I didn't sleep at all last night. My anxiety was keeping me up. You see (no pun intended), I have not been to an ophthalmologist (eye doctor) since I was in middle school. My mom took me to get my eyes checked and to get glasses. Of course at the time we had no idea what Asperger's was or that it would cause such a drastic response to some simple things (hyper-sensitivity). When it came time for the pre-exam, where they blow a puff of air into your eye and then give you eye drops, nobody took the time to explain what to expect, and they didn't give any kind of numbing drops before the dilation drops (that burn). They got one eye done and I flat out refused them doing the other. The staff proceeded to physically pin me down to a bench, one woman completely on top of me with all her body weight, while another grabbed me by the head and hair, prying my eye open, while a third put the drops in. I was sobbing and the entire experience scarred me. It had an effect on my mother as well, because she never took me back for an eye exam, never even suggested it, and as an adult she mentioned it once telling me how horrifying it was to watch these grown adults man-handle me, and not know what to do or how to deescalate the situation. It turned out that the glasses put pressure on my nose in a way that gave me migraines, so I ended up only wearing the glasses for a few months anyway.
Fast forward almost two and a half decades, and I've finally given in that I do need glasses. My vision has been going blurry since I was pregnant with #5, and I had hoped it would be hormone related and go away. I lost the ability to read, which is and has always been an enjoyable pass-time for me. I'd tell people I was too busy to read or that I just hadn't found the right book, but the truth was that I couldn't focus on the words for more than a few minutes before my eyes would go so blurry I couldn't make out the letters anymore. I find myself frequently zooming in on things on my phone, or tipping it sideways to make the letters appear larger when reading things. I struggle to read the seed catalogs I so love to browse. The kicker? My mom works in the optical department of Costco currently.
Last week when Tony and I made our brief escape from children to have dinner and a movie, we stopped by to see my mom at work, and together (my mom, my husband, and I), we picked out a pair of glasses with light enough frames that I should be able to wear them without migraines. Today was my eye appointment.
I was on the verge of tears when we pulled into the Costco parking lot. I'm not going to lie, I have some serious PTSD about going to the eye doctor. I am happy to report that the appointment went well. The lady in the front area was kind and told me exactly what to expect with the air puff portion. The ophthalmologist was wonderful, she was patient with me and even offered to skip the eye drops, but in a moment of bravery, I said go ahead, "I've got to get over this fear." She gave me numbing drops first, then the dilation drops. I was able to hand the prescription over to the optical department ladies just one door down, and paid for the exam and the eyeglasses. They should be ready for me next week!
As a reward to myself for being brave, we stopped and Tony bought me a gas station cappuccino (a rare treat for me since caffeine started giving me heart issues).
Next we were off to Tony's doctor appointment. I'm over a year over-due for blood work to check my thyroid, so I figured I'd get that done as long as we were already there. Turns out I put it off for so long, they no longer had the blood draw orders on record! No wonder they'd been just auto re-filling my prescription with a note "over due for blood work, last refill" the last three refills. The nice phlebotomist lady drew my blood and said she'd call both of my doctors to get the draw orders to process it. I'm hoping she was successful because I'm down to my last 6 pills again.
After our respective medical visits at the clinic, we went to pick up our monthly CSA food package. This month they gave us double boxes. I think the lady overheard us tell the other lady we had a big family with seven people, and she was feeling generous. There was some seasoned turkey tenderloin included in the box, so I set them out to thaw (all meat from the CSA comes frozen).
We made it home just 15 minutes before the kids got home from school. I made sure everyone got an after school snack, I got #3 to go feed all the rabbits (because I wasn't about to go out into the snow and sun with my eyes dilated), and I took a nap.
For dinner I whipped up a double-batch of stir fry sauce, then I halved and de-seeded some mini sweet peppers, and separated stems from some fresh mushrooms, and tossed them in to marinade. After several minutes I took the stem pieces and the pepper halves and made a little tinfoil packet with some sauce and folded it up. Tony took the packet, the whole mushroom caps (still bobbing around in the marinade), and the turkey tenderloins out to the grill.
Yes, in February, in Minnesota, with the temperature at 11 degrees, my husband was grilling dinner, and #4 and #5 were bundled up playing in the snow. It was beautiful. Dinner was a smashing success. Not a crumb of leftovers, everyone got full, and the only complaint the kids had was that they would have liked more mushrooms (two per person was apparently not enough).
Amanda's Stir Fry Sauce:
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp balsamic reduction
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
Mix all ingredients, making sure all of the cornstarch is well mixed in (no lumps). Add more garlic to taste, I use this as a minimum.
I actually keep this recipe, written on a note card, on the fridge. This and my sweet and sour chicken recipe are my go-to meals now!
Yesterday I got the nest boxes installed in the last of the rabbit cages with does who'd been exposed to bucks. We will have to wait and see if we get any babies this weekend.
I saw the first chick ads of the season show up in my local Facebook page. Time to dig out the incubator - a little earlier than planned.
Today I started my next blanket project. This one I'm making quite a bit larger (wider) than the four seasons blanket. I use it every night but it's just wide enough to tuck in around me, and I want a wider blanket I can really curl up with. I'm going to make this one rainbow colored. I've got the first two rows of red so far. I'm going to have to eyeball it as far as how much of each color to put in to make it end up a good length. Forget measuring, I'm all for appearance and how things look visually. I had to set aside the crochet quilt squares project because I got bored making just blue or grey squares. I needed a color change, something bright and not so repetitive. I'm going to need something like 600-800 of those squares for that project. It will no doubt look amazing and function well when I'm done, but for now I want something a little more fun and playful. A rainbow seems like it fits quite well into that criteria.