Good Day in Arkansas...

I have done a lot of traveling in the last 7 days and today was no different. It started with me and my mom driving to Pine Bluff so that I could go to a eye doctor's appointment. This was my first visit with an eye doctor in Arkansas. It was quite the experience. After waiting 45 minutes to get in to see the doctor, he didn't spend as much time examining my eyes as most eye doctors usually do. Then we head to this other room with a bunch of contact stuff (which is great because that's why I went to this appointment - - to get more contacts). He tells me that my eyes are not getting enough oxygen and that I need to do a few things about this. First, I need to not buy the cheap contact solution because I have such fair skin that most any chemical will just absorb into me and could cause problems for my eyes (I had no idea that my fair skin had anything to do with that). Then he said that I need to wear my contacts less (which I'm not a huge fan of this idea because I don't like wearing glasses). The last idea he said (which is about the craziest sounding thing I've heard lately) is that at least once a week I need to put my contacts in a small bowl of baking soda in order to get oil off them which will help get more oxygen to my eye. This doctor said a lot of things and at times he seemed to say contradictory things. At one point I kinda wished someone else were in the room with me so that they could hear what he was saying too. He said so much that I'm not even sure I remember it all... It ended with me saying that the new contacts he had me put in weren't working because things were blurry still. He told me that I should walk around the store for 15 minutes and he would check my eyes again. I walked around, he checked my eyes, I told him things were still blurry and he didn't change the prescription. I'm going to give these contacts a week and see how they turn out.

After this my mom and me were in a rush to Little Rock. The goal was to get there before the early bird sales got done. We went to JCPenney first and unfortunately only had about 20-25 minutes to shop before the big sale was over. I did manage to get a nice sweater so that made me happy.

At this point I was starving and my mom mentioned that she saw a certain, sit-down restaurant that she likes that has decent prices. Sounded good to me as I hadn't eaten in one of these restaurants in several years. All was good while we were looking at the menus and deciding what to eat. We ordered the food and then my mom went to the restroom. This left me by myself (which is not a huge deal in itself). The table behind me made a comment (I wasn't trying to eavesdrop but it was hard not to hear this) about a lizard on the wall. This of course caught my attention and I looked at the wall that was on the other side of this divider thing and sure enough there was a fairly large lizard on the wall (biggest one I've seen that was not in a zoo). My first thought was that is a poor choice of decorations to have in a restaurant. My second thought that I actually said out loud was, "It's real!!!" About that time my mom comes back and I immediately tell her that there is a lizard on the wall not more than 10 feet from us. The waitress was told about this in a timely fashion by the table behind me and then the manager. Next thing I know the manager is there saying out loud to a guy that the lizard has to go. He cannot stay (which is okay with me cause I didn't want him there). The guy worker says out loud that he knows these lizards are very fast and if he swats it to the floor that it will run fast. This immediately has me concerned because I don't want anything running towards me. After about a minute I've decided that maybe I don't want to sit here anymore and start scooting to the edge of my booth. Next thing I know there is a commotion and the guy has hit the lizard onto the floor. I immediately am thinking that this fast lizard is going to come get me now (and I start to panic a little). I could have sworn that someone said something about the guy beating the lizard with a broom to kill it (which is also not something I want to hear or see at a place where I'm going to be eating food). My mom said though that he was just standing on the broom to kill it. Either way at that point I had seen/heard enough and was literally getting ready to stand up and go somewhere else but the waitress brings the food at that exact moment. She makes a comment about not being able to handle lizards either and asks me if I was okay (which was nice of her). I did freak out a little but I'm just glad I didn't scream. Some might think this is extreme for just a lizard but I really don't like any kind of reptile, bug, amphibian or fish (if I have to touch it). I'm okay with being labeled a wimp.

After this we did manage to hit two more stores and I got some good deals on clothes. It was nice to go shopping with my mom as I haven't done this in a long time. We don't always like the same style of clothes but it's nice to have someones second opinion about how something looks sometimes.

On the way home I convinced my mom to drive some (as I was getting tired). We decided to stop at this little shopping village in Star City because I had decided to take my mom there to eat for her birthday. We went tonight just to see where it was, what was available and the hours of operation. It was a nice little shopping village. It really surprised me to find this type of a place in Star City. They had a bakery there and we picked up some goodies that I'm looking forward to eating. Plus we still get to go back and eat some yummy food next weekend for my mom's birthday.

All in all, it was a good day filled with some surprises. :-) I'm glad I got to spend the day with my mom.