Write From Karen

(My Reflections posts are more stream-of-consciousness kind of posts so I apologize up front if some of what you read doesn’t make sense. But this is me we’re talking about here so … are you really surprised?)

January 1:

And so it begins, another year. Let’s make it a good one! I have two words for this year: simplify and determination. I bought a sign from Amazon that I plan on hanging on the wall behind my desk – it says “Don’t Wait,” but then the n’t and the Wa are crossed out so it really says, “Do it.” I bought it to remind me, every single day, that time is ticking, no more procrastination, and for it to show up when I start a podcast. More on that later. (I hope). I have discovered, (or more like verified), that I focus better when I have a few things going on at once. For instance, I have a gamer’s stream on in the background while I type this. I don’t know why this works for me, or what it might say about my personality, but it seems to work for me. Took the Christmas tree down today. (That’s about the only decoration we really do around the holidays) because 1. I’ve had it up since the second week of November and I’m sick of it and 2. I didn’t want to have that chore nagging my subconscious all day, (“I really need to take the tree down – I’ll do it in a few hours.”), you know, eat the frog first thing in the morning mentality. I’m striving to eat more frogs this year. Now it’s down and done. Feels good.

January 2:

Back to work! Morning was a bit slow but I had some cases and problem solving issues to work on late morning. One of the current UAT members was out today and they the UAT team was SWAMPED with requests. If it’s like that again tomorrow, I’m going to message my supervisor to see if I can work some of the cases and help them out. I’m a bit nervous but I would rather help now and get a feel for the pace than wait until I don’t have a choice but jump in with both feet. At least this way, I can dip in a toe. Back to walking on the treadmill today. I ended up walking four miles. I walked one mile when I got up this morning, 5:30 to 6:00 AM, another mile mid-day, right before lunch, and then another two miles after I clocked off. I sped walked after I clocked off and got sweaty – the other two miles were nice and easy. So, I ended up walking 14,000 steps today. Hopefully, that worked off a bit of the junk I ate over the holiday.

January 3:

Woke up to a cold house – it was 56 degrees in the house this morning. I don’t what is going on with our heater but I HATE it. We’ve had so many problems with the stupid thing; we just spent $1,000 replacing some electronic gadget a few months ago and here we are again, no heat. Kevin looked at it and it will ignite but it won’t produce a flame. It’s like there is a gas disconnect, yet, we have hot water. So, we called our HVAC guys – they know us pretty good between the number of times they have had to come over to our house and our rental house across the street. In the meantime, I’m wearing a t-shirt, hoodie and hoodie jacket, two pairs of socks and gloves because my fingers feel like they are going to fall off. Thankfully, we have space heaters, so I’m holed up in my office with the space heater cranking and that IS working, thank goodness. The HVAC guy arrives about 1ish and I’m by myself. Kevin had to take his dad to an audiologist to have his hearing checked, so I read Kevin’s text to the guy, “tell him that the igniter is clicking but there is no flame.” When I told the guy this, he nodded and said, “I think I know what it might be.” But what I heard was, “awesome – we’re gonna charge the crap out of these people.” He was very nice and it only took him a moment to figure out what was wrong. When he was telling me what was wrong, Kevin came home, perfect timing, and he fixed out problem. Somehow, a wire got cut, severed, something, and was disrupting the connection. He was able to resplice it and just charged us the service fee of coming out. WOOHOO! I was okay with that because it was a minor fix and didn’t I didn’t have to sell my last kidney. So we have heat, just in time for snow on Friday. Sweet. My supervisor contacted me today and asked if someone in our group, (we’re the red group), could work a case that had expired and needed an updated authorization for the test that was scheduled for Friday. I volunteered and got it quickly, about 15 minutes. I think, (hope), my supervisor was impressed – she gave me a clapping emoji so I’m assuming she was pleased. It’s the little things, folks, that keep me going.

