Today, my blog post from the Chicago Moms Blog was syndicated in several newspapers across the U.S.
Now everyone knows I have a messy house. I’m making the kids clean it.
But hey, come on over for a visit! Just be sure to wipe your feet before you enter.
I’m going nuts.
I’ve never been one who is organized, but one of my big, BIG goals this year is to have everything o.r.g.a.n.i.z.e.d. I’ve never needed it more than today, because I’m running around trying to find the flight info I printed and put in a “safe” place. I discovered that I left my phone at Panera Bread…
Sunday night.
I spent all day yesterday looking for it.
Why, oh why, didn’t my Mom’s organization genes pass on to me?
Why?
I’m bound and determined to conquer this state of disorganization. Even if I have to fly Alex Fayle out to Chicago. Speaking of Alex, check out the interview that he did with me recently:
Learning to Ask for Help: Karen Putz Interview
You’ll also have to go over to TechMama’s blog and check out: Looking for People Friendly Media Technology.
And then go hop over to Amy Derby’s place for a captioned video: Conversations with Strangers.
I’m signing off and dismantling my computer to make way for a new desk. I’m tossing out the folding table.
It’s a start.
Memes. I swore I wouldn’t participate in any more memes. But who can resist a game of Bloggy Tag? Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog tagged me to play along a fun game of sharing some deep, dark secrets. Of course, once shared, they’re not going to be secrets anymore.
And here, I get to share stuff that’s all about me. Me. And me.
Please stop yawning. Here, have some Pepsi. Would you like a little rum with that? I promise to make it entertaining. Deep, dark secrets and all.
1. I once stole some lipstick from a store. On a dare. My friend Lisa, dared me to steal something from a local store. I chose a tube of lipstick because I figured it would be easy enough to slip in my pocket. Never mind the fact that I hardly wore makeup. You can imagine what happened. I got caught. Lisa snickered. I arrived home in the back of a police car and my father marched me right back to the store to apologize to the manager.
And Lisa? She became a cop right after high school.
2. I saved all of my notes and letters from the guy I had a crush on in high school. I brought up the box from the basement recently and was reading through them. My daughter came in and asked, “What are reading, Mom?” So I showed her. It was a paragraph describing my first kiss, from the major crush. Daughter rolled her eyes and went, “Ewwww, Mom.”
3. I went skinny dipping on my sixteenth birthday. It was at night, with a bunch of friends. We thought it would be fun to strip off the bathing suits and swim. We let the swimsuits sink to the bottom of the lake as we treaded water and swam around. My friend Jenny turned to me and said, “Someone’s coming!” So everyone scrambled to get their suits on. I couldn’t find mine. It was pitch black at that point. My friends took off to the guest cabin while I dove into the water over and over and tried to find the swim suit. I gave up and decided to make a run for the cabin. At that moment, my brother turned on the outside floodlights and caught me running buck naked down the pier.
The swimsuit turned up at a neighbor’s house five days later. Apparently it floated away.
Needless to say, it was a birthday to remember–and the first and last time that I skinny-dipped.
4. We have a ghost up at Christie Lake. His name is Mr. Eberhart. He died at the end of the pier, while trying to cover the boat during a storm. His story will be published in an upcoming book about ghost stories. Written by yours truly, who has experienced Mr. Eberhart leaving closet doors open during the night.
5. My last secret isn’t really a secret: I’m a major procrastinator. Here it is, a few days before Christmas and I don’t have my Christmas shopping done. The tree is still in the crawl space. I haven’t figured out the menu nor shopped for the food for the Christmas Eve dinner.
Can someone kick me off the computer?
How about you? Would you like to play a game of Bloggy Tag? You’re it!
Thanks to Tishia’s Thoughts for the Honest Scrap Award! It ties right in with this meme.
For weeks, I walked around with my Kevlar vest on. I knew that the guys with famous elbows from Men With Pens were coming over to my place on December 14th. I debated whether or not to tidy up the place, hide the dust bunnies and shove the clutter into a Rubbermaid bin.
