Archive for November 2007

Wow.  It’s over!  It went by fast for me.  Did it go fast for you?  I know a lot of people struggled to find something to post about each day, or had a hard time finding the time to post every day.  But I didn’t have a hard time at all and that is not what I expected.  For the most part, there wasn’t a single day where I had to reach for something to post about.  There were a few Fridays (this one included) where it’s gotten to be four in the afternoon and I am instant messaging my husband to ask if he’s going to do his post for the day or did he forget? (For the record, he says he’ll post something today but that I might want to put something up in the meantime.  So if you’ve been enjoying his posts this month, be sure to check back later.  I’m sure he’ll have something just FABULOUS to write about me *sarcasm intended*.)

I’m proud of myself.  I really am.  I didn’t think I would have time or material and that I would really struggle to post every day.  And I did just fine.  It makes me think I could post every day from here on out, or at least until the new baby is born.  I should at least try, don’t you think?

Of course, I’m sure there’ll be at least a weekend or two here in December where I’ll be glad to NOT HAVE TO post anything.  And why did I participate?  Because I think it’s fun. It’s a challenge to myself.  I love to write, why not embrace it for at least one month out of the year?  There are prizes involved for the lucky few.  But I didn’t win a bleeding thing last year and I certainly don’t expect to win anything this year either.   But that’s okay.  That’s not why I signed onto this challenge in the first place, after all.  Prizes are nice, but just being a part of NaBloPoMo was even nicer.  And the fact that I stuck with it and came up with moderately interesting posts every single day makes me feel so happy, I could bust.

Happy End of November everyone!  Let’s get on with December!

Filed under NaBloPoMo |

I was just reading All & Sundry’s latest post where she talks about Michael Moore’s “Sicko”.  I haven’t seen it yet as I don’t think it was a big draw at the drive-in this summer and if it wasn’t playing at the drive-in, I didn’t see it (welcome to having small children!).  I’ve seen his other movies though and they always incite strong opinions, one way or the other.  They’re rarely enjoyable movies, regardless if you agree or disagree with their message.  It’s hard to enjoy something that so often succeeds in stirring you to violence, am I right?

At any rate, the topic of health insurance is what I’m getting at here (couldn’t tell could you?).  We’ve had both, in our nearly ten years of marriage.  When we were first married, and Kile got his job at the university, we chose an HMO plan (we had our choice too, of several HMOs as well as PPOs) that we felt would cover us best.  And boy howdy, did it ever!  My office visits were only $5 each visit, as were prescriptions.  I could go to any hospital in the area I wanted and I chose St. Marys downtown as it is generally viewed as a bit nicer in the maternity department.  When Harry made his entrance and required a c-section and the NICU and everything else, we didn’t even see a BILL.  Not even a hint of a bill.

Shortly after, however, was 2000 and you have to admit, the economy started taking a bit of a slide.  And in that slide, the HMO option for Northern Nevada went.  Southern Nevada still had an HMO, but we were forced into a self-funded PPO.  Better than nothing, for sure.  Office visits were $15, with prescriptions at least that (often more).  Washoe (totally not even called Washoe anymore but anyone who lives around here still calls it that) was our hospital, and while it’s a good place, it’s a little less “nice” in some areas.  Of course, this was when I was trying to get pregnant, going to infertility specialists, getting my hypothyroid treated, pregnant and delivering Jackson, breaking my ankle, Harry needed surgery, I got pregnant AGAIN and then miscarried and then, at last, pregnant again with Liam.  Months from his due date, we switched to an HMO yet again.  They had started offering one again in Northern Nevada, and we had been reluctant to join it for a while since our infertility specialist did not take that particular insurance and we had heard poor things about it.  However, the company had since beefed up their act and it didn’t appear we would need the infertility specialist any longer and having an HMO covered delivery would be nice.

This HMO was not as nice, not nearly as nice,as the first one we had had.  But it made that PPO we had look like Third World Health Care by comparison.  Which, you know, it was.  It was deplorable.  At least now, we had a copay for the hospital and the rest was taken care of for Liam’s delivery.  My office visits are $20 for a primary care physician, $40 for specialists.  However, the good news is that for prenatal care, we only need to pay the copay the first visit and all other visits are free of charge (of course, someone needs to remind my OB’s office of this as they have charged me the last two visits).  Never again do I want to be without an HMO.  And I know there are so many people out there, SO MANY, who would be thrilled with the HMO we have.  Shoot, there are probably many people who would be thrilled with that POS PPO we had.  Because at least it paid SOMETHING.

I know socialized healthcare is a hot-button issue and there are a lot of people who are four-square against it.  But I think there have been a lot of misunderstandings about it.  A lot of people say that if we had socialized healthcare, we would have to wait months upon months for treatment.  That there would be enormous waits at the doctors office.   That our taxes would skyrocket to phenomenal proportions.  I don’t know about the first two things, I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but the third just makes me want to bang my head into a wall.  Of course higher taxes outrage some people.  After all, if they had to pay higher taxes, how could they afford their enormous gas guzzling monster SUVs (or the gas to fuel them)?  How could they purchase HDTV plasma screen televisions?  How could they spend thousands of dollars on themselves in the interest of pure materialism?

