I love it when my horoscope is comically on the money.

And it hit the mark again today.

This morning you could receive the materials you've been missing that were keeping you from moving forward with the project you've been itching to wrap up. By the afternoon you're at a real make-it-or-break-it point. Will you push forward and get it done and receive acclaim and congratulations from all sides? Or will you say ho-hum, who cares, and let the whole thing go to pieces? Phooey! Of course you'll make it happen.

from Astrology.com.

My horoscope has made me laugh for the last few days - I can't remember yesterday's word for word, but it was basically that I was impatient to get started with a new project but was waiting on things. Today I called the Real Estate Commission to get clarification on how I should activate my license, and tomorrow, it will be so. And the tie-in to today's horoscope? I didn't think I was going to get a new fancy schmancy license certificate.

The background - I was licensed in NC in...1991-ish? 20 years ago. I worked with a brokerage near Raleigh for about 8 weeks before figuring out that it wasn't going to work with the rest of life at that time, which was full of Drama and no babysitters and a husband working his ass off working crazy hours. So I found an office job that didn't pay much but at least got me home by 5:30 and paid steady. Shortly thereafter, my husband was laid off from the company that had transferred us to NC (this was the first great contraction of the Big Computer Industry) and within a few months we packed up the We-Haul like the high-tech rednecks we were, and we returned to FL. I got a job in a law firm in Orlando with the guy who would be Boss for the next 15+ years. I didn't keep up with my NC license fees and continuing ed, because 19 years ago I could not have seen myself returning to the state. So, anyway, I had a long-dead license number in the system, and that's all you really need to know.

So, after 20 years in and around real estate but not licensed for sales here, I of course had to start over as a newbie broker. For some reason known only to the Commission they didn't just delete my existence 20 years ago and really treat me as a newbie and give me a new license number. They resurrected my ancient number and blew the dust off it. Otherwise, I had to start over - license class, license exam, etc. I had NO problem with that - a whole lot of stuff has changed in 20 years. But I was somewhat confused to receive in the mail the other day a flimsy "tear off the sides and then tear along this line" change of address notification, acknowledging me as a broker at my current address. Um, is that it? I'm confused, and so is the gal who manages the paperwork for the brokerage. I called, and the gal at NCREC told me my official licensing date, for God and Everybody, is now April 11, 2011. Yay, we can now fill out the form to sign me on with the office!

Today's mail brought a large envelope from Raleigh, with a pretty license certificate saying U Iz Nao a Bwoker! I Iz Offishul. Awww. So, I did indeed receive the "materials I was missing" to move forward, Horoscope Person. Tomorrow I sign on.

I also finally went to the eye doctor - I liked her, she's nearly as big a hoot as my old doctor. She looked at my retina damage in my left eye and agreed with my last dr. - as long as you can live with it, just live with it. I can still sort of squint and figure out what I'm seeing out of that eye to a 20/20 correction with the usual heavy duty corrective lenses I needed Before. With both eyes, I can correct to 20/20 easily, and my annoying vision issues are just what I have to live with. I can see the distortion, which is definitely there and extremely annoying, but have learned to live with it. She agreed with my former doctors - live with it if you can, because the operation to fix it is far from a safe bet and not to be undertaken unless your quality of life is severely impacted. I'm far from that point.

She gave me the best mental picture of the damage yet. Picture the surface of the eye as a lake - then throw a stone into that lake, and picture the water rippling. My retina has a patch with ripples in it, in a small, sort of rhomboidal spot that showed up clearly on the image she showed me. It is unfortunately and annoyingly located right in my straight-ahead field of vision, but it's only unfortunate and annoying for me. It's not a blind spot - I can see through it with no problem - it's just a rippled spot. So, if you looked at a picture of the inside of my left eye, you'd see a mostly normal surface with a translucent irregular rhomboid of a smutch, right smack in the middle of the field of vision, where it can be as annoying as possible, but not incapacitating. That's exactly how it is, and really not that bad.

So she showed me the image and we talked about it, then she ordered my new contacts. Nice, sane doctor.

I also needed new glasses, so I picked out new frames. Sadly, I decided that these trendy new plastic frames that are all rectangular and hip ALL look like shit on my face, and feel weird too. Happily, I found a very light frame not that far from my existing half-rimless glasses, but these are much cuter and not so conservative and...wait for it...a light purple metal. I will not be wearing these purple metal frames on a daily basis (unless I want to), but yeah, fun glasses.