Community Service: A Good Feeling

Last Saturday I had an opportunity through my Lions Club to perform some
community service at our local food pantry. It was a good feeling to be
able to participate in a community service project; thus giving back rather
than taking from the community.

Why is this such a big deal? Well as someone who is blind and also Hard of
Hearing (HOH), I have not had a lot of opportunities to give back in the
mainstream community and this was a chance to do so. What I did was take
some mini butter finger bars and put them into small sandwhich bags. I felt
good after doing this; and this work is just as important as checking for
codes on products; checking for expiration dates, etc. it is something that
needs to be done and needs someone to do it.

My husband and I were able to educate those who staff the pantry as to our
capabilities and willingness to serve and the staff was happy to have our
help. Hopefully it will lead to future opportunities.

If you have a chance to give back, I would strongly urge you to take that
opportunity as you will feel good afterwards. I know I did.

MY JOURNEY TO A HEALTHIER ME

My journey to a healthier me began last may 2013 when I joined the Healthy
People Class here at HTSW. I knew it was time to do something about my
weight and wanted to lose the excess weight so I could be healthier and
happier. I also want to avoid so many issues I've seen in others; issues
such as diabetes, colon cancer and more. Watching someone die from this
disease, even at a distance, is not fun.
I also wanted to stop hearing about it from my parents; and doing
something about the problem would accomplish the solution I wanted.

I want to live a healthy lifestyle so that I am here for my nieces, nephews
and great niece. I don't want my life cut short because of choices I've
made. I have the power to do something about these things and want to take
that power into my own hands now, before it's too late.

It will take time and persistence because no one ever arrives at the
destination but they are constantly on a journey and must be persistent in
order to get there. Without persistence and the will to get there, you will
never get far on this journey.

Being blind means finding creative ways to do things; like obtaining recipes
from spark recipes and downloading them to my computer so I can access them.
It also means using technology to get information off of packages so I know
what I am eating and what nutrients it contains. It means using the I-phone
app for tracking where I can and the website where I must in order to know
how I am doing. It means being persistent in order to accomplish what I
want to accomplish.

Will I accomplish this tomorrow? Definitely not. It took a long time to
put it on and it will take a long time to get it off. But I will get there.
It won't be tomorrow but it will come and my goal is to get to a healthy
weight by early next year. I know it can be done because I want to do it
for me.