Finding My Focus

I get my eyes examined each year. (It’s one of the free things I get by giving the insurance company a quarter of my check each month). My eye sight has pretty much stayed the same each year but is declining very slow. I definitely require reading glasses. If I buy them over the counter I’m somewhere between 1.75 and 2.0. I can see fine looking far away.

This year at my regular visit, the doctor wrote me a prescription for both seeing afar and reading. He said I do not really need both right now, but recommends it and that they make transitional glasses that I may want to look into. 

I took my prescription and sat on it for a couple months before deciding to go ahead and get prescription glasses. I went to a place called Americas Best Eye Care. I purchased two pair of frames for 99.00. I just got the "readers" part of the prescription. When I got home with my new glasses I seen online where if I take a photo wearing my glasses, I would have a chance at a $250.00 voucher from Americas Best. 

I entered and low and behold, I was the August Fridays Face and won the voucher! How cool was that? 

Now, I wondered what in the world am I going to do with that much money to spend at an eye center. I already had two pair of new frames that I loved. 

I held on to the voucher in case Nick wanted to use it on his next pair of glasses. December came and it was fixing to expire. He told me that he really did not want new glasses so for me to use the voucher on a nice pair. So I went back to the glasses store to look around.

I decided to go big and chose a pair of Ray-Ban frames and had them put my full prescription lenses in them. This meant transitional lenses. They warned me that it would take a while to get used to and made me promise to wear them for ten hours straight to get a feel of them.

Here I am heading out shopping with my new Ray-bans on looking like a nerd. But I did it. I made it all day wearing these things. 

I really like that I can read something then look up with out peeping over the frames or taking them off. This will make church services easier. Looking down at my Bible, them up at the pastor was uncomfortable with just the readers on.

But then the struggle hit me.

My problem now is trying to find my focus at work. I do a lot of reading, writing and computer work. I am having trouble getting a good reading sight from both eyes at the same time. While one is clear, the other is blurry so I tilt my head a little and it will switch to the other side. It’s annoying but I’m not giving up. They told I would have to get used to them when reading as I am now looking through a smaller space to read. Unfortunately I refused to pay the extra hundred dollars to have the wider vision transition.

Does anyone else use transitional lenses? Did you have this problem at first? I just feel like it’s a never ending battle. I will continue using them here at work and hopefully I will finally find my focus. Meanwhile, shopping in them is fun and perfect for looking down at a price for a second.
Now maybe I will come home with the right size clothes and no price surprises. Haha.

Sweater: Old Navy

Distressed Jeans: Indigo Rein from TJ Maxx

Boots: Rack Room Shoes

Hat: Crane Clothing Co. 

Glasses- Ray Ban from Americas Best
Cross body purse: Ross

Hurricane Florence- Sunday

Good morning yall.

It’s Sunday morning and its not too bad but we are now getting some mean wind gust from time to time from hurricane Florence here in the Charlotte area of North Carolina.

We had a good day yesterday with hardly any rain or wind. We actually went for a nice walk in the mist. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and catching up on laundry. 

This storm is only moving 2 miles per hour. That means lots of rain for a while but forcast shows sunny on Wednesday.

Here is the forcast at 10:00 am this Sunday morning.

• We still have power 
• but the internet and cable are out across the neigborhood. 
• Churches have cancelled services this morning.
• We could hear the rain hitting the gutters during the night and gust of wind blowing through the attic vents.
• There is a creek behind our house that will often over flow in a big rain but it has remained low and calm and we have not see any trees down. 
• Only leafy branches spread across the yard from the neighbors trees. 
• We do not have any trees in our yard execpt a dogwood in the back and a butterfly bush in the front. Both are doing fine. 
• I worry about some of the neighbors with towering penoaks and pines.
• Got word that the campground were we camp and store our camper at the beach is ok with no damage. 
• We have someone that will be checking on any damage to our camper in the morning. 
• My brother in law is headed back today to his home on the beach. It was spared. They lost power but no damages.
• Without internet or TV we are bored. The stores around here are closed for safety of their workers.
• Its raining too hard to go for a walk and all my cleaning is done.
• Gonna try and talk Nick into putting on rain gear and going for a walk anyway so he will stop walking circles around the house. 
• And I have eaten all my hurricane snacks.

“It’s a gully washer” as my dad would say.

More later

Stay safe. 

Hurricane Florence- Saturday

Today is Saturday and they expect the Hurricane Florence to hit my area this morning. Despite what you see on tv, the weathermen are playing it up in some areas. They have been seen faking heavy winds and bad conditions. It’s giving them more views but giving people loss of security. However, there are some that are really getting pounded by this storm right now and my prayers are with them. Where I live, the winds are picking up and the rain just started coming down at 8:30am. Here is the most recent forcast image of my area (Charlotte). 

