Firmoo, Funny Name, Good Company

My last post was about ordering prescription eyeglasses online from www.zenni.com. I have more recently discovered an fairly new online prescription eyeglass company called Firmoo (www.firmoo.com). Funny name, I think, but there must be a reason for it. Anyway, I purchased two pairs of eyeglasses for myself from this company. The frames were very inexpensive, so I ordered one pair with my bifocal prescription and another with single vision.  It took about ten days for my order to arrive. While the glasses I ordered did correct my vision, they were just too large a frame for my face, so I decided to send them back. The company offers a no questions asked return policy, and they have a fairly generous refund policy as well, but in order to receive a full refund, the glasses need to be returned within 7 days from when you receive them. Since the company is in California and the glasses are shipped there from China, getting the glasses returned withing that 7 day window was nearly impossible for me since I live more than 1000 miles from the west coast. If you return your purchase within 30 days, you can get 50% of the price refunded. You also have to contact the company, either by telephone or e-mail in order to get a "Return Authorization Number" (RAN). I chose to contact them by email, and I lost a little time doing that. Instead of getting a refund, I decided I wanted to just exchange my glasses for a different pair. It got a little complicated, but in the end, I was sent a code to type into my order form that subtracted the amount I was due. I waited another ten days, and my replacement pair of eyeglasses arrived! They correct my vision just great and have that funky, retro look that I like. Firmoo also includes a handy little screwdriver and extra screws, a case and a lint free cloth with each order. In dealing with the company, I found that they were very willing to work with me in order to make me a satisfied customer. Their correspondence with me was friendly and made me feel like they really wanted my business.
There are a couple of things to remember when you are ordering. If you use a credit card, you will be charged a small separate fee for an international transaction. If you pay through PayPal, you can avoid that extra charge. The pictures of the glasses are accurate and almost exactly the size they are in real life. There is a " virtual try on" feature which has various pictures of different faces that you can try the frames on to see how they look. If I had it to do over again, I would probably try to find a photo of myself to load onto that feature so that I could get a more accurate feel for how the glasses would look on me. If I would have done that in the first place, I might have been able to avoid the problem I had with the first pairs.
These days, glasses are almost a fashion accessory, and it is fun to have different pairs of glasses to wear for different occasions and outfits, but buying more than one pair of glasses at your eye doctor's office or at Lenscrafters or any other retail store is just too expensive to be able to do that. Firmoo, with it's friendly customer service, huge selection and low prices makes buying extra glasses something that just about any budget can manage. I feel comfortable recommending Firmoo, even if it does have a funny name!

Google Adsense Works, Haters be Damned!

For some reason, my silly little blog has taken some pretty cheap shots from readers (haters?) who seem to think that just by reading one of my posts they know who I am and feel the need to criticize me. I don't understand that at all, and even though it shouldn't, it does actually hurt when people make comments that are unfairly critical. I post a lot of entries that are just what is bugging me or causing some sort of distress in my life. I post it because, quite frankly, it feels good to get it out. Maybe someone will read it and feel a little less alone, or feel like their troubles are not as bad as they thought, or it  may make them mad. I don't know. I also post entries about products and services I have tried because sometimes people want to know about that kind of thing. It shouldn't be the source of such criticism. One of the last entries I wrote was about an optical firm I purchased some prescription eyeglasses from. One (possibly the only) reader felt the need to criticize my writing and continued writing nasty comments. I deleted one, and he criticized me for that. That sort of stuff seems so unnecessary to me, and why it hurts my feelings, I don't know. What I do know is that this blog makes money for me. No matter how many negative comments it gets, I am making money, and that is what makes doing this worth it. I have created a nice, yet small, stream of income from my writing even if in someone elses opinion, it is not good, or it is boring, or it appears to be something it's not. As it turns out, the haters seem to be the ones who are helping me make a little money, and that makes me the winner. I am proof that writing a blog and connecting it with Google Adsense works, plain and simple. Don't hate me because I am successful.

