Today it was official!

A small historic happening occurred in this household this afternoon… As of November 1st I will again be an insured person. I received my approval letter with the premium request of $376 and I promptly paid it online from my bank bill payer account. Whew; am I crazy? Don't answer that, but it is sort of a relief to know that if anything major comes up that I now have major medical to take care of it and fortunately so far all of my doctors are with this PPO, since I checked, and they are in Network. Hubby has an HMO with his Medicare, which he has to go to what we lovingly used to call; ‘a gatekeeper’ (A primary care doctor who decides if you need a specialist and only then you can go) and I don't have to do that. That's great by me, now I can just make doctor’s appointments when I need them and go to other doctors that my doctors have recommended such as an ENT, an urologist, orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon etc. and that is peace of mind, hooray! All checking for network docs is online. Now this current program offered through the United States government will be ending in 2014 when if it is not shut down the whole concept then all insurance companies will not be allowed to deny people with pre-existing conditions to ascertain their insurance policies and programs. The current administration is all for taking the next step with the insurance companies as I just mentioned, as it stands right now it would be automatic to occur. My fear is what will happen in or if we have the changing of the guard with a different administration… And I believe my concerns are warranted. Everyone probably realizes it took me a while to get to this point, but financially it was not feasible until I received Social Security like I did this past August and that is why I am doing what I should've been able to do years ago. It has been six long years almost to the day. Yes, oddly enough our insurance ended October 31 of 2006. And it has been a fight for me as an individual to pay bills that I've accumulated ,which I did do, and to continue to have dignity while getting the medical help I needed and maintaining a very good credit rating. This is all due to people who were compassionate enough to understand that there were programs for people who did not have insurance and pointed me in that direction. Every single time there was paperwork to fill out which asked personal financial questions and of course without hesitation I complied. Many don't realize what's out there for you even if you're making $65,000 a year; you too are entitled to many programs, of course we were only making about half that and now we are making more than half of that, thankfully with my additional income. But I think necessity is the mother of invention or intention whichever you need at the time. Over these last six years I've learned a tremendous amount of things. In life, I have been more than comfortable financially and I've been close to financially challenged, but never homeless or destitute and for that I suppose I can admit that I've always been extremely lucky. No, I'm no Mrs. Romney financially ever, can’t even wrap my mind around billions of monies or even millions and wouldn’t know what to do with them if we had that, probably give away a lot to charity though… But as you heard me say before that having enough, to me that is more than a dollar than what you need to survive. In that respect I meant being able to pay all your bills and have food on the table and a roof over your head. To me, that's wealth and to many in this world today they too would consider that being wealthy. Perspective, from where we stand on the world stage or even smaller in our own microcosm of our personal lives… We are what we want to believe we are at any given moment in time. And so what all of this has given to me in a way is a lesson that the more things stay the same they have slowed perhaps, but not really have stopped and eventually things can change for the better. The word of the day is patience, a word that has previously been elusive to me, but somehow having no choices in the waiting period timeline makes all of us have to become more patient. Interesting words patient and patience to me the one who never ever could before call herself at all patient: so let's dissect them: “Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can take before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast. Antonyms include hastiness and impetuousness.” Thanks to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience “pa•tient (p sh nt) n. One who receives medical attention, care, or treatment.” Thanks to: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/patient And as we all know that the past tense of patience is patient…hmm it all comes full circle, wow! I have been both, sort of, one more than the other as you all know… Aha, Oprah would be so proud I have learned a lesson in life and so now allow me to be the first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