For my family and followers, I plan to keep you updated on the hurricane each day until it passes. That means I plan to have an updated post each day for the next two or three days. (as if your not seeing enough on TV already).

We were actually going to take a beach trip this weekend but shes coming to us instead. Our next trip down will be to check on damages to our camper.

I live in the Charlotte area, 200 miles from the coast. We are expected to have lots of rain, downed trees and power outages. However, people here are really freaking out and the grocery stores are out of everything. We are not stocked up but have enough to get us by if we are stranded in the house for a couple days and we can walk to the nearest grocery store. I doubt it will get to that point though. 

This storm is coming in sooo slow. We have been preparing for the worst all week. It’s tiring.

This is the Apache Pier on a calm day. It's well known, so a lot of news is being reported from there. Two years ago, hurricane Matthew took that owning off like a hat and also tore the end of the pier off. It has since been rebuilt. We can see the pier from where we camp a mile away.

My brother in law lives and works at the Apache Camp Ground. He and his wife and daughter have evacuated and hope they have a home to come to when they return next week.

Here is a photo from Wednesday.

This is a pier at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

The swells were getting big and the wind was picking up and shaking the piers.

The end of the pier did not make it through the night.

And here is what it looks like from my front door this morning.  

More tomorrow. 

We are hunkered down!

Broken Wings

It’s that time of year where the butterflies are nearly everywhere you go. They are very plentiful around here. You can see all sizes and colors. They are absolutely beautiful. I like to watch them feed off my butterfly bush that was given to me years ago by my neighbor Mr. H. 

On the way home from shopping on Saturday, a beautiful Canadian Tiger Swallowtail flew into our path and we unavoidably hit it with the grill of the car. I was not aware of this. When we parked the car in the carport the butterfly fell to the ground and wobbled into the grass as his wings would sway back and forth hitting the pavement from side to side. I immediately called for Nick to come see the hurt butterfly. That’s when he admitted hitting it but did not want to tell me. He did not think the butterfly had stuck to the grill and survived the ride home. 

I did not want to touch him causing him to loose anymore flying dust but I did reach down with some water on my finger. He grabbed hold around my finger for a sip but never gained trust. When I would try to lift my hand up to get a closer look, he bounced off. It never would walk onto my hand to be carried to safety. 
The butterfly would rather sit on my shoe. As you can see, he had a broken right wing and a torn edge. 

So with it sitting on my shoe, I carefully walked out to my butterfly bush and lifted him up to a floral, sweet smelling stem to rest on. I do not know if he eventually gained flight or fell to the ground and wobbled away.

I can’t help but wonder if butterfly wings heal themselves. If not, I guess this guy is a goner . 

20/Happy

So yesterday was the day for my yearly eye exam. Last year I thought I'd try one of the fancy clinics in town. I was totally unhappy with the way they did things. You can read about it here.

Well, this visit was back to my original eye clinic and it was much more pleasurable. Did I mention, I love going to the eye doctor?
I didn't have to wait. They took my insurance card and sent me on back.
I first sat at this machine that took a photo of my eye balls. Then I went into the exam room.

" Why hello again, hows the eye sight going? " Dr. M asked, as he came into the room.
I replied, "Lets just say, I can tell I'm are getting older.”

He had me place my chin in the chin holder and placed the lens machine in front of my eyes and began flipping different lenses.....
"Hows is this?" " Which is better?" "One or Two?" "Two or one?" "How about now?"
This went on for a few minutes until I was able to say "wow! I can even see the little print on the bottom that says 20/20!"
He laughed and said "Let's just say your 20/happy for now."

Dr. M then says, "That's how you would see if you got prescription reading glasses".
I replied with concern, "But my 1.50 over the counter readers work just fine."
He flipped the lens on the machine and said, "This is how you see now in 1.50's. See how much clearer the prescription lens is?"
He said I am farsighted (meaning I see better far away), one eye is worst than the other and that I have astigmatism. Other than that, my eyes are healthy with no concerns.

He said I would be fine with my over the counter readers if I wanted to continue being 20/happy, but if I wanted to see perfect then I need to get the prescription lens.

I'm seriously considering getting prescription glasses for reading. It's just I already have enough trouble keeping up with the 20 pair of cheap ones that are all over the house.  

And this is just my little stash of specks at my desk and I want even mention the ones in my car. 

I’m trying to figure out how can I keep up with ONE pair of good ones? I’ll make my decision soon.