs at this site, in case you would like to also support crafters and get something beautiful for your morning tea or coffee or hot chocolate. Or your hot cider on Yule!

https://www.facebook.com/DancingPigPots/posts/10157709564782615

So, I just thought I would share the way I see things around the holiday season. This year I am hitting the reset button on Christmas too. I haven't celebrated Christmas in a few years, though I grew up with it. We will see how it goes this year! 

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season - no matter what you celebrate!

Blessed Yuletide Season from me to you and your household.