We’re finally back to a normal schedule, after a full month of non-stop activity. Actually, that was closer to a month and a half! Everyone breathe a big sigh of relief with me. Aaaaaaahhhhh…

About a week ago, my eye went back to normal. No more gross infection! I was super excited about this until I went to a follow-up appointment where the doctor told me that despite my eye being back to “normal,” he suspected that the very definition of “normal” had changed. In other words, the eye test results on my left eye were still pathetic, which probably had less to do with the infection (which was gone) and more to do with the fact that I’m old and need glasses. Bah! The doctor said that I likely would have had a crummy eye exam before the Bug Incident of 2011 happened and that perhaps my vision had always been bad. I told him about my eye history — that my RIGHT eye had been diagnosed as a lazy eye when I was three, that I wore patches and glasses to correct it, and that I had been done with glasses completely by the time I was twelve. “You sure it wasn’t your left eye that was lazy?,” he asked. “Nope, it was the right,” I said confidently…

… until I got in the car and started to think about it. I was all of three years old when the problem started, so perhaps in the nearly thirty years since then, I’ve gotten fuzzy on the details. As fuzzy as my vision, perhaps.

When I got home, I called my parents to get the definitive answer on which eye was lazy, and guess what? They couldn’t remember either. They started flipping through photo albums and couldn’t find any pictures of my patched eye or even any ones pre-diagnosis that showed which eye was having trouble. My dad guessed left, I guessed right, and my mom said she had no idea. She could remember the name of my opthamologist, but what are the odds that he still was even in practice thirty years later and had patient records from that far back? This all happened long before digitial files, you know. And then, she added another kink to the whole thing by saying, “It wasn’t technically a lazy eye. It just presented the same type of symptoms and eye behavior. It was actually a brain problem of some sort.” Well, this just keeps getting better and better!

The mystery was solved the next day when I went to see an optometrist (yes, I hadn’t been able to avoid that after all given my poor eye exam), who after giving me yet another eye test asked, “So, what seems to be the problem?” Was it not obvious? He went on to tell me that the infection was gone, my vision was now testing perfect in both eyes, and that my left eye was just a little weaker than my right. “Because of the infection?,” I asked. “No, the left one has always been weaker. It was your lazy eye,” he responded, then added, “Whoever treated it did a great job, though, because the vision is nearly the same in both.” (Yeah, that opthamologist did a great job of resetting my brain through eye patches. Who knew that was even medically possible?)

Anyway, the LEFT eye was the weaker brother all along. Which makes it even more unfortunate that he was the one attacked by dive-bombing insects. I’m not sure how this all plays into the brain issues I never knew I had, but the bottom line is that I don’t need glasses. So, we’re good! I think. Though I can’t really be sure, seeing as how my brain has been faulty for the past thirty years and I’m just now hearing about it.

Oh, well.

Now that my eye is back to normal (or as normal as it’s going to get!), I’m back on my normal running schedule. Our first half marathon is a little less than two weeks away now. It would be an understatement to say that I’m apprehensive about this, although the longer runs we’ve been doing on the weekends have been great confidence builders. Sure, I run ten miles slower than most grannies can crawl ten miles, but I can do it. And I don’t feel like dying afterwards, so the thought of three extra miles doesn’t terrify me. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. And I’m going to hold onto that notion until AFTER the half marathon, lest I stop running one mile into the race, convinced that I’m not going to be able to finish. I’m discovering that the hardest part of all of this long distance running is ignoring my own self-defeating thoughts and choosing to believe that I can actually do this. Stay tuned for pictures of us crossing the finish line!

And speaking of winners, Wes has won big-time in the wonderful husband category by pre-ordering tickets for the opening day of Harry Potter. Eeee!!! We arranged for Gram and Gramps to come up and hang out with the girls so we could see the movie at some point this weekend, and it worked out that we’ll be seeing it on opening day. We saw the third one on the day it opened in Lebanon, but we’ve been lucky to catch all the ones since long after everyone else in the free world has already seen them. So, I’m a little excited about this… and also very sad about it since there won’t be any reason to go out to the movies after this. Sure, I’ll make Wes take me to the last Twilight movie, but that has less to do with wanting to see the movie and more to do with enjoying the commentary that he’s sure to provide along the way. (“What do you mean they get MARRIED in this one?!” See, he’s already got an opinion.) Farewell to Harry Potter… sad day.

We’ve also said farewell to our lawn. As you can see in the picture above, Oklahoma is all red dirt and yellow grass right now. Our yard actually looks better than the park the girls and Wes were walking through… but not much better. And I’m sure that after this next week of 109 degree temperatures, the whole thing will be crispy and crunchy. Perhaps next year we’ll replace the grass with an extensive rock and cactus garden. Wes would probably appreciate never needing to mow again, and who doesn’t love cacti?

That’s about it around here. Hope you’re getting some rain where you are!