I have been losing focusing ability in my eyes throughout the past year - my glasses are no longer working for me. I had visited an ophthalmologist in Illinois but she said that there wasn't any way to correct it (she didn't say "because of your cataracts", but I got that impression). Because we're trying to move to physicians located in the Mesa, I went to the eye institute here a couple of weeks ago. I saw an optometrist, and she confirmed that I have cataracts that need to be removed. I scheduled an appointment with the surgeon, but the surgeon's schedule was booked out and I could not get an appointment until second half of January. I was concerned that scheduling the surgery on each eye after that appointment, and then follow ups at 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after could run past the end of our planned stay in Mesa. So, I was calling the eye institute every few days to see if they had a cancellation -- I would get the same nice scheduling lady each time, and she would say, "I'm so sorry, nothing before the day of your appointment," until a few days ago, when she said, "Oh! We have had a cancellation for December 19! Do you want to come in then?" I jumped at the chance and went in to see the surgeon on Thursday...
While we were in the waiting area, we could watch HGTV on the big screen, or information about the Swagel-Wooton Eye Institute on another screen -- at one point, information about the doctor whom I would be seeing displayed.
A technician took me to several machines to take pictures and test my eyes...
... then to an exam room where I tried (pretty unsuccessfully) to read the letters at a distance -- at this point, I was reading close up -- much easier close up!
The technician trying out different combinations to figure out which gave me the best distance vision.
Eventually, my eyes were dilated, and I went to another exam room to see the surgeon, Dr Brozek. There was a poster/picture on the wall with more information about Dr Brozek.
Dr Brozek came in and performed a number of measurements on my eyes.
The eye institute had given me information about a number of different intra-ocular lenses that might be available to me -- along with the price list of how much they would cost because anything but the basic is not covered by insurance -- the multi-focal lenses could cost up to $4100/eye, and the Light Adjustable Lens could be up to $4900/eye. I had read material and reviews on the different lenses, and was not at all sure what I should do -- I had prayed ahead of time that God would make it very clear what I should choose. When Dr Brozek completed his exam, he said that I was *not* a candidate for the pricier lenses because of my astigmatism -- so I could choose the standard lens (which insurance would cover), or a laser-assisted surgical technique that may help to reduce my astigmatism (at $2100/eye). He told me that the laser-assisted surgery would only provide about 10% improvement over the standard lens, and that glasses after surgery would correct if I didn't do the laser-assisted surgery. I am fine with continuing to wear glasses -- I like having glasses with transition lenses that darken automatically in the sun (and not having separate sunglasses), and I would need to continue to have glasses, at least for reading, anyway. Having one pair of glasses that work for distance and reading and sunglasses is ideal for me -- so God had made it very clear what I should choose! And it happens to be all covered by insurance too!!!
So, then we went to the scheduler... she said, "Would you like to get this taken care of this year?"
I said, "This year? like, in 2024????"
"Yep - we have a few appointments available this year still!"
So... my right eye (which is the worse one) is scheduled for cataract surgery early on 12/23 (Monday), and my left eye is scheduled for surgery on 12/26 (Thursday)!!!
I have long worn glasses -- and my glasses have always given me good vision -- up until this past year. It seemed that all of a sudden I could not see road signs clearly, could not see the aisle markers in the grocery store, could not distinguish what things were that I might see just a short distance across a campground. Not being able to get a new prescription that would correct these deficiencies had me concerned - especially since it seemed to come on quickly. One of the technicians at the Eye Institute indicated that cataracts build slowly over time, but at some point, their presence makes a distinct issue with one's sight -- the final straw on the camel's back, so to say. I am hopeful that by soon after Christmas, I may be on my way to, once again, having vision that can be corrected through the use of glasses! I would appreciate prayers that the surgeries will go well and I will be able to adjust to my new vision.
The Sunlife Ham Radio group (that includes most members of the Venture Out Ham Radio group plus folks from other parks) had their Christmas party at Venture Out last weekend. The food was catered from On the Border, and we brought desserts...
There were a LOT of desserts!!!
