Experiencing It All Through Bronze Colored Glasses: My Big Day Downtown

Plucked from a large fish bowl each blog representative randomly chose their own adventure and read it a loud to the group. From the bowl I received… Inspirational, Off-Beat, and Fun! All of which are very fitting for my personality! But how would I incorporate these words into a purchase and/or experience in Halifax’s downtown core and on a 150 dollar budget?

This year I am very pleased to be part of the annual “Big Day Downtown”. I’ve participated in BDD before with Paris a la Mode (see that post here), but this is first year that I am participating under my own site. Yay! Short Presents!

In a dim lit prohibition inspired bar, 31 of Halifax’s best bloggers, and writers congregated around some delicious nibbles and sipped fancy drinks from vintage glasses while we all busted with anticipation to discover this year’s twist.

After a sufficient amount of suspense we all gathered around to get the scoop. We discovered that this year fewer bloggers were chosen to accommodate a larger budget (Holla!) Yes that’s right ladies and gents this year each blog received 150 big ones to spend downtown at their choosing to “Experience it All”! But! There’s always a but. But this year’s twist was that the bloggers could fly solo, but they had to incorporate three “experience cards” into their purchase/experience.

Out if 15 possible experience cards, as I mentioned above I received “inspirational, off-beat, and fun” and although I temporally lost my inspirational card (to the parkade in my building) I didn’t let it deter me!

With a 150 dollar budget (who sticks to budgets? I know I’m not very good at subscribing to the “b” word) I wracked my brain at what I could do downtown with the dough. If you really think about it, there are A LOT of things you can do downtown, and so it can be kind of overwhelming to narrow down a plan of attack. Luckily my little handy dandy adjectives (experience cards) were there to rein me in when necessary (let’s be honest – basically the entire time).

For my BDD I decided to hit the eye wear shops, and settled in at Vogue Optical (Barrington Street Location). I’ve been toying with the idea of purchasing glasses for quite a long time, but I really haven’t had much luck with the inter-webs. Every pair of glasses I ordered online just did not work for me; either the prescription was way off (to the point that it was like walking around in a fish bowl) or the frames just did not fit my face properly. I think this is why it is so SO important to go to the shops in person, and let the professionals do their thing.

As an avid contact wearer I really find it strange (#offbeat) to see myself in glasses.  Not as off beat as say being able to pull a Clark Kent where no one recognizes that I’m a super hero, but still, wearing glasses is enough of substantial change to throw a couple people off I’m sure.

As unconventional as it may seem for me to use my BDD purchase to buy myself glasses, I thought that my BDD purchase could be an #inspiration to others who are more reserved about wearing glasses. When I was a little tot in school, people who wore glasses were often bullied and ridiculed for something that was well beyond their control. And although wearing glasses is a major trend (probably now more than ever) some people may still preserve these notion that glasses are “not cool”. I want to dispel the notion that glasses don’t rank very high on the cool factor because we don’t choose whether we have strong vision or not, and we should never EVER make people feel bad about who they are or for things they can’t change/control.

In addition if we are look at the word #inspirational which suggests to “stimulate the human mind to creative thought or to the making of art” I think that purchasing glasses (so I can ACTUALLY see) is a brilliant way to check my inspirational experience card off my list. For hours spent in front of the computer (blogging/writing/content curating) I think it’s vitally important to give my eyes a break from contact lens, and so glasses seemed like the perfect fit.

Much like trying on hats is hilarious, trying on glasses is equally as #fun. It’s amazing how one set of frames can look amazing on one, and hilarious on another. After trying on about every plastic framed pair of glasses they had in stock I settled on these slightly cat eyed frames. The tortoise shell with brown and beige accents is perfect for my mousey brown hair, and don’t look too intrusive on my face. Since I’m blind as a bat and the gentlemen who fits the frames was on vacation I don’t have any proper photos of myself wearing them yet. I do, however, suspect that the glasses will make many more appearances on the blog and elsewhere!

With a quest to spend $150 I don’t think you can never go wrong when Donna Karen is involved. Many thanks to the folks over at Vogue Optical (Barrington Street Location) for helping me find the perfect pair of glasses, and also snapping all kinds of photos along the way. The frames I decided on are made by DKNY and retail for $209. Yep definitely blue that budget! Ah well, you can’t put a price on vision.

With my new glasses I’m ready to experience it all! Thanks so much to the Downtown Halifax Business Association for allowing me to participate this year! I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to experiencing (and seeing) all the other amazing things that downtown Halifax has to offer.

Do you want to experience it all too dearest blog reader? Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for the public component of Big Day Downtown where one lucky individual from the general public could be entitled to win a $100 Visa card to spend downtown at his or her choosing. Make sure to follow Big Day Downtown on Facebook and check out their website for more details.