zennioptical.com

A few folks have asked about where I got my specs and I got them from www.zennioptical.com  Zenni is wonderful!  A few years ago, I checked out their site and discovered way too many choices with all sorts of options.  I thought about it and decided that since most of the eye~places you go are not places that grind and fit your lenses, but rather they often send off to someplace like Zenni themselves and then mark up the same pair of glasses lots; well I thought I'd give Zenni a shot.

So last fall, my husband's daughter was staying with us for a few months.  She needed some glasses.  So she went to a local examiner and brought a copy of the prescription home with her.  Then she browsed thru Zenni's thousands of frames and saw the options they gave her.  She uploaded a picture of her face so that she could try on the glasses and then picked out a pair.  She ordered them and they came in a few weeks, for less than fifteen dollars.

A few months later, my husband had his eyes examined for free on~campus {he is an employee and a doc was doing free eye~exams for students, staff, and faculty}.  Then he too went to Zenni, uploaded a pic of his face, found some frames he liked, and placed an order for two different pairs.  He wears bifocals, and both pairs ended up running about $65 together.  You can see one pair in the pix where he is modeling my hats.  Now I want to be clear, he prefers bifocals, but there are also progressive lenses available at the site {that's the sort that don't include the line but rather are gradual change from far sight at the top to close up at the bottom}.

So a few weeks ago, I got my eyes examined.  I asked the dude to also note my pupillary distance {PD is the distance your pupils are from the center of your nose, or from pupil to pupil when staring straight ahead}.  If you forget to ask for this, you can note it yourself.  You can either mark it on the mirror or have a friend measure, it will be in millimeters.

Then I went to Zenni, uploaded a pic of my face, and tried on pairs til I found some I really liked.  Now, for some, uploading a pic of their face might not give them the same feeling of security that they get from actually trying the frames on.  For me, I hated being at the place and then the person would plop a pair of blank frames and say, "how'dya lahk em?"  Ok, dude, I'm there at the eye~place cuz I need glasses, which means I can't see the frames you just plonked on my face unless I get two inches from the mirror, so I can't really tell ya that, now can I?  Some folks really like that option tho and they might take someone with them who can say, "stunning, darlin', you are sooooOOOooo stunnin'!"  In which case, I suggest trying on some frames, jotting down the numbers/brand and looking them up online later.

Or ya know, have that friend take a pic with their phone and then go home and find a comparable pair online.  It seems most everyone has phones that take pix and all sorta other apps.  Me?  I use a cell for emergency purposes to actually make or receive calls.  But I'm a technophobe of sorts.

I digress.

So after I decided what I wanted.  I placed the order.  Now it is on the order form that you will notice a butt~load of options.  I chose to have a pair of prescription with 80% tinted lenses.  You can choose no tint, or 20%, 40%, 60%, or 80%.  There are different types of tints too.  I choose rose, but there is brown, gray, amber, blue, etc.  Also, if you want to have the magnetic sort of shades that can be placed onto your clear glass frames, you can do that.

Options, options, options.

Also, frames start at $6.99 and move up to $9.99, $12.99, and so forth.  Mine were $6.99 frames.  There are lots of frame styles to choose from, but I liked the one style so much, that I got two pairs of the same style.  They are different colors, but the same style.  Both pair, one Rx~sunglasses, and shipping were $28.

After I ordered, it took two weeks to receive the glasses.  That was cuz they contacted me via eMail to make sure that I'd entered my Rx correctly.  To make sure that I really did mean -5.00 and not -0.50.  Since I can be fanatic about record keeping, I went to my files and compared older prescriptions with the current one.  My eyes haven't changed all that much, and yes, it was -5.00.  But I did appreciate Zenni asking, just to make sure.

Zenni sends the glasses in their own cases in a bubble~bag.  They send it confirmed confirmation delivery.  You don't need to sign for them, the mail~dude just scans it in and confirms that the envelop was delivered.

And that's the story of Zenni and the Wolf pack.