The Past Year --#2

More about 2012
Welcome to the second installment of my 2012 year! Thanks for bearing with me as I explore how past events have impacted me.

The First Move
For almost two years my husband and I had uprooted ourselves from our home in the country to take care of my husband's mom, Yon.  She's had some medical difficulties, including strokes, and couldn't live on her own.  I'ts been difficult medically, and emotionally.

Our job was to encourage her to eat, exercise, and to have a little social interaction, all while increasing her strength and improving her health. That, by itself, was a full-time job! Anger, passive-aggressiveness and drama were the response. (And those are only my husband and my responses ... only kidding!)

Caring for someone is really no different from my work with my clients with learning differences. There's nothing I can really do unless they WANT my help. It's not about me, or how hard I want to help someone, they must be willing to change.

For Yon it personally isn't so much about what she wants.  It was about what she doesn't want. And, she doesn't want my help.

Different Perspectives
My mother-in-law is not a native American and her ideas can be quite different from mine. On the flip-side, this was the only time I've ever spent with her.  So as hard as it's been, this is the only time we've been together as a family. At least now I have some funny stories to tell. [Let's just say friends tell me in my next career I should do stand-up comedy using my YON material!]

Where's the part about dyslexia?
This is about dyslexia! From my perspective, this is about how someone with dyslexia has dealt with a difficult situation.  As a dyslexic there are traits that come about because of our natural way of dealing with the world. Another thing I'm susceptible to are environmental toxins.

That susceptibility increases as stress levels rise, environmental factors change...and even things like rearranging a room can affect some dyslexic people. I've found that under certain stressful circumstances I'm susceptible to a negative feeling from these factors, too.

Since I was born the list of things that bother me has changed from nylon, to wool; to cranberries, bleach, oranges, and things that I'm over-exposed to like...my mother-in-law's hair spray! The list changes from time to time as stresses come and go. [And to be fair, I'm sure I added my share of stresses to her life, as well!]

For me, all it took was a small whiff of her hair product, and I was in bed for days. At one point my husband threw her hair spray in the trash, she retrieved it....

Medically I know there are various ways to treat these difficulties but one thing I discovered were Epsom Salt baths. They helped me tremendously!
Read about the Davis Dyslexia 37 Common Traits of Dyslexia here:

Prone to ear infections; sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products. Read more: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm#ixzz2HJLuGPWR

The Second Move
Living with Yon came to an end one evening when her anger got the best of her.  It was late one evening, my husband and I were sitting on the couch intently watching a program we love when she came into the room. She immediately became extremely agitated because I was sitting down.

A daughter-in-law, from her perspective, should be working: cleaning, cooking, being a wife -all of the time. In her eyes I am a failure.  She let loose. We had to leave.

Remember, we'd uprooted ourselves from our home which meant now we were stuck in total limbo. Over the next few months we enacted our third phase of house hunting in the 'Yon Time Period'. I guess we can say that in 2012 my husband and I weren't planning on becoming expert house hunters, but ask our Realtor, we've made a pretty good stab at that title!

Sealed with a kiss, no, KISSES!

*Edit: Today, April 24, 2013 is the 106th anniversary of the opening of Hersheypark, founded by confectioner Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees. Here it is today!http://www.hersheypark.com/map/index.php

Over the Christmas holidays I did some baking. I know, that's what a lot of people do during holidays, but baking isn't my gig anymore. Seems like a lifetime ago, when I was raising my four children, but back then I cooked three times a day, almost every day.

I cooked every day of every month: for decades! I cooked and prepared meals for babies, for growing children, for teenagers. I organized, planned, cooked, prepared, arranged, purchased, baked...for every holiday, every graduation, for scout events, church events, school events;  for everyone's birthday, made school lunches....whew! I could only take so much. Now my brain sends this warning message when it comes to any of that:

"Run, Cathy! Do. Not. Look back!"

But during the Christmas holiday I managed to escape that sharp warning message when the thought of baking cookies came to me. And since the baking thought rarely passes through that protective anti-baking shield I decided to do it up in a big way:  I bought a giant package of Hershey's Kisses designed to feed an army of royal children!

Since it is the beginning of a brand new year I decided that with baking a little rearranging in my baking cupboard was also in order. That's when something else hit me (besides the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips!)

What hit me was a memory. The souvenir spoon that my daughter Amanda brought back from Hershey, PA for my mini-spoon collection when she was on a high school mission trip quickly came to mind. Retrieving the spoon with the miniature Hershey Kiss I thought: these Hershey's Kisses are truly unique!