A beautiful day in the neighborhood…

Now all of you say it with me, “Will you be mine, will you be mine, will you be my neighbor?” I suppose it's not verbatim, but I plead: too long ago to recall, when your youngest child is 36 years old. Giggle, insert here. Yes, all of us that brought up children in the 1970s and 80s and beyond know that Mr. Rogers was that sweet, kind, decent sort of guy that every child would listen to as soon as they heard his voice on the TV. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today, what I am talking about in our neighborhood had cooler temperatures and lower humidity; the kind of weather that screams for you to open your windows and we did! For about an hour we had a delightful breeze freshening our home and then it became a little warm and when it goes above 80 we close the windows and allow the air-conditioner to create the same effect as fresh air, if you can believe that one. This is the weather us Floridians wait for; the kind that gives us bragging rights. While the rest of the country goes magically through the seasons with snow in the North West cold rain in the Northeast; we here, in the southeastern United States, have the luxury of turning off any artificial heat or air conditioning to allow nature to maintain a pleasant temperature throughout our homes. I know that I said it was only for about an hour today, but as the weeks continue on that amount of time gets much, much longer… Sometimes we can go for several hours without using any artificial or electronic interjections of modern resources. It was a good time to do some fall cleaning, other than just sheets on the beds that we do weekly; today we did the pillow shams and the dust ruffles, the comforters the bedspreads and cleaned them in hot soapy water, dried them mostly in the electric dryer. Although, the very large king-sized comforter was dried instead on the clothesline; it dries much faster that way. Plus years ago we bought a compact stackable washer and dryer and the king-sized comforter is too heavy for it; many must wonder than how the heck do we clean it? Don't think that I am archaic I had two choices here make a pretty little laundry room with lots of built-in cabinetry or get two large machines and have very little space to maneuver without any storage. Now many people might think go to a Laundromat every once in a while to accomplish the job, but instead years ago when I was much healthier I came up with a very clever idea. At least I thought so, some may also feel it is quite archaic, since I put all the laundry detergent and booster soaps and baking soda and turn the faucet of my tub on hot full blast than I placed the comforter into the hot soapy water and squeeze or push or agitate the item within the tub and of course rinse thoroughly. Now these last few years my abilities have lessoned and although Hubby is home most all of the time, these days, we have become a team in this effort. In fact he pulled out the clothesline, which is a retractable line that goes from the shed to the overhang support on the patio which he attaches that cable by a chain and link system that makes it quite strong, although a king sized comforter when wet is much heavier than most items he puts an additional pole to handle the weight. The dry time for something in these weather conditions is less than you may think and that is why we do it this way, but not that often. No need to pack up the car to go over to the closest Laundromat, when we can do it in the privacy of our own home and at our own pace. Do you hate me for being old fashion? It is quite effective and the comforter is not only clean but smells so delightful from the fresh air. Here I go again, talking a lot about nothing, but I'm good at it, you have to admit, allow me now to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Let's make this perfectly clear…

While telling my little story about, “the incident”, yesterday, you know the one about the man knocking on the door. I left out some important information that more than likely that day I was already very sick and I was periodically coming over to here to check e-mails and messages etc. and so that is mostly why I was so disheveled not expecting anyone at the door. And to be fair, Hubby was gone for only about an hour and felt confident that I would be okay as long as I didn't do anything dangerous like getting into the tub and so I swore to him that I would wait until he came home and that is why I was still in my nighty. You know, that sometimes I don't have total recall; amazing and I thought I had such a good memory… Maybe just for things that happened long ago, not that recently. And I just wanted to clarify why I was not rip-roaring to go, although most days these days unless we have the destination for the day picked out I do have a bit of a more of a lazy bones attitude than I ever did before. When I first became a lady of leisure, a bum to some, it was my intention to get up at a normal hour and for me that's around 6 AM and begin my day… But as the years have marched on my realization of my illness and my days not needing me to be so rambunctious or robust every day and that is why my lazy days are splattering more frequently throughout the month. That's not to say if we have that scheduled event or occurrence that I will not be ready on time; for I like to pride myself on always being right on time, and I have always been when required to be. This may seem like filling this space with words that are unimportant to the masses. I beg to differ with all of you, since you see time wasting is as much of an art as time utilization. Some of us who while working, worked long, long hours; have taken years to learn the gentle art of relaxing. Now to many, like fine wine, doing things just right and timely is what we all strive for, but sometimes other things intervene without knowledge aforethought. And so we go with the flow and although many of us fight the inclination to slow down and realize that we have no choice, on occasion. This is not our fault. The reasoning of explaining myself is to most any trained ear or psychologist is the guilt that I have about not being ready to go anywhere if necessary at a drop of a hat, since not being attired appropriately; my bad, but not guilty enough to reconsider my bad habits that I have lately acquired. Most people when they get a day off from work they enjoy taking it easy, relaxing, and reading the paper being in their jammies; which is totally normal, when you've worked hard all week, and there is the rub... To be deserving of that choice to be a temporary bum with knowledge that once the weekend is over you will be back in the rat race paying your dues. It's difficult decompressing your life when it was always so busy at times you wish you could pull your hair out, but of course you never really want to. It's more than the empty-nest syndrome that all parents go through, because ours happened ages ago; I suppose it's the just two of us syndrome. Smaller spaces causing less work with fewer mouths to feed, time can stand still and clocks appear to be broken. But not days when plans are in action or some things are happening, or mundane things need attention, or concept DIY projects or crafts are in the works, or important things to do too or visitors have made arrangements to visit; never on those days. We awaken with the need to be needed and attend to the job at hand with much desire for completion as if we had a deadline. Oh joy, the need to be needed, is there anything better than that? Of course not. Any who, I thought I would just give you all a heads up about my newest venture into blog-dom I have as of this morning launched a raunchy silly additional weekly blog for anyone who has any questions about life and love and family and wants to know what not to do and I call it respectfully: “Dear Tovah!” Please feel free to read my weekly alter-ego of decidedly non-squeamish persona with absolutely no concerns of topics being chosen by anyone to ask questions. And I surely hope you will. The way you can do it is in the comments area or on my postings on Facebook. Hoping to hear from you and I do aim to please with humorous and inaccurate flamboyant corrosive industrious… Wait, what were we talking about? Oh that's right, Tovah, which as you all know means in Hebrew ‘good girl’, will be a bit naughty. So stay tuned and hold on to your undies! Well, she is still me… On that what-have-you of making life as easy as: one, two three just for you and me and the doorknob, whatever that means…allow me to be the first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