The Oasis meeting room fit the group nicely.
On the Border provided a fajita and taco buffet -- it was very good!
On the same day, we helped with coffee after worship service in the morning, and in the afternoon, there was a line dance social (that I was able to get to), and another event that we missed. Just too many great things to choose from at this time of year!
When we got to Venture Out in October, we saw that there was a trip that we could book through the Activity Office that would take us by bus from the resort to Dream City Church in north Phoenix that does a broadway-style show for Christmas. The bus trip from our resort quickly sold out, but I looked into getting tickets on our own. We had bought our tickets, and then one of our neighbors asked if we were interested in going -- we ended up driving together, but had seats separately in the theater.
Arriving at the church -- our friends had a handicapped tag so we were able to park quite close.
We found our seats in the sanctuary/auditorium. We were pretty far back, but near the center - this was our view from the seats we booked.
After we got settled into our seats, a gentleman came up to talk with us. He asked if we had come to the show before, how we had heard about it, if we were there with anyone else. Then he told us that the pastor had reserved a few Premium seats, and that he would like to offer them to us -- seats in row 3. Initially, we said, "There's probably someone more deserving." -- but the fellow said that he only had a short time to give away the seats, and then our seats could be used for latecomers. He assured us that if we got to the seats up front and didn't want them, we could return to our seats... so we went up front with him....
Our view from the premium seats in row 3 - the conductor and orchestra were right in front of us (only row 2 between us and the conductor).
The pastor and his wife were there to welcome the audience to the performance. They stayed to watch the show (in the first row, with the conductor).
Part of the show had singing and dancing...
...including aerialist silk performers.
The story in the first part of the show involved a teenager who was interested in her great-great-grandmother's sleuthing skills from the late 1800s...
... she time-traveled back to the time of her ancestor...
... and worked with her great-great-grandmother to solve a mystery...
... they visited various places to look for clues - a place serving hot chocolate...
... a circus where there was a horse, dogs,
... and a camel -- (not pictured, also a zebra and a kangaroo).
Searching for more clues.
They eventually found the solution to the mystery...
... and the teenager went back to her own time for the finale.
After the performance in the first part of the show, the emphasis transitioned to the Christmas story...
... with songs telling of Christ's birth...
... singer with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus behind...
"Mary did you know?" -- note baby Jesus' arms waving in the video -- that's a real baby in the show!
Three kings came to bring gifts...
... including one on a camel coming down the aisle -- he dismounted just a few feet from us.
The cast on stage with angels flying above
The pastor spoke again and encouraged us to stand for the Hallelujah Chorus:
End of show picture
It was quite an impressive show. We were very glad that we went -- we didn't appreciate the "musical story" part in the beginning as much as we did the Christmas story at the end, but it was impressive how a church would have the resources (people, time, talents) to put on a performance like this. The pastor told us at the beginning that they have been doing this show for 45 years.
The last time I used a title like that was when we purchased the park model next door to our RV lot in the spring of this year. No... we have not purchased another park model, nor another lot, but...
... we have purchased a golf cart! The picture shows it in front of our park model and our neighbor's motorhome behind it.
Another view of the new-to-us golf cart (our Jeep can be seen just beyond it -- the Jeep is parked in front of Gracie, our motorhome).
It has 4 12V lead acid batteries -- so we need to make sure that they have sufficient water in them. Batteries take a beating with the heat in Arizona -- average lifespan is 2-3 seasons (years). We would ultimately like to replace the lead acid batteries with lithium, but are happy to use the lead acid batteries until they need to be replaced.
We had talked about getting a golf cart, and had looked at new ones for sale in the stores around our area. The prices varied widely and we sought counsel of wise neighbors who own golf carts. They indicated that many of the new ones that we saw advertised were cheap, foreign-made units (either Chinese or Japanese) that are unreliable, hard to get parts for and impossible to find someone to service. They recommended an older US-made EZ-Go model as being more reliable, easy to get parts, and easy to get service if required. One of our neighbors thoughtfully forwarded an advertisement for one that another resident of Venture Out was selling -- initially we were not particularly interested as it is set up as a golf cart (with space for golf bags instead of a back seat), but the same kind neighbor shared with us that he had put the back seat on his own cart and was sure that we could do it. We contacted the person selling it and decided to get it!
