Freaky Frugalite

I absolutely must visit Belgium someday. They have a capital city named after my favorite vegetable!!!

I was hopping around for Photo Hunters today (Photo Hunters is a nice Saturday morning meme I participate in at my New York Traveler.net blog), and found a lovely photo posted by Gattina. It’s of the flower carpet in Brussels, Belgium. I fell in love!

She said the flowers change every year, and that this year she thought the flowers were petunias. Isn’t it lovely?! Do any cities in the United States do anything like this? My son says Edinburgh, Scotland, may do something like this (with tulips). Oh it’s so lovely, and it must be quite the feeling of accomplishment afterwards.

I am longing for spring. The snow is *mostly* all gone, but we in Upstate New York really can’t rest easy until mid-April. A sizable snowstorm in March or early April is not too uncommon. Today, the skies are horribly angry and gray. The wind is ferocious– my telephone wiring outside my window is slapping up against the house siding. Quite annoying. I pray I do not lose my connection (DSL) or I’m in trouble. I have a slew of articles to write today!

Maybe by now you’ve heard of Zenni Optical. But I knew about Zenni long before Clark Howard and Eric Hammer raved about them! Five out of six people in my family wear eyeglasses. Holy cow, do you have any idea how expensive it is to buy eyeglasses?! For me, it would be about $250 for the most basic lenses and frames, and that was the lowest price estimate I could get! I am in desperate need of new glasses, having the same pair now for about six years… but I’ve been loathe to bite the bullet and shell out that much for them. My husband tried out Zenni a few years ago, and liked them. The frames are as low as $8! (Hubs got some that were slightly more, though).

Zenni Optical is able to keep the costs low by eliminating the expensive middle man. They also don’t offer the pricey and expensive designer frames (always a bane of mine– I want to SEE with my glasses, not wear the same glasses as Sophia Loren, grrrr!), just the basic, hardy, simple frames. Nice. I’m a simple gal with simple tastes and I do like Zenni’s selection of frames. They do have “Leading Edge” designs and Women’s and Men’s fashions, but they are not extravagant. And you cannot beat the price.

With Zenni, you must have your prescription, and you must know your pupilary distance number, which can be obtained by asking your optician. I think the eyeglasses are incredibly priced, and Zenni offers extra features such as anti-glare coating, bifocals, goggles, and etc. You really don’t have anything to lose– the glasses are so inexpensive and shipping is $4.95, flat fee. If you’re looking to save some money in these frugal times, take a peek at Zenni Optical.

There is some awe in knowing someone who has written a book. It’s such a monumental task, as well as an expensive one! I looked into the publishing market several years ago. Back then, it was advised that I read the encyclopedic-sized A Writer’s Market, find (and pay for) an agent, write multitudes of letters to various publishing companies who will probably reject everything I write anyway, and hope for the best. Oh, and have an extra handy $1000 or $2000 on hand for paying for the privilege, too.

Needless to say, my little books were promptly stashed into the filing cabinet.

I guess the book publishing process has become a little easier now. My friend, Karen Arelettaz Zemek, even did it herself! She wrote a lovely tribute to her dad, with My Funny Dad, Harry. I just finished reading it, and this is my review.

The book is smart-looking– very simple, nice and clean. The photo on the front cover had my interest: why was Harry snoozing with a lion on his lap? Hmmm. The mystery is revealed toward the end of the book. In one of the many stories that Karen relates, Harry was something akin to a narcoleptic– he could fall asleep anywhere. He used to fall asleep while eating! One day, while Karen and her husband Gerard were visiting Harry with their cute stuffed lion, Harry fell asleep right before their eyes. Gerard placed the toy on Harry’s lap, to see if Harry would continue snoozing. Yep.

The book begins with the Harry of his younger years as he was raising Karen and her foster siblings. I found the generous nature of the family very impressive: Harry and his wife Lenore were concerned about Karen’s “only child” status. They asked her if they could take care of some underprivileged children by “adopting” some into their family; Karen was delighted! Such generosity and care amazed me; you see, I had a rough family life (lots of step-parents and step-kids coming in and out, plus all the problems that accompany that). I wish my childhood had been as idyllic as Karen made hers seem! I think if Karen and I had been neighbors, we might have been friends. I surely would have appreciated her family’s stability! So I liked the stories about her younger years.

The book continues on into Harry’s later years, when old age and health problems set in. The book details many of the things that adult children experience with their older parents (again, unfamiliar territory for me). Karen is probably a good 10+ years older than I am, and I’m a Gen-Xer. My generation saw the explosion of the divorce rate, the full-time working moms and subsequent day-care babies; and of my generation, nearly 70 million of our unseen peers have been obliterated by abortion. To say that my generation, overall, has no sense of family and family values is an understatement. So reading her book and learning of her experiences and dedication to her dad was a real eye-opener for me. Fifty years ago and earlier, it was probably “standard” for aged parents to live with their adult children and grandchildren (at least, from what I gather from old movies and history books!); today, that responsibility is long gone. Lots of my peers don’t even KNOW their fathers, or who their fathers are. [...]