Ordering Prescription Eyeglasses Online-Zenni Optical

Most people have never thought of ordering their prescription eyeglasses online. I didn't think you even could, but while I was living in rural Virginia where nothing was easy to get to, and the thought of picking out overpriced eyeglasses frames at the one optometrist's office seemed too much for me to bear, I started poking around the internet to see if I could get glasses online. You can get everything else, why not eyeglasses? It took up quite a lot of time to find a site that looked professional and that had many frames to choose from. The site I found is called Zenni Optical. The website is very easy to navigate and there were hundreds of eyeglass frames to look at. So many, in fact, that it is quite time consuming to go through all your options in order to find the just the right ones. I have ordered glasses from Zenni Optical,www.zennioptical.com on three different occasions. I ended up ordering some three years ago, and that pair of glasses happens to be one of my all-time favorite pairs. They were cute, corrected my vision well, and the best thing of all is that they were only $12.95! That's right, and that was including the shipping. Since that pair of glasses, I have recently ordered a pair of glasses for two of my daughters. Both of them are very pleased with my purchase and if anything happens to the glasses, it's not like I spent $300.00 on them! I spend $15.95 and $14.90 on them. Zenni Optical offers a wide variety of frames that can accommodate bifocal prescriptions as well. You can choose from regular or progressive lenses (progressives will be an additional $4.95) The shipping was only around $4.95 as well. The prices I listed above were the TOTAL including the shipping. Zenni Optical has really been good for me. All six of us wear glasses/contacts. For those of us in the family who wear contacts, we only really need our glasses as a backup or for only occasional wear, so it really makes more economical sense to purchase inexpensive glasses. For my one kiddo, and husband who wear their glasses full time, I am confident that the glasses are of good quality and wearable full-time. One word of caution though, since you are ordering online, you cannot really try them on your face, so you need to have a metric ruler on hand to measure and compare frames to find one that fits your face. There is a "tryon" tool you can use to try the glasses on an uploaded picture of yourself, if that is what you want to do. If the glasses need to be adjusted, I am sure you can run them into a Walmart or some other optical place to have them fitted to your face. All in all, I would highly recommend Zenni Optical if you are looking to save some money on your prescription eyeglasses, or if you just want to buy funky or unusual frames. It is fun to see what they have to offer.

Strange, Strange Things Are Happening

I haven't posted in awhile because I am working on a review of two companies that sell prescription eyeglasses--Zenni Optical and Firmoo. It is taking awhile to gather my information and do my writing, so in the meantime I just wanted to post some of the strange things that are taking place in my world these days. First of all, I am having a sock crisis in my home. None of us has the proper matching socks. The other day I saw my youngest daughter walking around in her sock feet and upon looking closer, I discovered that not only was she wearing mismatched socks, one of them was a knee sock and the other was an anklet. Whaaat? I asked her why and she said she couldn't find a mate to either one so just wore them together. Then when I looked at my other girls' feet, the all also were wearing mismatched socks. I have to admit that I am the one who does most of the laundry around here and there are almost always unmatched socks (my husband's and mine included) at the bottom of the clothes basket. Why is this happening? I can't figure it out. Is the dryer doing something sinister with them? Are the dogs hiding them? I will have to start investigating this soon before all our socks disappear!

The other weird thing going on is the disappearance of the o.b. brand of tampons. Not actually at my house because I haven't had much trouble finding them in our area stores, but apparently in other parts of the country, the applicator-less tampon (which I prefer) has gone missing. There is some sort of conspiracy theory and swirling accusations about the reason this little box of unmentionables has disappeared from  store shelves. There is even talk of black market sales of these things. I checked on ebay yesterday and saw that a bundle of three boxes were at a bid of $94.00. I'm thinking maybe I should buy what I can find here and sell them at a hefty profit! Anyway, I am going to do some more investigating on this phenomenon as well. It will be my Sock and Tampon Project. Until then. . . .

New Year, Better Year?

