The hardest thing to find

For me, it is probably a pair of socks. They do not make any sound when they fall and if you disturb the floor around where they have fallen too much, then they are likely to simply move away from your grasp. If they fall out of your hands while removing them from the drier, then you may be out of luck to find them if you are unable to see where they have gone.

Fallen socks have always been a problem for me and even when I had my functional vision they were a problem then. Should I be pinning bells on them you may be asking? Not a very bright idea. How can I solve this problem? Maybe someone out there may have a solution for me.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and encouraging you to visit www.nfb.org to learn more about the world of blind persons.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.

No need for help in the bathroom

Whenever anyone offers to help me to navigate a public bathroom, I almost always turn down their offer and I do it very nicely and respectfully. Yes, I know that people mean well in wanting to help me as a blind person, but that's okay. I can navigate it and I thank the good Lord for this.

This does not mean that every blind person is the same. No, not at all and I encourage society to keep on offering help to other blind persons when it comes to assistance at navigating a public bathroom. The layout of a public bathroom is never the same and there is really no commonality. In short, there is always going to be a tiny difference in each layout.

I believe that over the years, architects of public bathrooms have made a concerted effort to generalize the layout but there is always going to be tiny differences. The one common denominator will always be the elements that are found in a bathroom. We need to think of it like this: layouts of a bathroom differ from home to home.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.

Discovering the gym

My curiosity got the better of me some time ago and I decided to bite the bullet and ask my friend to give me a tour of the gym. I am really not sure why I was always a bit hesitant but I was sure glad after I had my tour.

My friend was a very good tour guide. She placed my hand on each piece of equipment and explained each knob, lever, and button to me. She then allowed me to explore for myself and described all aspects of each piece of equipment to me.

I tried out the exercise bicycle, the treadmill, the stepper, and the rowing machine. I felt these pieces of equipment from front to back and at the end of it all I had a much better idea of how things felt and looked. My introduction to the gym.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day. Come by and listen to some of my audio mysteries at www.donnajodhan.com.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan

Identifying my dogs by their voices

Yes indeed! They each had a very unique voice according to the sound in my ears. Their growls and barks were unique and this is how I identified them whenever they were out of my range.

Just like their personalities, each dog's voice was different. Yella had a soft but confident voice and bark. Tiger was much louder and braver. Lion was loud but tinged with timidity. Boyo's bark was medium to loud but tinged with some assuredness and Brownie's bark was simply loud and proud.

Each dog used their voice in a uniquely different way and each barked at various times for various reasons. It almost always used to amaze my family how I could identify our dogs whenever they were out and about. I knew each voice like the back of my hand and I even knew their growls and could easily distinguish them.

I did not have enough vision as a child to distinguish my dogs by sight so I had to depend on their voices. Of course whenever they were within my reach I had no difficulty distinguishing them.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to explore the world of blind persons by visiting www.acb.org.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.

Counting the lights

How well I remember this very simple childhood game! I used to engage in counting the street lights as Dad drove down the street in our family's car. I used to love doing this and sometimes my elder brother, Robert, and my granny would join in. There were the sodium lights which were round and orange in color and the florescent lights which were long and of a more yellowish color.

Sometimes I would get it wrong and Robert and Granny would correct me but most times I was spot on. These little games usually took place at night as we drove down the city's streets or on main roads. I never tired of doing this and sometimes Robert and Granny would simply drop out of my little game if they became bored or tired.

That was just fine with me and I just went on counting. Ah yes, those little childhood games that still remain with me. My vision no longer allows me to count the lights but that's very okay with me. I have the memories!

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and share my blogs with others. To learn more about me, visit www.sterlingcreations.ca.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.

What happened when the boxes got mixed up

At the best of times, I am normally super careful whenever I return home from my grocery shopping. I am ever so careful to ensure that I can identify the differences among tins, cans, and boxes but on this particular day something did not go right for me and I had to spend some extra time identifying some of the boxes.

It is usually easy to distinguish the various boxes of stuff. This is done based on weight, size, shape, and by shaking to ensure that it is, indeed, what I think it is. For example, boxes of jello are easily distinguished from boxes of cornflakes and boxes of shake and bake are easily distinguished from boxes of crackers. However, here is where the problem came for me.

I could not easily distinguish the difference between the box of shake and bake and the box of mazza balls. To make matters worse, I could not distinguish the difference between the boxes of stuffed chicken breasts and hamburger patties.

First I shook then I measured the boxes to see which was larger. The weight seemed to be equal and the sizes were an exact match. Smelling them would not have helped me on that day. So what did I have to do at the end? Open up each box and then examine the contents carefully by touch. Bingo!

Success! The shake and bake had a familiar smell and contained plastic bags for shaking. The mazza balls did not. The burgers were round and the stuffed chicken breasts were long. At last, I resolved my problems that day.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to share my blogs with others. Come by and listen to my audio mysteries at www.donnajodhan.com.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.

Learning math

I learned math as a blind student, with a slate and something called type. The slate was made up of a frame of holes and the type could be used to achieve 16 different positions. When the type was on its right side up, one could create numbers from 1 to 8 and when the type was placed on its wrong side, then the following could be had: 9, 0, plus, minus, multiplication sign, division sign, decimal point, and equals sign.

You could see then that the type had eight distinct sides and in actuality it was a very small entity made of lead. You had to place it in the hole of the frame and this is how figures were generated. The frame consisted of 16 columns and eight rows. A marvelous invention, in my opinion, for a blind person to have learned math to start with.

Much later on came talking calculators for us blind folks and this is the picture as it stands today. Many students do indeed use Braille to do their math as well. Others use the good old abacus.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and tell others about how blind persons learn Math. To learn more about the world of blind persons, visit www.nfb.org.
Follow me on Twitter @accessibleworld and @author_jodhan.