This is a pretty selfish society we live in.  We want to spend the money on the things want to spend it on.  Not the betterment of our society and those around us, but on ourselves and the things we can buy to make ourselves feel more important.  It makes me sick, frankly.  And as Linda said over at All & Sundry, I think basic healthcare should be a RIGHT, not a privilege.

Filed under General Snark |

I didn’t realize I left you all hanging on Tuesday with my “Big Step” post.  At least, not until the lovely Shawna left a comment this morning pointing out my omission.  Oops!  Didn’t mean to leave you all a cliffhanger.  So, in the interest in full disclosure: the bus adventure went GREAT.  I met him off the bus that afternoon and if it hadn’t been for the other girls on the bus bossing him around, it would have been picture perfect.  Alas, Harry saw me across the street and was wanting to cross the street.  I don’t think he was actually going to because this is Harry we’re talking about and he’s cautious as the day is long.  But some of the girls who ride the bus with him and knew he was new to the whole bus thing that day reprimanded him and told him he had to wait to cross.  And this pissed my son off.  He doesn’t like being told what to do by ME most of the time, much less some girl who has no authority with him.  He hollered at the “lead girl” to be quiet and then burst into tears as he was crossing the street towards me.  Poor kid.

But really?  The whole thing went fine.  He told me he liked riding the bus and was excited to ride it again yesterday.  Which he did and this time, no tears because he crossed the street just as he was supposed to.  He’s becoming an old pro, that one.  He’s taking the bus again today, and by now it’s old hat.  We have to turn in his “emergency contact” sheet, but other than that, it’s almost like he’s been taking the bus all along.  I don’t know about tomorrow, since it’s a half day and we’ve been invited over for a play date at our friends’ house. I guess I’ll play it as it comes.

Speaking of riding the bus, it’s a darn good thing we decided to go with it this week.  This whole budget crunch is especially difficult this month.  While our “good” van was registered, we lacked the new tags to put on the license plate so we were reluctant to take it out when going to MOPS yesterday.  Because surely if we had, a cop would have pulled in behind us and pulled us over for not displaying the tags as we’re supposed to.  So we took Kile’s van.  Which, it’s a good van too.  It was my van before we got the current one and definitely does the trick.  However, my husband (unlike myself) tends to drive the gas tank to empty before refilling.  And yesterday, there was maybe an 1/8 of a tank left in there.  Of course, it’s about 15-20 miles to MOPS and then another 15-20 miles back.  Oh, and we are out of funds for the month.  Payday comes around 9pm tonight (god bless direct deposit), but that didn’t help us yesterday.  I had two dollar bills in my wallet plus about two dollars in change.  We wanted to use that, however, for lunch since MOPS gets out about 11:30 and certain pregnant ladies are generally pretty hungry about then.  We swung by del Taco (not out of our way and hence, not using any more gas than necessary) and had some crunchy tacos to fill our tummies with.  It worked out pretty well.  And we actually made it home on the fumes left in the gas tank.  So that’s pretty good, I think.  WE MADE IT.

It stinks to be so spent at the end of the month.  And most months, it’s not quite this bad.  But… ’tis the season.  And we make do.  I’m just glad there was no pushing of the van required yesterday, because that would have SUCKED.

Filed under Family Circus, Harry |

I was going to post a vitriolic post about my homicidal thoughts off the previous evening, but as often happens, I woke up this morning feeling a lot more calm and self-possessed. Too bad too, because it would have been a fabulous blog post. I had some great stuff planned. Ah well. C’est la vie.

Instead, let’s talk about this baby some more. I know, it’s ya’ll favorite topic, isn’t it? You just LOVE to hear about how I’m dying to find out what this baby is and how I’m so po’ I can’t go get a fancy ultrasound done to find out. (Though, I feel I must point out that a) my husband is paid once a month and since he’s the only one who works around here, that’s it for us for money and b) we avoid using credit like the plague. That means that if we need to buy a new mattress please Lord we have to have the money on hand. Same goes for Christmas presents and ultrasounds. So maybe you can see why December is a challenging month around here.) So whatever. We’ll get an ultrasound eventually, I’m sure (though probably not until after Christmas) and ONE of these days we’ll find out what this baby does indeed sport betwixt it’s knees. In the meantime, why don’t we have some fun with it?

 [poll=2]

Please vote.  This might help alleviate some of the obsessing I’ve been indulging in lately.  If it helps:

• I was sicker this time than with previous pregnancies, although I have gotten progressively sicker with each pregnancy so far.
• My hair hasn’t grown terribly fast this time and has been more prone to falling out though that might not mean anything and I haven’t been paying attention too much.
• For those who like those Chinese calendar thingies, this baby was conceived in July and I was 31 at the time.
• My face!  OMG, my face.  I nearly cry every time I look in the mirror.
• The baby is awful low in my pelvis, but then, all  my babies after Harry have sat really low.  I like to joke that “broke the mold”.
• In the first few months, I couldn’t stand meat, especially cheeseburgers or even worse, bacon cheeseburgers.  Now,  I can eat burgers again, but I prefer not to have bacon cheeseburgers still.
• As with all my pregnancies, I really enjoy fresh fruit.  I tend to crave a little sweetness in the late afternoon.

Okay, I think that covers some of the basics.  If you have any specific questions you want answered before you vote, ask in the comments and I’ll answer via email and in the comments as well.  Vote, betches!

Filed under Pregnant? |