I havent written on this blog for such a long time because its whole purpose was to tell my story of music AND disability. well ive mostly had the disability part for such a long time and I have some extremely exciting news to share on BOTH fronts.
Before i get started with the music and disability updates i wanted to share the link to my new blog called erinscards and crafts this is mostly a how-to make a card blog showing photos and/or you tube videos of me doing craft. So please follow this new blog if you are interested.
www.erinscardsandcrafts.blogspot.com
First the music side of things:
around a year or so ago a very good friend of mine said that I should have music in my life and that it was awful that i was unable to participate in choir orchestra or play viola or violin or anything due to being bedridden!!!
She suggested recorder. I know what most of you are thinking shrill recorder noises made by young children that generally sound awful!!!
Well I know that noise because I was 8 years old when i learnt the descant recorder and what i did not know is that there is a whole family of recorders and they dont all have that terrible shrill noise!
So although i was reluctant at first she said she would come over on the weekend and that I could have a go at the treble (alto) and the tenor recorder too. We discovered that tenor was too heavy for me and i didnt have a big enough stretch either. I loved the tone and pitch of the treble recorder! It was amazing. I also remembered some of the notes of the descant recorder as well so this helped somewhat. I had a bit of a go and actually enjoyed it!
So she was going away near my birthday and although it was like 3 or 4 months early she decided to give me most of my present early - my very own treble recorder and a book with a CD to go with it!! Well after 1 or 2 lessons from her i could play a few notes and i started learning the book doing only 5 or 10 mins a couple of times a week whether i can play or not depends how well i am really!
So before i kmew it a number of months had passed and i was up to learning up the octave with the pinched thumb i found this incredibly difficult and it took hours and hours for me to do it but one day i finally managed to get it to work!!! I still find changing from thumb hole covered to thumb hole pinched really quite hard!!
I asked her if she could find another book something to work along side the one i had because it taught a note did 1 maybe 2 songs and that was it so i got the recorder from the beginning (treble) book and i loved it.
Christmas came and we both gave each other recorder books. I have a solo book and a duet book and donna has a duet book and a book that she requested for technique
During my recent stay at highgate park which is only a 5 minute drive from my friends house she came a few times a week and we played the new duets and had a look at the solo book and even her partner who was over from the US had a go too! We serenaded the ward many times during my stay and even had one of the residents pop in to my room to listen!
I will definitely keep you updated about how the recorder is going i can play both the descant i have since found my actual descant recorder which i used when i was 8 and also the treble as well so it means we can swap parts sometimes!
I will now go onto the disability news....
Over the past 15 or so months we have been renovating it started with a friend saying could you knock a wall down and now we are within a couple of weeks of it being totally finished. The renovation is why i had to go to highgate park for those who dont know this is an institution for people with disabilies who are unable to live at home who need 24/7 care I was there for 5 weeks.
I never thought half of what we have achieved is possible but from the moment the Government Occupational therapist said we can only renovate an exisiting bathroom or wet area we cant build one on but if YOU pay for it to be renovated we will give you the "blue bath" this is a shower trolley basically a waterproof bed which means i can have a shower horizontally lying down which is the only position i can be in.
So that same day i rang the home-loan bank we are with and they told me that yes we would be eligible for a home equity loan (cos our mortgage was alnost paid off) and then we started the building process very very long and tedious going through getting drawings made quotes and council approval right to the actual building process itself which is almost finished we are about a week or two out from everything being done.
We have built on two new rooms a bathroom the size of a decent main bedroom to fit the "blue bath" in it and also a guest bedroom since this cut out the carport we needed a new one of those and a new driveway also. We also built a patio out the back and this entire new area is bed accessible meaning i can be pushed in my hospital bed out the front or the back of our house i can have a shower or i can go into the guest bedroom which will act as a sort of second lounge room. All of this area has a wheelchair accesssible door width PLUS a small door as well which is common in nursing homes and hospitals as well to allow the bed to go through
As well as the building part of it we also had to knock down the wall which was 2 built in wardrobes - one was on our bedroom side and the other on the spare bedroom side so we lost all of our cupboard space this has opened up our bedroom into ONE big room the three existing bedrooms have all been painted and they have new flooring -tiles were the only thing i wasnt allergic to as i have severe multiple chemical sensitivity the hallway also has new tiles too. The carpet was about 40 years old and had to go.
I wanted to tell you that this has all come from what the bank allowed us to borrow-which was the max allowed and we have used a considerable amount of savings as well to cover the shortfall and we started a gofundme page dedicated to try and purchase some of the things on the list (which is on the gofundme page) We have raised quite a bit of money however I am hoping this blog might target a different group of people. Even $2 will make a difference and if you cant donate then please share on facebook and twitter
https://www.gofundme.com/erin-needs-accessible-bathroom is the link to the gofundme page thank you so much to everyone who has already donated and please share the link to your networks,
I am sure there will be more disability music and renovation news coming really soon.
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