Lookin as best as I can
I ordered my eyeglasses on Saturday. My current benefits end at the end of this month, so I am taking full advantage of them. It's about time -- I've been with this agency through three contracts and paid for benefits without using them until now, so I don't feel the least bit guilty about the optical and dental appointments I've made now that I have the time for them.
The glasses themselves, well, I was told to go to Costco ("they have the best prices!") but they don't accept insurance. I was given a few places, really, but settled on LensCrafters. They take insurance and have a slightly larger selection of frames. I picked the most flattering nerd-glasses I could find and called it good. All in all, I paid about $150. I hear that's decent.
The only sucky thing is that I have to wait ten days for them to be finished. At this point in time my eyes are so beaten up from the poor hardware at my last job that I can barely look at a screen for more than an hour at a time. This includes television screens, computer screens, DS screens, movie screens... they all create problems, and the $20 readers you get at the drugstore aren't weak enough for the adjustment I need. I will do what I can online in one-hour increments and keep my fingers crossed that the glasses get finished early.
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In other news, my car is almost inoperable. The brakes chirp because I need new ones, and recently my engine has begun threatening to overheat unless I turn the heater on full blast. The brakes issue is the easy part. The engine temp is a tougher one to figure out -- the radiator is full and there are no leaks to be found. All the automobile knowledge in my head is no help, and until my next job I am unable to take it to a shop.
Not being able to drive is not new. A couple of summers ago I rode my bike almost everywhere and saved a fortune in gas (it was about $4/gallon then). The new challenge is figuring out how to pay for the bus to get me to the major areas where biking the entire way isn't practical. ORCA cards aren't nearly as much of a money saver as good old bus passes were.
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I was denied mortgage assistance because I could not "provide enough evidence of financial hardship." In other words, because I had $200 left over after my monthly expenses and had not missed a mortgage payment even when un- and under-employed, I'm ineligible. This sucks. I pretty much destroyed my credit for no reason by applying for assistance at all, and now I have nothing to show for it. I feel I'm justified in being angry about this. I worked very hard and made a lot of sacrifices to stay current in my payments -- this is my reward for being an honest citizen and trying to do the right thing. I shouldn't have to commit fraud to get the help I need.
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Those glasses can't get here soon enough. Seriously, they can't. I'm dividing my time between catching up on housework, taking care of band business, and job-hunting, and two of those things will require use of my eyes at 100% capacity.
The good news is that I know I will find something a lot sooner than I did the last time I was job hunting, and it will pay enough for me to catch up with everything I fell behind in during my last job.
If any of you local job-hunters find something that looks like a good fit and ISN'T at Microsoft (I'm not eligible to work there again until late August at the earliest), please feel free to send it my way.
The glasses themselves, well, I was told to go to Costco ("they have the best prices!") but they don't accept insurance. I was given a few places, really, but settled on LensCrafters. They take insurance and have a slightly larger selection of frames. I picked the most flattering nerd-glasses I could find and called it good. All in all, I paid about $150. I hear that's decent.
The only sucky thing is that I have to wait ten days for them to be finished. At this point in time my eyes are so beaten up from the poor hardware at my last job that I can barely look at a screen for more than an hour at a time. This includes television screens, computer screens, DS screens, movie screens... they all create problems, and the $20 readers you get at the drugstore aren't weak enough for the adjustment I need. I will do what I can online in one-hour increments and keep my fingers crossed that the glasses get finished early.
+ + + + + + +
In other news, my car is almost inoperable. The brakes chirp because I need new ones, and recently my engine has begun threatening to overheat unless I turn the heater on full blast. The brakes issue is the easy part. The engine temp is a tougher one to figure out -- the radiator is full and there are no leaks to be found. All the automobile knowledge in my head is no help, and until my next job I am unable to take it to a shop.
Not being able to drive is not new. A couple of summers ago I rode my bike almost everywhere and saved a fortune in gas (it was about $4/gallon then). The new challenge is figuring out how to pay for the bus to get me to the major areas where biking the entire way isn't practical. ORCA cards aren't nearly as much of a money saver as good old bus passes were.
+ + + + + + +
I was denied mortgage assistance because I could not "provide enough evidence of financial hardship." In other words, because I had $200 left over after my monthly expenses and had not missed a mortgage payment even when un- and under-employed, I'm ineligible. This sucks. I pretty much destroyed my credit for no reason by applying for assistance at all, and now I have nothing to show for it. I feel I'm justified in being angry about this. I worked very hard and made a lot of sacrifices to stay current in my payments -- this is my reward for being an honest citizen and trying to do the right thing. I shouldn't have to commit fraud to get the help I need.
+ + + + + + +
Those glasses can't get here soon enough. Seriously, they can't. I'm dividing my time between catching up on housework, taking care of band business, and job-hunting, and two of those things will require use of my eyes at 100% capacity.
The good news is that I know I will find something a lot sooner than I did the last time I was job hunting, and it will pay enough for me to catch up with everything I fell behind in during my last job.
If any of you local job-hunters find something that looks like a good fit and ISN'T at Microsoft (I'm not eligible to work there again until late August at the earliest), please feel free to send it my way.