We’re back in Pittsburgh. We drove about 1,200 miles total and visited lots of family and friends. It was great to see everyone again, and I’m sad to leave Indiana. But, we’ll be making the trip again around Christmas.

Going to Indiana, the trip took 9.5 hours because it rained the entire time and it was difficult to see. Also, we had to sit in traffic for about 50 minutes for reasons unknown.

Heading east, it took a little less than nine hours. We stopped twice for gas and ate during one of those stops. Also, we stopped to see my friend Michelle for about a half an hour or so. It didn’t rain and traffic wasn’t terrible. Hooray for safe trips!

I don’t want to turn this blog into one big  rant, but I need to vent about my latest eye examination.

I’ve needed glasses since I was about 10 or so. Today, I went for an eye exam at Karlik Ophthalmology. I don’t recommend them.

I sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes while the receptionists did whatever it is they do. Then, I went back and sat in the exam room for another 20 minutes. Just a-twiddlin’ my thumbs.

This place wasn’t busy–I was the only one in the waiting room at the time. I don’t know what was going on in other exam rooms, though.

Anyway, the doc walks in, says “You are Kacie (lastname)?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m Dr. Karlik,” he says, as if I should have known.

He sits down, squirts sanitizer on his hands (why he didn’t wash them with soap and water, I don’t know) and shakes my hand.

No apology for the wait time at all. I guess this is business as usual. But ya know what? My time is valuable. When it’s wasted, I feel disrespected.

“It says you’re a freelance writer,” he notices on my chart. “What’s that?”

“It means I’m a self-employed writer.”

“Ah.”

He has me read a few lines on the wall. I do it.

He then wants to put dilation drops in my eyes. In all my years of eye exams, I’ve had this done once. My friend Bethany had to pick me up from the eye doc, since I couldn’t see well enough to get myself home. I couldn’t see to read or watch TV or do anything for just about the rest of the day. I could only sleep.

Since I didn’t want to throw away my day, I asked, “Do you have to dialate my eyes?”

“If you want an eye exam,” he shoots back.

O rly? Well, then.

“I don’t want my eyes dilated.”

He didn’t seem to like that. We compromised, and he put some sort of “numbing” drops in my eyes. Never had that done before. It made them feel dry and sort of tingly. At least I can still see.

I don’t do a number of tests I’ve had done at other eye doctors: A close-proximity reading test, “follow the tip of my pen with your eyes,” the puff of air shot at my eye, the one where I look at an image and they screen for glaucoma…the exam seemed unthorough.

Maybe if I let him dilate my eyes, it would be more so, but I doubt it.

I was out of the exam room within 10 minutes. The receptionist pointed me toward their selection of frames and then left me to search for myself. Every other place I’ve been (even Wal-Mart) has someone help you pick out frames.

I decided they had nothing I wanted. I’m taking my glasses business elsewhere.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but no one in that office was kind to me. The doctor was borderline rude, and it was the first time I’ve ever been completely disappointed in an eye exam.

If someone from Karlik Ophthalmology reads this “review” of sorts and wants to get in touch with me about my dissatisfaction, go ahead.

Blue Sky tagged me for a meme. I’m supposed to post eight things about myself. Here goes!

1. I have a sharp memory. My phone number when I was little was 422-2293. My first meal that I had in our new home (when I was about a week from turning 3) was an Arby’s roast beef sandwich on the front porch. It’s still very vivid. I can remember all of my teachers from elementary-high school (though some of the college profs are more forgettable). Tell me your name and I’ll remember it, and tell me your birthday, and I’ll remember that, too.

2. I stink at spelling. And grammar. It’s rough, but it’s the way it is. I make mistakes all the time, and rely on spell check and my style books to get me through even mundane things.
3. In high school, I was on the track and cross-country teams. I ran long distance events primarily, from the 3200m relay to the open 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. There were several track meets where I ran all four of those. Yes, that’s about four miles of racing. Oy. I wasn’t the fastest by any means, but I often came away with a ribbon. My fastest 1600 (about a mile) was 5:49 and fastest 800m relay split was 2:32. I almost beat that time (at least, I like to think I would have) but someone from behind clipped my shoe and I fell. Hard. And dropped my baton. I got back up and finished my portion of the relay in 2:42.

I still have yucky scars from that. The previous autumn during cross-country sectionals, someone else knocked me down. That time, I fell on gravel. More nasty scars. I got up, finished and still qualified for the regional race. My time for the 4k was 13:51. It was my fastest 4k ever–and I fell! Yet, my running days were pretty much over. I fell out of love with it, and my senior year of high school, I decided not to run. Instead, I worked at Osco Drug to save for college.

