Speech and Stuff

Hi All!

Speech yesterday went well. My neck wasn't nearly as tight as I thought it would be despite my patchy massage efforts. My voice was deemed good and I was given some tongue placement exercises to try to make voicing those darn unvoiced consonants a bit easier since they still trip me up at times. I guess I will be spending some time in front of the mirror (to make sure my tongue is doing what it is supposed to do) over the next few weeks. Lovely.

I guess the big problem is that my tongue pulls back and partially blocks my airway when I am trying to say unvoiced consonants. The therapist says it is due to the fact that I try so hard to say the sounds. Sort of like when I was straining my neck muscles trying to talk when I first was losing my voice. Isn't it interesting how the body compensates even when it "hurts itself" in doing so?

Okay - moving on. Thank you for all of the great comments about Story Time yesterday. I told that story for the expressive part of my sign language midterm on Tuesday and the class was laughing out loud as they watched. And yes, Mental P Mamma, I am glad he didn't steal any personal hygiene items so my name would be something like Tampax woman!

The temperature in Texas has finally decided to cool off. We had a half an inch of rain yesterday (yeah!!!) and now it is a nice, cool day. When I walked with C this morning, I actually had to wear a sweatshirt to stay warm. The wind was whipping around pretty heartily and it was very cool. I am thrilled!

We had a guy from our house builder come out yesterday to take a look at our foundation. We have a nice crack right along the middle of our house that has manifested itself in a nice crack along the tile in the kitchen which is widening every day (okay - maybe not every day but sometimes it seem like that!).

The guy said that we needed to contact the foundation warranty people and gave us a phone number. From what he said, all we had to do was call and make an appointment. Wrong!

We have to send a request for warranty service by certified mail including pictures and all kinds of information. Hubby and I are working on that and will probably get it all together to send on Saturday.

Nothing is ever as easy as you think it should be, is it?

oh - iPod update. Remember my new iPod which works perfectly? Well, I almost had an aneurysm on Monday when I walked. I had set the thing to shuffle songs - which I always do - and . . . it did. Sort of! The iPod was shuffling through the songs and displaying the titles on the screen - it just wasn't actually PLAYING the songs. Weird, huh? AND none of the games could be played. I felt my frustration level rising a bit.

I synced the iPod with the computer and . . . still issues. Then I decided to begin the steps which Apple recommends to fix problems. Luckily, the very first step (a soft reset of the iPod) worked and once more all is wonderful in iPod land! Yeah! Hubby is really relieved because the moment I told him my iPod was not working right he went and hid. Now he can come out!

For those of you following Skor's adjustment to our household, last night he slept on the bed with us (and Miss Cleo) and didn't bother me at all until about 6:00. He is getting better!

Of course, I try to make sure I totally exhaust him by playing with him before bedtime!

Trisha

Voice Update: See beginning of blog! That says it all!