So far, the new year seems to be starting out on a more positive note than last year. I am happy to report that my Adsense  account has grown substancially and I am excited about that. I am not making tons of money, but my sense of accomplishment makes me feel so good. I have now come to a point where my blogging earns something almost everyday, so I am proof that it can be done, even by someone who just writes about my life and my experiences. Anyone who is considering blogging and using Google Adsense should definitely go for it! Other financial matters seem to be less critical for the moment, but I am still longing to find a way to get my family out of the stupid Chapter 13 by paying it all off at once. I know it sounds crazy, but I really think I can eventually find a way. In the meantime, I am going to keep blogging away and I have also found a new site that pays you to post. It is called List My Five. I haven't earned anything yet, but I believe it will only be a matter of time. If you want to check it out for yourself, go to www.listmyfive.com. Cheers for a happy 2011!

Hoover Platinum Series Upright is a Royal Pain

I hate to complain about products on my blog, but I'm going to do it today anyway. About a year and a half ago I needed a vacuum. I researched different products and prices and found one (the Platinum series bagged upright) that I thought would be an excellent buy and exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The vacuum is lightweight and has a high and low setting, and has a heavy duty, large bag--all of these things are great about it, but the one thing that the company must have thought would be a good thing, is what is driving me and everyone else who uses it in my home, crazy. There is this little feature that turns the machine off if something it things is bad passes under the brush. You know when you get too close to a shoelace, or yarn and it gets all twisted onto the spinning brush? On most of my machines, if this happens, I have to turn it off or else the brush will keep spinning and spinning and will over heat and melt the drive belt or something. Or maybe the whole vacuum could explode or something, I really don't know. I just know that it can mess up your vacuum. So, this Hoover Platinum series vacuum touts a little component that trips if it thinks you've got ahold of somthing that is going to get caught up in the brush. The only problem is that this thing trips all the time! One little crumb on the carpet and it turns off. One piece of fuzz and the thing turns off. One small bump of the machine into the wall and it turns off. What a pain! I talk and swear at this vacuum constantly. The really sad thing is that it really does a good job of vacuuming when it decides to do the work. If you are looking for a new vacuum, my advice would be to stay away from the Hoover Platinum Series Upright unless you have the patience of Job and nerves of steel. It just isn't worth the $200+ pricetag and the frustration.

Back to "Normal"

Finally there is a little peace in my house. My husband has gone back to work after a week long vacation, the kids are back at school today, and, at last I have a little peace and quiet this morning. Don't get me wrong, I like the holidays and having some company and everything, but it really is stressful to have a house full of people. Having four kids, two dogs, and two birds all the time, you would think having extra people in the house wouldn't be that big of a deal, but it is. Our house is routinely a loud, messy place, but the change in routine messes me up. Even having my husband home on holidays throws me off a bit, and usually makes me grumpy. All normalcy goes out the window when he is home. He is one of the biggest mess-makers there is. He also likes to be pampered and catered to when he is home which is something I have a low tolerance for. I get so resentful because I am the only one doing any work. I never get a "vacation." The regular running of a household must continue whether there is a break from work and school or not. The household responsibilities fall squarely on my shoulders and it gets to me sometimes. For just one day, I would like to be responsibility free, and by that I mean not having to do any of my usual chores. For the last 21 years, if I happen to  spend time away from home shopping or something else, when I come home, there is a mess left for me to clean up. The girls and I went to church yesterday and when we left, my husband was sitting in his pajamas staring at the computer. I left the bed unmade, the dishwasher unemptied, the carpet unvacuumed, and the dogs had the run of the house. Guess what I walked into when I got home a couple of hours later? That's right, the same damn mess that was there when I left, so I promptly got to work doing stuff I really don't want to do on a Sunday afternoon. My husband said yesterday that he is going to invite his mother, sister and nephew to our house for Christmas. I can hardly wait! I think turnabout is fair play, so I will leave the meal planning and preparation, the cleaning and supervising all to him. After all, I think I deserve a little break after entertaining my family this past week.