Buying glasses online, just my experience

Rosie's misplaced glasses, last seen June-ish 2013;
photo taken on Memorial Day '13.

Back in January, Rosie had an eye exam that showed a need for vision correction. We purchased glasses for her the traditional way, through an optometrist's office and insurance and received her pair by February. However, by the beginning of last summer Rosie lost that pair of glasses. It wasn't a big deal during summer camps and outdoor activities, so I put off replacing them for a few months. Our insurance only allowed one covered purchase of glasses per year, so with September and the start of school looming, I was at a loss as to how we would get another pair for less than $350 (starting prices at brick-and-mortar shops around here).

Then, I remembered that Kelly had recommended shopping online with ZenniOptical.com. Rosie really wanted a pair that was exactly like the one she lost, and Zenni didn't appear to have it.

After searching a couple of other glasses sites, I found a pair that was close to identical to Rosie's old pair at GlassesShop.com. I dug up her Rx, but was a little stumped as to what "PD" meant. It wasn't on the doctor's Rx and the site didn't give any details, so I just went with their default number. I placed my order, and waited. And waited some more. And sent some frustrated emails. The estimate was nine days to deliver, but it ended up taking two months. I understand that they shipped from China, but they shouldn't say nine days if they can't back up their claim. To add to my frustration, the GlassesShop 800 number never seemed to get answered, so I was dealing with everything primarily through emails with a major time lag. I learned later that the GlassesShop glasses order got held up in medical customs in California and I was less than thrilled about the wait.

Rosie's absolutely favorite new glasses from Zenni Optical
(photo effects added by Rosie).

Since we were a month into the school year and Rosie needed to see the chalkboard, I ended up ordering a second pair from ZenniOptical.com. The Zenni website is more robust and the services (online chat!) are more helpful. Their pupillary distance (PD: finally found out what it meant) ruler was especially helpful (it's a PDF that you can print and take your own measurements).

Our order from Zenni arrived exactly on time at the beginning of October and Rosie loves the new glasses. Rather than returning them, we are using the second pair (which arrived in late October) as back up to the first, because they were both so cheap...compared to local prices anyway. That's the intel! I recommend giving this a try. 

Buy handmade this season, a pledge

I know it's "black Friday" and many people went out at midnight, camped out and already purchased hugely discounted, large-scale electronics made in China and shipped to big box stores. I hope you all got some great deals on things you needed or gifts you intend for deserving loved ones.

From here forward, I have a suggestion. Rather than ordering another crate of miscellaneous, anonymous, ubiquitous items to be shipped from Amazon.com's largest warehouse, consider these other, more sustainable choices:

• Buying from a local artist or craftsperson

• Shopping at a small business, and getting to know the owner — you'll know exactly where your money is going.

• Making gifts yourself — the most beloved and unique gifts are DIY from the heart; whether it's a painting, a knit scarf, or baked goods, a gift made with love with the recipient in mind is most welcome.

badge courtesy of buyhandmade.org

If buying online is the best option for you, these websites support artists who hand-make their goods (list compiled by re-nest):

Online Handmade Marketplaces
There is no shortage of handmade items, nor marketplaces. Here are some top choices from around the globe:

• Artfire: Not just for paintings and original art pieces, this marketplace is now open to all sorts of handmade goods.
  
• Best of Handmade - This site searches multiple handmade sites at once.
  
• DaWanda: This is Europe's version of Etsy.
  
• Etsy: This is easily the largest global online community of handmade goods.
  
• Folksy: This is the UK's online shop for handmade items.
  
• iCraft: This is Canada's own Etsy-esque online community.
  
• MadeitMyself: This site is similar to Etsy as an online community of handmade buyers and sellers.
  
• Shop Handmade: This has a slight eco twist to the traditional craft store listings with carbon mitigation and rainforest conservation donations.
  
• Ten Thousand Villages: This is both an online store and a brick and mortar shop that features fair trade items from around the World.
  
• Try Handmade: This site highlights and shares handmade finds and shops.

