The Eyes Have It

My church has a coffee hour after the 8:30 am service on Sundays. This past Sunday, I met up with my friend Wendy after we dropped the kids off at their respective Sunday school classrooms. It is such a pleasant atmosphere with the cafe set up in the multi-purpose room. As we were catching up, I felt a spasm in my right eye. It was exactly 9:45 am when this happened. I know this because it was such a strange sensation as I glanced at my watch only to see a "halo" ... really!! ... around my watch face. Hmmm. I tried to focus in on one of the lights in the room. Same thing ... a halo was around the light. Strange, but I wasn't in the least alarmed. I figured it was my eye make up that was irritating my eye. As soon as Sunday school was over, My son, Clay, and I went home. Once home, I proceeded to remove my eye make up, rinse my eye, and put a few drops of an allergy eye drop in my eye. None of my home remedies seemed to alleviate this vision problem. What to do?

Of course, the only real solution was to search the internet for possible causes of the halo effect. Not such a good idea. I found that I could possibly have a detached retina, or scratched my cornea, or was actually on my way to blindness. None of these sounded good ... undoubtedly for a hypochondriac such as myself, these descriptions were down right frightening!

I promptly contacted my brother-in-law, Charles. He's a pediatric ophthalmologist. I had a hunch he might know what might going on with my troubled eye. Charles recommended that I immediately contact a local ophthamologist ... as Charles resides out of state. He gave me very specific words to use in order to be seen right away. Now, I was alarmed. Not too many details were shared other than he said certain ailments (well he said things, but I clearly heard ailments!) had to be ruled out.

I was on the phone first thing Monday morning. Luckily, I was able to get in Tuesday morning at 8:30 am. I endured a 3-hour ordeal. I sat in the waiting room for an hour. After being called back, one of the technicians needed to numb my eyes so she could place a huge instrument, okay a tiny little instrument, but it seemed huge to me in to my eye. Well, I wasn't going to have it! No way! Not me! The office manager came in to tell me I was being a bad girl and needed to cooperate! I politely told her I was scary squeamish about my eyes as I was feeling the numbing effects on my eyes. Why did my eyes weigh 20 lbs. each now? Ugh! They would let me slide on this one ... for now. Fortunately for me, I found out that I was in need of reading glasses during the next test. However, my luck was running out. On to the next room of horrors! The tech explained that she needed to numb me AGAIN!?! Was that really necessary, I asked. And, why would I need numbing. Another enormous machine in need of contact with my eyes. She promised it wouldn't hurt. I didn't care if it hurt, I didn't want it touching my eye. She repeated this numerous times ... no pain involved. I would gladly take the pain if she would agree NOT TO TOUCH MY EYES! No such luck. I was hysterically whining and crying. So much so, my new friend, the office manager, had to come back in to admonish me. I explained that I would not be allowing any eye contact whatsoever, and that I really didn't think I had a problem any more. I'm not sure I convinced them of my miraculous recovery. I swear there were wrestling moves used on me in order to secure an accurate test. Some how or another, I actually survived. They left me shaking and muttering in the second waiting room where I was the youngest patient by 30 years. I was the center of attention in this waiting room, not because I was younger ... and prettier ... and sweeter ... but because I was panic stricken!

The doctor was the next one to see me. He seemed nice at first until he wanted to put dye in my right eye and take a closer look. Ummmm .... he was going to touch my eye. Again, I needed to remain calm. The doctor's assistant had a FIRM hand on the back of my head to keep it in place so the doctor could shine an excrutiatingly bright light in to my eye for an eternity! Ouch! More crying ... wish they had told me that the dye mixed with my tears and left nasty camo-looking stains on the right side of my face. Nice! Doc says I have cornea erosion. When I was speaking with my sister a little later in the day, she asked if that was right. Maybe, an abrasion on my cornea? How would I know? I was not listening clearly because I was still re-living the atrociousness of my morning. My doctor recommended a cornea specialist since my cornea is swollen. Did I have a blow to my eye recently? Or maybe my mascara wand was the culprit? Stuck my finger in my eye? None of the peculiar incidents happened. I'm calmly putting four drops of a steroidal drop in my right eye a day. I'm seriously not ready to relive such misadventure again. This cornea specialist better not have any expectations about touching my eye in any way, shape, or form.

