One pair of glasses had “polychromatic” lenses and cost about $35.00. The other three pairs included a regular pair of glasses, a pair of tinted glasses for use as sunglasses, and a funky pair since they were totally free free (complete with frames and prescription lenses!?!?!)
I ordered from two different retailers because (1) $35.00 for those “transition” lenses aka “polychromatic” lenses was too good to pass up and (2) so I could compare the customer service and quality of the two companies.
Service through one company was a little better than the other. However, I’m not qualified to judge quality. Although I’m very happy with the look of these frames and lenses, I’d feel a lot better if I took them to my optomologist to be sure.
That said, I’m going to postpone an in-depth review until I see my eye-doc. When I post the review I’ll include a few tips for ordering glasses online. ((You know, from my vast experience.))
This weekend I ordered glasses from two different websites. (I’m going to hold off mentioning which ones for now. I’ll wait to find out what kind of a job they do.)
I ordered four pairs of glasses for much less than what a single pair used to cost me. If all goes well, I’ll be getting one pair of sunglasses, one pair of color changing glasses, one pair that looks almost identical to the ones I wear now, and one pair of funky glasses (this was the free one).
The trade-off is that the glasses will take about two weeks.
Here’s a recipe I’ve used to make ravioli, including the filling, from scratch. ((Photo courtesy of Dev Null)) I found the recipe several years ago on the web, but unfortunately don’t remember where. In any case, here’s the recipe. It makes a LOT of pasta – enough for at least 6 people. The ravioli filling is my own creation – and its damn tasty.
There are essentially four steps:
Make the dough
Make the filling
Make the ravioli
Cook
Step 1: Make the Dough
Ravioli Pasta Dough Recipe ((As I mentioned above, this recipe makes a lot of dough. If trying it out for the first time, consider making a 1/3 batch.))
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 large egg
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
Place about 3/4 of the flour into a large bowl. Separately mix the egg, oil, salt and water. Add the wet ingredients to the flour. Mix everything thoroughly.
Kneed in the remaining flour. This takes a long time.
Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes in the fridge. In the meantime, let’s move on to…
Defrost spinach in bowl and drain. Mix in everything else. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate when not in use.
Step 3: Make the ravioli
When ready to make the ravioli, only remove a very small amount from the plastic to work with at a time. ((If you’re using a pasta press, you already know what you’re doing so you don’t need to read this.)) I only worked with pieces of dough about the size of a standard 6-sided-die.
Squish the piece of dough into a disc about the size of a silver dollar.
Place the dough on a plastic cutting board. I prefer the kind with the non-skid rubberized ends.
Roll the dough as thinly as possible. You’re going for almost translucent in the center. A heavy rolling pin helps.
Add about 1/2 tablespoon of the filling to the center.
Fold the dough in half and pinch the edges.
Set each piece aside on wax paper on a large plate. The wax paper is to prevent the ravioli from sticking to the plate. Don’t let the ravioli touch each other since they will stick together.
Cover the ravioli on the plate with plastic wrap while you work.
Step 4: Cook
When ready to cook, add the pasta to boiling water in a large pot and then lower to medium heat after a minute.
Cook for 5-7 minutes. ((5 minutes if you have very thin ravioli, 7 minutes if your pasta was thicker))
The ravioli will tend to stick to the bottom of the pot, so stir once or twice.
After a short break from blogging, I off two tidbits: one full of holiday cheer… and the other about an incorrigible Grinch. ((Photo courtesy of slworking2))
Holiday Cheer
A few days before Christmas I received an extremely nice e-mail from David DePaolo, of WorkCompCentral fame. He had read my blog post about my local food bank and made his own donation to his local food bank. Thank you David!
Incorrigible Grinch
I have a loud neighbor. They talk on the phone loud, watch TV loud, play music loud, etc. Loud enough so that I can hear whatever it is they’re doing over my own TV with the doors and windows closed. The night before Christmas Eve at around 8 O’clock PM they were playing something that sounded like a marching band – complete with tubas. I couldn’t tell if it was a radio or TV or what – but it was extremely loud. Being a good neighbor and filled with the aforementioned holiday cheer, I went out onto my patio and hollered, “Hey! Turn it down already!” In a few minutes their marching band music died down to a low rumble.
A few minutes later I find out that I had just yelled at a group of teenagers with instruments walking down our street… carrolling. That’s right, I yelled at carolers – I’m the Grinch.
Just this last Saturday we reached 300 registered users – and King Leonidas couldn’t be happier. ((You know, King Leonidas from the movie 300. The really happy looking guy to the right.))
