Ideas for products for people with disablities

• Easy button shirts and pants
  
• adaptable Make-up tools
• fashionable shoes that are soft yet supportive
  
• Equipment that eases lifting and pouring for cooking
• Software that corrects handwriting and spacing
  
• Binders and folders that make it easy to put papers in, and take them out
• Mandatory accessibility for gyms and health clubs
• Dentists and Orthodontists that are familiar with the dexterity issues of the hands and fingers.
• Exercises in magazines that everyone can do
  
• Validation that the experience of having a disability is not quite the same as not being good at sports or math, and actually having a disability is different from having worked with people with disabilities.
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• I don't want to feel like I must pretend CP isn't there.
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• True fairness. What I mean by that is, instead of saying a workplace would not give me a set schedule for me to be able to schedule the bus because it would be unfair to everyone else, a workplace would recognize that I need to schedule the bus because I cannot drive, walk to work, or use a regular city bus, not just because I feel like it.
  

Why I never thought I would blog

I never thought I would blog because I don't think of myself as an extraordinary person. I'm just a petite gal from a big family in suburban Connecticut working at a supermarket. I'm not particularly neat or artistic, or mathematically inclined.
But here I am, because I feel there is a place for me, even though I don't stick out as someone who is really great at one thing or another. I like to write and I'm really great at being human. I try to never mispronounce or misspell someone's name, remembering their favorites, (For example, my niece loves cucumbers, my nephew loves the color orange, and a friend at work loves the Atlanta Braves because at age 11 she saw them on TBS and loved the colors.) I'm always asking if anyone needs a snack or drink at work, as I don't want anyone to be hungry or thirsty and it is totally possible to only bring money for say, a drink but then you are really hungry on your break.
I have been through some experiences some people have not because of cerebral palsy. I've had surgery, I've experienced general anesthesia, I've learned to walk a few times. But I have also rocked at Spanish, stunk at math, became decent with Math, passed tests on the first try and had to retake a test. I've won awards, I've been overlooked. I've been strong at work and I have cried from frustration and not even felt bad about it.
I'm here and I may not be 100% inspirational all the time, but I have a voice that can speak to a lot of people.
I want to start using this 'voice' more as I blog.

Difficulties

The hardest thing about cerebral palsy is that 1) Ordinary tasks that don't look hard are hard for me. Opening a cereal box for example, requires careful effort, but usually I do not put forth this effort as I hungrily rip the flaps on the box.
Pouring drinks: If a jug seems heavy, it's hard for me to pour it, or my wrist shakes with the effort. Luckily, my younger brother is happy to oblige.
Unwrapping coins of change: Bang against the side of the tray? No thank you, this causes the change to go everywhere, causing more sorting to occur, and so I carefully unwrap the rolls and may leave the paper in the drawer.
2) I may have worked really hard but it does not seem so. Sometimes looking at my workstation I may look like a hot, careless, mess. But maybe it was busy and I was having trouble putting all of the tenders in the teeny slot. Sometimes it feels as though I cannot try harder, don't ask me to, I can't do it. And I don't like to say I can't try harder but I suppose what I really would like is for some understanding.

What I want people to know

• Just because a person has a disability and works at a supermarket does not mean this person is a bagger
• Just because a person has a disability does not mean that at 16 he or SHE did not go into a store and fill out an application on a whim to see what would happen on her own without any agency help.
• People with disabilities can, in fact, pass difficult, required standardized tests such as the PRAXIS II

Things are possible, I learn this more and more every day. On a bulletin board I saw a basketball team at a gym advertised and I thought of signing up. Yesterday my niece wanted me to dance this dance she choreographed as only an enthusiastic three year old can. She said "You can try it." And then told me "You're doing great!"

An epic journey.......Or "Making a smoothie"

Step 1: Get the milk out, and then you close the fridge on your left thumb and then spill the milk.

Step 2: Clean the milk
Step 3: Pour in milk, yogurt, frozen strawberries, and pineapple.
Step4: Blend
Step 5: Pour, and spill so that the smoothie goes down the outside of the drawers.
Step 6: Blend again but spill more putting it in there.
Step 7: Pour, then become tired of working on the smoothie, that one just puts the remaining chunky liquid/solid in the fridge.

Before you ever tell someone to stick it out

Let me tell you something no one ever talks about

There will be times in life where you have feet of lead,

You can't get out of your own head

Energy may rev a little, but still feel like you're experiencing a treadmill

I never knew this before, thought I could have fought through it all

But sometimes..it's just not meant to be

Things are possible

I attended the Uconn Women's Basketball game versus Louisville in Hartford, CT at the XL center w Something clicked within me.

Granted, I am five feet tall and already completed college. But it was just so much fun and I realized: I sell myself short. I looked at the court and said to myself "Hey I could run that; it doesn't look that big!" I pictured myself stretching with the team.
Another reason why I have been stuck in this post-college/grad school cashier phase is that I always wondered, "What have I accomplished to really say to people 'I made it?'" But it's not about specific achievements or even about myself but drawing other people out and encouraging other people to lead fuller lives because I am an encouraging person.

I often say to myself "Oh I don't like crowds" or "Oh it's too much walking."
Now, I'm not saying that Hartford, CT is like NYC and seeing a Broadway Show.
But I am saying, without my walker, just using my brother and grandma for supports, I did fine. I should not just count myself out but encourage myself to go more places, and even to be athletic