January 5:

It snowed today. Sort of. White flakes definitely fell but none of it stuck, thank goodness. I love snow, if I don’t have to get out in it, or none of my loved ones have to get out in it. I always worry about the boys driving in the snow, even though they are grown men, but if you’re a mama, you know, you never stop worrying about your children. Snow is coming, though. Tuesday’s forecast is calling for snow, but then it’s supposed to get up to the 40’s the next day so if it snows, it won’t stick around. I’m more worried about next Friday – 2-5 inches forecasted and the temps are not supposed to be over freezing for the week following that. So, if we get snow, it will stick around for a bit. This is how I view the winter months – how long will it stick around? It helps to plan. Especially since we were caught with our paints down during the infamous ice storm of 2007. (We were without power for 11 days and were so unprepared for the hardships!). By the way, do you like the puppy banner on my blog? It’s one of my favorites and melts my heart every time I look at it. And I’m not a dog person. Wait. Back up. I like dogs, if they belong to someone else. Come look at it if you’re reading this in your email. I had a butt-pucker moment today. (I don’t care who you are, everyone can relate to butt-pucker moments). One of my supervisors messaged me asking for my daily totals for the month of December. Oops. I honestly forgot to keep track. Also, I was embarrassed to keep track because – WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING? NOTHING! Well, not nothing, just not the volume that I know my co-workers are getting. Why? Because I haven’t been assigned anything specific yet and I’ve been stealing from other people’s folders. Though to be fair, I have 50 cases lined up to work on my desktop, but they’re all dated a few weeks out and I don’t want to work them too soon. So I end up working about 6 cases a day because of my theft. Anyway. She was very understanding but I’ve been asked to keep track of my cases from this point forward. Which, I have been, but again, I’m embarrassed. I’m tempted to “remind” her that I haven’t been assigned anything specific yet and am sort of a “freelancer” at this point in time. Though, I do feel like I made some brownie points today – the ECHO requests have been a little out-of-control and it doesn’t look like anyone has really been working them. Some of the girls complained about it and the team lead told everyone that the people that have been assigned the A-L’s have been really busy. So, I privately messaged the team lead and offered to help out. Which, I’m happy to do – WORK. I’ll take it. But it also didn’t hurt that I reached out and she was very appreciative – pst – pass that along to the supervisors, will ya?

January 9:

Big, fat flakes are falling from the sky right now and I’m not happy about it. I don’t mind snow, per se, as long as I, or anyone in my family, doesn’t have to get out in it and/or drive in it. Because I don’t care how old your children get, they are still your children and you worry about them being on slick streets. I know they can handle it, that’s not what makes me nervous, it’s the idiots out there that drive like weather doesn’t affect them the same as the rest of us mere mortals. Luckily, it’s supposed to be over 40 degrees tomorrow so it will melt off, however, we’re supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow Friday and the temps won’t be over freezing for nearly a week so if we get that snow, it will stick around. Ugh. I subscribed to a gamer/streamer today. His name is Casey and he remind me so much of Blake … he even looks like Blake. And if Blake ever started streaming like this kid does, I would hope people would support him. He also reads a random Bible chapter before each stream. Who does that?? I admire his courage and his willingness to spread God’s word through his talents – and that happens to be through gaming. It warms my heart and gives me hope that there are decent people out there. I’ve also been really hooked on the Wendy Bell Radio Program. He vlogs live on Rumble every day from 8:00 to 11:00 AM and not only do I like what she has to say, and I enjoy her passion, but it’s interesting to watch behind-the-scenes of her radio show. Highly recommend. Had an impromptu Teams meeting today. They want the UAT (Urgent Action Team) to work on some VA documentation. I’m down with that! Whatever they can give me, I’m on it. Not only will it give me something to do but I’ll get more experience in the various precertification duties which will come in handy if/when I ever apply for a Team Lead position. See? Always thinking ahead.

