April 22nd, 2025

This is me in my natural state. That is to say, reading.  It's already been well established that I am a reader.  Not just a reader, I suppose, but an indiscriminate reader.  I will read just about anything.

I read on the computer, I read on my phone, I read things written on paper and even on television (captioning is one of the best inventions ever!)  I don't just read things, I READ things. My dad used to say that I ate books.  I devoured them whole. 

And it doesn't even have to be books. I will read magazines, newspapers, brochures, cereal boxes,  greeting cards, grocery lists and dictionaries.  If it has words, I will read it.  I am voracious. And worse, I am endlessly curious.  Which is why having my phone with me a great deal of the time is awesome.  If (when really) I have a questions, a query, a thought, an " I wonder" moment, I can immediately look it up and read about it.  Poor Tim, in the car a captive audience, gets to be read to.

I work at my computer be it writing the blog, curating the photo site I am a member of, emails, reading news articles on and off throughout the day.  And when I am doing other chores, say washing dishes, baking cookies, ironing or folding towels, I have my phone propped up so that I can multitask - reading while doing chores.  I read actual books while I am eating, relaxing in the bath or after dinner curled up all comfy on the sofa.  It's kind of an all day thing.  Seriously, it's probably an addiction at this point.

And I believed it to be glorious!  Turns out it's also sometimes an issue.  

Recently I began to notice issues with my eyes.  They hurt, they burned, they felt gritty and sometimes there were blurry spots in my vision.  I began to be very light sensitive, to the point where sometimes I was wearing sunglasses Inside the house and every once in awhile,  I would even experience double vision.  Ok this is a problem.

I began using eye drops throughout the day. Over and again, constantly.    My eyes would feel pretty good for a few minutes and then back to gritty, hurty burny, blurry, not good dangitall.    It's frightening to have issues with your eyes.  And in my case, especially scary because since my ears don't work very well, I am extra dependent on my eyes.

In two words what we have here is some serious eye strain. And the only thing to do for it is to severely limit my reading for awhile.  Which also means limiting my writing. And both of those ideas stink on ice.

I don't quite know what to do with myself without a book in my hands, or the computer mouse or my phone.  But I'm going to find out.  Starting when I finish this blogpost,  I will be taking a sabbatical from the blog, from the library (gasp!) from my cell phone and computer.  I'm not sure how long I'll be away, but however long it takes for my eyes to calm down.  Calm Down for heaven's sakes!  Just going to give them a bit of a break.

I'll be back eventually, I'm quite sure, and then  I will, most likely, have lots to catch you up on. But in the meantime, ya'll please be good, be safe and have fun.  Oh and take good care of your eyes!

​Hugs all 'round