Goodbye august

Ok, so its a few days early. 

I have to say, I’m glad august is over. 

Not that august itself is to blame… it’s just been kind of a crummy month. 

Not exactly major crisis stuff, just annoyance after annoyance. I feel like I’ve been running about 6 steps behind chasing after where I need to be since the last week in July.

But it feels like things are improving. Kiddo is back in school. Routines are going a bit smoother. Kittens will be gone on Thursday. Housework has had progress made. 

I may still have a full notebook page left on my things needing done list ranging from fridge cleaning to basement and hall lightbulbs to figure out what i’m supposed to do to stop the flooding around the sump pump…. but at least the rate at which they are getting added has slowed enough to make a dent in getting them back off the list. 

Plus I like september weather better usually anyhow!

Flyer miles into starbucks gift cards

I’m not even sure how I got on the site, but I ended up at points.com yesterday.

I’m liking it!

It’s point is to keep track of all of your frequent flyer and frequent shopper points… and buy more of them with some. But, well, I don’t want to buy more. I don’t do enough travel to earn anything with them.

But, a few of the programs also let you transfer your points between programs. Cool… but still, I don’t do enough to have a primary one. 

And then I saw it…. “reload starbucks gift card”.

Yes… it’s exactly what it sounds like. You register your gift card, and you can transfer miles into credit on your card. 

The two random hotel stays from the cruise last summer? Now turned into 3 bucks each. 

The flight to Seattle? It turned into 13! yay!

Ok.. so it’s not a fortune. But still… it wasn’t like I was using the miles/points anyway… might as well turn them into something I will be able to make use of! 19 extra bucks I someday won’t spend hanging out with someone there… for things I’d already bought anyway.

 

on the topic though, have i mentioned how unhappy i am with midwest airlines getting rid of almost every reason why i used to love it? no more extra space, no bigger softer leather seats without extra fees, now they have a section with 3 seats instead of just 2 on each side… the only thing left is the cookie it seems. what sort of sense does it make in a market like this to throw out everything that made you different from the competition and made people want to be on your planes and not theirs?

Insurance, non-doctors, and single parents

I’m annoyed. 

 

It’s the second week of school, and the kiddo got sent home sick. Why? Because she said she “felt like she was going to throw up a little”. 

Nothing else. No symptoms. No actual anything. 

Now, had they simply read their forms I spent forever filling out they would see that she has reflux. Has had since she was a baby. Has two different “as needed” prescriptions for it. 

Did I mention this was said after coming in from playing on the swings at recess, immediately after lunch?

Now…. if my child is miserable, and is acting sick, yes, send her home even without a fever and puking. 

But what ever happened to having the kid sit or lie down in the nurses office for about half an hour of total boredom then seeing if the feeling passes? Or, telling the parent the whole story and discussing the issue with them to be clued in to possibilities you might have missed rather than just sending the kid to the office with a declaration that they are sent home. 

 

When I expressed my frustration to the office worker, they mentioned that a kid got sent home on the first day of school simply because their parent had given them motrin that morning… and it might be masking a fever… so nurse assumed she might have one with her headache. Why did she have a headache and get motrin earlier in the morning? Because the day before she had gotten new braids put it, and they were really tight at first because they loosen up as the hair grows. 

I can imagine that parent was extra thrilled. This nurse transfered to the school this year from another one, and i bet thats where the happy parents are at.

But part of this comes back to the lack of single parent thing again with this school. Most families have the stay at home parent, so its a pain but not a giant deal. Where with us, I not only have to take off suddenly from work, I have to miss the entire next day as well because if they get sent home, it has to be 24 hours before they can return. Even though she was fine, and acted perfectly normal all day. And of course, if the school doesn’t want them there, neither does the daycare. 

 

The daycare is actually part of the reason I was so annoyed though. Because less than a month ago they sent kiddo home saying they thought she had pink eye. 

She had absolutely no gunk in her eyes…. no pink seeped into the white of the eye… mostly they just looked a little bit bloodshot. With allergies, this isn’t anything too highly unusual.

However, of course, this means she has to have a doctors note to return. Which means I got to look like the dork taking my child in knowing full well that she doesn’t have what I’m having them write a note saying she doesn’t have. 