All done…

The process was painless and it felt good to have been completed. Timing is everything; especially when it is of the essence. Many of our persuasion and of a certain age know the importance of the involvement in the process. Some take the responsibility for granted, but not us. You see, we feel that we count and know that our decisions are relevant. Not many can say that in other areas of the world, but we know this to be a fact here. Now if you've been wondering what the heck I am speaking of, allow me to educate you in the power of diversion and doubletalk and the joy of beating around the bush. Why I have been speaking of the process of voting in the United States being a citizen, thus persuasion, and by people over 18 years old, thus the certain age, and in our case by absentee ballot and I am proud to say that Hubby and I have completed the process since ours was mailed in yesterday afternoon. Were you confused? Were you thinking that I was talking about something completely different? Or perhaps, you know me well enough to have figured it out and that on occasion I like to play games with you and have you wonder what she might have up her sleeve. Sometimes it's so much fun to play with words and ideas, don't you think so too? Moving on…(Thankfully, I hear you saying) I am going to call this section of my tonight’s offering," the incident". A few days ago when Hubby went to the store without me; early, about a half an hour later while I was sitting at this computer there was a banging noise, harsh and loud on our front door, as if the party was having an emergency. But since it was still late morning I was still in my nighty. I didn't want to answer the door in my nighty and so I snuck into the bedroom to put on my bathrobe and came back to the big picture window to look out to see who was there and I didn't recognize the person. It was a man with glasses and a hat on and he looked agitated and I must've been a sight since I had my cervical collar on and stood with my walker with my tousled hair, since I don't unzip it, that is my bathrobe to put it on up over my head as quickly as I did, thus as the results of my glance in the mirror after frightened me. He asked me one question and one question only, “is your husband home,” I shook my head, no. He went away and I thought hard afterwards perhaps he was our neighbor, the new one across the canal that I met only once last spring. I did mention it to Hubby when he returned home that day and he felt it was unnecessary to be concerned with it, since the man never came back we weren't really sure who it was… But me being me I still wonder to this day, why didn't he ring the doorbell that we have and why did he smash the door as if it was such a big emergency and why not just call 911, if it was? Did he think that my Hubby could resolve his issues and why couldn't he report to me what was so important? Maybe it was the crazy woman look I had, a bit mysterious about him, although, Hubby has seen the man from across the canal since and he has never said anything to Hubby about anything. It's one of those things that men do in trying never to rock the boat while being in the neighborhood I suspect, don't make waves and all that rubbish. But we all know me and if I ever do venture out with the cooler temperatures coming this weekend I may find the time and inclination to question the gentleman if he meets the description of the man at the door, “the incident” still unresolved, curious-er… What would you have done? Well, I hate to end this great time we had together tonight, but as we all know it’s the time for me to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all kindly to count all of your blessing and share all of your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Knowing with whom you are dealing with could be...

