That's The Idea!

cochlear implant surgery

2005-08-24T11:11:00.000-05:00

I know I said I'd get back to you when I got back, but I just haven't really felt like blogging lately. Anyways, I should tell you what's going on, I guess.

I went to Lexington to have some tests done to see if I could have a cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is a device that is implanted inside your ear to bypass the damaged parts and send sound signals directly to your brain. It's very different from a hearing aid because of that and the fact that a hearing aid only amplifies sounds.

Anyways, I'd already had an evaluation, where I was approved as a candidate, but I had to have a CT scan before I could be approved for surgery. Luckily, my CT scan came out well and they approved me and scheduled surgery. I will be implanted with the newest cochlear implant out this year, the Nucleus Freedom, on October 14. I'm really excited about it, because I have read so many good things about it, and also have read about alot of people who've had it and it worked extremely well for them, so wish me luck or if you're religious, say a prayer for me!

out of town

2005-08-16T01:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I won't be here for the next 2 days. I'm going out of town for tests and to see a doctor. I'll definitely fill you all in when I return. Hopefully, I'll return with great news! Everyone wish me luck, and if you're religious, please say a prayer or two for our safety in traveling, and that I get good news! See ya soon!

my interview

2005-08-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

I have chosen to be interviewed by Carolyn. She has read my blog and after careful consideration (or maybe just plain old curiousity), she has come up with 5 questions for me to answer here. So... here goes! (Oh yeah, if you want to play along, click on her name above and it will take you to her blog.)

1. Is there anything you left off your 100 things list? Oh gosh, yeah! Lots of things! There's no possible way to cram almost 26 years of life into a list of 100 things, at least not my life.

2. Do you ever regret dropping out of school to follow your son's father? That's a good question. There are many different aspects to this. On the one hand, I'm sure my life would be much different if I hadn't dropped out and instead had continued on and got my degree. But, on the other hand, I learned alot of valuable life lessons from that. And if I hadn't done it, I most likely wouldn't have my son now, who I love more than anything in this world, and that alone is worth more than anything else to me.

3. Do you have any plans for your days now Ty is at school? For right now, not really. Probably catching up on lots of housework, enjoying doing the grocery shopping alone, and hopefully more blogging. Eventually, I'll have surgery (I'll tell more about that later) and after that I'm going to try to find a job and maybe go back to school.

4. How did you choose your son's name? Actually, his father chose it. Long before I even got pregnant, he told me that if he ever had a son, that's what he'd name him. He'd always liked the name Tyler and his and his father's middle name was Dwayne, so we named him Tyler Dwayne. Of course, I liked the name too, or else I wouldn't have named him that. ;)

5. What are the best and worst things about your hearing loss? I wouldn't say there are any good things about my hearing loss, really. I suppose it has made me more sensitive to others with a disability or impairment. There are lots of things I would consider bad about it though. It was the number one reason I had to drop out of school. Because where I live, the schools were just not prepared to deal with it, so they pretended like it didn't exist. Also, it makes all interactions with other people extremely difficult, making any sort of personal relationships I had more difficult than they should've been. The number one bad thing, is that I really miss out on alot of things in life because I can't hear.

is it just me?

2005-08-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

So, today isn't looking like it will be a good day. First thing that happened this morning, was I walked into the living room to find playdoh everywhere. You couldn't even walk into the room because it was covering the floor. What is it that motivates a kid to do that sort of thing? Does anyone else's 5 year old do these kinds of things? Or is it just me? Sometimes I truly believe that he's planning new ways all the time to drive me nuts, seriously. Hopefully everyone will have a better Saturday than me!

teacher time-outs?

2005-08-11T19:32:00.000-05:00

My little deviant child got his first note from the teacher already. She claims he was in the bathroom, peeing "everywhere". Now I say "claims" because he wholeheartedly denied it, and was so upset he was crying. Now, I know there are times when it's hard to tell if your child is lying, but this was not one of those times. I just knew, like in my gut or something, that he was telling me the truth. He was so upset about it, that I almost started crying too. Which brings the obvious question, why would the teacher lie? Now I don't think she was lying but maybe she didn't actually see him and it was another kid. I really don't know what to do... any ideas?