Take the pledge this season to buy handmade. It's easy, just a shift of perspective. Many people have already chosen for years to only buy handmade goods as gifts. I ask you to do the same for yourselves and for me.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's Monkeyrotica's and my 13th anniversary today (or yesterday, because I got distracted by sick boy and forgot to hit the publish button), and true to style, we didn't really plan to do anything on the day of to celebrate. To help keep the romance away, Dash has a fever and I stayed home to take care of him, so we are really putting things off until our anniversary date night this coming Saturday night at Restaurant Eve, where we have spent several anniversaries in past years.

We are terrible at getting each other special-occasion gifts. Seriously, neither of us likes surprises and wasting savings on frivolities, so we typically get practical items and check with each other several times before purchasing. This year (our gifts are rarely "must have, evening-of-calendar-date") we are looking at chandeliers. The requirements, including no dangling jewels or fussy beaded curtains:

1. replace this despised chandelier:








2. no obvious chains/brass
3. no dustcatching glass cups
4. an artistic/modern look
5. warm & inviting
6. nothing too Victorian or busy
7. just kooky enough

Some chandeliers that have caught my eye on the web so far:

The minimalist George Kovacs chandelier
(chains: +10/dustcatching: +8/artistic:+5/inviting:-2/kooky:0=21)::





















The champagne bottle chandelier
(chains:+3/dustcatching: +3/artistic:+3/inviting:+8/kooky:+3=20):















The popular IKEA MASKROS chandelier
(chains: +8/dustcatching: -5/artistic:+5/inviting:+10/kooky:+8=26):





















The wine bottle chandelier
(chains:-3/dustcatching: +2/artistic:+3/inviting:+5/kooky:+5=12):



















The Cthulhu (Medusa?) chandelier (by Murano Imports)
(chains: +8/dustcatching: -5/artistic:+5/inviting:0/kooky:+8=16):






















According to my scale ratings, the IKEA MASKROS lighting is the winner, but I'll have to let Monkey weigh in. I'm expecting he'll pick an item from the George Kovacs line. Kovacs is quite the prolific lighting designer.

UPDATE:

I almost forgot about one of the most awesome wine-jug chandeliers EVAR! The Carlo Rossi wine jug chandelier! From The World's Best Ever blog:

Switcheroo, After

The new table!! And five of the eight new chairs. Why five? Monkeyrotica said something about Elijah...  

If it's not apparent to you, I'm 99% certain that the pink/green/cream floral motif on the chairs' upholstery doesn't go with everything else. I'll try to get on that soon. Though I've never tried reupholstering anything, I do have a staple gun and several friends have assured me it's pretty easy.

You can see that all the rest of the furniture have found new homes. All of it. I don't think a single item remained in its original spot, although we moved one piece to three places then settled on it 2 or three inches from where it was before, but at a 90 degree turn. I really like it! And the kids do too. They're having more trouble getting in and out of the chairs, but that's fine for now. Feng Shui = good.

Getting a new table today!

These are "before" photos of the living and dining rooms; as soon as we have the space set up with the new table, I'll post the "afters."

We've been talking for years about how our dining room table is just too small for our dinner parties. It seats four comfortably, but beyond that, you've got a table leg jammed in your crotch and you're a little too comfortably close to your neighbor. I was bored at work yesterday and checked craigslist for tables, then sent prospects to Monkeyrotica. He dissed most of them, but only one got a WANT! response. I contacted a few people with queries, and fortuitously, his WANT! table owners gave us the callback.

We will have to move around just about every piece of furniture in the living/dining room to accomodate the new, larger table. In fact the dining room will become our living room and vice-versa. Good for the feng shui!

Wish us luck! We're picking it up this morning (gotta snap up craiglist stuff immediately) and while they told us the table wouldn't possibly fit in a minivan, we are stubbornly heading over in a minivan.

UPDATE: The table fit in the minivan!! We spent about 3 hours moving furniture around and have the rooms 80% set up. Woo!

Meet me at Crafty Bastards this year!!

