I’m still fighting this eye infection and it’s making work a bitch.  A little backstory on this…

About 12 years ago, back when I wore contact lenses all the time, I suddenly had problems with my vision, namely, I had double and blurred vision. My sister-in-law at the time had been diagnosed not 6 months prior with a brain tumor and her only symptom was blurred vision. So naturally, the doctor (it was a small town) sent me in for a CAT scan to rule that out, among a number of other tests.

After all that, I was sent to the optometrist where he found out that my cornea was too dry and as a result, it was bumpy (like dry skin would be). This is what caused my blurred vision. So after that, I couldn’t wear contacts other than for sports and was relegated to wearing glasses.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago and I was out of my allergy medicine for 6 days and the sub-zero cold snap hit the area which had the furnace running a lot more and drying out the air more (even my humidifier had a hard time keeping up!). That perfect storm caused my eyes to dry out and develop an infection much like a sinus infection, but in my eyes. I’ve been on ocular steroids and antibiotics for a week and a half now, and it’s slowly getting better. Not 100% yet, but I can see the progress. Drives me crazy, though. I have a new video game that’s an early “Christmas present” from Tim (The Last Remnant) that I can’t play because the menu system is so tiny, I can’t read it. I’ll be damned if I sit close to the TV squinting to read the battle menus – I’ll just have to wait.

The other thing that sucks is that on top of having to put artificial tears in my eyes every hour or so, my optometrist recommended that I start taking flaxseed oil and/or fish oil capsules. I found at Trader Joe’s (right around the corner from my optometrist’s office) a “total EPA” which had both flaxseed oil and fish oil and one other thing that I can’t think of. The only bad part about these is that for a couple of hours after I take it, I have this gross, fishy-tainted belching thing happening. GROSS. Maybe I’ll stick to the plain flaxseed oil after these are done. In the meantime, I’m drinking a lot of mint tea to combat the gross.

On the Christmas front, we weren’t going to exchange gifts this year. My family hasn’t exchanged gifts for years and with Tim’s family, they paid for our trip to NY in September for his brother’s wedding and we specifically told them that that would be our Christmas gift too. Finally, since Tim’s in college and times are lean, we felt it was best to just skip the gifts this year. For those of you who know me well, I don’t really like getting a lot of gifts. I would rather get a hand-knitted scarf than an iPod or have someone make a nice meal for me than give me the latest gadget*.

But, on Black Friday, Tim scored the aforementioned video game for a steal and gave it to me as soon as he got in in the mail because it wasn’t a Christmas gift. The cheapskate in me was pleased with the 50% off purchase price – but, this made my guilt complex rise up as I now had to reciprocate the gift.

Tim’s wanted, no, needed a GPS for a long time. He has the navigational skills of a day-old donut** and having to drive all the way to Eden Prairie for classes next semester, I’ve been on the lookout for a GPS for him.

Luckily, at my part time job, they sell GPS’s and I’ve been keeping my eye on the sales. Finally they had the TomTom ONE 130-S on sale with a $50 instant rebate and then I got my employee discount on top of it. Sure, it was more than the video game, but I see it as an investment because then I won’t have to field panicked phone calls*** from Tim telling me he’s lost and he doesn’t know where he is. A win-win, if you ask me.

For Christmas day, since my family isn’t getting together for Christmas until January 4th (preempted due to the blizzard over this last weekend) – Tim and I are going to hang around the house, I’m going to cook and perhaps our friend J may come over too, since she’ll be in town this Christmas. We’re debating on watching either 1) Star Wars Original Trilogy, 2) Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or 3) Firefly series/Serenity Movie (and all the extras). Should be fun!

Have a happy holidays, everyone!

* * * * *

Addendum: This photo pool on Flickr is awesome. Live action recreations of Far Side cartoons. I was happy to see my favorite cartoon recreated:

Awesome.

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* – Except for THIS kitchen gadget…OMG WANT! Watch the TV commercial for it when it comes on – it’s AMAZING.

** – Meaning: none.

*** – True story: he called me from *somewhere* in Eagan and I had to figure out where he was by asking him what was around him, which was a hotel and a gas station. Trips to each business’s websites allowed me to figure out by address where he was, then I could Google map to get him where he needed to be. I’m good.