Every year around now...

Aren't all the new glasses styles fun?

Every year around this time I go in for my annual eye exam. 
Then I go about deciding how my face will look for the next year or so.

Ahh...the joy of picking out glasses frames while blind!

You see, I have such poor vision that without my prescription lens to see through everything I look at is just a soft foggy blur.  

Sample glasses oddly NEVER have my prescription inserted. Whazzup with that?  lol!

Trying to decide what I might look like in new glasses was always such a problem.

Then it dawned on me to just take a snap shot of myself so I could get a look, and also be able to get a view of how the glasses looked from the side too.

Fun colors are often sneaked inside the frames where they can't be readily seen.

So let's get started on the selection process.

#1:

I think this is a fun frame, especially with the orange inset color pop.

Reality check: The large lens area would mean large lens, which would mean that my glasses would weigh an uncomfortable amount on my face.  The larger the lens the thicker the lens becomes around the edges.

This frame is a no-go.  Darn it...it would be sooo cute at an OSU game with the orange and black school colors.

#2:
Nice...a tad large but I like the frame shape and colors.

Side view:  Well, those wide temple bars would block the view of crow feet.  But I think it looks sort of mask like.

No go.

#3: A bit smaller.  I would have to have nose pads added to raise the frames up to center on my eyes.

(As I discussed in my glasses hunting post last year at this time, glasses bridges come in sizes sometimes, my nose bridge is one size smaller than standard, and since few frame manufactures make the bridge to order, I have to use nose pad to hoist the frames up to be in the center of my eyes.)

Eh.  Just so-so.

#4: Like the shape.  Would need nose pads added but other wise pretty good.

I really liked the hinge detail when I was trying them on. And I like the lime outline detail on the temple bar.
Looking at this photo...not liking it now.

#5:  Like the turquoise inside peeking out bit.  Not so crazy about the colors and shapes in the temple bar.

Seems to have a bit of a "lite brite" vibe to me...if  you remember that popular toy from the 1980's.

This is actually a frame identical to the one I got last year, but in purple vs. deep purple blue in front of the frame, and turquoise vs. lime inside.

The purple color is more obvious in the next shot:

Not liking the purple....

Believe it or not...for the FIRST time ever in all the years that I have worn glasses...I decided I wanted to stay with my old frames!

Maybe because they have a hint of orange, and my favorite lime green backside.

Maybe because I actually get stopped on the street and asked where I got them.

Maybe I just am not ready for a change right now?

Anyway, new lens with current prescription are ordered and I will be good to go for another year.

Do you love your frames if you wear glasses?
Or are you ready for a change this year?
If you had to pick from the ones I tried on, which one would you have picked for me?

Just for the record...they are a Prodesign:Denmark frame.  I love so many of their frames...like candy they are! Love model 1681 and 1682.

LOVED this temple bar on this young miss who was shopping at the same time I was.
So professional...so trendy!

Red Butte in Winter

Walking around Red Butte Garden...the wisteria trellis over head sure looks bare compared to how it looks in summer.

The whole place looks bare, but it challenges me to look closer for signs of life and coming spring time.

Traces of snow on the hillsides and yet I think I see a hint of green too.

A handful of moving flowers...I mean children...scamper about adding some color to the garden.

Shiny black seeds linger in spent pods overhead.

 

The budding leaves and perhaps flowers are just past the embryotic stage... 

 

Dry lingering pods serve as reminders of a summer past.

Better in color...

Or black and white?
(I like the color myself...)

Since moving to Utah I have become a huge fan of colorful branches that add energy to dull winter gardens.
The golden yellow moss is nice too...

Future lilacs...

The wispy structures on this tree...totally different than anything I have ever seen before.  The whole tree had the fuzzy whip like forms attached to pod like structures on the branches.

Any color found in the garden is worthy of a picture right now.

Even in a winter garden I find reasons to get involved in dirt.
When you love to garden...dirt happens!

Tracking

Saturday afternoon, up in an area called Redman, about 20 minutes from our house.  Bernie wanted to get in some Xcountry skiing; I wanted to get in some snowshoeing.

