Julie Barrett is a freelance writer and photographer based in Plano, TX.

It's Been A Crazy Couple Of Weeks

Fresh when it gets here from Julie Barrett
Tuesday, November 8, 2011


I know posting has been up and down. Things have been, as I say, a bit crazy. Sunday is our big wrap-up meeting for this year's FenCon, and I've had much prep work to do in order to get all the ducks in a row before I hand the reigns over to the new chair. Yes, I'll still be involved with FenCon, but it's my turn to step back and let someone else take over. Running a con is more tiring than you might think. Even when you have a great committee (as I had) a lot still falls on the chair's shoulders. It's easy to get burned out, which is why the convention founders wisely decided to limit the term on that position.

Still, there's a lot to do in the next few days.

So why am I posting pictures of clean sewing surfaces and talking about other projects? Because I have to earn a living. And for a time working at the computer was problematic. Allow me to explain.

I had my annual eye exam a couple of weeks ago. As I suspected, my eyes had changed. Really changed. I think the doc is adding one bat to each eye. (I joke about my sonar-assisted eyewear, but the truth is I'm legally blind without correction and have been for years.) I also have a very odd contact lens prescription. In addition to wearing multifocal lenses one is weaker than the other to allow me to see better up close. Because, well, I'm freaking legally blind. To make matters worse, my eyes tend to dry out and the inexpensive lenses (that Chris can wear, even with his astigmatism) just dry up and fall out of my eyes. 

All this means that fitting contact lenses can be more of an art than a science. Sometimes it takes two or more fittings to get it right. Often, he gets it right the first time. When I got my contacts a couple of weeks ago, he sent me out with a mission to do a lot of different things to see how my lenses were going to work, then come back in a week. Generally, they worked well, but I discovered I couldn't work at the computer for more than half an hour at a time without serious eyestrain. 

So he swapped out one of the contacts. Another week of giving them a workout. These work great! I ordered new contacts, took a prescription for glasses and documentation for insurance paperwork, and headed home. Sadly, my vision insurance doesn't work with this doc. Some years it does, some years it doesn't. If you have health insurance through your employer, you know that these things can change from year to year. It's just the way it goes. I've been with him for 20+ years and he's great. I order my contacts through him just because it's less of a hassle if I have problems. And then I file on insurance. I'll get my glasses elsewhere since I've already put out a small fortune on an exam and six months worth of contacts. And I do it with his blessing.

So I came home, made a copy of the prescription...and discovered the date is the date of last year's exam. Oops. So it's back out there tomorrow. No biggie as I'll be passing through that area anyway. 

Oh, yes. There was another thing. I'm getting cataracts. Or should I say that cataracts are starting to develop? Otherwise it sounds like a Christmas gift or something. That was a little unsettling. Okay, a LOT unsettling. Since I do photography and design work and work with fabric, color detail is important to me. We had a long talk about that today, and he reassured me that the kind I have should grow slowly and I shouldn't have any problems in the color department for quite some time. That was nice to know.

Ah, the joys of aging. 

Now that I'm settled in contacts I'll have to revisit desk ergonomics. I've noticed that the position of my monitors changes forward or backward over the years depending on my vision correction. Also get to see about a weaker pair of reading glasses. Eee! No, these contacts aren't perfect, and given my eyes the odds of perfect correction are fairly narrow. I tend to prefer the best distance vision I can get, which means a compromise on near stuff. Still, this beats the heck out of the days when I had single vision contacts and had to wear reading glasses in order to eat. 

So yes, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Things should settle down some next week, I hope. 

Tags: Life


Filed under: Life            

 

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