Monday, October 24, 2016

Fall Begins - the last of the Garden and flowers

Flowers, Veggies, and the Fall NFB Blind Convention

I will start with the last of the Garden and flowers for this season. Then I will talk about the Fall National Federation of the Blind Convention for Washington State

Whatever flowers are growing my daughter always picks a few for my little vase in my bedroom
The last of the Bachelor Buttons
Purple Mums from last October bloomed again this year!
Blueberry bush. Not sure when it will bear fruit.
The last of the Herbs
The last of the chili peppers
The chili peppers in doors now because of the colder weather. 
The last of the red/orange bell peppers
Outside in the front yard. Our neighbors all have the same decorative bush and trees
The decorative bush in its red glory!
My indoor succulents looking good.
The 2nd of my succulents
The third of my succulents
One of the Orange Bell peppers as green
The tag from the Orange Bell peppers
Spinach from our garden added to the pot of soup I make for myself every week.
Yellow crookneck squash 
The remainder of the tomatoes and herbs to finish ripening indoors. The weather turned rainy and cooler now. The fall leaves are so pretty.  I love all the colors of the fall. We noted that our garden in pots did not yield a very large amount and the fruits and Veggies were all pretty small. Our plans will be different for next summer with the garden.  The flowers were all awesome. 

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The National Federation of the Blind Convention for the State of Washington 

Selfie of Me at the convention in my hotel room, I just had taken a shower and my hair was still wet.  We flew from Spokane to SEATAC airport.  Me , Maria and Cody and his guide dog Vern.  We then took a Paratransit shuttle bus to the King county line to the bus station. There we took a shuttle from Pierce County Paratransit. Then we arrived about 2:30 PM at our Tacoma Dome Hotel. It was right next to the Tacoma Dome.  We had meetings and dinner at the restaurant. Satuday Oct 15 the the main day for the convention ending with a Banquet and our keynote speaker mentioned below.  It was a very long day and I got pretty tired.  I was helping Maria a lot who was in a wheelchair.  Diane helped when I needed a break.  It was raining cats and dogs when we got off the plane as there was not overhead exit off the plane.  It continued to storm all Saturday so we had lunch in the Hotel. The banquet was very nice and I had a Vegetarian mean as shown below and the others had Steak.  Sunday we left at 11:00 am the same bus schedule as above when we arrived.  Thankfully the storm was gone and so it was not raining hard when we flew back.  My daughter and son in law met us at the airport and drove Maria back home before we went home.  It was a very fun event and great to see a lot of people I knew from when I lived in Washington before.  

Tables at the convention 
Convention attendees
Mike is our past President on the left and right is our current president Marci
Our chapter president Maria. She is now the vice President 
Me taken by Craig our Secretary whom I asked to take photos for us. This one came out blurry. Because of three of my eye diseases I need to wear sunglasses with the brightness of the lights. I have cataracts, Glaucoma and my high myopia and iris's that do not close down with bright light are my issues. 

I had the vegetarian mean of veggies with a Provolone cheese topping. The others had steak which I is too difficult for my tummy.
Cody from our Local Chapter
Gary and Connie 


Our Keynote speaker from the NFB National Chapter was Ever Lee Hairston.  I just love her talk for this convention. Ever Lee is such a great motivational speaker.   She wrote her autobiography. I got it from Kindle at Amazon and it is awesome. I have listened to half of it so far. Here is the link for her book:  

Ever Lee Hairston
Born to Arizona and Clarence Hairston on the Coolemee plantation in Mocksville, North Carolina, Ever Lee is the third of seven children. She grew up and attended schools in the segregated South. “I felt like a second-class citizen, using hand-me-down books in school; and, due to unexplained vision problems, I had to struggle to read from the bulletin board,” Ever Lee noted. In spite of the challenges of growing up in the segregated South and continuing visual problems, Ever Lee had a strong desire to become a nurse. Ever Lee’s parents simply could not afford to send her to college; so after high school, Ever Lee went to New York City to earn money for college by working as a live-in maid. She returned to North Carolina at the end of the summer anxious to pursue a nursing career. However, she failed the required eye examination and was told that she would not be suitable for admission to Duke University Nursing School. “I was heartbroken but refused to be defeated,” she said. She was accepted at North Carolina Central University, where she earned a teaching degree.
Ever Lee Hairston was unanimously elected to the Board of Directors at the 2010 National Federation of the Blind (NFB) convention on July 6, 2010, in Dallas, Texas. She brings considerable experience to this position, having served in various capacities with the NFB over the years—including nineteen consecutive years of service on the NFB Scholarship Committee and a fourteen-year stint as first vice president of the NFB of New Jersey. 

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While I was at the convention my daughter Suz and her family went to a local place, Beck's Harvest House, to get fruit and pumpkins