He also informed me, while we were discussing his day, that "Noah" sleeps on his napmat. To which I obviously replied, "Who is Noah?". Noah, apparently, is a "kid", according to Ty. Yeah, that helps! Anyways, I then asked why Noah the Kid was sleeping on his napmat that Mommy had just bought him, and made sure to write his name on, in permanent ink, on both sides. He said he didn't know, and that the teacher was trying to find his mat. Now I know this lady's a teacher, and obviously she's not a total idiot, as she had to get a degree to get this job, but I have to wonder exactly how hard it can be to find a napmat that clearly has his name emblazoned on both sides? I mean, come on! It's starting to sound as if maybe Ms. Teacher needs a little time out?

nothing

2005-08-11T07:08:00.000-05:00

So now it's the second day of school. I've put Ty on the bus and come back home to... nothing. Yep, nothing. Nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nobody to ask me 200 questions an hour, nobody to go behind me and spill kool-aid on my freshly mopped floor. What on Earth am I going to do with myself?

it's all my fault

2005-08-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

Oh man! I am SOOO glad today is finally over. I thought Ty was going to explode from being so excited about starting school tomorrow. We had to go buy last minute school supplies that the teacher told me he would need while at the Open House last night and I had to threaten to leave his Spiderman backpack at Walmart. Then we had to go to a different store, because Walmart was all sold out of watercolors and erasers. There he was alright, until we got to the register. Then he started demanding gum, and kept throwing it on the counter. It took all my willpower to calmly make my transaction and keep my patience with him. After we left there, I had to stop by the grocery on my way home to pick up some poptarts, cereal, and milk for breakfast and he started crying because I actually had the NERVE to get the off-brand cereal! Gasp! He's going to be damaged for life now. When he grows up and becomes a serial killer, they'll say it's all my fault for buying that horrible generic cereal for him when he was a child. Ah well... I could be the perfect parent, and still get blamed for whatever goes wrong in his life, so I might as well save a few bucks while I'm traumatizing him.

lack of creative energy?

2005-08-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

I haven't written a thing in here since Friday. Not for lack of trying though. I suppose I must have spent what little creative energy I had elsewhere... not exactly sure where though.

I suppose I could tell you about my weekend, although nothing terribly exciting happened. Let's see.... Saturday morning, Ty and I got up early and decided to go for a little walk. We walked around the neighborhood some, but pretty soon it got hot, so we headed back home to the blessed air conditioning.

Then later on, we went and picked up Chad and went out to lunch. We decided to try something new. Actually, the place really isn't new, it's been here for quite awhile, but neither of us had tried it yet. It's a buffet-type restaraunt, that has a combination of American food and Chinese food, a little something for everyone I guess. Chad heaped his plate full of Chinese food, but I chose to eat a small salad and some American food. Not that I don't like Chinese, I normally love it, but I just wasn't in the mood for it really. I really wasn't impressed with the food I ate, although Chad said his Chinese was really good. After that, we headed over to WalMart, where I picked up book number 3 in the Harry Potter series, "The Prisoner of Azkaban".

Then we left there and headed over to the mall, because Chad wanted to look for some new work shoes. As we walked up to the doors of the mall, my stepsister, Jolee, was coming out to smoke a cigarette. She was ranting about her pre-teen daughter, Jade, who was there to get her ears pierced a second time. Jade apparently was throwing a major fit, and was scared to go through with it. I thought maybe Jolee was overexaggerating a bit, until we walked into the mall. There was a large crowd of people standing in front of the store that Jade was in. I guess they had come to see who was dying. After we walked in, she finally let the girl pierce her ears, and then she says, "Wow, that didn't hurt at all!!!" I was pretty amused, myself, having pierced my second holes by myself at the age of 14 with a couple of ice cubes and a needle.

