At Least I Know It's Genetic

On Saturday, we had dinner at my parents' house. While my mom doesn't really like food, she does try to cook for at least my dad and me when we eat. That night, we had a beef thing from Trader Joe's and rice that she made. Or sorta made.

For whatever reason, the rice didn't turn out for her "the way it normally does" - or so she claimed. When the buzzer went off, the rice was still semi-hard and plenty of water remained. She turned the stove back on, and eventually served us the mostly cooked and only slightly watery rice.

After dinner, she was clearing the table and nearly slipped on an ice cube. Once she'd set those dishes in the dishwasher, she came back to pick up the escapee.

Oh, this isn't an ice cube! she exclaimed. This is one of the lenses to my glasses. I think.

She pulled her glasses from where they were tucked into her sweater and peered at them. Huh, one of my lenses did fall out. No wonder everything's been so blurry tonight. I knew there had to be a reason I couldn't read the instructions on the rice.

Ahem.

Apparently it truly is genetic. And it only gets worse. Oh the things I have to look forward to!

Yet More Proof That I Need Sleep

The sun peeked out from behind the clouds today, and I wasn't expecting it. I should be. After all, my very light blue eyes don't do well with light, and I have to wear sunglasses at times when most people are perfectly comfortable without them.

This is part of the reason why I have multiple pairs. And why I keep them in various places so I'm never caught without them. So as I drove to pick up Mister Man from school, I dug through my purse to grab my current favorite pair. Oh, yeah. I'd changed purses and foolishly not grabbed the sunglasses when I moved my wallet and keys.

That doesn't stop me, however. I simply pushed open the sunglasses holder in my car (one of my favorite features that manufacturers have put in over the last however many years) and grabbed at the first pair to tumble out. Because it's possible that I have not one but three pairs of sunglasses up there - sunglasses that I don't like as much as I used to or that might be missing a nose comfort tip thing.

I glanced at them briefly before putting them on, and a frown briefly creased my brow. These weren't familiar sunglasses. I didn't recognize them and wasn't sure where they came from. I shrugged internally and put them on. I searched my mind trying to recall where they'd come from - ahhhh, yes. These were glasses that I'd discovered sitting on the floor of my car a couple weeks ago and had stuck up there so they wouldn't get broken.

I blinked as I looked at the road ahead of me, admiring the polarization of the sunglasses. It's always amazing to me how the simple act of putting on sunglasses makes it so much easier to see things. The polarization makes things clearer, somehow. Although really, this was more clear than I usually get with sunglasses. Huh, maybe I should invest in more expensive sunglasses than the $10 specials I usually pick up, knowing that they'll soon be lost or broken.

Something was niggling in the back of my mind though. There was something that wasn't quite right. I was really seeing clearly. Like really clearly. Like too well for me who has a prescription for glasses but doesn't wear them because, well, one eye is near-sighted and the other far-sighted, so I can manage pretty well (including passing the driver's eye test, mind you) sans glasses.

I lifted the glasses up and peered ahead then put them back on. I couldn't tell if they were making that big a difference or not. Brilliance struck, and I closed my eye that sees well at distances and repeated the experiment.

Oh. My.

These were prescription sunglasses. And not just any prescription sunglasses but MY prescription sunglasses. The ones I'd had for merely a week and a half before misplacing them a year ago last November. I'd searched high and low for them, revisiting every store and school and place I'd been in the hopes that they'd been turned in to a lost and found somewhere rather than being crushed in a parking lot by an unforgiving tire.

I'd long since given up and had planned to order a new pair. Once I found the prescription for the sunglasses that my husband had put with our tax information and then filed somewhere not to be found. And ok so I found the prescription last month. I was going to order the new pair once I had time to search through all the options to find something I really liked. I hadn't quite gotten there yet.

Ahem.

Procrastination pays. I'm not sure how my sunglasses appeared in my car, because I tore my car apart more than once looking for them, but I'm not going to question it. I have my sunglasses again.

The only downside? Once I got to Mister Man's school, I couldn't take them off because my eyes had adjusted to the prescription and I couldn't see without them. So if you see someone whose future is so bright she has to wear shades, that future is so bright because that's a $200 pair of prescription sunglasses she just found (and ugh, someone remind me again why glasses - especially prescription sunglasses have to be so expensive?).

Pssssst I have a Facebook Fan page Facebook page. Come, like me! And, yes, I'm on Twitter, too - just sayin'.

This Is Why I Need To Entertain More....

I appear to have a bit of a penchant for losing things. Generally, I find them again, but the time when they are ... misplaced is a challenge for me. I don't lose thing (all evidence to the contrary). I like being organized and knowing where things are.

Almost a month ago, I misplaced a book. I love to read, but I don't always have a ton of time to do so. My solution is to check out a book from the library and bring it with me everywhere. When I have a free moment waiting somewhere, I'll crack open the book.

That's what I did that Wednesday. That night when I went to look for the book to read before falling asleep, I couldn't find it. It wasn't in my car anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. I even checked under the car seats and booster seats.

Where had I been that day? 1) Little Miss's school to volunteer at the book fair. 2) Mister Man's school to pick him up for speech. 3) Speech therapy. 4) Mister Man's school to drop him off again. 5) Grocery stores. 6) Home. 7) Mister Man's school to pick him up. 8) Another grocery store. 9) Restaurant to pick up meals for teacher conferences. 10) Little Miss's school to drop off the meals for conferences. 11) Chiropractor. 12) Library. 13) Home again.

