EYE feel great

Honestly, I still can't believe it. I 'm sitting here with no vision correction anything and I can see just fine. I can see the fancy clock says it's 20 degrees inside (huh, ought to fix that ...). I can see the words on the spines of the books. Not that this is new. As a wearer of contacts and glasses for more than 20 years, I'm accustomed to being able to see things. Just, you know, not all the time. Just, you know, not without carrying around contact solution and spare contacts and glasses just in case all of the above fails.

This is amazing.

The process was painless. Hannah drove up with me to be my chauffeur home. (I will politely not discuss how lost she got on the way home. :) At the office, they want to give you a Valium to help you relax, but I refused. I mean, I have had three children by natural childbirth and have stuck my fingers in my eyes daily for 22 years. Seriously, how bad could it be? Having gone through it, I can't fathom why people NEED the Valium. I laid on a table, they taped my eyelashes down (which you can see in Hannah's cell phone photo from the waiting room), pushed a thing on to my eye that sucked made a vacuum seal and made me blind for a moment, cut a flap in my eye with a laser, pulled the flap back, lasered it, put the flap back. Switch eyes. Repeat. Honestly, it took 15 minutes, and I didn't feel a thing except the suction during the cutting. Crazy how easy this was.

I am sort of stunned by technology. I knew I was going for this procedure. I know lots of people who've had it done. I just don't know when it will sink in that I can see without help. I have worn my glasses for the last month and pretty much hated it. One night, though, my mind lost in deep thought, I found myself with my contact cases out, filled up, digging around in my eye upset that I couldn't get my contact out. It took a few minutes before it dawned on me that I would be shedding this habit. I felt silly (fortunately, no one was looking) and have since taken all the eye care stuff out of the medicine cabinet (to prevent a relapse).

I'm feeling pretty darn grateful for this tonight. If Bob didn't work in radio, there is no way I would have had this opportunity. Nor would I have this awesome eye gear that I get to wear to bed for a week:

Roller coaster life...

I know I need to spend more time on this post, but it's been one of those weeks, you know? As we pulled out of the drive for church this morning, Bob said, "It sure has been a long week since the tires were slashed." Indeed.

Week kick off: Tires slashed on Bob's truck, all four. Bob, ever the optimist, was glad the vandals did it on a Sunday when he didn't have to go to work. We also paid the truck off the same day we got it new tires and a detail job. So, in a way, it was like getting a new truck. And it needed new tires on the front anyhow. All's well that ends well, right? I'm thinking of putting a security camera in...

Bob gets fired: On Wednesday, after 10 years on the air at KNRS in Salt Lake City, Bob was fired. They said bad ratings. He was number one or two for years until this new People Meter ratings technology came out at the end of last year. To get ready for this, Bob's station manager switched the station from and AM dial to an FM dial losing 1/4 of the station listeners two months before the new technology came out. Talk Radio everywhere they rolled it out took a ratings dive since it doesn't measure Internet listening, etc. Everything I'd read and heard was that people were cautioning making program changes until the kinks were ironed out of the technology. Be that as it may, Bob's bonehead boss kept his job and Bob and Lee, who produced Bob's show, were fired. Oh, and it's an election year: Bob only gets picketed or fired in election years. Look it up. That day, he happened to record a promo for the next day's show which would feature a certain Senate candidate and its link to a nuclear energy company, a company which happened to be the radio group's largest sponsor. The promo never ran. Bob was fired that evening. With six weeks left on his contract. With no warning. Politics suck. But, I guess that's the game, and we're just praying really hard that something good comes of it.

Plumbing: It's been broken forever. I've had three different plumbers look at or fix the existing problems and they told me some of the issues would cost hundreds of dollars to fix. So, I saved up. Ready, I decided to try a new plumber, a local guy with an ad in our local shopper. He came and looked at everything and said he could keep the bill around $150. I almost fired him for giving me too low a quote. But, he came and did the work in less than an hour and charged me...wait for it...$55. Seriously, either all the other guys were rip off artist or my new friend Hans doesn't know how to rip people off for plumbing work. All I know is I'm having him back. For the first time in two years, I have no leaks or clogs to contend with. That is worth smiling over in an otherwise dismal week.

To celebrate our new destitute status, we took our kids to a farewell Chinese buffet dinner and a movie. I LOVED Toy Story 3. Just a great, great family movie. And then we went the next day and picked strawberries. The kids better hope that holds them, because we are about to see just how thrifty and frugal Mom can get with less than half an income.

Unless something works out. Which we hope it will. Accepting prayers at any rate. I have pictures, but I'm too tired to post them. :)

Eyes to see

I am nearsighted. Have been for a long time, in glasses since I was 12 and someone noticed it. How was I supposed to know everything across the school gym wasn't supposed to be blurry?

I still remember my first day in glasses. Part of this is embarrassing, but since we're all friends here, I'll spill. Three things I remember: My mother talked me into a pair with pink-red rims. Someone called them "Sally Jesse Raphael" glasses if that helps. Despite the poor choice of frames, I remember walking around a corner in a grocery store and being amazed that the whole aisle seemed to be RIGHT THERE. It actually startled me. This is the embarrassing part. We were in "town" ie., Reno, for my eye appointment which conveniently coincided with my first concert: New Kids on the Block. As a delusional 12 or 13-year-old, I was mortified that Jonathan Knight might see me in glasses and my life would be ruined. Fortunately, we were all spared.

After being hit in the head while playing sports and losing my glass lenses multiple times, I got contacts. I had no such thing as insurance, but I did have an aunt who had a hysterectomy and needed help cleaning her home and taking care of her kids. In return, she took me to the eye doctor her brother went to and wallah, contacts. (I love you forever for that, Jeri...) The land of peripheral vision was opened to me.

Marvelous things, contacts. But Friday, I went in for a Lasik appointment. I wasn't really thinking of doing Lasik, it's just that, well, Bob does radio and sometimes people want to advertise on the station but sometimes they don't want to pay, they want to trade their services for him to talk up their business. Dr. Robbins already did his eyes and everyone else in the family with poor vision. As I am no longer pregnant or nursing, I am the last family candidate on deck for the free surgery. (Maybe we can someday branch out to friends as payment, who knows...)

Anyway, I ignored the ad guys for months and decided the only way they'd leave me alone is if I went to the appointment with Robbins Laser Site. After 2.5 hours of pretty intense eye exams (I've never had my eye photoed so many times) I was totally convinced that this is the greatest thing since...well, ever. I get my new eyes June 14.

Don't ruin it for me. I'm excited. I threw my contacts away (sorry, Jeri...). I'm wearing GLASSES (small, wire rimmed, thank you very much) for 8 whole days. The last two without make up. I may as well join a nerd convention. This would be a horrible blow if my friend Erica weren't going through the same thing this week. We may go to a glass-wearers-only movie watching convention where no one can see our specs in the dark.

I jest. I just don't like to wear my glasses. I liked my contacts. Except the part where they'd hurt or get something stuck in them or tear in inconvenient locations or when I forgot to take them out and slept in them. Other than that, I loved them.

But I think I'm going to love correction-free vision even more.

Ellie quote

Again, because my side bar is malfunctioning, a funny from Ellie at lunch:

"Mommy, Jack likes Transformers. He's a Lego boy.

"I'm a princess girl. And a Barbie Girl. And a doll house girl. And a jump rope girl. And a supergirl. And a blankie girl."

Well, she certainly nailed it.