January 10:

Today started off by breaking the treadmill. I hopped on at 5:30 AM, started it up and the belt suddenly takes off and nearly throws me off, then there’s a power surge and the thing shuts off. Scared me to death. Kevin thinks it’s a capacitor thing-a-mig and he thinks he might be able to fix it. And he might, but my point is, how much time will it take him and how much will the part cost us because I can get a decent treadmill, on Amazon, for about $300 bucks. We’ve had this monster treadmill since 2007. And Kevin remembers this, (because let’s face it, I don’t remember squat, EVER), because we had just bought the thing right before the infamous ice storm of 2007 and wasn’t able to use it for two weeks because we were without power for nearly two weeks. So, it’s been 16 years – the thing is probably worn out. And no, we didn’t use it every day, every week, but we definitely got our money’s worth out of it. I’m ready to throw in the towel and get a new one but I have to wait on Kevin to get there – it will take a few days but I predict he’ll throw the towel in at some point. Ha! I got called out at work today. People finally figured out I was stealing work from them. New alphas were assigned to everyone and some girl asked, “what is Karen doing? Is she helping all of us?” which was really code for, “I see you taking my stuff – now stop it!” I responded with, “I’m hanging in the wings until UAT gets up and running so, yes, I’ve been everywhere.” Which sort of shut everyone up and then to my pleasant surprise management had my back and basically said the same thing. But it doesn’t really matter now because I have what I need to start working on the VA project they wanted me to help with and we have a meeting tomorrow, just the UAT group, so I’m assuming we’re going to get this ball rolling since we now have about four weeks before the old UAT contract runs out and we take over. We’ll see. All of the snow melted off today. It was sunny and nearly 50 degrees! Mom goes over to Aunt Susie’s tomorrow to help her and I’m grateful the weather is supposed to be nice again. However, we are forecasted to have negative degree weather this weekend so …

January 11:

My brain hurts. More than usual, ha! I worked ten cases and it was pulling teeth getting an authorization, (though one was denied), from the insurance companies. And then, I started working on the VA project. Which is not bad, at all. In essence, I am putting authorizations into the patient’s charts and notifying the offices so they can schedule the patient. I’m shuffling documents. Not hard. But learning the process, navigating a few programs I’m not familiar with was time consuming and consumed a lot of brain power. And we all know, I have limited resources there. But today, TODAY, was more like it. I’m used to being busy. I’m used to being challenged and having a lot of work to do. It comforts me to have 50 things to do on my desktop because I know I’ll be staying busy. Having things caught up? Not what I’m used to. So though I’m looking forward to tackling the UAT very soon, it’s also designed to work fast and be caught up. I’m used to working fast and not being caught up. It will be an adjustment, but I’ll just have to find my new normal. Since my hand was slapped for stealing other people’s work, (I’m really okay with that, btw, I knew I was pushing the limits), my desktop is dwindling down. I had 50, now I have 35 and it makes me nervous. Am I weird for wanting to be buried in work? That’s makes me weird, right? Yeah, I thought so. Kevin took the treadmill panel off last night and removed some control board, electronic thing. He’s ordered a few parts for it so we’ll see if he can fix it. He fixed the treadmill he bought at a thrift store for cheap and it’s at the rental house – he uses it a few times a week. We could buy a treadmill at a thrift store, I would imagine that’s one of those things that people throw away barely used because intentions are always easier than actually carrying out the task, but then you run the risk of getting a crap machine that Kevin would once again have to spend time and money on when you can buy a brand new one and not worry about it … for a while. But I don’t trust the reviews on Amazon anymore, they seem to be so skewed, and I know they’re paid for a lot of times, so … can I trust buying a treadmill from Amazon? Not really. Let’s see if Kevin can wave his magic wand and fix it.

January 13:

Didn’t make it to mom’s today. It was bitterly cold. I could have gone though, it was sunny and the roads were clear, just cold. But me, mom and my sister all met up on Google Meet and chatted for a few hours, that was fun. It’s nice to have that option. There is a lot of things wrong with technology, but there are some good things, too. Like being able to see and talk to each other online.

