The Plural of Moose is "Meese"

     I first started experimenting with making tags and e-stationary because Jeremy Crow introduced me to it sometime after my motor vehicle accident and subsequent diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. I like taking pictures and I like making backgrounds in particular. 
     
     Hobbies are good things to have. They force our brains to solve problems and give us pleasure. Have you picked up any new hobbies since your brain injury?

     I took the picture of the moose, and a picture of the lawn [used in the background] and altered them on my legally obtained digital photography software. I added the words. If you want any of them, please right-click and save to your "My Computer." Enjoy. You can use them on the Internet at will.

Eat more beef.

      A friend went hunting and bagged a moose. He made moose stew and it was delicious.

FAIL.

FAIL moose.

      Here I was thinking of the FAIL boat pictures. I like the FAIL moose.

Hey There.

I like BIG bucks.

      Flirting can be fun.

Like a BOSS.

      I'm a Duck Dynasty fan. I think I've heard this saying on there.

NO.

      If we never say "no," then our "yes" ceases to mean anything.

Thanks, Cupcake.

      I picked up "Thanks, Cupcake" from Todd Kincannon. For situations when "no" just isn't enough.

WHATEVER.

     I remember being a teen and living in "whatever" mode.

Working on my Visual Perception Problems

My traumatic brain injury left me with some rather outstanding perception problems.  Because I have diagnosed permanent double vision in one eye, I have been treated to the sight of folks with two heads, four arms, and two torsos which extend into one set of hips and two legs casually jogging in my neighborhood.  Because I have been diagnosed with ocular-motor dysfunction and a visual accommodation disorder, objects and people appear as having ghost lines around them, especially when fatigued and my brain is too tired to block those ghost lines.  (And let's not forget the photophobia which is responsible for me limiting my driving at night to "only local and only when not tired."  And my fatigue from dealing with all of this which led me recently to switch to an e-reader which is set to make reading easier for me).  


I know that first paragraph sounds like I am whining.  But really, I am not whining.  I want to tell you about Google Sketch-Up®.  Sketch-Up® is a three-d modeling program that is available at http://sketchup.google.com/download/ as freeware.  [If someone is a professional and wants more bells and whistles, they can buy a professional version from Trimble].  I like three dimensional stuffs and I also like animation.  I've been endeavoring for some time to use DAS®, Bryce®, Blender®, and Hexagon II® and I've had no success to speak of.  [Those four programs were all available as free legal downloads a couple of months ago from their company's website.  I believe the special offer may have ended.  At any rate, I got in on it the very last day].  Those programs were too hard for me to learn at the present time.  One night I happened upon Sketch-Up® and promptly downloaded the free version.  

In short order, I found that I was able to produce rectangles, circles and 3d text.  [If you want to see a few of the things I've made, google "warehouse lovemakesafamily" to find some examples that I've uploaded to Google Warehouse®].  After watching a few free tutorial videos,  I went on to make several skyboxes, some other shapes, and a box with a chaffeured lid.  As I continue to work with my digital camera and computer art, building in Second Life®, and Google Sketch-Up® I've noted some improvement in the way that my eyes work together when I practice  my vision therapy exercises.  This improvement I must still label as "subjective" since it has yet to be confirmed by my t.b.i. eye doc. 

Sorry to the dedicated optimists who want me to say that my vision problems are totally abated, cured, or not permanent after all.  It simply ain't so.  I have to deal with my situation as it is and not engage in dreams of being "almost or exactly 100%" of who I was before my accident.  I am very fortunate to be alive.  I would have been better off-- certainly financially and in some other ways as well-- had the motor vehicle accident not happened.  But things are what they are.  I continue to deal with Briella [my still brilliant brain, just a bit sideways] on a daily basis.  When I think back to how far I've come from the early days of sleeping twenty-two hours every twenty-four, relearning on the computer how to write a complete and organized sentence, playing Tetris® because other T.B.I.ers told me it would "help" with my eye-hand coordination, and myriad discussions about the names of the seven dwarves, I smile broadly and say to myself, "Yup I done good.  Now I gotta keep striving."

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Happy Solstice 2011

I had a pleasant Solstice.  This morning, I went to see my dad who has Lewey Body Dementia and is staying at an assisted living house.  (More over at my sapphoq on life blogspot...).  We had a pleasant visit and then we both went downstairs to hear a fellow sing Christmas songs.  He had an excellent voice, very clear with a good range.  On my way home, dog and I walked a mile on a local bike trail.

This afternoon, I took the older shyer kitty to the vet for his annual check-up which he passed with flying colors.  After dinner, I played some trivia on-line.  I've been continuing to challenge my brain daily.  Trivia is one of the newer things I've come up with.  Trivia forces me to think, to deliver the correct answer before the other triviacs do.  Because I type so fast, I am able to deliver rapid-fire guesses and will sometimes score that way.   Other times, my guesses are far off the mark.  Occasionally, I actually know an answer and that also feels good.

I continue to take pictures and also work on creating backgrounds and textures on my computer.  These are two of the pictures that I took today at a construction site.  Making textures gives me much happiness.  I've recently started creating photo collages out of pictures that I've taken.  When I am taking pictures or working on the computer, I do not feel much physical pain at all.  I figure that these activities are like crafts or hobbies for me and must trigger the release of endorphins-- the body's natural pain-killers.  Working on textures and some rudimentary 3-D building has also improved my perception somewhat.

What are some of the things you do in order to keep your brain stimulated and challenged?

sapphoq healing tbi