TP &Thrift finds

Yesterday morning I was awakened when the phone rang at 6:15 in the morning, well before my usual wake-up time. It was my father-in-law, who had been at our house the evening before. He drives trucks and had a load to drop off here in town Tuesday morning. He called to tell me that when his truck was being unloaded, three of the cases had been damaged and the receiver rejected them. The cases were filled with toilet paper and were going to just be trashed, so my FIL called to see if I wanted them. We can always use more TP, so I said yes and later that morning I packed the baby up and set out.

The truck yard was quite a ways away--it took me about 45 minutes to drive there. I loaded up the back of the Pathfinder with 3 huge boxes of toilet paper--80 rolls each--and realized that we were near a Salvation Army store that I've seen several times from the Interstate but never had the opportunity to stop at. From the outside it looked like it would be huge, but I found out that is because it's a big sorting center where they also do the training for the people who work there. The thrift store itself wasn't actually very large and was pretty disorganized. I did manage to find a few goodies however. The two candlesticks are by a pottery in Colorado Springs (about an hour from here) called Van Briggle. I vaguely remembered reading that name in a Kovel's Pottery book I checked out from the library a couple weeks ago and they were only .50 apiece. They are not very fancy, but they should sell. I'm sure I'll at least make back my dollar! The other stuff is to keep. The 4 yellow Pyrex hostess bowls, the books and the teacup were all .50 each as well. The teacup isn't marked but I just love the shape of the little handle! Plus it's the aqua color I love so much right now. The Mary Poppins is a hardcover of the movie and is just for decoration in the guest room upstairs. The other little book is a newer book made to look vintage. It's cute and clever and made me giggle. Maren hijacked that one as soon as I put it in the cart. I had a similar book (same size, same cover material, prob. same publisher) that she took some inexplicable liking to and carried it around for weeks. She loved this little book as well and insisted on holding it the whole drive home. She managed to gnaw a place out of the top already, so I'm going to have to keep this one put up lest it meet the same fate as the other book (ripped into shreds all over the living room floor.)

The necklace is kooky and kitschy and made of clear plastic or Lucite beads in yellow, orange and green. It was 1.75 and it just makes me smile! I don't have a single thing to wear with it so it may have to wait until next spring or summer when I bring out my yellow shirt and kelly green knit skirt again.

In other news, Monday morning I went in for a LASIK consultation to see if I'm a candidate for the surgery. I am, but I did hear some news I wasn't prepared for. I wear hard gas permeable contact lenses and have for about 14 years now. All contact lenses (but especially gas perms) can actually cause your cornea to warp slightly from wearing them. Because it's important for your cornea to be it's true shape when you have LASIK surgery, you have to go without contact lenses for a minimum of 2 weeks before the surgery to let your corneas relax. For me, I would have to probably be in soft lenses for a while and then glasses for that last 2 weeks. That would be fine--annoying, but fine--except for the fact that I have no glasses. The last time I had glasses that I could see through was 9 years ago, when I broke one of my contact lenses right in the middle of finals and right before Christmas break. I think I wore them for as long as it took for my new lens to come in and then shoved them in the back of a drawer. So now I find out I'm going to have to spend $200 on glasses so I can wear them for 2 weeks, and then never again? You have got to be kidding me. I don't think there's any way around it, though. Heck, what' s another $200 when it's already going to cost me something like $3000 to get the LASIK done? Drop in the bucket, I guess. I did find my old frames this morning and so maybe I can just use those and get new lenses, so it won't be quite as expensive.

I have another appointment with another LASIK place next week, and I may try to set up at least one or two more. When we got the front room painted I got 3 estimates, and that was just for walls. These are my EYES we're talking about, people! I want to be sure I'm going with somebody I feel comfortable with. I'm hoping to get it done by the end of the year but if I have to wear soft contacts for 6 weeks and glasses for another 2, I need to get that started ASAP. Time is a' wasting, and I'm ready to just get it over with, already!