It may look red, but it is actually a burnt orange (pretty close to the University of Texas color!).
Waving goodbye to my honey as I headed off to work at the Activities Office!
We enjoy walking in our community, but sometimes, especially if we need to go to one of the far corners of our resort or carry a few things with us, a golf cart is very nice to have!
I mentioned a few days ago that we had joined the Glass Arts club and taken the "101" class. We then signed up for a "fused glass" class and have done our first projects!
As I understand it, there are two major paths that we can take in Glass Arts -- fusion or stained glass. We like the look of fused glass, so decided to try that first. Fused glass requires a specific type of glass so it will melt in the kiln instead of shattering. It is more expensive than the glass that most folks use for stained glass (you can use the fused glass for stained glass projects, but you'd be paying more for a characteristic that you don't need).
Carl and I both decided to make spoon rests, as we figured we could use one in both the casa and the motorhome. We elected to go with a more modern design as it only had straight edges for us to cut and we had learned from our experience in the "101" class that our skill at cutting smooth curves is, uhm, limited! The club has patterns for us to use with molds that the club owns, so we knew the shape that we needed to cut the glass.
Our instructor monitoring as I was cutting the clear glass that would be the bottom layer of my project.
I scored the line, and then used a tool to break it along the line.
Carl marking the pattern on his clear glass
Carl scoring the clear glass:
Carl splitting the clear glass:
Next, Carl marked and scored the colored glass he had selected -- when he selected it, we noticed that the glass was cracked a little at the bottom, but there was enough good glass to use for our pattern...
... however, when he tried to crack along the scored line... oops!
Our instructor was watching and thought Carl had scored the glass well, and was then baffled by the things that happened with Carl's colored glass. Undeterred, Carl decided to go ahead and fuse the two pieces of glass together, hoping that they would meld into one piece in the kiln!
Continued preparation by rounding the corners before fusing
We both cut our bottom clear glass, and then purchased glass to use as our top glass. There were a few pieces of glass (long drawn-out glass made during the melting process) available to use for free, and our instructor also had a few scraps that she allowed us to use. We glued our clear and top glass together (using clear Elmer's glue, and then placed our decorative pieces on top. We forgot to take pictures before our projects went in for fusing, but we did get pictures after they were fused:
Carl's cross - the cracked piece was the upper right, and it is not at all noticeable after the full fusion process.
Patti's abstract
The type of fusing that we used was "full fusion" which is at a hotter temperature and pretty much melts the top pieces into the base. For a spoon rest, you don't really want any raised parts that would catch food.
After we had checked the results of the fusing (Carl checked on both of ours as I was working at the Activity office on the second day of the class), Carl put our projects back onto the shelves for "slumping". This is also done in the kiln, with a mold placed under our glass, and the glass melts ("slumps") into the shape of the mold.
Our two fused pieces on the slumping shelf with a work order sheet indicating which mold we wanted them to be slumped into. There is also a mold on the right side of our pieces -- I don't think it was the mold for our pieces, but maybe a mold that another member was wanting for a non-standard use and therefore wanted to indicate exactly where on the mold their glass should be slumped. The other student in our fusing class was making glass covers for night lights, and she was using a mold in a non-standard way (her piece was smaller than the normal size of the mold) -- so that might be her piece also on the shelf waiting for slumping.
Here are our two finished products -- you may be able to tell that the mold caused them to be curved upwards on the bottom so the handle of the spoon would rest there, and there is a shallow cup-shape at the top for the bowl of the spoon.
As I indicated, this is a more "modern" look to a spoon rest. They have molds for a spoon rest that is more circular at the top and bottom, but we liked this design and are happy with how they came out!
Things we have learned -- art glass is *expensive*. We are glad that we are learning, but not sure that we will become long-term glass arts crafters. We hope to enjoy it this season, but it remains to be seen whether we will continue another year.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