Hiatus

When I logged in to my blogger account the other day, I was flabbergasted that I had not posted since March! Ummm, what have I been doing these last 6 months? I truly couldn't tell you ... specifically where I've been or what I've been doing.

Skiing and snowboarding took over this winter. We were able to enjoy the beautiful mountains at Seven Springs Resort until April. April and May always are a blur because school is winding down while signing up for summer activities gears up. We took advantage of the three or was it four??? beautiful, rain-free days we had this summer to boat on Cheat Lake in West Virginia. The end of July and beginning of August found us in Boise, Idaho to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, a family reunion, and my 30th (GASP!) reunion from Boise High School. After our return from the wild west, Austin's high school soccer team started conditioning practice ... at 6 am and 6 pm every day for the two weeks leading up to school.

Needless to say, I am desperate to get my crafting mojo back. I decided to ease in to it with a delightful sketch from the peeps at 365 Cards. So, I'm off to a slow start, but it's a start.

Hurry, hurry!

I really, really, really want to complete scrapping 2006! It never seems to end! I keep finding pictures I thought I had scrapped, only to learn that the pictures are still hiding in one of my computer files. Whose idea was it to complete a book for each of my boys as well as myself? Huh? I'm going to find her and give her a piece of my mind! Of course, it was me!?! How could I torture myself so? My desire is to stop scrapping every waking moment of my boys lives, but where do you stop? Fortunately the amount of pictures has dwindled over the years, but I need to get moving and shaking. My oldest son is graduating in three ... GASP! ... years!

This layout is for one of my boys ... I'll have to create something similar for the other one's book too. I followed the Creative Scrapper's Sketch #147.I loved this sketch! Maybe I'll do an exact copy ... why not make it easy on myself?

Just a Small Token

I received the Custom Crops News Flash via email the other day. While perusing it, I came across a blurb about a 10 year old Arizona boy that wanted to send thank you notes to ALL the service people over seas. He is looking for donations from any one that makes homemade cards. I thought, "What a beautiful gesture!". There is an added bonus! For every five cards sent to Bazzill, the maker will be entered into a drawing to win two FREE tickets to the last Creative Escape 2011 (travel and accommodations, not included). That's cool, but I feel the need to contribute to the spirit of thanking our hard working and self-sacrificing military men and women. Here is where you can get more information on the project: Creative Escape.

I put together five thank you cards to send off tomorrow. Two of the five are pictured here. I used a template from one of Dawn's videos on her blog. I'm going to have my two boys sign their names so they can express, in some small way, their appreciation as well.

Taxes or Crafting?

It was a hard decision, but the taxes won! I finished up the personal and the business taxes yesterday. Phew! So glad to have that burden off my shoulders. Needless to say, my crafting took a back seat yesterday. Today, however, is a new day! I was able to complete this card for both Day 14 on 365 Cards and the March 14th Reveal on Sassy Lil' Card Sketches.

Day 13 Super Sketchy Sunday

After a day on the slopes, I came home to put together this birthday card following the sketch on 365 Cards Blog. With the time change, my internal clock is really off. I am surprised I was able to get this posted! Oh, my! Off to dream land ... looking forward to another challenge tomorrow.

Keep It Simple ... Silly

Wowza! Two posts in one day. In between all my mommy duties for today, I put this card together for the Keep It Simple Card Challenge on 365 Cards Blog. The assignment was to cover the front of the card with patterned paper, add a sentiment and one embellishment. That was my simple task and here is my simple card.