Nah, I thought to myself. Gotta let it all hang out. After all, that was the whole purpose of having the hired guns shoot up the place. I simply tightened up my vest, put on my protective glasses and waited.
Check it out:
Drive-By -Shooting Sunday: Deaf Mom World
I knew I had one ace that they couldn’t touch– after all, the talented Harry designed the banner for this blog. I was really surprised to learn that Harry thought he could touch it up a bit:
“Well, it’s a nice sign,” James paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder. “It’s simple, clean, fresh looking and it’s clear what this place is all about.” That was a bonus in itself. He would have inverted the green and blue of the title of the sign for better readability, but beyond that, he liked the globe and the arrow that showed where this woman lived.
Then again, James was biased. And so was Harry.
Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t critique our own work. The drops of water on the globe seem a little out of place, and we would have removed that. The color scheme chosen to match the existing site is a nice choice, though, giving a welcoming effect from the start. Nicely done.
My husband also commented about the water drop when he first saw the banner, but I like it. I love how it symbolizes my favorite place to be– out on the water at Christie Lake. It also reminds me of my waterskiing memories. So that water drop is staying.
I was happy that they left me mostly intact and that I didn’t have to head to the hospital for major surgery. Unfortunately, the clean up will have to wait until after the holidays, so the readers will have to deal with the clutter for a while.
I’m just very, very disappointed in James and Harry. They came dressed from head to toe in black and wore ski masks.
I didn’t even catch a glimpse of a naked elbow.
I’m famous for my ability to fake cleanliness at my house. I thought I did a pretty good job of preparing my house for a football party on Sunday. We had a couple of families over and eleven kids roaming around.
My friend Joanne, a gal who doesn’t fake clean, jumped up and down with excitement about halfway through the party.
“I caught a dust bunny! I have it on camera!” she exclaimed with glee.
Indeed.
An hour later, we discovered more dust bunnies as the guys moved the couch in an attempt to find the missing remote.
The dog, I think, was just happy that we found a long lost steak toy.
I’m thankful I’m deaf.
I was thinking that to myself on the way home from the Midwest Center on Law and the Deaf fundraiser last night.
Now wait a minute, Karen–isn’t that a little crazy? Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you had hearing in the normal range?
Sure. Yeah. A little easier, perhaps.
But here’s the thing: I’m living an incredibly rich, full life. And that life includes people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf blind and hearing. When I was growing up, all of my peers were people with normal hearing. I had a childhood flush with a variety of friends, but man, I had to work hard to access every conversation. So I’m thankful for learning American Sign Language when I became deaf at nineteen, because that’s the moment the world opened up for me. It didn’t seem like it at the time, because I was thinking it was a pretty crappy hand that I was dealt back then. I hated wearing the hearing aid 24/7, but the silence was more frightening to me.
That silence came in handy when kid number one, two and three arrived. They were loud. Turning off the hearing aid became a thing of bliss. And when kid number one, two and three lost their hearing, for a time, I wasn’t thankful.
But today–today, I’m thankful. I look at my three kids and can’t even imagine them as kids with normal hearing. The hearing aids they wear are as much a part of them as their eyes are brown. The biggest difference between me and my kids is that they’re growing up with a sense of pride and confidence about being deaf and hard of hearing. I was the opposite– I bluffed and hid it every chance that I could when I was growing up.
Sure, there are days when I want to toss out the IEP papers and not have to remember who’s the head of the IEP team for which child. Sue, my friend who is a mom of three kids– one deaf, one hard of hearing and one hearing, tells me how easy it is with a child who can hear. No IEP, no IEP meetings, no searching for peers who are deaf/hard of hearing, no fiddling with technology, no stomping floors to reach out. A little easier, perhaps, but that’s about it.
