And it keeps on coming...

You know, I really am an optimistic person. I try my best to think of what the good part of any scenario could be. This week is killing me, though.

Monday, I get a letter from Highmark saying "thanks, but no thanks" to giving me insurance. The good news is that they are happy to insure JP, but not someone who was last in the ER because of a spinal headache. They did tell me that if I'd like to appeal this decision, they might consider letting me have insurance for a "premium". Might. And it will take them 60 days to decide that. Meanwhile, my insurance expires at the end of this month, and JP doesn't start work until after Labor Day. This means several things:

1) I have to cancel my appointment that I had to wait six months to get with the MS clinic because I can't really afford the $300some dollars that I expect it to cost.
2) I absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, hurt myself this summer. While I have gone longer than 4 months without a trip to the ER, because of my clumsiness, I feel it's a big risk. Random car accident? I'd be utterly fucked, financially speaking.
3) Anyone who doesn't believe in some sort of socialized medicine (even just catastrophic coverage!) is currently on my shit list. Sorry, but I can't wrap my head around why health insurance as a BUSINESS is an acceptable practice, making tons of money, while people who are willing to pay for your product are without coverage because it's just not worth it for you, according to your actuarial tables. Health insurance decisions made by people who are not healthcare workers fill me with rage.

Then, I'm rereading my notice for jury duty. I've actually been chosen to be on a statewide grand jury, a rare occurance. I research this. This is not the kind of jury duty where you show up and then read a book for awhile, and then leave. It involves serving for one week a month for up to 18 months. And they want written documentation of why you wouldn't be able to serve. Really? I need to bring a note from my employer saying that they won't pay me to take a week off every month? Then I need to bring in my lease, stating what my rent costs, to prove that I can't live on 3/4 of my salary? How about when I go back to school? I need an official document that states missing a week of school each month will be detrimental to earning my degree? How about my non-refundable plane ticket to Europe for 3 weeks in August?

I guess for the jury duty, I can say that the silver lining is that I get to really experience our justice system, but I'm struggling to see it for the health insurance. Help?

Spring Cleaning

On the subject of winter being over (even though it is currently snowing, lol), I decided to do a real spring cleaning this year. I spent 4 hours going through and reorganizing my sewing/craft/art corner (a very small section of the office). I spent another two reorganizing my desk. And today, I spent about an hour creating a spring cleaning list based on a link from one of my favorite blogs. See, I've never done a spring cleaning before. JP and I have always moved every year, so things that should be cleaned once a year get done when we move. Since we've been here for about 3 years now, I figured maybe I should do some things. I washed two of our windows, and I'm beginning to think that the kitchen being dim had nothing to do with the lightbulbs (YUCK!). I wiped off all the doorknobs and light switches. Then I washed the baseboards. Now I feel like this is starting to get into the territory of crazy anal retentiveness. Should I really pull the refrigerator out and clean behind it? Pull all of the dishes out of the cabinets and clean them out? How exactly do I clean the inside of the dishwasher (and I'm sorry - its job is to wash things. Is it really dirty inside there?)? Do I really need to wash every wall, top to bottom? Do I have to take down all my art to do that? How exactly do you wash a shower curtain liner?

I guess what I'm really asking of all you adults is - Do you do all this? Have I been failing these past years? Should I have children just so I can have a source of cheap labor for tasks such as these?