January 14:

Cold and blustery day. Got some snow but not enough to be concerned about – just a coating, really, but it did stick to the streets. But very little ice so the streets are not great, but drivable. I don’t know why, but I’ve been obsessed with molasses cookies lately … and it’s not like I eat molasses cookies all the time, almost never, but mom made some for Christmas and everyone loved them so now, I want to make molasses cookies. I found this recipe online, braved the bluster day, (because that’s how much I WANTED molasses cookies), ran to the store, got the ingredients, (I did end up buying the Grandma’s molasses, which wasn’t cheap), came home, made them, and you know what? They’re pretty dang good! I’ll be making them again. And again, and again.

January 15:

Today was busy, it was weird. I signed on and noticed an email, right away, about a meeting, TODAY, at 8:00 AM. Wow. Talk about short notice. In fact, one of my UAT partners didn’t even see the email so by the time the meeting started, my supervisor had to see if she had clocked on and then message her about attending the meeting. This is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts, the lack of organization, coordination and communication, quite frankly. But to be fair, things are chaotic right now with the resignation of a very knowledgeable team lead and trying to get the new team lead up and running, and then the UAT switch over because it sounds like they want the new UAT using a new program and implementing a new work flow … so, I get it. But then, about 15 minutes into our meeting, it was discovered that me and my team mates didn’t have the option that we needed in order to DO the workflow so they had to cut the meeting short to reconvene. Again, I feel bad for management because how embarrassing, it’s not their fault that the people they trusted to do their part didn’t do their part. So, that was awkward. But we’ll get there. The clock is ticking though, we have four weeks until the current UAT contract runs out. And to top things off, the current UAT all had today off, I’m presuming because it’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. So, they were scrambling to figure out who was going to work the stat and urgent requests. I ended up talking to my supervisor, one-on-one later in the day, she wanted me to go through a folder that someone else was supposed to go through because she claimed she “wasn’t trained, or told what to do” with certain documents. It’s called common sense and unfortunately, not a lot of people seem to have it nowadays. Anyway, it made me feel good that my supervisor singled me out to clean up someone else’s mess. I’m used to that, quite frankly. Still super cold here, supposed to get down to -3 tonight. Our City Utility company left Kevin a message calling for everyone to conserve energy because there is such a drain on the natural gas supply. Though, yes, I agree, we need to conserve energy, (we already do our part, our thermostat is at a steady 65 degrees and we wear layers), we wouldn’t be in this predicament if our “esteemed” leaders hadn’t shut down our coal plant. Because of pressure from the environmental wackos, we now do not have enough energy to comfortably sustain us during extreme conditions. It’s a good thing we live in an area of the country that doesn’t really get this cold often, or for long periods of time, because it sounds we would have brown/black outs if so. Another stellar government decision, eh? We also paid off the balance for our cruise in May. It’s been four years since we’ve been on a cruise and I PRAY, the Demorats don’t concoct another disaster that prevents us from going, again. (We had planned our 30th wedding anniversary with a cruise to Europe that was supposed to take place in September 2020 – of course, it didn’t happen).

January 17:

Did I tell you I’m still keeping a journal? I gave up on Bullet journaling, though I did maintain it for three years – that’s gotta be a record for me – but now I’m using a weekly/monthly/planner that I’m cross-purposing with a journal. It’s this, if you’re interested. I feel the need to write something about my life every day, in some form. So, in addition to writing here, I jot down my thoughts in my planner/journal thingie. I’m on a mission to REMEMBER my life. It’s not that I forget the past, though I am forgetting the past, but that I tend to live for the future. What’s happening tomorrow. Am I prepared? I am trying to slow down and focus on the present and hopefully, this journal, this blog, will help me remember the past. Things are ramping up at work. We’re now navigating, (heh! management speak – i.e. using), a new program that we will be utilizing (using) as our work flow. I’m actually excited about this new program. It directly communicates with the registration people so that together, we can work on making patients’ diagnostic experiences not exactly pleasant, who LIKES laying on a hard, metal table and listening to an MRI machine clank and buzz all around you, but at least a little less painful. I’ve had meetings all week, I have another meeting tomorrow, and another meeting on Friday to “meet” the registration people we’ll be working with – putting a face with a name. Though uncomfortable, I think it’s a good idea to introduce the two groups and reiterate that we’re all on the same side and if we can work together, we’ll be unstoppable! (Okay, a little too enthusiastic there, but you get the drift). Mom wants to go to the Pinners conference in Kansas City in February. What’s a Pinners conference? Good question, I had no idea, either. I’m assuming, based on the title, it has something to do with Pinterest?

