Goodbye Contacts

Today I took a bold step. I threw away my contact lenses.

Since I changed to disposable lenses, I've been prone to saving them up for special occasions. Occasions deemed special enough to be 'contact-worthy' seem to have become rarer and rarer, to the point where I have pretty much stopped wearing them altogether, and finally I thought, what is the point of hanging onto them, while they gather dust in my bathroom? So I chucked them in the bin.

I have written elsewhere about the way that glasses rendered me hideous, and contact lenses restored my self-confidence. But today, perhaps for the first time, I whole-heartedly embraced my identity as a glasses-wearing girl. Pretence is no longer possible.

Though as Michael pointed out (after it was too late), what about swimming?

Oh well, I'll just have to swim blind. And hope that other people will warn me about sharks.

I Knew It...

Someone had to have thought of this before I did!

I actually heard her speaking on late night radio - unfortunately I missed most of the discussion because I fell asleep almost instantly... Damn bedtime radio, this always happens. I always try to stay awake for Sunday Nights with John Cleary which is invariably fascinating, but no matter how hard I try, I always drop off.

Anyway, I'm glad someone is doing it. I've been a bit slack with the eliminations lately. Although today, Alice was looking for a four leaf clover which she claims to given me once upon a time, and rifling through the top drawer beside the bed, which is stuffed with home made birthday cards, little notes and gifts the girls have given me. Like "dolls" made out of scraps of rag. Bracelets of wire and plastic beading. Random stones. And I have to confess, after they'd gone to school... I did... eliminate... some of them.

The Elimination Challenge Update

Well, faithful reader, we have not been rigorous about disposing of one item per day, but the elimination challenge is underway!

In the corner of my bedroom is a bag of old clothes (mostly too small for the children, but also including a never-worn dressing-gown of Michael's). A pair of ancient jeans and a skirt I've worn every summer since 1994, transparent with age, have been consigned to the rag box. A box of 21 good-as-new but unbeloved books wait on the dining table to be donated to a charity book sale. A towering pile of magazines has been dumped in the recycling bin. Some random hats and a pair of holey sneakers have also bitten the dust.

It doesn't sound like much, but it's a start.