Ohh, the eye doctor.

What my house currently contains: a bruised, vicodin-riddled mother, a pukey sister, a father who just purchased an andrea bocelli cd on a whim and is now listening to it non-stop, and two very, very unnaturally studious other siblings. It is a very weird time in my household.

On top of that, I can't decide about my new contacts. I have a very hard time going to the eye doctor. I just... get stressed about my answers. "Is 1 better... or 2? ... One? ... or two?" OH MY GOSH. I DONT KNOW. THEY LOOK THE SAME. I always get nervous about whether I'm really answering correctly. Because my prescriptions never end up looking quite as good as I know they could be. And when I said something about it today, he re-checked me and said they were right. We'll see. At least it's an improvement over my OLD optometrist, of whom many of you have heard. He was probably the meanest, crotchety-est old man in the world. He was SO MEAN to me. I cried on two separate occasions in his office. He insulted pretty much every member of my family to their faces. And, on top of that, he just didn't really know what he was talking about. I had my first appointment with the NEW optometrist today and it was like, lightyears better. First, he didn't yell at me or make me cry. Second, he actually showed an interest in what I'm doing with my life. Third, he was SO careful and just showed me that he really wanted to get it right. My old optometrist once forgot to test me for glaucoma... admitted this to my face, and then told me it was "probably fine" and made me leave without getting tested. Somehow I feel as though that would never happen with this man. Like, when I told him that my new prescription still felt a little funny, he completely retested me. Like, THAT gives me confidence. That makes me feel so, so much better. At least he cares.

I ALSO found out from this appointment that my prescription is completely wrong, thanks to Mr. Crotchety Old Man. I'm THREE STEPS TOO HIGH in my right eye, and ONE step too high in my left. I'm sorry, but there is just absolutely no excuse for that. That's ABSURD. No wonder I was getting headaches. Also, I apparently have astigmatism. WHO KNEW. I always knew I had a tiny bit one in one eye, but this doctor has informed me that I have fairly developed astigmatism in both eyes. Um, good to know. He told me that my vision problems are partially due to this, which has never been treated before. He gave me trial contacts that treat the astigmatism (at the lower prescription which I should have been on all the time), and my vision is completely the same, if not better. Which tells me that all along, my eye troubles have NOT been due to worsening eyes, but to the astigmatism instead. Like, if I can get along with a prescription that is THREE steps lower in one eye, but one that also treats astigmatism... um... yeah. Shoulda been on that YEARS ago. Ugh.

So anyway, I still don't know how I feel about these contacts. Contacts that treat astigmatisms have a specific "up" and "down", so they have to be in place all the time, whereas regular contacts can just kinda spin around and it's fine. So that feels very weird to me... I keep blinking a lot. And I've developed a slight headache, but I think that's just because I'm not used to this prescription or these contacts. Hopefully this all works out.

Another thoughtful thing this doctor did was give me a new solution that is supposed to help with allergies. Like, seriously, I don't know why this doctor is infinitely nicer than the other guy. But he is, and it's great. He's Donny's optometrist, and Donny recommended that my family see him, and it was such a great decision. YAY finding new doctors! YAY abandoning old horrible doctors!

Now that I've spent 15 minutes typing up stuff about my eyes I'm sure you don't care about... my mom had kidney-stone-procedure-ish stuff done today, and she's recuperating. She's in a lot of pain, but I think the Vicodin is definitely helping when it's not wearing off. While she and my dad were at the clinic, I got a call saying my little sister was puking at school, and that I had to pick her up. Me + puking do NOT go well together, so I was a little worried, but she was done puking by the time I got there, thank goodness. It was SO weird to go back to my middle school, though. It's been so long since I've been in there. Looks the same, though. My sister's best friend who helped her to the bathroom mysteriously ALSO puked later in the day, so I dunno what's going on there.

My dad asked me for a book to read while he was waiting at the clinic for my mom to be done with her procedure. How embarrassing when your dad comes to you for a history book. I know that's what he wanted. How even MORE embarrassing when you're able to offer him approximately 15 books on the Nazis, and pretty much nothing else. He ended up going with one about the Black Death... ohhhh, how happy and cheery my preferred line of literature is.

Agenda for the rest of the night: tend to mother's needs, avoid pukey sister even though she's not puking anymore, perhaps read some more, and perhaps watch Rachel's Getting Married (my new Netflix). I'm excited.