DDA Chapter 4

[PNO4TE]

DH just called. He will be going for a pretty big promotion in the next month or so. If anyone has some spare pixie dust he would appreciate it! His immediate supervisor and the BIG supervisor are both encouraging him to take this step, so I know he will do well. But he is a little worried about biting off more than he can chew. At any rate, if he dosn't make the cut this time he will have some groundwork in place for the next time.

done!

 

[tmfranlk]

Happy Friday, DDA!

Thanks for all the kind words and PD for my dog. It's been a tough week with some ups and downs, but she is doing much better and seems to be on the road to recovery. She's pretty much been in the constant care of either the animal hospital or her new vet all week, but I was able to work from home today so she could have a quiet day of recuperation. Needless to say, she's slept most of the day, but is eating well, taking her meds, and seems to be breathing a bit better. Hopefully this lung infection will leave soon.

And I'm beginning to plot how to get remuneration from the vet that caused this mess. The bills have been a bit , and I certainly think they should be held responsible. Hopefully, I won't have to resort to using some of my coworkers' legal skills.

I did, however, get an unexpected promotion at work this week, and that certainly couldn't have come at a better time with all this!

I've gotten caught up, and there's so much going on with everyone, that I'm just going to send out a big dose of for everyone. I'll try to remain caught-up now that RL has slowed down. Thank goodness the weekend is almost here!

I'm glad that she's doing better. I hope the improvements continue quickly and she's her happy self soon. Good luck on the remuneration. They should definitely be helping out! Congrats on the promotion as well! That is great news.

 

[Tinkaroo]

Four Things About Me....Four things about me that you may or may not have known, in no particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Grocery store cashier
2. Retail sales
3. Human resources asst. for a newspaper
4. Legal recruiting (various!)

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Peter Pan or Mary Poppins
2. Singin' in the Rain
3. Dirty Dancing
4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Four books I would read over and over:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. My Sister's Keeper
3. The Time Traveler's Wife
4. Jane Eyre

Four TV shows I watch:
1. The Office
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Dirty Sexy Money
4. old Seinfeld reruns

Four places I have been (other than Disney parks!):
1. Moscow
2. Stavanger and Bergen, Norway
3. London
4. Whistler

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Cheeseburgers
2. Fried chicken
3. Steak
4. Chips and good salsa

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Walt Disney World
2. Kauai
3. Chicago
4. Curled up in bed with a good book!

Four things I look forward to:
1. April
2. May WDW trip
3. June Kauai trip
4. Cruise (if we get to go) or our Dec. WDW trip!

 

[Tinkaroo]

Becky lot's of for your friend & her family!

Ditto - knew I was forgetting something in my earlier post!

I need to remember this! Now what to wish for lol

How about a good AP rate for your August trip?

I use, or have used their mascara, blush, eye shadows, liners and lipglosses. I use the foundation, blush and liner every day. I also use their "skin rev-er upper."

I'm on the same resorts thread as Marci, and everyone's endorsements have me interested, too. Thanks for weighing in!

I'm glad that she's doing better. I hope the improvements continue quickly and she's her happy self soon. Good luck on the remuneration. They should definitely be helping out! Congrats on the promotion as well! That is great news.

Thanks, Tia.

Just noticed your signature - congrats on winning the challenge!

 

[tinknme]

Chanon when will you be back to work?

 

[PNO4TE]

Robyn - I was sorry to read about your great aunt.

Lindsay - congrats on your promotion. I just told the girls and they said, "YIPPEE!! Tell her way to go!" I am glad your fur baby is doing better. Good luck with the funding of all that extra care.

Deb - instead of the "warmth" that Jennifer talks about I use "glee" because I like the pinker tone it has. But I agree that their brushes are terrific too.

 

[tmfranlk]

Love them!!!! Love the names, love the letters, love the colors. They are just all around perfect!

 

[tmfranlk]

As for people having a rough time, please keep my co-worker Diana and her family in your prayers. I know I am going to miss something that has happened, but her husband recently had emergency heart surgery. Her brother in law and sister in law were in a horrible car crash. He died, she is still in the ICU and does not know her husband has died. Her son has been having medical issues and his wife is 28, she just had a stroke and has bleeding in the brain. All of this has been since the start of this year. I am impressed she is holding it together as well as she is.