Daily Click - crafty bastards edition!
Originally uploaded by amber in norfolk

CRAFTY BASTARDS!!!! I don't remember why I missed it for the last four years (probably didn't know what I'd be missing), but I want to write it in PEN on my digital calendar next month.

The Washington City Paper says this about the festival:

To celebrate Crafty Bastards' fifth anniversary, we are doubling the awesome factor with TWO festivals in 2008! Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, September 28. [Go to CP's page] to learn more about Crafty Bastards, including event history, press, photos and video from previous shows.

We are pleased to present the Crafty Bastards vendors for June 28 in Silver Spring, MD! Start making those shopping lists! Entertainment and workshops schedules will be posted in June.

Vendor applications for the September 28 Crafty Bastards in Washington, DC will be available later this month. Join the email list and read the Crafty blog to stay on top of all the crafty happenings.

Join the email list and read the Crafty blog to stay on top of all the crafty happenings.

Maybe I'll try signing up to be a vendor in the Sept fest!

Who's coming in June?

Half-size, same price

AJS does all the grocery shopping and I generally eat at the office cafeteria, so the increasing prices for foodstuffs only hit me today.

Since I'm teleworking this morning, after dropping the kids at daycare, I decided to treat myself with a fabulous Misha's coffee and their droolworthy morning-glory muffin, my absolute favorite muffin on the planet. After a short wait in line, I order the dark coffee and my muffin; to my surprise, the barrista grabs a mini-thing about 1.5 inches across (rather than a typical, generous 3+in with overflowing cap). This teeny muffin has no cap and is delicately encased in some preciously embossed paper muffin cup that actually dwarfs it.

She informs me, "oh, yeah, we've switched bakeries." This doesn't bode well.

I examine it: a quick once-over shows that it does in fact have carrots, walnuts, and raisins in it, so I continue with the purchase. CRAZY me, I figure that this itty-bitty thing would somehow ring up for a smaller amount than the regularly sized muffin, twice as big. Can you guess where this is going?

No, she rings up the SAME PRICE (or maybe a few cents more) than usual. I say, thanks, but I don't want the muffin and just get coffee.

It was a pretty muffin, for sure. But, I'm eating here, not at an art gallery. I generally leave the muffin in a brown bag and tear off hunks while I'm driving to my destination. I don't sit and meditate with it to absorb its beauty before consuming. Has the price for materials risen this much already, or it is just that perhaps the new bakery is more pricey or has more chi-chi caché?

planning ahead

I was reading Radical Mama's post about her plantings plan for the coming year and it got me thinking about our garden and what we might do with it this year.

Last year, we had some herbs (basil, thyme, oregano, and sage), a decent quantity of tomatoes, some cucumbers, sad little bell peppers, and a small amount of raspberries.

I've been meaning to take over a rocky section and build a raised planter near our grills for some extra vegetables; I like the idea of growing us some tubers! Thanks, RM!

On a related topic, I made an unusual purchase recently: when I heard that the price of wheat was skyrocketing, I ordered an item that up till now, I had only poo-poohed Mormons for keeping. "Hard red winter wheat" has high protein levels, is excellent for bread flour (when milled; I bought us a hand mill, too), but can keep for many years if packed in an airtight container with an oxygen absorber.

Next, we need to see how it tastes in the bread AJS makes on weekends. I'll mill it if you bake it, okay?

bed-DUH

Rosie is growing, it's a fact. She is fitting comfortably in her toddler bed that we bought her 2.5 years ago, but she's past five now and if she streches and points her toes? Well, she's gone past the margins of that bed.

For the past week or two, I've idly been checking craigslist and asking friends if they have extra twin-size beds. I was even quite disappointed that a very pretty set sold before I could put a bid in. I investigated new furniture and was freaking out about how expensive it is, plus the delivery costs and the wait.

It wasn't until today, when I was about to schedule a pickup for a used IKEA set an hour away on craigslist that AJS suggested that we just borrow his old bed from his mom's.

"What?" I said, "I don't think so, it's a full-size and we need a twin." And the words full-size knocked around in my head for a good 30 minutes before a connection was made.