Check out how deep the snow is, and how untracked aside from Bernie's ski trail.

Lots of pretty scenes...

Figured you might want to come along with me.  

Mostly I am looking for animal tracks.

I don't have any means of identifying any tracks I come across, but that doesn't really bother me at all. 

Tracks are beautiful even if I don't know what kind of creature made them.

Looks like an embroidery stitch, doesn't it?

All the tracks are animal made here.  The humans have a groomed x-county ski track that circles the forest.  Bernie is on that; I have the forest to myself.

Well, at least by myself as far as other humans go.

Overhead the ski was just starting to get the slightest bit of milky haze from an incoming storm. 

Milky hazed sky= rainbow around the sun, as usual.  After the first time I saw this phenomenon and blogged about it, I have seen it many times. 

Usually I feel a bit guilty about adding my own tracks in otherwise pristine snow. Knowing a major snowfall is due during the upcoming night allowed me to clomp about guilt free...my tracks will be buried overnight and the snow will be pristine again come dawn.

I'm following the tracks...and find it interesting how often they go to a tree, and sometimes disappear there too.

A stream bed was burbling softly close by so I plowed over there to see.  This ENORMOUS fallen tree spanned the stream.  I can't imagine how something that big managed to break off so close to the ground.

Some tiny creature had come by to investigate...

 

I didn't dare try to follow the tracks that led over the snow piled up over the stream.

The tracks of whatever that creature was looked like very tidy straight back stitch stitches.

OK...I would love to know what animal made the two side by side tracks followed by two in a column behind track.

Don't those tracks look like they are leading out?

My absolute favorite scene of the day.
My favorite photo too...

This is the backside of the  mound in the previous pictures.

I am forcing myself to smile here.  There are about four pictures before this one that Bernie took of me with my mouth wide open in a pant trying to catch my breath.  I had handed over my camera to him at this point because I was exhausted.

Believe it or not...a few minutes earlier I was heading back to the car at our agreed upon time when I walked over a very slight rise in the snow and had one leg drop down between the bench and the table of a snow covered picnic table.

I didn't hurt myself, but it was just plain awkward and required a lot of strength to pull the one leg free (with snow shoe!) while straddling the bench and having fallen flat into the deep snow with my upper body.

So ridiculous trying to extract myself from that contortion...and as I rolled about, I could see Bernie skiing by just a few yards away.  I yelled...and could of blown my emergency whistle that I was wearing, but by the time he heard and turned back I had gotten myself free.

Surprising how winded gaining such an "escape" made me!

We traveled together back to the car along the path we had broken an hour earlier.

I was SO glad to see the gate...I was huffing and puffing like crazy.

Bernie helped me off with my boots and I collapsed into the front seat, and started swigging water. Oh did that water taste good and oh did the heated seat feel good too as we drove back down the canyon to home.

And lest you imagine that we live in a frozen wasteland...here's the thermometer on our deck photographed when we returned home at 3 pm. 

It did snow overnight. 
The view from the back deck this afternoon.

And the view up the street. The big tree in the corner foreground is in the corner of our front yard.

A high school classmate posted pictures he took of Switzerland on Facebook yesterday.  If he hadn't stated that his pictures were taken in Switzerland I would have just figured he was in SLC for the Presidents Day weekend, along with a hoard of other visitors looking to get in some ski time.

I want to post this picture to my FB page 'cuz my scene here is better than his scene there...

(There are a couple of my high school classmates that live here  in SLC.  We think where we live is cooler than where the rest of our classmates live). 

This is the house one up from us...the brown fence is on our property.

The view at the foot of our street...I stood four houses down in the middle of street to take the picture.

I never get tired of this view across the valley.

The house in this picture is directly across the street from our house; I am standing in the middle of the street again at the roadway "T" one house down.

And there are animal tracks to be seen closer to home too...these being Tiger/Missy's tracks.
He comes by and spends the day on our deck couch every day.

Even when it means he has to "snowpaw" through the snow to get there.