Not Today

Just a quick little post to say that I'm not feeling it today.
Yesterday I was too busy to write and today I'm having printer issues and dirty floor issues.
These must be resolved before I can dally with writing an impressive post.
Things are percolating.
I'm waiting for them to drip.

Random Photo Tuesday

 

It's Tuesday. I'm bored so I'm going thru some photos on my computer. There are not many on this particular device, but the ones that there are are pretty good. I am a mother, so therefor I spend most of my time taking pictures of other people. Great ones of me are few and far between. Someday I will look back and wonder where years of my life went. There will be no photographic evidence of me.

That is the nature of being a mother. That is why so many women just take selfies in bathroom mirrors.

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of my all time favorite photos of myself. Unfortunately is has an ugly hotel room as a background. This is from the night Carl and I were supposed to go to his 20th high school reunion. It was a total bust, so we skipped out and met up with an old rock-n-roll buddy of Carl's at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.

 

This is a photo of my 2 day old niece Sarah. She is my only niece and is the coolest thing ever. It was an honor and a privilege to see here so soon after she was born. She just turned 3.

This is Sarah and I playing dress up a couple of months later at my house. She was trying to suck the skin off my face and I had to yell at Amelia, then just 4, to run and get my camera and catch the moment on film. I haven't laughed that hard very often.

 

This is the man of my dreams. I love this picture because he so rarely smiles like this. He is very hard to catch smiling in a photo and this one does it  magnificently. We were laughing and drinking and waiting for a show to start at the Orpheum with Carl's cousin Andrew. This is on the deck of the Weatherford Hotel in Flagstaff. It was a good night and gave me this amazing photo of an amazing man. It's good to see him smile.

A girl can dream

You know how I only work 2-3 days a week? Supposedly that means I have so much extra time on my hands.
This week this morning Otis wakes up with red goopy eyes. He can't go to school. We get a 9:30 Dr. appt and it turns out he just has a nasty scratch on his eye. He gets back to school at 11:30.

The week before my van is in the shop when my back-up car, the 2004 Land Rover, practically bursts into flames 8 miles from my house. That was a very long 8 miles back to the house in a truck with a non-working water pump.

The week before the dog wakes up bleeding out of a huge swelled up lesion on her cheek. That meant the morning at the vet and a couple of follow up appointments.

How could I do all that while working full time?

I've applied for several full time jobs, even had a job offer once, but I couldn't pull the trigger on a commitment that large.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever venture back into the real world with a high-power responsibility holding job. I see other people with suits and fancy shoes  and ID badges and sometimes I am envious and of their large regular paycheck and other times I wonder why they have committed so much of their time and their lives to an entity that they likely don't have much control over.

I may have resigned myself to the life of a part time working mother, but still I dream of the life of a writer: Meetings in New York with my editor, sending manuscripts back and forth with things to correct and research, spending time at the library with a deadline and a story to finish while a Flagstaff snowstorm swirls outside the windows, large royalty checks coming in the mail that will dwarf my paltry school district salary and enable my family to take summer long research trips to exotic locals while I write, and attending signing events at conventions all year long.

I'm gonna dream it and I'm gonna do it.
A writer's life would still allow me plenty of time for broken-down cars, and sick kids and pets right?

Healthcare.gov Update

So it's  been a while since I tried Healthcare.gov.

Over the weekend my husband told me he had heard that the log-in bugs were worked out as long as I created a new account.

Cut to 15 minutes ago. I created a new account.

It did go much smoother this time and there was a place where I could see sample rates before applying for coverage. That was great.

I was able to create an account. I got a confirmation email and the link worked. I went to the log-in page and I was taken to...

Page not found.

The log-in still does not work. I think there are still some bugs.

I am happy that up until that point everything seemed to be working well. That is a good sign.

Maybe there are just too many people logging in right now. I will try back later and then update you here.

Anne Rice and The Fault in Our Stars

I know I don't usually discuss books here on this page.
I usually do it HERE.

But I just had to discuss a few literary things here for all you less than bibliophiles.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green has just one the coveted award of Emily's Favorite Book award. If you are scared off by the plot summary (two cancer kids falling in love), don't be.
Read it. This man is a master of getting great words to stick to a page. It is hilarious and if you know me and like me and want me to continue to know and like you, you must read this book.

