AuburnChick's Adventures

Hi friends! Happy Wednesday!

How goes it?

Students are currently taking finals, so the college has a quiet vibe. Traffic will start to thin out after this weekend’s graduation festivities. Getting home each day after work will be a snap!

Anyhoo, enough blathering. It’s time for my answers to this week’s Hodgepodge questions, posed by the always fun-ever inventive Joyce!

1. Do you struggle with the commercialization of the holiday season? What helps you keep your focus when the season’s busyness and commercialism start to take over? 

Honestly, I’m not the shopper in the family. My hubby is, so he’s the one dealing with all of the things. I live life a bit blissfully – somewhat unaware or ignorant of the rampant commercialism. When I am the person doing the purchasing, I try to select something outside of the norm – something handmade by me or a local artisan.

I also keep myself focused on the Word – the fact that Jesus came to sacrifice himself for my sins. That puts things into perspective and helps me to, as much as possible, avoid the trappings of the commercial world we are living in.

2. What’s one small thing you want to savor before the year ends? 

I want to savor small moments of rest – when the only lighting I see is the twinkling from the Christmas tree. December evenings as an empty nester are quiet affairs. I’m especially looking forward to the two-week break I’ll have – a generous gift from the college – and one that is very appreciated. It’s been a hard year, physically.

3. December 9th is National Christmas Card Day. Do you still send Christmas cards? If so does yours include a photo or is it a more traditional card, or maybe homemade? How do you feel about the tradition of exchanging cards at the holidays? If Hanukkah is the holiday you celebrate in December do you send cards to mark the occasion? 

Oh, this is a bone of contention with the hubby and me. He wants to send cards; I do not. I don’t even know where our address book is. It got lost somewhere along the line during one of our multiple moves.

We used to send cards, but somehow, we stopped. I do enjoy getting them, but I don’t want to be bothered with addressing envelopes.

Plus, with social media in the mix, I feel as though cards aren’t really that necessary.

4. What’s your least favorite holiday related task? What’s your favorite? 

Putting away ornaments after Christmas is my least favorite task. There’s such a blah feeling to it – that the season is over.

My favorite is visiting my kids. I love watching them parent their own littles during this special time of the year.

5. Let’s do a little holiday this or that? 

• shopping or wrapping – WRAPPING
• baking or decorating – BAKING
• eggnog or wassail – EGGNOG (a vegan version please)
• real tree or artificial – ARTIFICIAL
• turkey or ham – NEITHER (I’m a vegan)
• white lights or colored lights  – WHITE LIGHTS
• ugly sweaters or matching pjs – NEITHER (we have not done either and don’t plan to)
• peppermint or cinnamon – PEPPERMINT
• presents Christmas Eve or presents Christmas Day – CHRISTMAS DAY (one gift to open Christmas Eve though – a tradition we had kids and that we did in our own family)

6. My Random Thought

Monday, I had my appointment with a cornea/cataract specialist. You may remember that I’ve got nuclear cataracts, and they are making my nearsightedness worsen very quickly. Hence, my appointment with the specialist.

Because my eyes were going to be dilated, I’d planned on not returning to work afterwards.

Thank goodness I’d asked for the rest of the day off because this appointment ran almost two hours long! I was impressed with the thoroughness of the staff. They ran all of the diagnostic tests on my poor eyes.

Because I had LASIK and PRK on my eyes almost 25 years ago, my situation is a lot more complicated. The doctor carefully examined the notes sent over from my regular eye doctor in the effort to piece together which eye had which procedure. Unfortunately, my paperwork from my long-ago the eye correction surgery got lost in the many moves we’ve made since then.

The doctor determined that I am definitely in need of cataract surgery. He presented my options, and we decided to correct my distance vision.

Before I left, I’d scheduled both surgeries. My first one will be on my non-dominant eye – which is, surprisingly, my right eye. Conveniently, it’s the worst of the two.

I’ll have my first surgery early January and the other one early February. There will be a couple follow-up appointments after each surgery.

It was a lot to take in – especially given my addled brain from my dilated eyes.

I’ve got everything on my calendar now, and I’m very excited about the surgeries. I’ve read that people can see vibrant colors after they heal from cataract surgery. I’m looking forward to not having a film over my vision.

Point of note: Since my appointment Monday, and once my brain had time to process everything, I’ve been going back and forth about correcting for distance. I’ve done a lot of research and think my best option, given my love of reading, crafting, and cooking make me think I should correct for near vision.

I’ve drafted a long list of questions and plan on calling the doctor’s office today to see what he thinks. The thought of spending hours wearing reading glasses to enjoy my favorite hobbies just doesn’t appeal to me, and given one of the doctor’s first comments to me when I met him about how he didn’t want to put me in glasses all the time, I think he’s probably going to agree.

Lots to pray about and ponder . . .

Have a great week, y’all!

Filed under: This-n-That |