And again, missing work abruptly… but then the doctors note thing gets a bit trickier.

 Her doctor, given the complete lack of urgency, can’t get her that afternoon, so it will have to wait for an appointment. Which means I have a few options here…

*to miss another day of work. my employer is already mean about sick days… so this earns very few points, and means a reduced check the next week. Even if I sign forms and write letters, they will not let anyone else be the one to take her in to be treated… it has to be a parent. We’ve tried before.

*to go to the urgent care clinic. its what they are there for, right? semi-minor things after normal business hours. However, her insurance looks at the like a regular doctors office… meaning that since it isn’t her primary doctor or a pre-approved referral to a specialist, they wont pay… which means usually about $200 out of pocket for this option

*the er. the stupidest place of all for her to be seen. its not an emergency, its not major, its not even an actual problem. and yet… insurance will pay for this where it would not pay for a normal doctor to see her. supposedly there is a $100 fee if insurance determines it to not be an emergency, and yet, i’ve never heard of them doing so, and even so, it would be cheaper than the urgent care out of pocket if they did charge it. 

 

And that’s how a over-hyper daycare worker mixed with poor policies at an insurance company ends up with the ethical debate as to whether to take the option that’s the best for me but completely and entirely inappropriate use of resources, or to take the option that’s worst for me for the sake of being the most logical treatment choice. 

 

That was two weeks ago. Now the school’s issue while the annoyance is still fresh. 

I’ve made it clear to my daughter that she is not to go to the nurse or teachers about medical things unless she is actually sick or we will not know when to believe her when she really is sick, and if she has the reflux to ask to get a drink. It’s not the best choice of things to teach her, but if the response is going to be overreacting rather than actually helping…

While it was the poor decision of the nurse to send her home rather than give her a glass of milk to wash the ick out of her throat if meds cant be given… she’s old enough and familiar enough with the feeling to know that the feeling of “feeling like shes going to throw up a little” has never actually materialized into throwing up. i know that she knew that this wasn’t something that serious. 

 

have i mentioned my child has asthma and can get into coughing spells that occasionally do make her throw up a little? 

something tells me this is going to be a long winter.

weird price spells

ya know, im starting to feel like i’ve entered some sort of weird wrinkle in time pricing glip in the planet. 

 

i know, theres about a billion and ten articles and blogs about this right now… but really…

 

lets consider a pizza. just a basic pepperoni pizza. 

 

the bags of standard, cheap, basic shredded mozz cheese at the local kroger owned store used to bounce between 1.88 and 1.33 a bag regularly… spending maybe a week or so a month at their claimed shelf normal price. 8oz block the same price as 8oz bag, so i opt for lazy.  pepperoni wasn’t on sale as much, but still grab-able for less than 2 for the turkey ones we like (same taste, less grease when cooked). so about 350 for the two if purchased in advance when cheap, with that estimate being a bit high even most times.

 

but now… the going rate for the bag of cheese is 2.50-3, and the pepperoni is 3 and i’ve yet to see it on sale from that rate. so for those two ingredients, we now have 5 to 550, plus cost of crust and sauce. 

 

ok… so the pizza went up 2 bucks…  nothing too unusual about that…

 

except for the fact that there is a little ceasars about a mile from my house that will hand me one for 5 bucks, not even requiring any effort on my part to assemble and cook. 

 

and, 3 miles from my house is a papa johns that offers 1 topping pizzas for 599 every monday night and occasional saturdays all day. 

 

what sort of messed up logic is it that its cheaper to have someone else do the work of making pizza for me…. and not even the marginally decent better brands of frozen pizza, but a fresh, full sized pizza…. in the case of papa johns probably even tasting better than the one i’d have spent about 45 minutes making and waiting for dough to rise and such. 

 

 

and pizza isnt the only thing doing this…. it seriously costs me more right now to make quite a few things than it does to buy at the places that make a reasonably decent version… or close enough to be worth the effort. 

 

tacos from the regional chain. hamburgers from both the regional chain and the national ones. ice cream is cheaper bought by the serving than the amount you get in the store. its cheaper to use the prechopped per-pound price at the salad bar than it is to make it with the same items  (unless you use like a ton of lettuce, and maybe even then). 