Yeah, I wish I had watched this before saying yes. HAHA! I’m all thumbs when it comes to crafting. Why do you think I stick to simple, place a bead on a canvas and call it a painting, craft? But I said yes and we’re going to the Kansas City conference in a few weeks. I’ve already booked a hotel and there is no cancellation policy – if we cancel we lose our money. Luckily, I found a hotel about one mile from the conference center so it wasn’t that much money and mom and I are splitting the cost so it won’t be the end of the world but … let’s just hope the weather holds out. It’s a gamble to book a trip during these months, but we’ll see how it goes. We plan on leaving as soon as I clock off from work on Friday, drive up there, (it’s about three hours), spend the night, spend all day Saturday at the conference, spend the night and drive back home on Sunday. We’ve invited my sister to go, we’ll see if she can make it. I’m excited! I love road trips and it will be fun to hang out with mom for the weekend.

January 18:

Work is picking up. I’ve had a Teams meeting every day this week and one more tomorrow. Tomorrow’s meeting is a meet-and-greet with the preregistration people – putting a face to a name – working remotely has it’s own sets of challenges, but I was on a meeting all day today. We all went over the new program we’re going to be using for our work flow – which is management speak to the place we go to get our cases and record the outcomes of these cases. It was all day because my supervisor had all of us shut off our cameras/mics and work silently, so if there was a question, she was available to answer those questions. It was weird but effective and I appreciated having her available – again, you have to get creative when you work remotely. And though working from home has been great, it is lonely and though staying on Teams all day was a pain, it was nice to know there were other people just a click away. I’m feeling better about this job. I think it’s going to keep me quite busy and a lot of apprehensions I had going into this position has eased up some as the preregistration people will be responsible to getting, and verifying, the patient’s insurance which will be a huge weight off my shoulders. I’m optimistic! Kevin got the part for the treadmill, tried it, and the nothing , it’s still surging, causing a huge drain on the electricity, the lights flicker, speeds up for a second, then dies. He watched a YouTube video, (thank goodness for YouTube – too bad they went woke), and he thinks he knows what’s wrong. He ordered another part so we’ll see when it gets here. I MISS my treadmill! I literally sit all day/night – and it’s too cold to walk outside. Not good!

January 22:

