ELLIE'S BLOG on Living Well with Disability

What a wonderful thanksgiving day I had.  Again we shared the day with my nephew his wife and their children.  We were joined by my brother-in law Bob from Massachusetts and my sister Naomi and her husband Mark who flew up from Virginia.  It's only been for the past few years that we have been able to do this.  My nephew and his wife moved nearby  in Queensbury so our trip up was just the appropriate distance.

A little help getting up the steps        Made It !!          

I had prepared for this long day for the past week by taking it easy.  I didn't go out to get my hair cut and colored.  I stayed home, took extra naps and did not do as much around the house.  I really do like my home to look nice and specially when company was coming.  But my brother-in law who would be staying with us is family and I felt the house was good enough.  What was most important to me was to have a good day with my sister and her family and mine. I had not seen my sister for two years.  And in these last two years she had had one serious illness after another.

My sister Naomi and husband Mark   Showing off the use of my sliding board 

I like everyone else needed some relief from the anxiety caused by the problem we are having with the economy and Iraq along with all the other world situations. This is when being with family on Thanksgiving is just so important. And even with this bad economy people found ways to go home and be with their family.

Pam CEO of 2008 Thanksgiving    The 2 assistants Casey and Mark jr.

We all complain about our country's political elections with its nastiness. And most of us are really spooked and worried about the economy and the world situation. But many of us do this worrying and complaining in the warmth if of our own comfortable homes and families. But invading our homes on the eve of Thanksgiving Day was the news that there were terrorist's taking over a major hotel in India and a possible coup was occurring in Thailand.  And when we woke up on Thanksgiving morning to watch the news the situation in India had progressively got worse.  And there was also a new report on the news about the terrible poverty in Haiti following the hurricanes we've had this season.

Mark carving and were ready to go

This year as we said grace and gave thanks for our wonderful feast there was extra meaning for all of us in giving thanks. We were very much aware of the discrepancy between our lives and many others in the rest of the world and in our own country.

And for our family we had more to be extra grateful for!  My sister looked and felt wonderful and I was really good too. So me in my electric wheelchair and she with her zippy  butterfly painted cane had a wonderful visit.  And each member of our family enjoyed visiting with each other and the generations conversed and it was a happy Thanksgiving Day. We extended our visit after a day of rest with lunch here in Saratoga and a visit to Celtic Treasures, the Irish shop on Broadway and then back to our home.

Here we continued gabbing over coffee while my older son showed the additional adaptations they'd made here in the home for me.  And my younger son showed them the adaptations he's made for me on the computer. Like voice recognition, an ergonomic keyboard, and an ergonomic mouse.

I was so pleased that he was able to show my sister and her husband this.  My sister has rheumatoid arthritis and her hands are becoming more affected by it.  Her husband Mark has lost all of his central vision due to Retinitis and my son had some idea's also for him specifically.  He mentioned that they build articulating arms that you can mount your monitor to.  Once mounted you can position the monitor on the side and move it to any position your vision would find perfect. They also tried out the keyboard and speech recognition and had fun with that. Of course this speech recognition was used to my voice. Hence there some humorous errors in the dictated words of the monitor screen. I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as happy as our's was.

          ellie