 

this kind of throws me for a loop… when price is usually a good reason to use of why to make something at home when i’ve had a long day and dont really feel like spending a hour or so messing around in the kitchen after working 8. can health and feelings of “should do” stand on their own?

 

 

 

 

more amusing… cat food. 

 

walmart generic kitten food used to be the cheapest option that had a bag and not just a small box. roughly 3 pounds for 3 bucks, or 8 pounds for 7. 

 

well, the big bag was cut from 8 pounds to 7, but stayed the same price. the little bag went from 3 to 2/5, but it also jumped to like 3.60 something. 

 

for 3.75, i can buy a 3 pound back of the name brand purina kitten food. 15 cents more for half a pound more food…. aka cheaper per pound than the bottom of the barrel generic. ummm… hello? this isnt even a sale or a coupon… its just a normal price difference. whats the point of the generic? 

 

and yet, im sure most people just grab the generic looking bag… or just look at the price and assume the 2.5 pound is the same size as the 3 pound one.

 

unfortunately, i bet this one ends fairly soon with purina raising their price too. but nice for my cats for a bit.

 

 

pop is the same way, though you have to catch the sale for it. generic diet mountain dew? 2.66 for 12. real diet mountain dew this week? 5 even for 24. formerly, the generic usually had the going rate of 1.88… making it still a bit cheaper even with sales. 

 

 

 

its just really, really weird.

Laundry plan worked!

Yay! 

make a post making myself look like a dork who can lose entire loads of laundry and what happens? it shows up! of course! lol!

so where was it?

well, the basement is having water issues again..  a little bit of flooding around the sump pump. so i have been moving things around… moving christmas tree out of its damp box and christmas stuff to on top of a cabinet… and moved some other stuff around….

in the process, it ended up between a wall, a chair, and two pretty large boxes.

im very glad for its safe return!

Where is my laundry?

How exactly does one lose an entire load of laundry?

Socks I understand. or the occasional piece.

But I seriously can’t find about an entire load. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere!

It’s not in either of the bedrooms, the living room, the garage, the bathroom….

Granted, there are piles of laundry waiting to be done in the basement, but I’ve gone through them… nothing.

We have about 4 classes of laundry in our house…. favorites that see the light of day about once a week or once every two weeks.. standards that fill in when the favorites need something to match them or are dirty… things that fit but for whatever reason are very rarely worn like my more formal dresses or heavier sweaters (or are worn once and find their way into the pile of laundry in the basement that never seems to become high enough priority to make it to the top of the needs done list, because its stuff we dont really like that much anyway)… and things that im not sure why we still have them (kiddo doesn’t want to admit former favorites are outgrown, or I keep hoping for magic weight loss).

So… I know of a ton of the favorites that are just somehow vanished from the daily options. because they normally get frequent use enough to notice when they dont.

• both of my favorite work shirts.. one tan with button collar and one tan with soft flowy material
• my black capris that go with work stuff
• both of my favorite oversized michael w smith concert shirts (yes, these are in regular rotation around here… one the names of the cities are starting to wear off the back)
• one of my alaska shirts
• my lighter toned stretchy denim capris
• my stretchy denim material jean shorts
• my knee length black shorts
• kiddos knee length black shorts
• kiddos black shorts with lace
• one of kiddos two matching jean shorts
• 2 of kiddos dresses
• 3 of kiddos t shirts that i can think of
• hannah montana jammie shorts set of kiddos, froggy jammie set of mine
• 2 bras, and we both seem to be running on what seems like half the usual number of underwear

where does that much stuff just disappear to? one or two things i cant find wouldn’t bother me too much…. but this is insane… this is like a whole load’s worth… which is why i think it probably was a load from about half a week, and its probably all together wherever the stuff is.

but where? i mean, its not like we have a huge house with a lot of hiding places… or a lot of people through here. would my mom be controlling enough to take it just to see how long before i complained of it missing? i seriously think she does that with some of kiddos clothes taken off down there sometimes…

but the stuff is such high rotation that its hard to remember when they were last seen. i know for sure that there were here when i was packing for michigan, because i decided to take the darker denim capris instead of the missing lighter ones and not to take the two concert shirts. but have they been worn since then? they might have been, but its not something that would really stand out in my mind as an event to remember. 

its driving me nuts. 

either that, or wearing more of the non-favorite clothing is driving me nuts and i’m blaming it back to the reason. lol! 

though it has me in a spell of throwing away lots of the other two groups… in some sort of hope it will somehow turn up the missing items as a reward.