Today started off with me, on my front porch at 7:00 AM, yelling to who I thought was Brandon walking out of the house to get into his car and go to work saying, “Don’t do it! It’s not worth it!” I nearly fell off our porch with my intensity. It was one of those whisper-yells because I wanted him to hear me but I didn’t want to wake up the neighbors. When the person turned around, it was actually LeRoy throwing salt onto his sidewalk. Why the dramatics, you ask? It was icing. It had been icing all night long and the roads had that eerily beautiful sheen, which, if you live in the Midwest/Eastern side of the states, means one thing: ICE. The streets were sheer ice; the only way to get around was to don your ice skates and skate your happy butt down the middle of the street. And it was continuing to sleet and it wasn’t supposed to stop all day and I had visions of my second-born son having an accident and I didn’t really feel like having a heart attack today, so I hurried back into the house and promptly called him. He didn’t answer. Now I have visions of him on the road, hunched over the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white, his mouth set into a grim, determined, focused grimace and here I am, distracting him with a ringing phone. This is the curse of having an over-active imagination, ya’ll. However, to my surprise, he text back. And then, of course, I immediately thought, what are you doing!?! You’re driving, concentrate!” but he said that he nearly fell in the driveway and hadn’t left home yet. Thank God! He called me and I “gently” advised him to stay home, that our roadway guys were advising everyone to stay home, if possible, and that there were already reports of several accidents around town, it wasn’t worth it. So, he didn’t go to work and I was able to get my heart rate back under control. It was a good call, if I say so myself. It continued to sleet/rain all day. Luckily, the temperatures went up as the day progressed and stayed above freezing, otherwise, we would have easily had another horrific ice storm of 2007 on our hands. (We had an inch and a half of ice in 2007 and the whole city was without power for a week). We had already accumulated 1/4 inch of ice by the time the temps rose so, honestly, we were lucky. God was watching out for us. That’s one thing we get a lot of around here, ice. We don’t get a lot of snow, but we do get a lot of ice. Which is the worst!! Way worse than snow. At least with snow, you have some traction, ice … you’re at the mercy of momentum and gravity. Mid-morning, Kevin calls me and says, “look out the window.” The front of our house faces the front of the rental house across the street and I have a window that is right next to my desk, so, I lean to the side to look out the window. We have five huge Oak trees lined up, standing guard, in front of the rental house. And the tree closest to the intersection, (we live on a corner), had split in two and toppled over into the street completely blocking the intersection.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, RIGHT NOW?! So, we apparently got enough ice to crack a rotting Oak tree in half, thank goodness we hadn’t gotten more ice. Kevin called the police, but he couldn’t get through so he called 911 to tell them what had happened. He figured help would come sooner than calling our utility people and he was right. A police office dropped by to access the damage and called the utility people to come out and start the clean up. They would only clear the intersection though, the rest of the clean up would be our financial responsibility, which we knew, of course. I’m just thankful the tree hadn’t fallen onto the rental house or ripped down some powerlines. It could have been a lot worse. So, we ended up paying some people to chainsaw the tree and clear it out for a whopping $1,500 dollars. Mature trees are awesome, but they’re also a pain and incredibly expensive and we’re surrounded by mature trees – awesome. Work was also stressful because we were supposed to start our UAT process sans the old group. We learned, very quickly, that we were not ready, which I knew we were not ready but I’m not the boss, so I kept my mouth shut, and we were left scrambling and asking the old group to continue working as usual. I don’t know why they just don’t hold off on the switch off until 2/15 when the old group’s contract runs out because by then, we should be ready to take over – it would be a lot smoother transition, but again, I’m not the boss, so …

January 24:

Still without a treadmill. Kevin got the part he was waiting on but it didn’t fix it and I think I’ve convinced him that it’s not really worth his time, or our money, to fix a treadmill that is 16 years old. But I NEED a treadmill. I sit all day for work and then I sit all night working on crafts, it’s not healthy. Kevin went to Academy Sports, (I always forget about that company, probably because I despise sports), and was texting me pictures of treadmills. The prices are not as bad as I thought they might be so I’m encouraged. We actually saw a Nordictrack on Amazon for $800 as well, but you have to literally put it together and though people swear it’s not that hard and there’s even a video on the Amazon listing that shows you how to do it, we’re still going to check out the ones at Academy Friday night, our “date” night, and hopefully, pick one out and bring it home. I feel like a slug and my energy is low, probably because I sit all day!

January 25:

This is precisely why I wanted to change jobs and work from home. I dropped my car off for an oil change and tire rotation and it was nice to just set my status as be right back and I was able to drop it off and be back home in no time. (Granted, the oil change place was close to home, but still). Now my car is set and road-trip ready for our trip to Kansas City next weekend. They tried to sell me an air filter for $45 dollars, not including the labor, but I said no. But, I don’t think my air filter has been replaced … ever. My car is a 2017 Buick Encore with 28,000 miles on it so it’s not like I’ve driven it into the ground without taking care of it, but changing the air filter is probably a good idea. So, Kevin bought an air filter from O’Reilly’s and will replace it for me. It was nice to just leave work for a minute and get that done as opposed to saving errands like that for only the weekends.