After leaving the mall, shoeless, we came back to my house where I laid down and took a nap while Chad used my computer. He's fascinated with anything to do with motorcycles, and can sit for hours looking at different websites that have nothing but motorcycle stuff on them. Right now, he's decided he's going to lower his bike, and is trying to find information on doing that himself. My opinion is that he really shouldn't try to do anything like that, since he doesn't know what he's doing. But that's my lowly FEMALE opinion, as I know absolutely nothing about bikes, lol. How often does the fact that a man has no idea what he's doing stop him from doing it anyways? All you ladies out there with various household appliances in pieces, let's hear your voice!

After that, we took Ty down to my Dad's house to stay the night, which is where he usually spends his Saturday nights. Then we went back to Chad's house, where we talked to his Mom for awhile before she left to go to Walmart. We laid down and fell asleep, and about an hour later, I dragged myself up and went home.

Sunday was... well Sunday. I usually go to church on Sunday mornings, as was the case this Sunday morning. Nothing spectacular to tell about there. Ty went home with my Dad after church, and I came home until Chad came over when he finished with work. Then we went to his house to pick up his a tool he needed, because he wanted to go to his storage building and measure his bike, because he is seriously considering doing this. After standing there watching him measure his bike every which way he possibly could, he finally had enough measurements for whatever he needed, and we left. Then we went to have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaraunt, and then went back to his house where I watched TV while he napped before time for church again.

After church, we came back to my house so that I could put Ty to bed early, as he needs to start getting into his school routine. Chad looked around on the internet some, while I started on my Harry Potter book. Then it got late, and he went home. I stayed up pretty late talking to my sister on Yahoo IM, and then went to bed and read some more before falling asleep.

So... that's about it. And now, after writing what was supposed to be a short post, because I supposedly had nothing to write about.... I have to start getting ready for Ty's school Open House tonight. We're going to meet his new kindergarten teacher, and look around the school. I went to this school for awhile as a child, but they've renovated it since, so I'm also curious to see what it looks like now. So... maybe I'll post more about that later.

i'll do it later

2005-08-05T19:27:00.000-05:00

So today was another boring day. We stayed home all day and cleaned house, so much fun.... er.. anyways... I hate that I have to yell and threaten Ty to get him to clean up his room, EVERY time. He always says, "It's too hard!" or "I need help!" to which I usually reply, "You didn't need help to mess it up, so you don't need help to clean it up!". I think what I hate most is that it looks like he's just like me. He procrastinates until he can't procrastinate anymore, lol. I do that... alot.

So, I've been trying to find a new template for my blog to make it more "fun and interesting" since my writing and the things I write about are so boring. Maybe if people are mesmerized by the design of my blog, they'll keep coming back and reading my boring posts? They'll all say on their blogs, "Everyone go read Shawna's blog! She has a really boring life, and writes really boring posts, but the design is awesome!" Uhhhh.... NAHHHH! But it can't hurt to try! Maybe I'll find one tonight that I like. Maybe my next post will be using my new design! Or maybe I'll do it tomorrow....

my boring day

2005-08-04T19:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I feel the need to post something... anything... because I haven't posted since yesterday but I can't seem to get anything down right. I was going to try to tell you a little story about my Grandma and her husband, but it's just not wanting to come together right. So, I guess I'll just tell you about my boring day instead.

We went to the school where Ty will be going to kindergarten next week. I had to register him, which didn't take quite as long as I thought it would. I just had to fill out one form, and that was it. I guess they'll send all the forms home with him on his first day, so he can lose them on the bus when he gets them out to "read" them. Then the teacher can harass me about not turning in those forms... lol. When we walked out of the building Ty got upset, because he wanted to go to class. Poor kid, if he only knew that in a few years he would probably hate school...

After that, we went to see my Grandma and her husband Jim. My Grandma is 87 years old, but still in pretty good shape. We had a pretty nice visit and Ty and Jim played "cards". When we got ready to leave, Grandma had to give me a couple of her tomatoes and a cucumber. It wouldn't be a visit to Grandma in the summer if you didn't leave with veggies to take home!

