Random Items from the Junk Drawer of my Mind #18

1. Thanks for all the comments yesterday! It's very cool to find a poem that speaks to me and then find that it speaks to so many other people too. I've responded to some of the comments in individually and will respond to more soon, but I just wanted to say a general thank you here. I also plan to visit the blogs of eveyone who commented. Again, I visited some yesterday, but didn't quite get to them all, because... (see #2) 2. I'm sick and I don't like it. Ever since I got home from Cincinnati I've been feeling a little off and since Tuesday I've been downright puny. So yesterday I went to a doctor and I HATE going to doctors. I really don't trust them. The diagnosis: bronchitis and infected lymph nodes in my throat. Bleah! It sounds as disgusting as it feels. So I gave the doctor's office and the pharmacy $100 that I'd have MUCH rather spent on something fun (and that's just the co-pay stuff with health insurance...if we didn't have insurance I'd just have to suffer through it...seriously). In return they gave me two shots in the ass and a teeny bag stuffed full of pills and potions. I am not amused, but hoping it helps. Breathing would be nice. 3. I'm tired of cold weather. We had a teaser of a spring and then went back to cold temps and lots of rain. What I'm really tired of more than the weather itself is my clothes for cold weather. Is that sad and vain? I liked most of these clothes months ago, but lately I loathe the sight of them. I want to wear short sleeves. I want to wear capris or light-weight flowing skirts. I want to paint my toenails pretty colors and show them off in sparkly sandals. I want to see the sun! 4. Continuing with the theme of "is this sad and vain?" I'm seriously considering giving up my contact lenses. I'm not happy about that either. (This is just turning into a day to bitch. Sorry, really...I'm tired, not feeling well, and y'all get to hear about it because it's My Blog, My Bitchin' Space. I'll be better tomorrow, honest!) I've loved my contacts since I first started wearing them 25 years ago. But lately middle age has taken its toll and there are more and frequent circumstances where I have to supplement the contacts with reading glasses in order to see properly. If I have to wear reading glasses that often, I'm thinking I might as well just go back to wearing glasses full-time...something I haven't done since I was 19. I have one pair that I already wear in the evenings, but they're kind of boring. They're the sort of "minimal" look - almost frameless and I mainly got them because they were my first pair of progressive lenses (aka no-line bifocals! choke!) and they had more lens space than some other pairs I looked at, which I thought might make me get used to them faster. Now I think I could manage fine with something smaller, say something like these: (they're some of my many reading glasses, but I really like them!) BUT...in sunglasses the trend is obviously going toward the big bug-eye lenses that were so popular in the '80's. I wonder if the same is true for regular glasses. I'd hate to pick out something I think is fun and pay lotsa money for them (progressive lenses are NOT cheap!) only to find out that they're badly dated-looking in 6 months. Hhhmmm... 5. I know I've harped on this a few times, but I wanted to mention yet another time that the Fiberart For A Cure reverse auction is still going on and the prices have dropped drastically from the original prices posted for the Must Buy day. Some good stuff there - check it out! And don't forget that every penny of the money goes to The American Cancer Society. 6. For the Daily Art Thang, I'm starting with a pretty basic photo today of two baby pears on one of our pear trees. Over the next couple of days I'll share some digitally altered versions of it. So here's our starter photo: "A Pair of Pears"