Now enough of the book recommendations. If you wanted that you would read my other blog.

My other news regarding Anne Rice is that she is currently on a lengthy book tour promoting her new book The Wolves of Midwinter.
I have two options to meet her: A weekend trip to LA to the B&N at the Grove to meet Ms. Rice on Saturday November 2nd.
OR a Thursday evening in Tempe at a small independent book store called Changing Hands on November 14th.

In my imagination I go to the LA book signing and casually bump into Brad and Angelina who are also there to get their books signed. The line is short and only the truly literary are there to meet Ms. Rice.
In reality I know this signing will be INSANE. The Grove is crazy anyway, but add Anne Rice on a Saturday afternoon and all hell could break loose.

I think my chances are better in Tempe. Maybe there will be a more subdued crowd of bibliophiles and vampire nuts in attendance.

Either way I am super excited to meet Anne Rice. She was one of the authors that I found in my grandpa's library at the top of the stairs in a farmhouse in Vermont. I met Lestat there and also the Mayfair Witches, and VC Andrews' grand cast of characters. Between all the old MAD magazines and history books I found my grandpa's collection of fantastical fiction. He had a huge collection of mass market paperbacks that my mother did not read. It was heaven. I could pick and choose and then read to my hearts content while sitting in an apple tree in a green Vermont pasture with a friendly flock of sheep. Yes it really was that amazing. Parts of my childhood were idyllic.
During those idyllic summers Anne Rice was right there with me.
To meet her next month will be an honor and a privilege.

Keeping it Real

In an effort to keep myself honest and with full disclosure, I present the following rant on my lack of money. I love real numbers from real people. Here they are. Enjoy.

 

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Even though I am only working 2 or 3 days a week. I have not had a minute to spare.

The VW Roatan has been on the fritz for the last couple of weeks, so I finally took in to the shop yesterday. Luckily it’s only a cracked hose, but driving my back-up car: a 2004 Land Rover Discovery proved dangerous this morning as it started smoking as I made the final stretch home. It started smoking and hissing and overheating. After several phone calls, help from our local shell gas station attendant and my dad I was able to coax the old thing home one last time.

Thermostat? Water pump? Broken hose? It will be a few weeks before we find out.

Money is tight.

Every week for the past few months one of our FedEx trucks has been out of commission. We need 2 new trucks, but can’t afford the payments, so instead we keep credit carding repairs in the hopes that a miracle will occur; either we come into a chunk of money or the trucks decide to work and not break for a while.

It’s risky business.

It’s propane season. That runs us around $800- $1000 a month right thru April.

The dog got sick last week too. A little roughhousing with my parent’s dog turned into a neck bite that got infected and swelled up like a balloon.

So let’s summarize:

2 broken personal vehicles

3 broken Fed Ex trucks

1 sick puppy

1 500 gal propane tank

1 Federal Education Loan

All that equals no cash.

Now you might argue… Emily, but you are only working part time. Why don’t you go back to full time? I torture myself with that question, but my income is so small regardless of whether I work 3 or 5 days a week that the impact is small on our finances. However, my mental health, taking into account of whether I work 3 or 5 days a week, varies a great deal. I feel fully in control of my life working 3 days a week. Working 5 days a week I am on the edge of mental health. It is simply that I value my mental health over my financial health.

There are 3 things that are making it tight. The most recent is my student loan that I just started paying in July. Since then things are ridiculously tight. I had imagined that my loan payments would be around $300. They are actually at $460. Add that to the $550 VW payment and I won’t even tell you how much the credit card payments are. I would embarrass myself.

There has to be a way to bring things under control financially again. I’m working on it.

Student loan forbearance?

Car refinance?

Credit card refinance or consolidation?

Sell a book idea?

Win the lotto?

Better part-time job?

These are all viable options.

Things are hard and I don’t see an easy solution on the horizon.

Healthcare.gov So Far

I am currently live chatting with a help agent at Healthcare.gov.
I am anxious to see what the result is of my query.

Since the site opened last week I have been trying to create a username and password to open an account. I did last week succeed in creating an account for my email, but immediately after opening the account and attempting to log in I was told that my username and password were invalid. I hadn't written them down, but it was only 10 seconds earlier so I asked for my password to be emailed to me. The link didn't work. I asked for my username to be sent to me. No email with a link ever came. I figured I did something wrong. I didn't know what, but something.

