A weekend of Selfishness?

I get a whole weekend to myself this coming up weekend. Peg is going to visit friends in New Hampshire and I get to stay at home with the cat. Yay, me!

Every once in a while, I think I just need to take time off and cloister myself away. This seems to recharge my creative batteries... as long as I ignore that "should be working on" list (which, also for me, is very, VERY long.)

My should list includes: Images/Lowell Quilt Festival. I love going to the show and seeing other people's work. I love shopping. I even have a list of things I should get for the class I'm taking at A Quilter's Gathering in November (never too early to start prep!) Am I going? Probably not, because the times that I can hang out by myself in my apartment (with just Ed, who sleeps a lot) are rare and precious.

I should be marking and quilting three quilt tops: The mini Amish that my mother pieced (above), "Don't Worry, Be Scrappy" (to the right), and "Omiyage" (to be photographed.) Will I get them marked and/or started? Probably not.

I should cut out fabric to replace my pink Tencel jumper. I bought a sage green tencel at the same time, intending to have two dresses. (I wore the pink one as sleeveless dres, but I never got the green cut out, so now I can use the fabric to replace the pink one which got to be too worn and stained to be worn in public.

Of course, there's the ongoing struggle to update my jewelry web site and etsy store... maybe the less said about that the better!

...And the Chelmsford Quilter's Guild page....

I have a ton of research to be done for a variety of project, one of which is a Quest to find an ophthalmologist or even just a place which will sell me a new pair of glasses and takes my insurance. (Insurance supposedly pays for a free pair every two years, but the problem has been finding someone who takes it. My soon-to-be-former guy takes the insurance but not my particular policy. *sigh*)

What I will end up doing? If I want to be rested and refreshed after this weekend I'll probably go out for "supplies" (Diet Barq's, Uno's Potato Skins, KFC, Wheaties), and hunker down to watch Nero Wolfe episodes or "Pride and Prejudice" (with Colin Firth!) with breaks to do a bit of weeding outdoors, and maybe peek at email and Facebook (hoping not to get sucked in). If I get to any of the other projects, maybe I'll count that as a plus.

But I really should find a place to get a new pair of glasses...

I Can See Clearly Now...

Lots of stuff has been happening to me recently, so many, in fact, I haven't been able to sit down and blog about them. So, bit by bit, I'll try and catch you up.

The most obvious thing, if you look at me, is that I'm sporting some nifty new glasses when I drive.

Yes, it turns out I was slowing going blind (well fuzzy) in one eye and the other was compensating. I just didn't know.

In fact, I found out that I was exceedingly burry at the Registry when I went to get my new driver's license before going to visit my parents in Pennsylvannia.  

There are three section you have to look at a little scope and read letters. The left side was completely unreadable, but the other two (front and right) were clear. The clerk was merciful and let me go with a "get your eyes checked," but for a couple of weeks, I lived in dread that I had glaucoma, like my Dad.

So, all through my visit, I'm asking my Dad questions about getting his glaucoma under control (he says it's easy because he just uses drops, but you have to catch it early or you can damage your optic nerve and then your eyesight never improves after that.)

So, when I returned, I went to the ophthalmologist, who said I didn't have glaucoma (Yay!), but I did need glasses.

I picked them up on Tuesday, and have been getting used to them ever since. What a difference! Who knew that blurry blue car with the flashing light was actually a police car? Or that truck with the lights was an ambulance?  

(Just kidding, it was never that bad...I just had to be closer to the signs on the highway to read them, which made getting off at the proper exit a greater exercise in automotive dexterity than it should have been.)

The only problem I've been having so far is that I can really only use them in the car. If I try to use them in the store, I look down and can't read anything like labels or something because I'm blurry up close. (I have other glasses for the really close jewelry work.) I just have to remember NOT to push them up on my head, like I used to do with the cheap sunglasses.

Anyway, it's a whole new world out there and I can see it now.