Rosie's pretty little toddler bed? That's just the right style and color for her room? It CONVERTS to a full-size bed. All I need to buy is the hardware + mattress set.

You don't know how relieved I am; this little task was taking up way too much irrelevant-worry time in my psyche. I really am not a fan of shopping, especially for big ticket/long term items like furniture. The full size is much, much bigger than the toddler, so we'll have to totally reconfigure her room. (Sensing much unhappiness afoot.)

Bonus: I think Dash's bed converts, too! (And his room is even smaller.)

Visit with Bookhart

Hey everyone! This afternoon, I hung out with a lovely blogging mom, Bookhart, from Austin who happened to be in DC for a conference today. We spent a fun hour+ in Dupont circle, made a driving tour through Adams Morgan, then did a little shopping at Secondi, Teaism, and Ginza. It really felt like playing hooky, despite that I had gone in early and already put my 8 hrs in by the time we met.

The pic above is my souvenir from our outing, as I was too wowed by Bookhart's darling personality and charm to get out my cameraphone. These little origami sheets want to be made into earrings! They are calling me. Look for them in my etsy shop soon, like within the next two weeks.

Thanks for meeting up with me, Bookhart! I will totally look you and your beautiful family up next time I'm in the Austin vicinity. And please, check in with us if you head back this way.

Volunteering

My MIL has been participating in a monthly service called "Share Food". For $18, she is given two full bags of groceries (one with frozen food, one with fresh produce & non-perishables) with quite a decent selection of healthy items. This program is open to everyone, all they ask in return is that you give back to the community with two hours of volunteer service a month, honor system. We have been ordering a package for our household, too.

My MIL is in her 70s, and while participating in activities at her senior center might be considered volunteering, I do my best to keep our karma up, by doing at least two hours of straight, uncompensated volunteer work.

At the kids' daycare, I am on the Board of Directors, a volunteer position that requires more than a few hours each month to fulfill set duties; and in my neighborhood, I took on the job of community newsletter editor, which also takes several hours, but is a bi-monthly publication.

Despite the fact that we are a two-income family, daycare costs eat up almost all of our discretionary funds (and now with my job relocation, my transportation expenses are sky-high), so we take any help we can get to stay within our budget. I'm glad Share Food is so inclusive.

I think it's a great program, giving locals incentives to give back, in return for deeply discounted groceries. Check to see if this program is in your area. I'm pretty sure the url is http://www.sharedc.org/

Dash's first sentence!

Well, if you don't count that it doesn't technically have a verb, he managed to string these three words together to get AJS to do his bidding:

"Nuk, pleesh, Daddee?"

What a cutie. But, we do need to wean him off his paci pretty soon—he's pretty much an addict. Sometimes he tries to fit two or more nuks in his mouth at the same time.

On to marketing: I'm a Board Member at the kids' daycare, and we're having a book sale with Usborne books, which really has a great selection of quality books! Dash and Rosie especially have enjoyed the touchable "That's Not My [insert possession here]" series. All sales at the Usborne Booksale link (specific to our CDC) support the Center's fundraising efforts.

yet another blog about the kids...

I have another webhost where I've been putting tidbits in about the kids, but I'm really not that thrilled with the look of it and find that, really, I'm getting 90-day notices that my site will be shut down instead of actually posting. So, here goes for actually posting. One of my plans is to move some of the info/photos over from that site and put them here. Because I've NEVER had a notice from Blogger that they are shutting my site down, and I have a couple of blog titles here that I haven't posted to in literally years (but can't bear to delete them).

Today is picture day at the childcare center and I spent a significant amount of energy this weekend (and need I say $$?) buying them clothes worthy of a professional photo shoot. The background for the photos is a academic-look, with dark wood, earthtones and leather-bound books. So, I bought them crazy-bright colored outfits with clashing patterns that have brown backgrounds. Hopefully, it will be cute. I took a pic with my camera this morning; maybe someone can help me decide whether the combo is adorable or vomit-inducing...