Good thing I didn't have too many places to look.

Since it was a library book, I figured I had a good chance of someone finding it and returning it, but that was not to happen - no matter how many times I checked my online account. I checked lost and founds at every location I could. I looked on the ground near where I'd parked everywhere. The book was just flat out gone.

It was due a week and a half ago, but I renewed it in the hopes that somehow some way I would still find the book. I'm an eternal optimist like that.

This past Friday, I hosted bunco at my house. Rather than the usual cleaning where things are organized but in piles and clean, I actually removed several of the piles. My house looked great. Ok, except for the basement stairs where I ran out of time and had to kind of pile a few things there. Shhhhh, no one needs to know about that though.

As I was trying to consolidate books I had bought the wee ones into a single bag (from Little Miss's book fair and other places), I noticed that there was a book in the Scholastic bag that didn't belong there. Any guesses what that book was?

On the plus side, I have since finished the book and returned it to the library.



PS The gift cards that a friend of mine bought almost a year ago from Mister Man's fundraiser that she kept forgetting to pay me for and I kept forgetting to bring to her? Well, she paid me, and I forgot to bring them to her again. Twice. Yesterday, I couldn't find them where I swore they were. Today? I'm finally tackling the organizing of the office, and phew I found them. They are now in my purse, so I can't forget them again, right?

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Where Did They Go Again?

Hey Chicago peeps - do you and your kids like theater? A chance to win tickets to The Emperor's New Clothes from the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre here.

***

So I've written about how I'm a sort of organized person. I like lists, I like crossing things off lists. I even created a spreadsheet for myself for BlogHer (ummm yeah, I'm seriously that much of a geek).

My motto in life is "everything in its place and a place for everything." Just typing that makes me happy. There have been multiple times where I "lost" my phone only to find it in the pocket in my purse where it belongs. I'm simply so used to putting it there that I do it unconsciously and don't even realize I'm doing it.

You know what's coming next, right?

Ha, I didn't lose my phone - you're wrong.

Instead I lost my keys. Again.

On Saturday, I ran errands all day. When I arrived home, I walked straight into the kitchen, knowing I needed to make a cake for Sunday prior to running back out again for a girls' night out.

I spend my entire time in the kitchen baking, then I ran back out to my car - straight from the kitchen, and I mean I didn't even stop to go to the bathroom - to head out to girls' night out.

I reached into my purse to start up my car and my keys weren't in the nice little pocket in my purse where they belong. I have two great pockets on one side of my purse that perfectly fit my keys and my phone, and they are always there.

*sigh*

I began digging through my purse, but I didn't see them. My next step was to begin taking everything out of my purse (and realizing some of the items needed to be disposed of in general - expired coupons being one). Nope. When the purse was empty, still no keys.

I ran inside and checked the counter. I checked the island. I checked the stove. Hmm. I checked the family room - even knowing I hadn't been in that room. I checked on top of the microwave and on the hutch.

I went back out to my car and searched everywhere. Not under a seat, not slipped down the side anywhere, and not on the garage floor. Eventually, I gave up and grabbed the spare set of keys so I wouldn't be any later.

Post event, I searched the entire house to no avail. My husband looked in the same places I had already looked, and no - he didn't find them either.

Sunday, I tried again. Monday, I looked again. Tuesday, I looked again.

Then I needed to pull out my Bluetooth tonight. I unzippered the pocket in my purse where it belongs. Since it's small, it lives in a different pocket from my phone or keys, and nothing else lives in that pocket.

Ta-da! Car keys. Huh.

Thinking back (which isn't exactly the easiest thing for me to do), I apparently had taken my Bluetooth out when I had arrived home with my keys in the same hand, and they arrived into that pocket together. Oops.

On the plus side, I am no longer panicking about losing the only set of keys to my car. And apparently I need to use my Bluetooth more often. Somehow, I have a feeling this won't be the last time I do this.

I'm Like The Magician With The Bunny!

As you may recall, I sometimes have issues with losing things. I can search and search where I’m pretty sure I lost an item, but it will quite simply not be there. It’s the evil fairies – or maybe the underpants gnomes branching out.

So last summer, I lost a pair of sunglasses. I know that I go through sunglasses every couple of years, so I refuse to buy expensive ones. These sunglasses fell into the same category, but I’d actually really liked them, and I’d only gotten them the year before. I was bummed, but I moved on.

I vaguely remember looking for them for another couple weeks before finally giving in and buying a new pair. I didn’t like the new pair as much, and they weren’t just cheap, they were cheaply made. The nose clips broke off by late winter this year, so they were less comfortable, but not quite bad enough for me to justify throwing them away.

At some point this spring, I lost the bad sunglasses, and I happily bought new ones the next time I was in Target. I liked these ones better. Of course, that meant I found the bad ones a couple days later. For the first time, I now had two pairs of sunglasses. Oddly, I pretty much have only been wearing the new pair.

Last night, I pulled my cleats and glove out of my backpack (hey, I may have the tools, but that doesn’t really mean anything. With the cleats came a pair of sunglasses. As one of my teammates was talking about an expensive pair of prescription sunglasses she’d left behind last week, I immediately asked her if they were hers. Unfortunately for her they weren’t.

Anyone want to guess who those sunglasses belonged to? Yep, I’m now the proud owner of three pairs of sunglasses. I may be starting a pool for how quickly I’ll be back down to one pair and laying odds that the pair that remains is the bad pair. I can’t really complain though!