So this morning I attempted to create a  new username and password using Carl's email. I wrote them down this time. After confirming my email address I was linked back to the log-in page and guess what... My username and password were invalid. They were not recognized.

So it's them, it's not me. I knew it.

So here is my response from the live chat session.

"At this time the site is experiencing a glitch that is currently being worked on. We do not have a time frame to when the glitch will be fixed, however, it is being worked on at this time. Please check back periodically for progress."

And my response.

"A glitch? That sounds more like a catastrophic mistake. I've had this issue since the site opened last week. Millions of other web sites have figured out how to make "log in " work. I hope your techs can figure it out."

I was then told that I should call the 1-800 number for further assistance.
Ain't nobody got time for that. At least not today. I'll try tomorrow when I've got a good book in front of me and time to kill.
So it's just the web site that is jacked? They can still quote me premiums on the phone? I'll find out tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Grand Canyon Closed

There is a huge flashing sign that I am passing every day on my way home that says:

GRAND CANYON CLOSED. NO THROUGH TRAFFIC.

It's very strange and kind of apocalyptic in a way.

I've never seen that sign before. The Canyon is always open. If you want to go on Christmas Day, you can.

Our entire city revolves around the Canyon. People commute up to work there. A lot of the small businesses deliver their products and services up there. We have more outdoor outfitters than most cities our size because people stop here and gear up before continuing up to the Canyon. Our hotels and restaurants probably get about half of their business from tourists heading up. Our Walmarts and Sam's Club parking lots are always filled with RVs while people stock up on supplies before their trip.
People plan and book  months and years in advance to get a room, an RV spot or a camping spot at the canyon. The North Rim closes in two weeks. It's the most beautiful time of the year on that side of the canyon and no one is going to be able to see it.

What effect is the government closure going to have on our town and all the surrounding communities?

I can sum it up in one word:   HUGE.

The selfishness and stubbornness of the govt. is driving me crazy. Don't even get me started on the effect it's having on the WIC program. I might burst a blood vessel.
Closing public lands that actually MAKE money doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like a very uneducated idea. I know the decisions on what to close and what to leave open as a necessary service are difficult, but who are we hurting here? The men who can't come to an agreement should be punished, not the working folk, small businesses and tourists.

Would France close down the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower? Did Greece close down the Acropolis when their govt took a dump? I don't think so. They desperately needed that money and so do we. The Grand Canyon is a money maker. Let's let it make money.

I'm not a huge Grand Canyon fan. It's a big hole and I've seen it a hundred times, but people travel literally from all over the world to see that hole. It's a big deal. Let's open it up and shut down DC.

Healthcare Tuesday Oct 1

58?

58 People have viewed my blog today.

Who are you and why are you here?

Identify yourselves.

Don't get me wrong. I'm cool with it, but having trouble wrapping my head around it. It only took 4 years to reach that one day number. If we keep going at this rate I might actually make that .05 cent commission from Google for allowing adds. A girl can dream.


Now lets get to the question of Health care.
It's a big deal today.
My family buys private insurance from Blue Cross. Carl and the kids are on the plan. It currently costs around $600/month for a $5000 deductible policy. We hardly ever use it but pay $7200 a year for the privilege of having insurance and getting a slight discount on health care services from the association with BCBS.
In a bad year where we actually used our insurance (broken arm or minor surgery) we could spend $12,000 on health care.
I was on the school district insurance until Aug when I went to part time. I am no longer covered on insurance. I will probably buy a new policy for the whole family or just get myself a policy thru
Healthcare.gov. starting Jan. 1
I have visited the site several times this morning. Needless to say it is not working. I cannot even create an account. I know it's overloaded today, but I have never been kicked out of registration process for providing "wrong" answers to my own security questions.
This is going to be a rough process. I am interested in having better insurance. I am also interested in having more affordable insurance. I already feel as though I am paying my fair share to contribute to the health care system that supports those who don't have health care. Our $7200 is going somewhere, but not to take care of us. It's just such a bullshit system already I dont' have much confidence that this is one will be more equitable.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.
I'll keep you all posted on the price and coverage and process of getting thru the new system. I am a librarian after all and I am supposed to disseminate information freely.

Just stop back frequently and help keep my numbers up. Mama needs some insurance and those 5 cent commissions for every 5000 visitors could really start to stack up.