Last night, when the evening began to wane, I was sitting around a table watching the hands fly back and forth and thinking to myself, I’m so thankful for the path in my life that lead me to all of this.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
CSDVRS Team at MCLD
Karen and Howard Rosenblum, MCLD
I haven’t done a meme in a long time and this week, I’ve been tagged by Glenda, Todd and Sue for two different memes.
I’ll start with the Five Things You Didn’t Know About Me:
I Hate to Clean
My Mom and Flylady are twins separated at birth. When my Mom gave birth to me, somehow the DNA in my genes failed to get the cleaning gene passed on. But I can fake clean pretty well. When my friend Beth stopped by at the end of summer we somehow got to talking about keeping houses clean. I mentioned that I hadn’t mopped my floor since, oh, early May. She gazed at the wooden floors in disbelief. “But how come they look clean?” I shared my little trick of vacuuming now and then and wiping up spills when they happen. Now you all know my dirty little secret. Now you see why I want Flylady to move in with me?
I Have a Terrible Addiction
I have a new boyfriend. His name is Twitter. Joe knows all about him but he thinks he’s just some guy passing through the night. I love Twitter because I can participate in every conversation and never feel left out. He tells me the latest news, gives me compliments and once in a while we get into arguments– but we always move on to the next exciting thing.
I Am Not Organized and Neither Are My Kids
That’s another gene that stopped with my Mom. As of today we are searching for: one lost paycheck, two library books, one school book, one phone (again!!), one homework assignment and my makeup bag. Oh, and the dog lost her chew toy, too.
I Enjoy Helping Others
Nothing gives me more pleasure than to connect with others and help them in some small way. Monetary gifts are often long forgotten, but kindness lives on for years. My email box is filled daily with people asking questions about being deaf/hard of hearing or raising deaf/hard of hearing kids. I have been mentoring for several years and provide online/phone mentoring as well.
I Can Cook Pretty Well
For many years, I had the reputation of not being able to cook all too well. It started when Joe mentioned to his brother that I burned a meatloaf in college. So for years, no one ever asked me to bring appetizers or cook anything. That was fine with me. Over the years, I’ve gotten better and better at whipping things together and I’ve even taught my Mom a trick or two (usually she’s the one teaching me!). This summer, I did a lot of cooking up at Christie Lake and I found I actually enjoy it. Of course, there are some days I still make some mistakes and I’m sure my brother Kenny remembers the salty frittata that I served him at the lake.
Now on to Todd’s meme, Five Reasons to be Happy About Social Media:
1. I am meeting people that I would have never had an opportunity to meet/chat with outside of the cyber world.
2. Social Media is a virtual watercooler that I can access (most of the time).
3. I work from home and social media gives me the opportunity to connect with people throughout the day.
4. I’m meeting people around the world, like Joanna Young over in Scotland, Glenda Watson Hyatt in Canada, and Alex Fayle in Spain.
5. Social Media introduces me to current topics and trends, something that I can’t often access around me via conversations and parties.
I’m leaving these memes open to anyone who would like to join in.
Have an amazing weekend!
I had these four plaques scattered in various spots around the house–one was in a nightstand drawer, two were in boxes and one was in an office drawer. One day last year, I gathered them all together and hung them above the key holder in my office. The small one on the upper left was a gift from my Mom during my first year of college. It says, “Hang on, Friday’s coming!” My Mom sent it after one particularly hard week when I was really homesick and having a difficult time understanding the teachers in class.
The one on the upper right was given to me by my Aunt Gertie. It says, “Lovely flowers are smiles from God.” Aunt Gertie, my Mom’s sister, was profoundly deaf and she was battling cancer. She didn’t have much time left. I was ten at the time, sitting on the edge of her bed and I remember her smiling. There’s a picture of Aunt Gertie somewhere in one of my Mom’s albums; my sister Jeanie is holding a huge toy comb over her bald head and everyone is laughing. So when I see flowers, I think of Aunt Gertie.
