Category: Thoughts on Life

Well it’s May. Stephanie’s birthday was May 4th. Happy 24th birthday Hobbit! 🙂 My final semester at the University of Tennessee is over. All the students in my class did well, I guess I’m a decent teacher after all. I did well in the classes I took too. Time to head to Columbia, Missouri.

I’ll actually be able to drive in Columbia. I finally finished driving training at Patricia neal and the hand controls etc. are being installed next week.

The left foot accelerator wasn’t working too well so I tried a new control today, a Menox Hand Control. It’s very nice, you push it forward for the brake and pull back for the gas. Feels natural and easy, the left foot accelerator was just a pain to use and I wasn’t too good at it.

There are plenty of customization options for it, I’ll just have to see what works best for me. I’ll also be getting a steering knob and there are several options for that too.

I drove on the road today. No major roads, just some light traffic. I was definately nervous, especially since I haven’t driven in a little over a year and a half. It was like being in drivers ed again. But I made it back in one peice.

From the night of Thursday the 17th until yesterday I was traveling. Seven states in seven days. Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. And of course back to Knoxville. We saw a lot of interesting places and collected quite a few road maps.

We went to Arkansas for a bridal shower for Stephanie then decided to go to St. Louis and then Columbia. That meant some backtracking but the whole trip was an exercise in spontaneity. And a really good way to wear yourself out.

I drove again today. I’m getting a lot better at using the left foot gas pedal. Monday I get to head out on the road, I’ve just been in a really big parking lot up to now. All other drivers and pedestrians consider this fair warning. Be on the lookout for a Patricia Neal student driver car.

Last week was a roller coaster. Monday and Tuesday were fine. Wednesday, Stephanie needed a day off, so she took it. Thursday, she had a day off and took me to my driving evaluation at Patricia Neal. That went well, looks like I’ll just be using a left foot gas pedal, not hand controls. I have more training this week. So I’ll be driving the Jetta soon I hope.

I also got my taxes done at H&R Block Thursday, that was great. Not only do I not owe anything, I get a refund. I had money set aside to pay taxes, but since I didn’t have to use it we paid off all our credit cards instead. So except for Stephanie’s student loans we are now debt free. Which is good because Friday was a bad day.

Stephanie lost her job Friday, she has details at her blog. So we are a bit short on income now, but thanks to the tax money I didn’t have to give to the government, things aren’t nearly as bad as they could be.

In other news I finally got around to showing Stephanie how too add pictures to her Gallery so there are lots of new pictures online.

I finally have an on the road driving evaluation scheduled again, for Thursday March 10th at 8:45 a.m. I’m a bit worried about it, I haven’t driven a car since before the wreck. I’ve tried driving around a parking lot but I’ve never done anything more than that. We’ll see what happens I guess.

Well, what happened this week? Stephanie and I spent Tuesday working on wedding stuff. We got the tuxes taken care of and figured out the wedding rings. Wednesday was fun. I had to teach in my information society class, that was no problem. Except that my scooter ran out of power on the way to class, hills really drain the battery. Luckily I was able to call a friend and he pushed the scooter to his car and gave me a ride to class. Later that afternoon the scooter ran out of power again but this time I was able to make it to a power outlet for a recharge.

Wednesday I also found out that I made it to the interview process for admission into the SISLT Ph.D. program at the University of Missouri – Columbia. My phone interview is Monday March 7 at 9:00 am central time. Wish me luck.

Thursday I got the chance to talk to Donna Nicely, director of the Nashville Public Library, for almost 2 hours. It was an great experience and that conversation should help with my Ph.D. admissions interview, since I want to study public libraries, information policy and technology.

I haven’t made any progress yet with driving training, the paperwork is either lost or in transit. Walking is getting better, I’ve cut back on the baclofen and that’s making my muscles work more. My legs ache a lot but that’s just because they are working harder and building strength. Plus less baclofen means I can actually stay awake. 🙂

Maybe I’ll get to drive one day. To recap what as happened so far. I had on the road driving training scheduled for February 3rd. But I had to wait to talk to Voc. Rehab, so they would pay for it. So I’ve been waiting ever since then to get driving training rescheduled. Paperwork keeps getting lost or thrown away. I’ve jumped through every hoop people have asked me to jump through since November.

I’m way past annoyed now and and am rapidly approaching mad. I’ve been splitting my time between living on campus and at the house. It’s really starting to get old. I never feel like I get anything done because I’m always moving back and forth. I hardly ever get to see Stephanie anymore, I’m either at the church or she’s working. Driving would make life a whole lot simpler and less stressful for both of us.

But good things are happening too. If you’ve read Stephanie’s blog you know that she has Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Well, Stephanie now has health insurance through her job and went to the doctor this week. He gave her a prescription for Metformin, which reduces or reverses the effects of PCOS.

And in other news we now have a wedding website up. Not a lot there yet, but we do have information on our honeymoon, as well as where we are registered.

Well I guess I’ll stop now and attempt to work on a paper that’s due Wednesday night. Actually it’s just a proposal but it still needs to get done.