Words and stones and egg whites

Job 4
3 “In the past you have encouraged many people;
you have strengthened those who were weak.
4 Your words have supported those who were falling;
you encouraged those with shaky knees.
5 But now when trouble strikes, you lose heart.
You are terrified when it touches you.
6 Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence?
Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?

ok granted…. job had a whole lot going on… and these guys were clueless… but in life in general? this could be said a lot…

========

job 5
23 You will be at peace with the stones of the field,
and its wild animals will be at peace with you.

ok.. i get the animals…. but are the stones really an issue? do people have some sort of problem with not being at peace with stones? i mean, sometimes they are in inconvenient places… but to put being at peace with stone as the same as wild animals? these are stones “of the field”… it doesn’t even sound like they are being thrown.. lol

========
job 6
6 Don’t people complain about unsalted food?
Does anyone want the tasteless white of an egg?[e]
7 My appetite disappears when I look at it;
I gag at the thought of eating it!

lol!!! ok… even poor job doesn’t want egg whites… how many diets could use this advice in their planning… lol!

Kitten-napping

And the kitten drama continues.

First we started off being unable to find them… then grandma cat took off… then they were found under the bed by which time they were already like 2 weeks old and had eyes open learning to walk around.

So then their momma moved them… to kiddo’s dresser drawer. However, the dresser has the wire frame top and hanging bottom style drawers. kiddo had taken the middle drawer on one side out… rahter than just put the kittens in the bottom drawer on that side, she put them into the bottom drawer on the other side.

meaning this takes up 4 drawer spots… the open one, the one below that she has to stand in, the one the kittens were actually in, and the one above that because she had to push the bottom of that drawer up with her head to get into the lower drawer.

So I was less than pleased. But I was even less pleased with her next choice of behind the couch, which meant they were going everywhere.

I intervened, and stuck them in a laundry basket with an old blanket. Which of course kiddo suddenly remembered and it suddenly became her favorite blanket ever and she wanted it back immediately.

Unfortunately, the kittens learned to crawl out of the basket a few days later, so it didn’t really matter anyway. So they took to sleeping beside the basket.

But drama was far from over. First day they were out, in the morning neither of the other adult cats were happy. One was even batting at the babies.

I head off to work…. come home, and same cat is now laying with the kittens… as if they are her kittens. Their momma never has been with them much, so other cat decided she wanted them I guess. Kiddo calls her their babysitter.

Um, yeah… stripes kinda clash with lynx point siamese kittens. lol

So then of course momma eventually decides she wants to be with them, which was good anyway cuz they needed to eat.

So now momma is with them more….

But now, babysitter has decided to start kittennapping them. If momma isnt around she will just take over, but it momma is around, she will pick up a kitten and bring it into my room and keep it on my bed until we take it away and give it back. She will make it lay down, and block it either with her paws, or between her and a pillow…. or lately even do it while i’m sleeping and put it between me and her.

After a few days of this, she has now started leaving her one kitten and going to grab another one. So then she has 2 kittens while leaving momma with 3.

I’m going to be rather glad in a week or two when these kittens can be dropped off to find homes. They are cute… i’m not worried about this group finding homes quickly.

Minor accomplishments

It’s amazing sometimes how tiny, trivial accomplishments can make you feel productive.

I finally fixed my music folders tonight.

I used to have them sorted the way I wanted… until in a fit of hitting options buttons in itunes i let it sort them.

which looks fine on the surface… folders by artist, then by album. until you hit a compilation album. and then…. every single song gets its own folder for some unfathomable reason.

Which was not at all how I wanted them!

no offense to any keb mo fans… but i can about guarantee you i will not have another song from him on my computer anytime soon. and if i did, it wouldn’t be another duet with amy grant, so it would end up in yet another folder anyway. and even if it didn’t, i would rather have the duet from the greatest hits album back with all of the other songs from that amy grant album, not with the other keb mo songs.