Not only are they delicious, but Kisses, along with the milk-chocolate recipe, foil wrapping with the little plume, have survived for over 100 years as one of the most beloved treats in America.

However, there's more, much more about the Hershey Company than unique packaging and branding.

The Hershey's company was founded by Milton Hershey who early in life apprenticed for a chocolate maker. Hershey went on to start several more companies on his own...all of which quickly failed. Despite the ingenuity of his ideas, his first businesses just never seemed to take root.

But being the entrepreneurial that he was, he decided to attend the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Happening upon a German chocolate company's display, Mr. Hershey promptly fell in love. So impressed with the German candy-making equipment he knew he had to have it and bought the entire display.  Before this Mr. Hershey's main product had been caramels, chocolate had been secondary to the caramels.  Suddenly chocolate was the deal!

Usually on these pages of my blog you'll find ideas and stories about dyslexia...and while nothing in Mr. Hershey's history states that he was dyslexic, the ingenuity of his ideas is really the important point here.  [Consider that he did poorly in school -though that could be attributed to the lack of stability his parents displayed in his youth. He seemed to inherit his father's genetic inclination for entrepreneurial tendencies.  All which can go hand-in-hand with dyslexia.]

No matter, the point is because one man did not give up, a brand, a city, a theme park and more continue to bear his name. Millions of dollars of profit have been made because of one man's dreams. Dreams he never gave up on.

Have you almost decided something was too tough to do? thought you could never accomplish it? gave up on?  Where could your dreams have taken you if you hadn't given up? A KISS is a simple confectionery concept that changed more than one person's life?

What can you use your entrepreneurial ideas to accomplish?

For more information on OnPoint Learning and Cathy Cook go to https://www.facebook.com/OnPointLearningCenter or www.onpointlearning.org

The last year

2012 has been quite the year for me. One of a kind challenges have met me head-on. I am not the same person I was a year ago.  I know, I know, everyone says that, but this year changed me in more ways then I can count.

For me, a fine-line separates who I am professionally and privately.  Maybe that's because I have many of the same learning differences that my own clients face.

Maybe if you read a little about me over this past year you'll have a better understanding of where I'm coming from. 

As 2011 was coming to a close I was notified that my younger brother, Ted, was in the hospital in the intensive care ward.  Those words are never something we want to hear about anyone; but, my brother Ted has been handicapped his entire life.  Over his lifetime he's progressed from having severe physical challenges to being wheelchair or bed bound as an adult.  Intensive care nurses did not give him much hope for survival a year ago. He went into a coma that for someone in his condition seemed insurmountable.  Miraculously, it was not. 

The miracle is that Ted was not expected to survive even as a young child, and here he is years later overcoming life threatening challenges that I cannot imagine having to endure.  The smile on his face as we gathered around him when he awoke will cause tears to stream down my face, for the rest of my life. 

Perhaps it has been that as I've witnessed and looked on through the suffering and perseverance of the challenges of my younger brother's life that I've been given an opportunity to have my heart opened.  Perhaps. 

The next challenge came when my father suffered a heart attack.  My dad has been my cheerleader my entire life and the thought that he wouldn't be there was more than I could imagine.  But we were fortunate to have another miracle bless our family when the heart attack proved to be minor.  

In July my father celebrated his 80th birthday as friends and family gathered. Early in dad's career he was a high school basketball coach---and on July 27th, when former students sent letters, made phone calls and more it reminded me just how much one person can impact someone else's life.  In daily life when we're driven with passion to help others the impact can be far reaching. We heard story after story that day of how young men's lives had been changed, and how that influence has carried on throughout their lives.  For me, it means I have my own personal coach who cheers me on with his sagely advice and love still to this day! 

More challenges took place over 2012 but I'm going to stop here for today.  

Remember I said that because of the trials and difficulties of my own life I have a unique perspective toward others with learning challenges, so stay tuned for the next installment of my review of 2012 as I cover just how learning differences have impacted me.  

Just try harder?

Is it about trying hard enough?

You may recognize these five items I've listed as areas you or your child experiences difficult with from time to time.  It's a list I recently received from a business trainer.  You can see her response to these difficulties:

1) Is Listening a problem? Try harder.
2) Do you struggle remembering names? Try harder.
3) Staying focused too hard? Try harder.
4) Communicating difficult? Try harder.
5) Conversations are tough? Try harder. 

While "do your best" is her point let's take a little deeper look at what's happening here. Why are these things really so hard?

It's easy to let your feelings take over sometimes. But feeling like someone isn't trying hard enough has it's own downfalls. Truthfully, as dyslexics we are often trying harder than you could ever imagine. 

