Day 741

This afternoon was too important not to get it right. This afternoon, next week, and the week after that and the week after that and the one after that and the one after that. Just too important. I want it too bad. That recording booth is calling my name and I'm going to have to work darn hard to get there.

When I was in elementary school I used to get to help at the school next door. This was when students with special needs were placed in a separate school. Me, the good ole' smart girl, the one who finished my work early - with few mistakes - and always needed more got to go next door to the school and work with deaf students and blind students. I learned sign language; I learned braille.

It was that experience that made me want to teach the deaf when I grew up.

I headed to college, took my undergraduate classes, took sign language classes, all the time knowing I would be a teacher of the deaf. I took a job teaching second grade, knowing someday I would be teaching the deaf. After several years I moved onto teaching fourth grade, knowing someday I would be teaching the deaf. I moved to a position outside the classroom, thinking someday I might teach the deaf.

And now here I am, forty years later since that first thought of what I wanted to be when I grew up and twenty years since I started teaching. I've just recently come to the realization that I won't be teaching the deaf.

But I found a way to bring things full circle and make sure I don't give up on my dream completely.

The Idaho Commission for the Libraries was looking for volunteers for their talking book program. This is a program where written materials are recorded and then distributed to the blind, kind of like a book on tape program.

So today I had my first interview. Being I'm totally inexperienced in a recording booth I'm going to be working my way up the ranks. I will start by editing the recorded materials for a few weeks (or months). Then I get to move up and work with the narrator, editing their spoken word as they go. And then, and only then - and after a voice "audition" - will I be in that booth. Alone in front of the microphone.

Narrating books for the blind.

It might not be teaching the deaf, but I can sure live with it. As close to a dream come true as I will probably ever get. Makes me want to work even harder to get to that booth!

Today's unrelated pic is another quilt top I'm working on for charity. (Obviously for a girl.)

Day 740

Gigante. Spanish for gigantic. Synonyms include giant, huge, enormous, colossal, gargantuan, titanic.

Or we could use my synonyms. Holy moley. Geez whiz. Oh my gosh.

Or as hubby discovered tonight, fork-bender.

The Gigante Burrito on Alejandra's menu. Just compare the size of that burrito to the regular-sized fork in the background. Such a big burrito stuffed full of ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, beans and rice that the fork bent when hubby was tackling it.

Our second menu item was a freebie from the lunch menu, a cheese enchilada. How do you get a freebie from the lunch menu? It just so happens that Alejandra's has punch cards. Eat nine meals and you get a free item off the lunch menu. Yeah, we never have to pay for lunch menu items.

Day 739

Making a bit more progress on a charity quilt.

Day 738

Wanted: Cat who thinks she deserves to breathe the fresh air on the first day I opened a window.

CAUGHT!