Do I or Don't I?

The bill arrived yesterday for the renewal of my domain name

Last year because I didn't know if I wanted to keep the website up I only renewed it for a year thinking that would give me enough time to figure out where it was going

uh, right -- or not

so here we are again, trying to figure out if it's worth the cost of keeping the domain name registered and paying the monthly hosting fees

or should I just let it die

I'm thinking about it

the better to see you with

I finally gave in and went to the eye doctor

after almost 2 years of "making do" using one pair of glasses to read and do close work and another older pair to drive or just walk around

it had gotten to the point that I was taking the glasses off entirely to work on beading projects which meant I couldn't see anything clearly that was more that 10 inches away

so you're asking -- why wait?

well, here's the deal -- these are bifocals -- but because the first bifocals I ever wore were "progressives", my attempt with the last pair to adjust to wearing the kind that have lines was a complete failure -- I just never could get used to there being only two clear fields of vision -- things very far away and things very close -- but nothing in between

but here's the real deal -- while the vision insurance plan that we have will pretty much cover all of the cost of bifocals that have lines, they don't do likewise for progressives

and why is that? well, because progressives are EXPENSIVE!

and the bigger the difference between the correction for distance vision and close up vision, the more expensive they are

so even with our very good vision insurance program, these cost me almost $400 (it would have been almost $800 without the insurance)

OUCH! so this is why I've put it off and put it off

shall we say the budget took a major hit this month for this -- I hope I won't have to do this again for at least a couple more years

oh yeah, and we still need to get what the DH needs too, but we'll have to work that into the budget another time -- after we put tires on the car

Doing what I can

which, at this particular moment, doesn't seem like much

for the past couple of years I have participated in knitting of mittens (also known as Mittnz) that have gone to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota

I came upon this activity in wanting somehow to "give back" to the world around me because I am grateful for what I have been given

and truthfully, even this activity would not be as possible as it is except that my sister is very generous with her yarn stash and has kept me in materials to create these out of

last night I was listening to a TV program and they were talking about the heavy snows in South Dakota, and that the people on the Cheyenne River Reservation have been without power for more than 10 days

wait! my feeble brain was brought up by the short hairs --- what? 10 days!!

they must be sleeping in those mittens!!

not only is it cold, but there is the whole issue of even having water to drink!

you can use this link to learn more about this crisis

you can use this link to donate a little bit to help them

I'll be knitting more mittnz

Radio Silence

I may be off line for a while

attempts to correct the problems with my desk top computer have resulted in it's total inability to see my printer or my scanner or my zip drive

since it is tax time and I desperately need to be able to use those things I will be focusing my energies on trying to find a suitable work around

see you on the other side