The large one on the lower left was simply one that I found at either a garage sale or a store. It says, “The nicest days are full of love.” I had that one and Aunt Gertie’s plaque hanging on my bedroom wall for many years.
The last one on the lower right was given to me by my first itinerant teacher, Mrs. Rellis. Mrs. Rellis was a special teacher–she was the first teacher to sit me down and challenge me not to let my hearing loss hold me back. It says:
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are
something to do,
something to love, and
something to hope for.
Those four plaques are my source of inspiration every time I hang up a key. Do you have a source of inspiration that is special to you? Tell me about yours in the comments below.
This photo is a part of Wordless Wednesday, even though I used a bunch of words to describe it.
At the Sparkplugging/One2OneNetwork event last week, one of the items in the swag bag was a gift certificate for iTunes. I was really excited to see this, because I was getting a little tired of the same old music playing over and over. It was time for some fresh music, but I had no clue where to start. I’ve spent money on CDs before only to find that I only liked one song on an entire CD.
I started wondering how I could get some new love songs to try out. Then it hit me:
I was tired of hearing my son’s rock and rap music blasting in the house, so I knew I wanted to go for something mellow and meaningful. So I put out this tweet:
And guess what? I have a whole bunch of love songs to try out before I buy them on iTunes:
 |
Only one song was repeated twice as a favorite, Elton John’s Your Song. I also received several via direct message, but since they came in privately, I’m guessing they didn’t want their choices to be shared. I’m so excited that I have a list of songs to pull up lyrics to and to start learning some new music.
Thanks, Twitterville!
My favorite love song is Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel. This was the song played at our wedding.
What’s your favorite love song?
On Wednesday, I met with Donna Cutting, author of The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service at Maggianos, one of my favorite restaurants. It was the first time for Donna to dine at Maggianos and I think I successfully converted her into a Maggianos junkie. 
Last night, I headed out to Lake Shore Drive for the Girls Night Out event sponsored by Wendy Piersall from Sparkplugging; Epson and One2One Network. I wasn’t sure if an interpreter was going to show up as the agency never received my email request and then struggled at the last minute to try and find someone. As it turned out, there was no interpreter, but I managed to make it through the evening firing up the lipreading skills. Everyone was friendly and most were easy to understand. Liz Strauss and I had a moment where I couldn’t lipread a thing she said and she resorted to some creative fingerspelling to help me out. I chatted with Barbara Rozgonyi and convinced Deb DiSandro of the benefits of Twitter. As I moved around the room, I discovered that several of the writers from the Chicago Moms Blog and Fifty-Something Moms Blog were scattered here and there. We all gathered together for a picture:
It was a nice evening connecting to all these cool gals and being able to talk about blogging and the business of writing. I left with some great swag–now I no longer envy those who went to BlogHer.
(left to right: Wendy Piersall, Liz Strauss, Moi, Barbara Rozgonyi)
Last, but not least, today’s a special day. My middle kiddo is now a bona-fide, certified teenager. Happy Birthday, Lauren!
Save to Browser Favorites
Ask
backflip
blinklist
BlogBookmark
Bloglines
BlogMarks
Blogsvine
BUMPzee!
CiteULike
co.mments
Connotea
del.icio.us
DotNetKicks
Digg
diigo
dropjack.com
dzone
Facebook
Fark
Faves
Feed Me Links
Friendsite
folkd.com
Furl
Google
Hugg
Jeqq
Kaboodle
linkaGoGo
LinksMarker
Ma.gnolia
Mister Wong
Mixx
MySpace
MyWeb
Netvouz
Newsvine
PlugIM
popcurrent
Propeller
Reddit
Rojo
Segnalo
Shoutwire
Simpy
sk*rt
Slashdot
Sphere
Sphinn
Spurl.net
Squidoo
StumbleUpon
Technorati
ThisNext
Webride
Windows Live
Yahoo!
Email This to a Friend
If you like this then please subscribe to the 