I was importing the old “our hymns” compliating cd tonight when it finally got to me enough to decide do go back in and entirely resort the whole mess.

beyond the folders for compilations, it was driving me nuts having folders for one random song from an artist.

so i went in… turned off itunes sorting obviously… and totally redid my old folder system.

resorted it into 4 folders…. one for things that are nice and neatly sorted by artist then album (compilations sharing a folder), one for new things that i’m not sure yet whether or not i will be keeping, one for random one-off songs that can all share a folder, and one for my songs from cds from my church and songs used there in worship that i found somewhere else and downloaded to have or to learn them.

this actually didn’t take nearly as long as i expected it to.

i then completely cleared my library page in itunes… to where it listed i had no music… and then let it add in only the sorted folder…. leaving the other 3 alone.

the new ones i dont want in until i decide to keep them.. and i still do need to desperately sort through that folder and make decisions. the church songs and the one hit wonders i will probably add back in at some point, but i’m not messing with it just yet, as most of the time when i want those, i want to hear just the one song and not a whole playlist anyway… so going to the music folder isnt any harder than finding the one song in itunes.

this had the added bonus of clearing out all of the random itunes listings for songs i didnt want added but accidentally opened in itunes by double clicking which added them on its own…. half of which have long since been deleted. so, while i was at it… i went in and changed the default from itunes to one f my smaller mp3 programs. if i want to use playlists and such i can open itunes manually, but im tired of random junk making things messy.

and, while i was at it, i pruned the podcast subscription list down to about 1/4 of its former size.

so everything is nice and clean and the way i want it. all the folders in a sane setup. no extra piles of folders floating around filled with just one song.

as little as i have to do on my mac as far as other maintenance, i can tolerate a minor skirmish with itunes. funny though that after i was done and had emptied the very full trash, my first thought was to defrag… lol!

and its amazing how much i realize this was bugging me only after i’ve gotten it fixed. i would have rated this like a 2 on annoyance before i did it… but for being a 2, resolving it has been about a 5 on positives for having it back how i want it. trivial… but smile producing.

Replacing love with life and honor

proverbs 21
21 Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love
will find life, righteousness, and honor.
==========

ok… so we have unfailing love and righteousness in the wanted list…

we have righteousness appearing in the found list…. ok… desire fullfilled there…

but unfailing love? not on the will find list. instead we find life and honor.

personally, i think i’d rather have the love be found.

i know, i know… unfailing love is found in god anyway… life means more than just the shell we call life currently… and honor from god means a whole lot more than honor from humans.

but really…

if i were pursuing only two things.. one of which being love…. and found life and honor in its place… would i be disappointed? not that they aren’t good things to find…. but just not being that which you sought?

maybe not…. maybe you’d find that life and honor were better… or equivalent. maybe you stopped pursuing it. but makes me wonder a bit. why is righteousness found but unfailing love not listed as found?

but things were kinda more interesting on this one.

as i’ve mentioned before, i try (being the operative word) to stay on the one year bible reading plan. http://www.oneyearbible.com being one of many places with the same plan as my hard copy one year bible. it splits the daily reading into a chunk each from old testament, new, psalms, and about 2-3 verses from proverbs per day…. which makes it much more tolerable when you get into some of the less than exciting history sections.

however, it goes in order… first part of psalm 1 being read on jan 1, along with genesis 1, matthew 1, and proverbs 1:1.. and it goes from there.

so it struck me as really odd…. that to go with the above section for proverbs today…. was a psalm section…. also with righteousness and unfailing love on the plate today, and mentioning them directly.

========
psalm 36
5 Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the ocean depths.
You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.
7 How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
All humanity finds shelter
in the shadow of your wings.
8 You feed them from the abundance of your own house,
letting them drink from your river of delights.
9 For you are the fountain of life,
the light by which we see.
========

ok… so god has both and lots of it. and as it continues on, the unfailing love here takes the focus and seems to be very much in play.

this only confuses me more as to why it wouldn’t be listed on the will be found list.