Resumes are supposed to be given when a person applies for a job/position in the world of the work arena. In the old days we had pages and pages of all of our abilities, education and areas of expertise written. The theory being not leaving any stones unturned for being able to attack a new job from any angle; much too long this way and most prospective employers would toss them into that circular file on the floor of their office. Then the “people” who know such things told us, the ones endeavoring on to find new careers to chose only items that were position appropriate meaning that which had to do with the job’s description that would be attributes in acquiring said position and elaborating only on our positive personality’s qualities to fill the job. This too was way too long and many possible bosses would also shred these and say next! I do believe though over the last several years the proper way to ascertain a place to hang our metaphoric hat for a daily location to work hard to pay our bills…that ONE page is what many have been told to supply and this time the reasoning is that there are so many out there trying for the same jobs that importance of your accomplishments that make you the one and only one they would be considered to be an asset to them and to help you get back into the workforce can be accomplished in a thousand words or much less, perhaps only five hundred! Boy, I am sure glad that I am retired… since that would definitely be difficult for me! The logic in stating all this blah, blah, blah, etc… is my reconsideration of the way we choose the person for the highest position in the land, some say the world… and by now you all must know…OUR PRESIDENCY, in the GREAT U S of A! My question to all of you is why can’t we just have them post their resumes on Facebook or some other social media where we are anyway, with appropriate abilities in areas that need to be utilized for the job and if they have a short fuse in dealing with people or stressful situations, and of course their closest to them people would also have to provide us with that info as well, spouses, kids, possible VP candidates? (PS today Ann Romney confided to the women of 'The View' that her sons call her in to calm her husband's stress issues, he vents at her? I don’t know not verbatim, but something like that… CYA here!) Then we could have them all fingerprinted to make sure that they don’t have any outstanding warrants or such… overdue bills, or things like, I don’t know… let’s say… causing others in their previous businesses of becoming despondent due to losing their jobs because of them…stuff like that, you know the usual? Why not, I ask all of you? Of course the usual medical tests for everyone too, as we all know that we don’t want to pay for any freeloaders thinking the job will take care of all that… And if they still have living parents, check to see if they are gouging the government taking their Social Security payments or if they are on Medicare, we, as taxpayers, don’t need any of those additional expenses with the way our national debt keeps climbing, ya know? On that concept, of my personal suggestion to ponder and I do suppose that it is too late for this election, but it could be initiated by 2016 or 2020, there you go; 20/20, perceptually a realistically better idea, hmm? I like it! Allow me now to be the first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and to share all your overages and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear? I SURE HOPE SO!

Thank you for listening...

Do any of you get mail, phone calls, emails sent to you from the political parties? I know that should have been a rhetorical question with a period at the end… Well, I have personally taken the idea a step further and have given them all a piece of my mind, by responding to at the minimum their continuous emails oh and I suppose also to those endless phone calls! I let them know how I feel and where I will be placing my voting responsibly, and no, it is not where you might think because I am respectful of whom they are in their other lives…yep, the ones they have while not candidates competing… Although one already has it, our guy; that is while on the world stage for the highest position to maintain it for four more years or to transfer that power to another guy, in charge of our homeland… The title thank you is for the Pres. Since we appear to be on a first name basis me, Michelle and Joe too, oh why you ask? I know you really didn’t but I will tell you anyway and that is because they call me by my first name every-time they email me, several times daily! And so I do on occasions write back to them with words of encouragement or explanations why I cannot or will not give them monetary support but I do give them plenty of moral support with my comments of love and cheering from the sidelines! And that is why I was happy to see that Barack listened to me on how he handled himself last night with his super powers back intact. You see that every few emails I receive from them I write back to them with my little messages of positivity, and I receive a thank you note/email saying that they received it and were very pleased by that…how else would I be so sure that Barack knew that what I told him to do would help him last night in the second debate or town hall meeting…did you feel what I felt? I sort of felt that the 82 questioners were short changed with not all or very many questions fitting in to be asked? And how the two men went off on tangents in different directions far a field from the original questions? It could be just me. Really, did any of you think that we would be riveted to that for ninety minutes like we were? The CNN moderator, Candy Crowley, was just right, besides being a seasoned journalist, being a mother can’t hurt and she was both. Again the results are showing different winners, Barack won in quite a few and Mitt in a couple, but many had it a draw. The main thing is that Barack is BACK! And on that note of not so impartiality… allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you all kindly to count all your blessings and we will too! And next time please be here or be square, ya hear! PS I forgot to tell you what I do about all those phone calls that have stopped, well, I tell them that I am voting for their candidate and to take me off their phone call list. And they did stop, but oddly enough the opposing candidate’s callers called once and Hubby happened to answer and all he said was, “not interested” and you know what? No more calls from them either.

Still not good yet...

My dizziness is back; it had left for a bit, but my numbness is more severe with causing the sock feeling on my feet, legs and hips and my hips are also bad with pain when I try to stand and my head gets weird worse with pain/pressure on top without my soft cervical collar. I believe it all started the night before I had a severe neck spasm that went into my ear; I have had this once before the neck thingy that is. I think that spasm is why my neck from the cervical stenosis is now worse, quite a jolt... Any ideas would be most helpful, standing is not working out too well with my pain and numbness and I have my cervical collar on now... Was about to go to spinlife to check on pricing wheel chairs and found one at a good price, but it turns out that National MS Society has loaners and even with the additional income we come in meeting their criteria and since my left eye is also seeing more floaters and vision is going double periodically and blurry too and as you know righty is already legally blind... my own steering of land vehicles is iffy… Not a happy camper...if you can think of anything I would love to hear back, neuro says all due to MS. TTYL Pals!