4. When I was about 10 or so, I got a pogo stick for Christmas. I hopped on that thing all over the place. I could hop without using my hands, and hop up and down a sidewalk without stopping. It was fun, but I’m sure the sound was very annoying.

5. During middle school and freshman year of high school, I lived in the most amazing neighborhood on the campus of Purdue University: Married Student Housing. “MSH” as the kiddos called it, was campus housing for families affiliated with the University. It was mostly full of adults pursuing their doctorate degrees, nontenured professors or other University employees. The kids of the neighborhood played outside all day long. These were kids from all over the world. I could name at least 50 countries that were represented by my friends there. At my sister’s 8th birthday party, she sat at a table among 3 other girls. Four home continents were represented. How cool is that?

6. I love pranks. I don’t like it when people get hurt, either physically or emotionally. But I like playing pranks on people. One fond one was during senior year of high school. For some reason,  there was a light switch for the inside of the guidance office–but the switch was on the outside of the office doors.

After lunch, two friends and I would walk by, turn it off or madly flick the switch. We’d walk around the building, loop back and turn it off again a few minutes later. I think the office workers were annoyed. Eventually, they stationed a teacher to guard the switch during lunch, and she sat and graded papers. Once, one friend did a distracting dance for her as another one of us flicked the switch and off we went, blazing into the sunset. Lol.

7. When I was about four years old, I got the chicken pox. Not just any run-of-the-mill chicken pox, I got the mama hen version. Pox everywhere. In my bellybutton. Between my toes. On my girl parts. On my scalp. It was awful. My parents say I was a pleasant, happy child until that point, but once I caught it, I was just plain mean. I still have a few tiny scars from those days, and I can still remember how rotten it was. Oooh, I’m getting itchy just thinking about it!

8. I’ve always earned decent grades in school. Not straight As, but decent. Well, one quarter I got a C for my 11th grade honors English class. Whatever. The teacher was a lunatic, and I also didn’t put forth a valiant effort. Anyway, they tried to kick me out of the honors English program. I saved the “kick out” letter because I thought it was kind of funny. Turns out, I wasn’t on academic probation, as they stated in the letter.

I didn’t get kicked out of the honors program, and I got to take honors English 12 with the absolute best English teacher in the whole school. After high school over the next few years, I interned or worked at three newspapers, reported on about 150 news stories, was the editor-in-chief of an award-winning college newspaper, and took third place in a statewide feature writing competition.

I still have that “kick out” letter. It encouraged me to keep on fighting and prove to whoever tried to kick me out that I’m actually not that bad at English. I doubt he or she knows of my accomplishments, and I don’t really care. Take that, whoever you are!

–

I’ll tag Bee and SA, if they wanna do this meme too. Anyone else wanna do it?  Go ahead and I’ll link back to ya!

I’m about to write some unnecessary words. I apologize in advance.

I cringe when I see the word “currently” or “is currently” juxtaposed. Why? It’s redundant! The verb “is” means something in the present tense, happening now. So does “currently.”

Example:

The books are currently on sale.

No. Get rid of “currently” and you’ll save me from reading a word, and you’ll be saying the same thing. Especially since “on sale” usually means a temporary price cut–so you’ll know that the books won’t forever be on sale. You’re conveying a difference in time. Right?

“I’m going to the local drugstore, because it currently has a lot of free-after-rebate items.”

Slash “currently” since there’s no need for that word. Can you guess the other unnecessary word? It’s “local.” Everything is local. The local bookstore, the local restaurant, the local grocery, the local post office…etc. Why would you ever need to say “local” before a noun? Scrap it.

Instead, assume that this place is local to the writer. If the writer went to a non-local place, such as an outlet mall an hour from home, don’t you think he or she would state that this was not a local mall? Yep, I’d say so.

Another word to remove: Very.

Sometimes, people can use “very” and it would be necessary. But often, you can replace “very” and the following word with a more descriptive word.

Example:

“It is very cold.” Change it to “It is freezing” or “It is frigid” if that accurately describes the situation.

From time to time, I want to blog about things that are a part of my life, but don’t necessarily have anything to do with being frugal. I don’t want to write about those topics within my main blog, so now I have a venue to blog about whatever else I want.

You’ll get a glimpse into the more personal aspects of my life.

It’ll probably take awhile for me to find my voice over here. Still, I’m excited!

Feel free to subscribe or not, visit this “other blog” or not, comment or not, etc. I just hope to keep you excited about being frugal on my main blog, and I don’t want to drive away any visitors by writing about my regular life.