January 26:

Went to Academy sports, Play it Again, Sports and Wal-Mart hunting for a treadmill. Academy actually had a really great deal but they didn’t have any more of the treadmills in stock, probably because it was such a good deal and Play it Again Sports was astronomically expensive – like $2500 dollars expensive. Uh, no. Wal-Mart had the same kind of treadmill as Academy for about $100 more but the only box remaining looked pretty beat up so we passed on that one. I actually found a NordicTrack, the same one I have now, on Amazon for a decent price so we may end up getting that one. All I know is that I NEED to get back to walking. Soon.

January 28:

Found out my husband has a female naked torso in his man cave:

You know how I found that out? I went to Kevin’s Google Photos to find a picture of the tree that split in half and stumbled across this gem. When I asked him about it he said they found the mannequin torso at some thrift store, put some lights in it and hung it on the wall. Why am I surprised by this? Because I haven’t been to his man cave in quite some time so I had no idea what he had in it and now, I don’t think I want to go in there. Ha! But you have to admit, it’s a creative way to spice the place up. Also, his man cave is in the basement of the rental house across the street, the same house that our boys live in so it’s a house full of men – is anyone surprised to find a woman’s naked torso in a house full of men? It’s like a frat house. I guess every man needs a man cave. Oh well, the less you know, am I right? Bought a webcam for my personal computer today. I was gifted an Amazon gift card from my old work peeps and I cashed it in for a webcam today. I plan on recording some videos and starting a Locals page. I would like to talk about politics, cultural madness and maybe post some of my writing over there. I’m looking into Riverside.fm to host the videos – we’ll see how that works out. I’m keeping my blog for my personal thoughts and daily life journal stuff. I figured people who visit here probable aren’t interested in political stuff but if that’s your jam and you want to join my Locals page, we can have a conversation over there about the craziness that is happening all around us. I’ll post a link to my Locals … at some point. Still need to do a bit of tweaking and post a few things there first before I start throwing links around.

January 31:

And just like that, the first month of January is OVER. Gah! Why??? Time moves too fast. Can someone out there invent something to make time move slower?? This week … wow – soooo many meetings. We’ve really been amping this process up. The current UAT team messed up, made management mad and now we’re fully taking over on Monday. S’ok though, I think we’re ready. I feel like we’ve pretty much talked this process to death, it’s time not dip our toes in the water, but someone needs to push us in. I’m nervous, not gonna lie, but there is a lot of support and the pressure is off because if a doc orders something stat or urgent, they are going to get it done, regardless of whether we have the auth or not. We just have to make sure we started the process on the day of the test because insurance companies won’t do “retro” auths, which means, they won’t authorize something that has already been done. So that pressure is off. Ad we have a program now that seems organize everything, so I think we’re ready. My boss did volunteer me for another project, ambulance rides and direct admits to the hospital. Not sure what that’s really about but I’ll be working some requests that come from those directions, too. It will be nice to fully take over – it’s exhausting to follow someone’s work, make sure it gets done, because you’re getting into the middle of something as opposed to knowing what’s going on from the start. I’m just ready to stop with the meetings. I’m done with the video meetings. It was fun at first, now, I’m over them. Friday is coming up soon! Mom and I will take off at noon for Kansas City to attend the Pinner’s conference! I’m looking forward to a road trip with mom. Temps are supposed to be mild but it looks like we’re going to hit some rain. Oh well, we’ll just pack umbrellas. Thanks for reading ya’ll. See you next month!

December 2:

Today was long and interesting. Got up at 5:00 AM, as usual, got ready and met my mom at a Junior High School in a neighboring city. She was having her one-day Christmas craft show and I went along to support and help her. She had virtually everything set up by the time I got there. It was from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and she sold about $150 worth of merchandise. Not bad for 7 hours. I helped her break everything down and we had to load up in the rain. You can read more about this day here, but it got me excited to put some of my diamond painting stuff in her next craft show. And I ended up buying a bunch of things on Temu in preparation. Oh, did I tell you guys? I’m into diamond painting now. It’s like paint-by-number only you glue shiny beads onto the canvas instead of painting. It’s pretty fun. A bit hokey, but I enjoy it.