Prayers for your coworker. What craziness they are all dealing with. I pray for healing for all of them.

Good luck on your test tomorrow.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Sounds promising! Loads of coming that he will get the promotion.

Speaking of his work...how are the benefits? Brendan is applying for a FT truck loading job. He'd be leaving a PT UPS job with good benefits so I was wonderfing how they were at FritoLay.

Well, it depends on how you look at it!
We used to have an HMO. It was expensive, but we loved it. HMO is not offered here through Frito-Lay, so we have a PPO. It is a $500 per person deductible, or $1000 family, then coverage is 80%. We NEVER meet those so we pretty much pay all of our medical expenses out of pocket. Now, we do only pay the "contracted" amount, not the full cost of care. There is another one that has a $300 deductible and 90% coverage but the premiums are much higher. The prescription coverage is pretty good, especially if you use the mail-order place. Well checks are covered at 80% no matter what, and labs are now supposed to be covered at 100% if they are part of a well check. Cancer screenings are covered at 100%. But that gets tricky. The mammogram I had was supposed to be covered at 100%, but they charged me $320 for it and said it went towards my deductible. After going round and round I had to pay $320.

Dental has 3 options. We have the dental HMO because it covers orthodontics. Once DS is out of braces we might change so we have more choices for dentists.

Vision coverage is good.

We all have life insurance through Frito, DH & I have accidental death coverage, and DH has disability. He has a 401K and stock options. They also have that flex-spending where you can pay for health related stuff with pre-tax dollars.

They have tuition reimbursement, discount programs for buying cars and computers, adoption assistance, all sorts of stuff I can't even keep track of that we have never used.

I know our entire benefit package (minus life & vision, which we just added) was less out of each paycheck than JUST the medical premiums at DH's last job. There are a ton of things to choose from, so from that standpoint the benefits are good.

 

[tmfranlk]

Tonight, we celebrated my step-father-in-law's birthday at a local wings place. Technically, he's only 17, though he looks 68.

My dad's too! He turned 14 today, though he isn't aging well. He looks much more like 56. Oddly enough, he'd probably love to be celebrating at a wing place tonight as well.

 

[tmfranlk]

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Mommy
2. Pricing Analyst
3. Journalist
4. Television Station Intern

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Toy Story 1&2
2. Most Brat Pack movies
3. Fried Green Tomatoes
4. Most John Cusak movies (especially from the 80s)

Four books I would read over and over:
1. The Outsiders (I swear that I answered this before seeing yours, Amy! )
2. Anything by Fanny Flagg
3. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (oh wait, book I would read over and over, not that I have to read over and over
4. Birmbaum's Disney guide (okay, truthfully, I mostly just look at the pictures anymore)

Four TV shows I watch:
1. Without a Trace
2. Law and Order: Criminal Intent
3. Cold Case
4. Ace of Cakes

Four places I have been:
1. Walt Disney World
2. Disneyland
3. NYC
4. Branson

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
2. Pizza
3. Chocolate
4. No-bake Chocolate Oatmeal cookies

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Any Disney park
2. Fenway Park (well, I'll wait until baseball season starts)
3. Anywhere in Boston
4. Somewhere quiet and alone if only for a little while

Four things I look forward to:
1. Disney World in December
2. A possible Playgroup Reunion on CA this summer (so hope we can go)
3. A time when I can have my RV and live on the road for a good long while
4. The chance to go camping again

Now, here's what you're supposed to do... and please do not
spoil the fun. Do a copy and paste then
delete my answers and type in your answers.
Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know,
INCLUDING the person who sent it to you.
The theory is that you will learn a lot of
little known facts about those who know you.
Remember to send it back to the person who sent it to you.

 

[tmfranlk]

Just noticed your signature - congrats on winning the challenge!

It was almost too easy this week. The biggest point earner this time was sleep...one of my favorite things. Actually, it's not easy getting 8 hours a night with a night owl DD and early working DH so I had to work on that one. I even gave myself a manicure and pedicure for another part. It seems to have been a good thing cause I haven't bitten my nails all week and I can actually see a teeny tiny bit of white growing out on the ends. Maybe I can look/be healthier and have some nails as well!

