A Deaf Mom Shares Her World » 2008

News Flash: Phillies Beat the Reds

I was hoping they would lose.

Steven, my youngest kiddo, suited up this morning for a playoff game. His team, the Phillies, was playing against the Reds. Steven’s friend Blake, was on the other team.

When the playoffs loomed early last week, I was telling the Phillies coach, Dave, that we had vacation plans. We were planning to head up to Michigan last Thursday, assuming the Phillies would be out of the playoffs quickly after Tuesday’s game earlier in the week.

They won.

In the last inning, Steven was playing first base–he fielded a runner out and threw to third for a double play to end the game. Right after the game, Coach Dave came bounding over. ”You’ll have to cancel your vacation plans!” he grinned.

So when the game began this morning, I was pretty sure we’d be finished with baseball in a few hours. After all, we were playing a team with one of the best records–they had only lost two games the entire season.

Sure enough, it was the last inning and we were down 8 to 6. We had two outs and then Steven came up to bat.

Uh oh. Joe and I looked at each other. The last time Steven faced the same situation, he struck out and that was the end of that game. He was pretty bummed out about that. We were afraid that it was going to end on a bad note.

Steven swung–strike one. He swung again–strike two. The third base coach came over to talk to him and told Steven to move in closer to home plate. I held my breath. I was so afraid it was going to end on the next pitch.

Crack!

Steven connected with the ball and powered a line drive into center field. Two of his teammates crossed over the plate to tie the game.

It was the bottom of the sixth and the Reds were up. They needed just one run to win the game. Bases were loaded. The Reds popped a fly ball, the Phillies’ pitcher caught it and fired the ball to Steven on first for a double-play. The inning ended with the next batter.

The game went into extra innings. The Phillies started a hitting rally and Steven scored a double. The Reds tried hard to come back, scoring four runs, but it wasn’t enough to catch up.

Final score: Phillies 14, Reds 11.

Coach Dave came running again, but he didn’t have to tell me–by this time, I had caught playoff fever and beat him to the punch.

“Yeah, Coach, we’ll be driving back from Michigan on Tuesday for the Championship game.”

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Tags: Raising Deaf/HH Kids by DeafMom
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Deaf Writer Jumps Out of a Plane… And Survives!

No, no, it wasn’t me.

It was Meryl Evans.

To celebrate her blog’s eighth birthday, Meryl vowed to jump out of a plane if readers donated $5,000 worth of stuff to give away.

Five grand–she figured she wouldn’t get anywhere near that much stuff donated. So she thought she was pretty safe. After all, a mom of three kids shouldn’t be jumping out of planes, right?

At first, it looked like Meryl would be able to keep her feet on the ground. Then at the last minute, she received a donation that put her over the line. She made an appointment with Skydive Dallas to jump on June 20th.

She breathed a sigh of relief and dismay when the weather forced her to delay the jump. “Oh great,” she told me, “More time to be nervous.”

And then she got cold feet.

Yesterday, she sent me an email. “I’m not sure I am going to do it now,” she wrote. ”Technically, I didn’t get the $5k worth of prizes by June 1. And hearing some stories just made me want to stay on Earth.”

That’s ok, I reassured her. Your readers will understand.

Hell, I understand– I’m a mom of three kids and the thought of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane gives me the willies. It would be fun, yeah, but going splat–that would hurt.

Well, what do you know, she jumped.

And she survived to tell the tale.

Meryl, girl, you rock!

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Tags: People You Should Know by DeafMom
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Are You Living Your Dream Life?

I asked a simple question:

“Are you living your dream life?”

The question just came to me one day and I was curious how other people would answer such a simple, yet loaded question. So I started asking around. Just that question, “Are you living your dream life?”

When I asked it face-to-face, I got some startled looks. When I asked it via email, Twitter or IM, I sometimes had people asking me more questions.

“What do you mean, dream life?”

“Why are you asking this kind of question?”

”Why do you want to know?”

“Dream life, who has a dream life?”

Whoa, baby.

But others got right down to it.

