I've probably mentioned before that I keep a set of pruners in the car. I am a teacher of students with visual impairments, and cover a large geographic area here in beautiful southwest Nova Scotia. It's a job that I love, since there's always something new to learn, new people to work with, and I get to drive through all kinds of beautiful places. (Follow my Instagram to see more - I sometimes post pictures of my travels.) For one of my drives, I get to take a ferry to beautiful Long Island! On that drive late last week, I spied a huge stand of lilacs in the ditch at the edge of what was probably a homestead many, many years ago - weeds and evergreens had grown up all around them, so I didn't think they would be missed. It took a bit of effort, but I clipped a few and brought them home, riding in style in my water bottle.
I don't usually post much about my work, but I've been asked about it by a few people lately, and it is what I spend a whole lot of time doing - so here's the scoop. I work with students from birth-21 who have been diagnosed with visual impairments. Many of them have additional disabilities, and there's a huge variation in how they see - no two students see the same way. We do preschool and home visits with the youngest ones, and work with school teams with school-aged kids to help them understand how their student sees and the adaptations they need. I teach braille, cane travel, adaptive technology, independent living skills, compensatory skills, and lots of other things, too. We also provide the technology that students need to access the curriculum - my job is essentially to help my students access what they miss because of their vision loss. I work within two school boards, in French and English. I'm a trained elementary teacher, with my master's degree in the education of students with visual impairment. No two days are the same, and that's one of the things that I love most about the job. It's also one of the challenges, as schedules change constantly. And since I'm the only one doing my job in my area, it can definitely be isolating and sometimes lonely. I have the very best colleagues - it's a fantastic group of teachers who work all over the Atlantic Provinces, and it's always so, so good when we get together for meetings. Just to have people who speak the same language, you know? And I'll be seeing many of my peeps who work here in NS this week! I'm looking forward to it.
While I'm on the topic of work, Adam is a wedding and portrait photographer, and his business is home-based. He does photography on location (no studio) and we've had more than one family here to have their pictures done. He does beautiful, beautiful work. When he's not out and about, he's in this office chair and editing pictures while Heidi (the cat) supervises. He's also the one who picks up the boys after school, packs their lunches, and generally keeps the ship afloat. And he takes care of countless other things, too. It's such a good setup for us - it just works. Heidi likes her job, too.