After that, we stopped at the car wash on the way home, where I vaccumed out my nasty car. As it was over 100 degrees here today, you can imagine that I got hot and sweaty, so now I'm off to the shower. Maybe afterwards, when I'm cooled off and smell nicer I can try to tell my story... we'll see if it comes out right or not.

women's problems

2005-08-04T01:55:00.000-05:00

I got this in an email... I thought it was pretty funny and had to share!

MENtal illness
MENstrual cramps
MENtal breakdown
MENopause
GUYnocologist .
AND ....When we have REAL trouble, it's a HISterectomy. Ever notice how all of women's problems start with MEN?

Lord, bring me a man!

2005-08-04T00:31:00.000-05:00

So... I told ya a little bit about my boyfriend, Chad, and how he asked me out. I also said that it was an awesome circumstance, and that I would tell you about it later. Well... it's later! lol. So... sit back and relax, cause I have a story for you!

My family has always been religious. I have attended church pretty much my whole life. Well after my ex and I separated, I moved into my Dad's house and started going back to church again with them. I really didn't get out much and didn't date anyone for a long time. Well a few months down the road my Dad and I had a conversation in which he asked me if I thought my son needed a father. I told him yeah, but I didn't have any volunteers at the moment. He told me that maybe I should pray and ask God to bring me a man. This to me sounded very desperate. I thought, I should get down on my knees and beg God to bring me a man? Yeah, right! So, time goes on and I forget all about it.

Until one day, I'm sitting in church daydreaming as the preacher preaches his sermon. (I can't hear him preach, so I'm forced to find ways to occupy myself, daydreaming seems to be the best so far, lol.) And I start thinking about how long its been since I'd had a date or anything of that nature. And that conversation with my Dad popped into my head. So I thought, well, it sure can't hurt, and what better place to pray than in church? So I silently told the good Lord my silly little "man problems", well silly compared to world hunger and such, and how I was sorta getting lonely, and I sure would like some company!

So a few minutes later, church is dismissed and I walk out into the lobby. Well I walk by Chad, who, up until now I have only exchanged a few "Hey, how ya doin?" with. So we both say our "hey's" and then he says something else, so I stop to chat with him for a minute. So he asks, "Do you like to ride?" (MOTORCYCLES people! Get your mind outta the gutters!) And I tell him, that yeah, I've rode a time or two and liked it. So then he asks if I want to get together with him that night and ride a little bit and maybe grab a bite to eat. My jaw about crashed through the floor! I thought, no way! But sure enough, we started dating that night, and have been dating ever since.

The End.

my first blog

2005-08-03T04:37:00.000-05:00

Sooooo... this is IT! My very first blog! Dunno that anyone's going to actually read it, but we'll see.

Well, I suppose I should write a lil bit about me huh? Okay, here goes.... My name is Shawna. I'm the 25 year old mommy of Tyler. Tyler is 5. We live in Kentucky in our little apartment by ourselves. Ty is about to start kindergarten next week and couldn't be more excited!

I was diagnosed as having a hereditary hearing loss at the age of 11. I was always good in school, but as I got older and my hearing loss progressed I was forced to drop out and get my GED. At the advice of my vocational rehabilitation counselor, I left home at the age of 18 to move to the other side of the state to attend vocational school.

There I met, and fell in love with, my son's father. He got kicked out 3 months later, and deciding to risk it, I left with him. We moved into his parent's home where he worked with his father while I stayed home. Soon enough, I got pregnant, not to the surprise of my parents, who were still upset about me leaving school. We decided we would get married after Ty was born. I was due August 3rd, but being the impatient little man he is, Ty came into the world with a bang on July 4, 2000. I couldn't have been happier.

Plans were made, a date set, a dress bought, and a chapel in the Smoky Mountains reserved. Two weeks before we were to be married, I found out he was cheating. The wedding was called off. A few months later on January 1st, 2001, I left him for good.