Ben Lachman, a friend from the Chicago area, was pretty open with his answer. “Nope,” was his answer. “Well, my dream life is basically pretty selfish,” he explained. “It has to do with massive financial success so that I can use that to support my hobbies and my family, as well as contributing money to causes that I support. Also, my dream life contains a loving wife and children, and those are yet to be attained.”

Ben has encountered some stumbling blocks along the way to financial success, but he has no doubt that he’ll be able to achieve his dream life.

Phyllis from Ima On (and Off) the Bima says that while her life may not seem interesting, she’s definitely living her dream life. “I have a wonderful family — husband, children, parents — we are all blessed with good health, I live in a nice home, with access to almost anything I could possibly want,” she said. “I work in what is truly my dream job: I decided that I wanted to be a rabbi when I was 12 years old and here I am. And to be honest, very few obstacles stood in my path. It all seems very charmed and I know it — and I can only appreciate it and be thankful for it, and know that blessings are here for us to accept and live and love and cherish…so even when things don’t seem quite right or I am annoyed with someone, or the kids wake me up all night or the laundry doesn’t get done, in the moment I might get cranky or annoyed (trust me, I do) but in the grand scheme of things I know how lucky I am.”

Over at Crunchy Carpets (whose motto is, “Clean socks are a privilege, not a right”–my kind of Mom!) Kerry says she isn’t quite living her dream life, but she knows what it looks like: No hassles from the in-laws, no pain for her husband, his website taking off, a home big enough for them all–and money to enjoy it.

But she’s not done. There’s also another baby and another home somewhere near the ocean or perhaps out in the country. And to top it all off, her dream life includes having her blog take off and bring in the big bucks.

Oooo, nice dream life. I like it.

If there’s anyone who I think is living a dream life, that would be Peter Shankman. The guy skydives for fun. I stumbled across his blog just a few weeks ago. Peter is the CEO of the PR firm, Geek Factory, and he recently launched Help a Reporter, which is growing so fast (11,000 and counting) that he is connecting reporters with sources at lightning speed. So when I asked Peter that dream question, he simply said, “I’m trying to!” But he also had more to share: “I think anyone can [live a dream life]–it simply comes down to not being afraid. If it doesn’t end with ‘time of death was…’ or ‘international incident,’ or ‘bail is set at…’ then why the hell not try it? You can always get a job somewhere and make money if it doesn’t work.”

Joanna Young, from Confident Writing, tells me that her dream life is in the process. “I’m creating it, building it, writing it down to make it happen and grateful for the good bits I’ve got.” Joanne recommends the book, Write it Down, Make it Happen to take steps towards a dream life.

Some people shared emails and asked me not to include their answers in the blog. No, they said, they weren’t living their dream life. Life was hard, money was scarce, they were in jobs they didn’t like, some had no goals, and some were in the middle of life changes that could possibly lead them to their dream lives, but they weren’t ready to make those decisions public.

If there’s anyone living a dream life, I knew it had to be my brother. So I fired off the question to him. “Yup!” he responded. “Airplanes, islands and gas to get there, it doesn’t get any better.” My brother and his wife are on Kelly’s Island up at Lake Erie and they’re heading over to New Jersey in his plane to visit her family tomorrow. Ah yes, dream life, indeed.

So I turned to my friend Sue. Sue and I have known each other since college and we’ve shared a lot together. Sue went through a divorce, went back to school to get another degree, and met her current husband at a Halloween party. She’s happily married to a great guy, so of course, I emailed the question to her.

“As for the husband and kids, everything’s great!” she said. “But I want a job where I can be mentally stimulated, use my mind and make tons of money!” Her other desire for the dream life is to have someone come and clean her house on a regular basis. Oh yeah, I have that dream too.

And then Sue shot an email back to me:

“Are you living your dream life?” she asked me.

So I had to sit back and think about that for a second. And I came to the realization that, yes I am living a dream life. I’ve got a hubby and three great kids, my extended family, a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and chocolate stashed in the desk drawer. Toss in a great circle of friends, a well-behaved dog (most of the time) and a place to escape to on the weekends. I do have dreams yet to be lived, for that’s what makes the dream life so good– one can create more and more dreams to experience as life is lived.

So tell me, are you living your dream life?

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