 

[tmfranlk]

Well, it depends on how you look at it!

Thanks! The one thing he'll be giving up is no premiums for the insurance. However, the full-time and better hours will make up for that. The coverage sounds like it would do them pretty well. Between the baby visits, Brendan's liver stuff and Erin's thyroid stuff, they'd have no problem meeting the deductible.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

It was almost too easy. The biggest point earner this time was sleep...one of my favorite things. Actually, it's not easy getting 8 hours a night with a night owl DD and early working DH so I had to work on that one. I even gave myself a manicure and pedicure for another part. It seems to have been a good thing cause I haven't bitten my nails all week and I can actually see a teeny tiny bit of white growing out on the ends. Maybe I can look/be healthier and have some nails as well!

Congrats, Tia!

 

[tmfranlk]

Well, it wasn't quite a relaxing day, but it was fun. I remembered that the Museum of Transportation was free today for Leap Day so we went there this afternoon. They have tons of train cars of various types, ages, etc out on the tracks. There are several that you can go in and explore including two engines - one coal, one oil. Terra got to get in and move the levers around like an engineer would and rang the bell on one of them. It was really cool as both of my grandfathers were railroad men. One was an engineer so Terra was pretending to be Papaw. The other was a dispatcher and there were things to show her about that as well. There was even an old Boston "T" train on display. : We'll have to go and take a tour sometime as well as they take you in even more of the cars in those.

Tomorrow we're headed to the zoo to enjoy the nice weather. I had a message from Wendy tonight that Michael is out of the hospital and they are going to the zoo tomorrow too so hopefully we'll meet up with them as well.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Thanks! The one thing he'll be giving up is no premiums for the insurance. However, the full-time and better hours will make up for that. The coverage sounds like it would do them pretty well. Between the baby visits, Brendan's liver stuff and Erin's thyroid stuff, they'd have no problem meeting the deductible.

The other thing is that coverage does not begin the first day of employment. I can't remember what the wait time was. I *think* it was 30 days. The reason I think that is because we had 45 days to enroll in COBRA, and you can do it retroactively. We knew if we made it though those 30 days with no huge medical expenses that we wouldn't need the COBRA.
He had looked at working for Lowe's and their insurance was after 90 days. They wouldn't give him a sign-on bonus or waive the 90 days so we would have been paying COBRA for 3 months.

 

[tmfranlk]

Well, since I am caught up, I'm going to go sit and enjoy the fire with Terra (even if it does mean watching a Christmas Wiggles movie). Mom and Rachel are gone for the weekend at Mom&Me camp with Girl Scouts and Dad's working late tonight so it's just us. We've got a fire going, movie playing and are planning to roast some marshmallows in a little bit. Guess we'd better get some sleep soon as well since I want to get to the zoo early while the Children's Zoo and Carousel are free in the first hour.

Night all!

 

[tmfranlk]

The other thing is that coverage does not begin the first day of employment. I can't remember what the wait time was. I *think* it was 30 days. The reason I think that is because we had 45 days to enroll in COBRA, and you can do it retroactively. We knew if we made it though those 30 days with no huge medical expenses that we wouldn't need the COBRA.
He had looked at working for Lowe's and their insurance was after 90 days. They wouldn't give him a sign-on bonus or waive the 90 days so we would have been paying COBRA for 3 months.

Yeah, 30 days works with the whole COBRA thing, but there's no way they could do 90. That's a lot of money to COBRA, but then with the looming issues they couldn't take the chance either. There's no telling (and no advance notice) when his liver will land him in the hospital for a week.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Tia, have fun tomorrow!
I like Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas. It was one of Brother's absolute favorites to get at the liberry, even though he is Jewish!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Yeah, 30 days works with the whole COBRA thing, but there's no way they could do 90. That's a lot of money to COBRA, but then with the looming issues they couldn't take the chance either. There's no telling (and no advance notice) when his liver will land him in the hospital for a week.

There were other reasons he didn't accept that job (they couldn't tell him what the hours would be, the pay wasn't really competitive for the market), but the insurance was a BIG factor.

I hope Brendan's interview goes well! I hope he is patient, because it took about 6 months for DH to get through the hiring process! But maybe warehouse personnel are hired in on a more timely basis than drivers.