About Me

I love making cards and have been blogging since early 2015.

 I have 5 children and 5 grandchildren. Of my children the youngest are twins and Elysha, one of the twins, has Down syndrome and is hearing impaired. I am also hearing impaired.

Elysha did all her schooling in a Hearing Unit and Auslan sign language as well as spoken language are her main form of communication. I also sign having learnt sign language before the twins were born.

I am a sign language tutor and have authored a number of sign language books and resources for use here in Australia. I draw sign language graphics for my own use and for the use of others. These are all done on the computer and that was a skill I had to learn after having Elysha and realising there was very little in the way of resources for people to use with children/adults who have speech and/or developmental delay.

I also worked with Assistiveware, who produced an App called Proloquo2Go and Proloquo4Text, as we found that this was a great device for Elysha when out and about with people who don't use sign language. I worked with them for five years but had to step back last year as mum and dad deteriorated and I needed to be with them more.

I trained in Auslan originally for work then carried on when I had Elysha and as my hearing lessened. Though Elysha has Down syndrome she is fluent in Auslan and can sign and be understood better than when trying to use voice only.

I was introduced to card making by a life long friend (53 years of friendship this year) and where her card making is still a small part of her brilliant crafty repertoire, it is all of my enjoyment time.

I love to read and colour and paint and the colouring and painting are part of my card style. Reading, my idea is that you carry a book with you always, cause you never know when you can steal a 5 minute break somewhere and better than twiddling your thumbs.

I am new to blogging so my blog page is a bit here and there and probably needs lots fixed on it. I don't know about adding words or making it easier when a person searches or how to make it easy to go to links etc but I am learning......just slowly.

I love to gab as you can see and also love to share about my grandchildren, children and my parents who are both going thru dementia/Alzheimer's.

We are very noisy as we cant tell how loud our own voices are and the telly is usually loud enough for the neighbours to watch theirs on mute and still hear everything. A lot of our friends are deaf and sign so don't be mistaken into thinking deaf/hearing impaired is a silent world, we can be loud and sometimes our neighbours don't like it too much. My husband and the others are full hearing so they are happy to let us know when we get too loud.

Love a good laugh and always happy to muck around or play a joke as long as no one gets hurt by it. My family also enjoy hearing my inappropriate answers to questions cause I mishear what they say and they think my answers are hilarious sometimes.  I should keep a list of the answer I gave and the question that was asked to share....... then there are days when Elysha or I will quite happily tell them all where to go when we miss-answer and not in the mood for a laugh.

There we go that gives you a pretty good view of me and my family.