Listening
Let's look at the first item on the list. Listening.  

I recently read a blog about Auditory Reversal written by Matthew Turton.  He describes auditory reversal to mean the process of the long term auditory retrieval system being stronger than our auditory storage system.  Turton compares the hearing process to how magnets might work together. 

The amount of information it pulls out of auditory storage is determined by how strong the retrieval magnet is.  While storage is weak, retrieval is fairly strong... when remembering auditory information such as instructions or a conversation, (a child may) pull out additional pieces of information that were not part of the original conversation. 

These additional pieces of information are usually loosely related in some way and relevant to the conversation.

What this means in real life is that what we should hear (the sound or voice waves are coming towards us) and what we remember hearing or what we accurately hear (our auditory process and our brain is working in harmony) can be two different things. 

If you've ever tried to redirect a child who's engaged in his or her favorite activity, such as watching an entertaining television show, you know how difficult it can be to get your message across. Their focus is directed elsewhere. 

Real Life
I'll use an example with my five year old grandson. The two of us were doing the Davis Koosh ball activity the other day.  I made the mistake of beginning the activity when the television was on. When I tossed him a Koosh ball the first few times he haphazardly reached at it, missing every time.  Realizing my mistake I turned off the T.V., we both re-focused and he easily caught the Koosh balls the rest of the time. (And he was able to throw them back to me without causing them to whiz in all directions past my head or landing yards away from me!)

Here's one way Davis Dyslexia would explain the difficulty with listening and not being focused:   

The dyslexic or A.D.D. child uses disorientation for entertainment; he may be disoriented for hours on end creating the imaginary world he plays in. 

Difficulty with listening can be a dyslexic symptom that we may easily brush aside adamantly claiming the other person isn't paying attention; in truth, they may be trying harder then we can imagine. Remember to take into consideration factors such as the environment [T.V. on], the other person's emotional state [had a hard day at school], even how they're feeling that day [do they have a cold, allergies ..] before claiming someone isn't listening to you.

Remember!
Give everyone a little kindness because we're really trying harder than you might imagine!

Read more about Davis Dyslexia: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/add.htm#ixzz2EsZrI8rx

Matthew Turton://www.getyourbreakthrough.com/blog/bid/240423/You-Never-Said-That-Auditory-Memory-Dysfunction

The cost of Entrepreneurial-ship

Business launch
There's a whirl of thoughts going through my mind as I type this post. When I recently attended a Columbia Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting I thought it was just that...a ribbon cutting.  Ribbon cuttings are just normal events, right?   But it was more than I expected.

This ribbon cutting featured the lovely Caroline Leemis and her new business Caroline Leemis Design.  Make sure you check out her work! On top of this business launch, it was also the first ribbon cutting in the League of Innovators downtown space.

In the space of that new business incubator entrepreneurial-ism had a grand opening, too.

At the ribbon cutting, as I talked with my friends Karen Mickey of The Sensible Group and Heidi Fuhrman with The League of Innovators, another friend, Jan (someone I follow on Twitter) happened to be posting a link about the cost of not recognizing entrepreneurial-ism in our world.

Cost of our ignorance
By the term cost I'm not using a play on words, I'm talking about financial cost here. Furthermore, these costs depend on where you are in this world; numbers differ between Europe and the United States. But over all, we're talking about a loss of millions and millions of dollars for our economy when we fail to recognize and cultivate our talents.

There are estimates that one in three business entrepreneurs are dyslexic. Generally it's recognized that anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the population is dyslexic, so why the increase when it comes to business?

Two things are happening
First-- a large number of people fail to recognize their own dyslexia. They discount their strengths and weaknesses, and do not recognize the actual reasons they have differences in the way they do things in life.

Secondly -- overall in the business world a large number of people are dyslexic.

So what does this mean? It means we have to be more aware.

In the UK it's estimated that 1 in 5 people in the business world are dyslexic. But the lack of recognition for dyslexia in the UK costs them over $1 billion a year.

Here in the United States the estimate for the number of dyslexic people in the business population is even greater: it's 1 in 3.  So what does that translate to in financial terms for the United States?

Let me know what do you think!

"You'll never amount to anything!" that's what he told me!

Things aren't always what they seem

By the time I was five years old I was planting a small garden behind our house, drawing simple landscape plans and making trips to the local nursery with my dad. No one had any idea that I was a dyslexic learner because of the things that came easily for me. Reading included. 

When it came time to move on to higher education I was confused at why anyone would pursue a degree in something that wasn't hands-on.  Things have changed; I've wised up a bit over the years, but back then a degree in horticulture just made sense to me. 