A few years and a failed marriage later (that I really don't want to get into) I met The One. His name is Chad and he's 25 years old. We went to high school together but we hung out with different crowds. He was more of a Prep and I was... well not a Prep. But anyways, we ended up attending the same church together, and one day, in some very awesome and surprising circumstances (I'll tell ya about that later...) he asked me out. That was over a year ago, and I find myself falling more and more in love with him every day. Sometimes I feel like we were just "made" for each other, because we just... fit. It's really hard to explain.

So... that about sums it up. And I think my bed is now calling me... If anyone manages to find me, somehow, leave me a comment so I can visit you too!

100 things

2005-08-03T03:54:00.000-05:00

1. I am 25 years old.
2. I was born in Kentucky.
3. I have lived in the state of Kentucky all my life.
4. I love Kentucky... sometimes.
5. I'm hard of hearing.
6. No, I don't know sign language.
7. I have one child, a boy.
8. He's 5 years old.
9. I love him to pieces.
10. I want a couple more.
11. Yes, I'm crazy.
12. I've been married once.
13. We're now separated.
14. Don't ask.
15. I have a boyfriend.
16. His name is Chad.
17. We've dated for over a year.
18. he's The One :)
19. My first job was at my uncle's snowcone stand.
20. I only worked one day.
21. I don't think making snowcones is my thing.
22. I love cats.
23. I have one cat, Isabelle.
24. She thinks she's hot shit.
25. I think her shit stinks.
26. She's my baby... well one of my babies.
27. I have a huge family.
28. They're all nuts.
29. I love them to pieces. :)
30. I quit school to get my GED when I was 18.
31. I've went to college twice.
32. One day, I plan to return and finish.
33. 100 is a big number.
34. I am a stay at home Mom.
35. It's very hard.
36. I envy people who can work.
37. I attend church regularly.
38. I'm a Southern Baptist.
39. I have 2 sisters and a brother.
40. I love them all to pieces.
41. I have 2 nephews and one niece.
42. They're the most adorable kids ever.
43. After mine. :)
44. I also have 2 step-brothers and 2 step-sisters.
45. I have 3 step-nephews and 4 step-nieces.
46. Also adorable kids.
47. I have 2 grandmothers and one grandfather still living.
48. My parents divorced when I was 4.
49. Don't be sorry. Trust me, it was a good thing.
50. Halfway there.
51. My favorite color is dark blue.
52. I love to read.
53. I am currently reading the Harry Potter books.
54. I just finished the 2nd one, The Chamber of Secrets.
55. I love Summer.
56. I hate Winter.
57. I love shopping.
58. I especially love shoes.
59. I believe one can never have enough shoes.
60. I have one tattoo.
61. It's a rose surrounded by tribal design.
62. It's on my right ankle.
63. I've had it for almost 9 years.
64. I love to listen to music.
65. I also love to sing along.
66. Poorly.
67. I started smoking when I was 15.
68. I quit last year in October.
69. I feel much better now.
70. Did I mention that 100 is a big number?
71. I am extremely terrified of snakes.
72. Any snake.
73. I have dreams that sometime come true.
74. Never anything important though.
75. I got it from my grandmother.
76. I have flown in a plane 6 times.
77. I loved it.
78. Except that one time when there was alot of turbulence....
79. I have been to 7 states.
80. But never to the west.
81. I love camping.
82. Fishing too.
83. I once had an accident on a jet ski.
84. I consider myself lucky to be alive.
85. Only 15 more.
86. I am a loyal Coke drinker.
87. Probably because my boyfriend works for them. ;)
88. I love to ride with him on his motorcycle.
89. My favorite movie is The Green Mile.
90. My favorite author is Stephen King.
91. My favorite book is "Is Your Mama a Llama?" :)
92. It's also my son's favorite.
93. We read it almost every night.
94. I love Mexican food.
95. It loves me too, especially my butt.
96. I hate housework.
97. I hate washing dishes the most.
98. I'm a night owl.
99. I get this from my Mom.
100. The End.