Personal

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I Found Good Hummus!!!

I don’t think it’s a secret that I love hummus. I can go through three, four, even five containers of the stuff a week.

I’m too lazy to make my own and commercial hummus generally isn’t great. There are a few Canadian brands I like, but I have never been able to find good hummus in the States. As for pita, forget it! Here, like in western Canada, I eat my hummus with Triscuit crackers or homemade pita.

Until today. Today, I found the best commercial hummus I have EVER tasted. Really, it’s a game changer. It’s so good I will never again be tempted to make my own!

I got the traditional type and except for the usual additives for freshness, these are the ingredients:

-dried, not canned, chickpeas for an authentic taste

-tahini

-canola oil

-sea salt

-garlic

And it comes topped with what you’d expect hummus to be topped with, including sumac and zaatar!

I’ve had hummus prepared by a Lebanese chef and this hummus is at least as good as that one was.

What brand is this miracle spread? Marketfresh, which is a Walmart brand!

Walmart houses me and clothes me and now feeds me. I guess that makes it home! 😀

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Ordering Glasses Online From Zenni Optical, Part One

After much hemming and hawing, I finally placed an order for glasses from Zenni Optical.

This post is going to talk about the ordering process. I have no idea yet if the time and money I spent on Zenni’s website will pay off or not. However, testimonials tell me that I am about to get my money’s worth and then some. We shall see!

Ordering glasses on Zenni started with a fresh prescription. I created an account and entered my prescription details into it so that I wouldn’t have to reenter the information several times and possibly get it wrong.

One measurement that is needed but is not on the prescription is pupillary distance, or PD. My friend had the ruler and know-how to measure that for me. This number ensures that your lenses are correctly centred.

The next thing I did was measure my current pair to give myself an idea of the size I would need my new glasses to be. Important measurements are the width of the nose bridge, the width of the frames, the width of the lenses, the length of the temple, and the height of the lenses.

Finally, I took the time to get a good portrait of myself to upload to the site so that I could virtually try on the glasses.

Then, I started shopping! There are several parameters for narrowing down the search, such as price, PD, gender, type of glasses, and type of prescription. The one I wish was a little more precise is the frame size. After a bit of trial and error, I determined that I needed to look at medium to just slightly larger than medium frames, but it would have been nice to be able to input a range.

I’ve been wearing glasses for 23 years and have an idea of the types of shapes, materials, and colours that look best on me. So I started looking for two sensible pairs with metal frames, spring hinges, and oval or rectangular lenses. I started off with a $24.95 pair until I found a couple of $6.95 pairs that looked just as good. In fact, one of the cheaper pairs looks exactly like the pair I currently have on (which I paid several hundred dollars for, and that’s just for the frame).

The processing and shipping time can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. I don’t know when I’ll next be in an area where I can hang out for a bit waiting on glasses. So I decided that I might as well make this order count, especially since shipping is a flat fee of $4.95 regardless of the size of the order, and there is currently a 10% off coupon! Therefore, I kept shopping!

Once I had some classic (read: boring) frames, I decided that I wanted to try some novelty ones. I finally settled on a pair of pink frames and a similar one in green.

Finally, my current prescription sunglasses are horribly scarred. I’ve always wanted a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses, so I found a frame I liked and, following my friend’s instructions, looked for the tinting option on the order form.

For each pair, I added the anti-reflective (A/R) coating at $4.95 per pair. I was tempted to try the premium oleophobic coating (A/R, water repellent, smudge resistant), but reviews were not good for that option.

When all the frames, options, and shipping were added up and my 10% discount was calculated, my order came to a whopping $71.05. That’s for five pairs of glasses including prescription sunglasses! Walmart wanted to charge me that for lenses set in a truly crappy frame! Do note that I have single vision lenses, not bifocals or progressives.

Two things irked me about the order process. The first is that you cannot edit your order. So when I wanted to remove the fancy coating from one pair, I had to redo the entire order for that one. That wasn’t too painful because you can import your saved prescription, but it would still be nice to be able to change settings.

The second thing that I do not like is that they are not set up to take PayPal. I know the site is reputable, so I was okay with paying with a credit card, but I prefer to use PayPal for online purchases.

I placed my order yesterday, Sunday. First thing this morning (literally, it was 1:28AM my time), I got an email from them saying there was a problem with my order. It appeared to be for one person, but there was a pair out of the five that had a different PD. Which number was correct?

Well, I had started shopping with an estimated PD, updated my prescription with the correct number, but had forgotten to redo one of my orders! I’m so glad that they caught that! This tells me that whomever is processing orders at Zenni is not an automaton.

I was asked to reply to the email, so I did, and I got an email later today confirming that all five pairs will have the correct PD number I gave them and that they had started work on my order!

Now, to see if glasses from Zenni live up to all the hype…

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Feeling a Little Blind

My friend and I were both due for an eye exam and new glasses, so today we headed over to the optometrist at the Walmart to have our vision checked. I was very impressed by the office and also the cost ($69 for the basic exam + $10 for the peripheral vision test + $25 for the dilation test), much cheaper than I’d been quoted anywhere in Canada (but I never thought to ask at a Walmart).

I’ve been needing new glasses for ages, but haven’t been due for an exam, so I put off getting replacements as long as I could. Now, I can go ahead and order several pairs at Zenni Optical with my new prescription. I’ve never ordered from them, but several people, including my friend, have, so I feel very comfortable going that route.

My eye health is good and I need an ever so slightly stronger prescription than I’ve been wearing. The doc said that if I wasn’t due for glasses, I could even skip this prescription. So that was good news today!

As for the title of my post, my eyes are still painfully dilated and my vision is ever so blurry. I’m glad I didn’t have to drive home!

Feeling just a tad photo sensitive right now.

Before my appointment, my friend took me to lunch at Panera Bread. WOW! How come I have never been to this chain before?! From now on, if I need wifi and/or an electrical plug in, I will look for a Panera Bread before a McDonalds or Starbucks. The food is tasty, good for you, and inexpensive. I was very impressed!

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I’ve Been Missing Out!

I don’t get much into the Christmas spirit and I don’t care much for Christmas movies. Neither does my friend, so I was puzzled that she really wanted to see the original 1947 version of ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ at the cinema today. But we have common tastes, so I agreed to keep an open mind and tag along for the 2PM matinee.

Well, I can’t believe I’ve never seen this hilarious and thoughtful movie! It was so good! They really knew how to make movies back then. We’re both looking forward to seeing ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (Jimmy Stewart, *swoon*) on the big screen on December 19th!

We went to Cracker Barrel for an early dinner after. I stepped out of my comfort zone and ordered their cider pork roast with Gala apples, cranberries, and pecans (mac & cheese and broccoli as my sides). WOW. I didn’t realise that Cracker Barrel makes fancy meals like that! This was really good, with the pork being fork tender and the apples still having a bit of bite to them. This meal really changed my opinion of Cracker Barrel and makes me feel less guilty about enjoying their food so much!

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Nom Nom Nom

Dinner didn’t come off quite as planned because some of the food was late; the traditional green bean casserole that seems so vile to me as well as yams and the classic southern green, collards. We present decided to just go ahead with what was on hand as we had more than enough food and there was no ETA for the other guests.

So we sat down to mountains of ham and perfectly cooked turkey and gallons of savoury mashed potatoes and incredible yeasty rolls and salad and deviled eggs and both jellied and whole cranberry sauce and gravies and stuffing… Oh, and did I mention there was pumpkin pie for dessert?

I love leftovers.