It’s been a week full of experiments. I had to trudge off to my annual eye exam recently, partly because that’s the one annual exam I never miss, and partly because I’ve been having ongoing issues with my work computer causing eyestrain. I was convinced that my left contact lens prescription was off, and I had become almost totally dependent on my very old prescription reading glasses. I got a new doc this time, and she set up a sort of mad-scientist experiment in which I was to mix-and-match distance contacts and multi-focal contacts with various strengths of reading glasses in order to find the Goldilocks-level “just right” combination. Trying to keep it all straight was not easy. I ended up writing myself a detailed email, explaining to myself like I’m five which lenses were in which case and which combos I was supposed to try. The distance lenses with 1.75 reading glasses were perfecto for my work computer, but I soon discovered I was unable to see well enough for things like checking out at grocery store kiosks and reading email on my phone. I finally settled on the multi-focal contact lenses with 1.25 reading glasses. That lets me see reasonably well close-up without reading glasses, and it seems to have eased the eyestrain a bit and made things clearer on the work computer. I’m not ready to let go of contact lenses entirely just yet, but I am coming to accept that reading glasses are going to be a permanent fixture of my life now. I’m going to at least make this fun by ordering some more in funky/cool/fanciful frames. Maybe it could become my “thing” and I could be that lady in the office who always has the “fun frames.”
I’ve completed about ten diamond paintings since I fell in love with the hobby, but the entire time, I have been confounded by the concept of washi tape and haven’t used it. Washi tape is basically just painters tape, only in whimsical colors and patterns. It’s a big deal in all of the diamond painting unboxing videos to ooh and awe over the cute washi tape, but it’s never come with any of my kits, and I always thought it was unnecessary unless you are doing a huge painting. The point of it is to section off areas of your painting into little manageable squares so you can work on one bit at a time. That didn’t appeal to me because I’m not a methodical painter and I like to move around the canvas, working on whatever color combo or section happens to appeal to me or draw my eye in the moment. But I decided to try it on my newest painting, a cool mountain/lake scene. And I really see the value of it now. It breaks the canvas down into nice little bite-sized bits and makes it so you can lift away one little flap of cellophane at a time:
It’s very neat and tidy and systematic. I love it, and I’m probably going to continue to use it. It gave me such a sense of accomplishment to finish that one little square. And now I know exactly how many squares I need to finish to complete the painting. It turns out non-methodical me actually really prefers a method.
Other things I’ve been experimenting with these week is night snacks, (I like a crunchy snack at night but got sick of the usual rotation of pretzels and blue corn chips), low back exercises (new-ish trainer), eyeliner, and medicated toothpaste. I’m a veritable walking test tube and it’s all very exciting. Thrilling updates on mundane topics coming soon!
--Kristen McHenry
Very enjoyable to read!