Ordinary Time heralds lots of new things in my life, including my glasses...

Happy Tuesday all! And I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I did. For the most part. The kids fought a lot, that always brings everybody down, but on the whole it was really nice. ;-)

This section of Ordinary Time has felt really refreshing to me, sort of like a new start in my spiritual life in a lot of ways. I've been novena'ing along nicely (new verb, coined right there), and Adoration has been going pretty smoothly, which is great. But I've also noticed some changes with my kids and their spirituality. Anne is suddenly...such a big girl!

*sob!*

She goes up every week now during Mass with the Children's Liturgy of the Word crowd, and is all excited to do so, coloring pictures ahead of time to give to the teacher. I mean, did you ever? She is so cute. This frees me up to actually be able to HEAR the Gospel and the Homily, which I will admit, is a nice amenity. She also brings me rosary beads at home, and asks to pray with me. I'll recite the prayers, and she keeps track of where we are on the beads. Just...

So precious. She keeps asking to go to church, she loves it. Henry, on the other hand, while a very good boy, is definitely going through that "church is boring!" phase. Very age appropriate, to be sure. And he's acting very stubbornly as a result, taking forever to get ready for Mass and to accompany us out to the car. He still loves learning about the saints, but connecting the lives of the saints with Mass attendance just hasn't happened for him yet. I have been praying for him to make a more personal connection with his faith and with God.

As for me, I can feel myself having to adjust and adapt to these new emotions going on with my children. As ever, I'm doing the best that I can, but I fear that I'm screwing it all up somehow. :) Thank God for the guidance that comes from Adoration.

#ThePiecesComeTogether

But in other weekend/changes news, I had my yearly ophthalmology appointment, and we all know how these appointments seem to somehow form an annual ode to my aging process. New year, new me, right? Especially with a milestone birthday coming up in a month. ;-) Happily, I have found a doctor at the practice who is gentle and soft spoken, doesn't tell me I'm old, and also doesn't mandate drops for his patients, so I can actually see to drive home. Brilliant!

I arrived Friday afternoon apprehensive as ever, because I feared that this would be the year. You know what I'm talking about, right? THE 'B' WORD. Bifocals.

*glares*

I have reading glasses, and at work I'm constantly taking them on and off my face. I need them to see my computer screen crisply, but they makes the person coming to the reference desk to talk to me somewhat blurry, so then I have to remove them. But I don't want to move to bifocals. I'm afraid of change, OK, don't judge me. :0

At any rate, I was called back, and the nurse first had me do this peripheral vision test whereby I had to click a clicker thingy whenever I saw a flicker of movement on this little screen. This test is my favorite part of every appointment, because it involves zero discomfort, and I'm certain that I scored 100%. *gold star!* I then had to do the chart reading thing, which I hate, because my left eye is so much weaker and it's depressing how the letters jump around when that eye is the only one I'm using. This is followed by the ever fun pressure test wherein a large wand is pressed to your eyeball and you're told to "just relax!" as if that was remotely a possibility. Then I moved over to the doctor, and he did the usual: "A, or B? B? Ok. B or...C!" thing. The verdict?

"Just a small change. Head out to Ed and he'll help you order new glasses."

Weellllll, that sounds *not bad* I suppose, but small changes in the negative direction over time could mean I'm blind by age 60, right? That's a little worrisome.

Ed is helping someone else when I make my appearance, so I busy myself looking at new frames. It's a good thing I started early, because I took a freakishly long time to make a decision, finally just deciding to be done with it and go with my instinct. Which was to text selfies to a friend:

"Do you like the brown? Or purple?" Wait. Maybe I should ditch both the brown AND purple and go back to the thicker red ones. What about...

Ed was amused. But I finally made a decision:

This is my scholarly look :0

Then Ed tried to ruin my day:

"Oh. Did you know that he wrote the prescription for progressive lenses?"

*look of pity*

("Progressive," you see, is ophthalmology code speak for "BIFOCAL.")

"Oh. Well. I guess that's what I'll get then."

*look of misery*

"For progressive lenses, there is a minimum size, so let's see if these frames meet that..."

Uh oh. After 30 minutes of agonizing frame-trying-on, now they might be too small?! I definitely favor narrow lens sizes in my frames. Luckily for both Ed and I, my selected frames squeaked in at the minimum. Now to wait two weeks for them and see if I hate them when they come in, huzzah!

How was your weekend, dear reader?