To get that diploma from Western Illinois University, an agriculture degree with an emphasis in horticulture, I had to complete some work in the Botany school. 

For horticulture exams our professor, Dr. Harold Schmalfeld, would line tables with small pieces of bark, leaves, berries, or written descriptions of tree characteristics and it was our job to identify the genus and species of the plant. 

Botany exams were no different. We were expected to identify a variety of plants but for that final exam we were expected to provide one of our own test questions. 

No problem, I thought! Identification tests are the easiest and we supply one question ourselves. What could be easier!?"

Back in the day

Back in those days the plant Euonymus alatus had not become the pest that it is today so when I found some growing in the wild I thought I had this bring-your-own-test-question thing down pat. I marched in for that final test like a proud peacock strutting my feathers, only to find out that the real excitement was soon to happen. 

I guess it was a few days later when our grades were posted for that final class in our final botany series when I marched in to discover the horrible truth.  I'd missed one question.  

The misdeed occurred, of all places, with my own sample. 

"Impossible! Has to be a huge mistake" I thought as I ventured down to the professor's office. "Should have this cleared up in a matter of minutes!"

Winged Wahoo

Minutes did go by as we discussed everything besides Euonymus alatus.  Why not take a little time to talk to the professor, I rationalized, thinking this was all but a done deal. But when the topic of identifying the plant finally arose all niceties slammed to a halt. 

"That plant is not a burning bush", the professor dug in, his demeanor changing.  "My wife is Hawaiian, in Hawaii that plant is called a winged wahoo."

"But, sir", I interjected, "Here in the mainland we call it a burning bush, wouldn't you agree?"

"No, it's a Winged Wahoo." 

In my mind 'who's the dean of this department' quickly popped up and 'maybe I can get a clear answer out of the dean.'  I said that out loud at one point...seems there was a minute detail I'd neglected to learn. Mr. Professor Winged Wahoo was the class instructor and the dean. 

How lucky for me!  Okay, maybe reading isn't so easy because how in the world did I miss that little detail? 

You'll never amount to anything

Without missing a beat the professor jumped on the chance to map out my life for me--

"You are never going to amount to anything in life," he threw out at me. 

"You'll never own a nice home, have children or amount to anything!" he concluded.  

And there it was, he was labeling me a loser! 

Winged Wahoos of life!

For some reason that experience came to mind this fall weekend when the temperatures outside were summer-like and it was a perfect for a little final yard work of the year.  

I have a new house and with this house I have inherited a few winged wahoos.  It's funny now---I've owned a few houses since then, managed to raise four children and have done a few other things along the way.  There are plenty of things I'd still like to accomplish in this lifetime but I think I can say I've been able to amount to at least something!

But this isn't really about me. What about the kid who hears over and over 'you'll never amount to anything'?  I think there's more for this old dyslexic horticulturalist to do out there in this world!  

"He was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams."

A Moment to be Thankful
Thankfulness and gratitude is the theme for Thanksgiving.  Besides being a worthy topic, that topic is also along the same line of thinking that I began my year with -- positive thinking.

A great reminder came to me one evening while I was reading. The idea of how our faith supplies us with the simplest of needs struck me as a microscopic idea, simple and extremely meaningful.

Glimmer of Brilliance 
In the middle of my reading a glimmer of the western sky caught my eye.  Through the upper window in my study the crimson color of the sunset pulled my focus to the performance on the horizon right outside my window.  Brilliant gifts continued to spill forward as the earth rotated and maneuvered toward Missouri nighttime. There were more combinations of majestic beauty in those moments than I could have hoped to see in a week of time ... all glittering freely right before me.

The awe inspiring moments reminded me of Albert Einstein's work.  Einstein explained the color of the sky like this:

In the evening the sky turns orange and red.  This happens because the visible light rays are hitting the particles in the air at different angles and at different speeds [than during the day] so the sky color changes from blue, that we see in the daytime hours, to a nice red-orange color. 

Foolish Dreams 

Of course Einstein had some very deep thinking to go along with those simple thoughts written above but, did you know this was said about him, by a teacher, when he was young: 

"He was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams."

'Adrift forever in foolish dreams' may not sound like a great physicist but his creative ability to imagine was all a part of Einstein's genius. 

As a young boy, Albert began to wonder what a light beam would look like if you could run alongside it, at the speed of light. [These thoughts were inspired by a book someone gave him.]  And from there his theories, such as the Theory of Relativity, sprung. 

I'm thankful for each evening that I have an opportunity to witness the majestic beauty of the sunset, that carries me into the next day with positive thoughts about all I've been blessed with in my life.