December 11:

Wow – look at how much time has gone by since my last entry. But there’s not a lot to write about. I’ve been pretty bored at work – nothing new there. However, we did have a meeting this past Thursday where we introduced ourselves to our UAT group and were told that the people currently working UAT have not been told they will not have a job in a few months. Awesome. So. We’re waiting for that to happen so that we can start shadowing them and watching their progress. I’m sure it won’t be awkward at all! I’m sure they will welcome the people coming in to take their jobs with open arms. Gah! Their contract runs out February 15th so … another two months of stealing work from other people’s folders. Because that’s what I’ve been doing, ya’ll, stealing. I’ve been trying to be sneaky about it but … I HAVE to practice! I can’t just sit around and do nothing! Even if I felt okay with the company paying me not to do anything, (which I absolutely don’t!), I can’t just not do anything! I’m a proactive kind of girl so … I’ve been reduced to stealing from others until either A. I get in trouble or B. they assign me something concrete to work on. To say I feel a little dirty right now would be an understatement. It’s been confirmed, my side of the family is coming over to our house for Christmas, on Christmas Eve day. My great-niece will be there, she’s six, (seven?) and it will be fun to spoil her. Otherwise, it will be a day of stuffing our faces and playing games. Nope, I’m not ready for Christmas yet. Our boys are men now so other than gift cards and cold hard cash, I don’t know what to give them. It would be nice if they could open SOMETHING up on Christmas day. Mom is really struggling getting through the holidays without dad. She is doing a great job of keeping a stiff upper lip around all of us but I know she spends her nights crying. It breaks my heart and I feel helpless – I don’t know what to do or how to comfort her. Everything sounds so … trite when compared to the sheer strength of her grief. She’s been staying busy though, which helps, so I’m really proud of her for that. Kevin is now officially retired and he’s feeling a little … directionless. He has a TON of things he can do to keep him busy but when you work all your life and suddenly you don’t have that responsibility anymore, it’s a weird adjustment.

December 12:

Good grief, I’ve got someone shadowing me tomorrow. Me. Ms. Bored McGee, responsible for showing someone what to do. I haven’t even been doing this job for 8 weeks yet and here I am, training someone. Typical, right? So, I have no idea what I’m doing with this chick tomorrow. I guess I can show her the art of stealing. I’m pretty good at that. I did make some notes and we do have some cases, (that I stole), to work but … I think I’ll hide the list of cases I stole because I don’t want her going back to the other girls saying, “Wow. Karen is so busy! You should see her desktop!” Then, they will connect the dots and think, “so THAT’S where my stuff has been disappearing to!” Brandon’s car is still leaking. But luckily, it’s not leaking oil, it’s leaking water. He took it back to the mechanic and the guy was like, “yeah, no. I’m not taking this thing apart again.” Which is disappointing but I’m not sure he should have the same guy work on it again. The car is working fine. It drives fine. And his water level is okay, so it must be a slow leak, but Bran doesn’t really trust his car anymore so now he’s nervous. Kevin and him worked on the numbers on how much it would cost to buy a new car, a used car or leasing a car and they came to the conclusion that he just needs to drive this car until it won’t drive anymore. Thanks to Bidenomics, cars are almost too much to afford nowadays. The weather has been amazing. Sunny and mid-50’s. What a warm, unusual December. It must be climate change! *snort* I’m kidding. I’m sure we’ve had warm, or even warmer, Decembers in the past. Weather is cyclical, people. Hence the reason we have averages. Made a turkey breast in the crockpot yesterday, along with real mashed potatoes and had that for lunch today. Yum!

December 13:

I’m brain dead. My brain is puddle of mush and it’s running out of my ears. (I needed to clean my ears out anyway). I trained today. But really, we trained each other because remember, I’ve only been working this new gig for about seven weeks now. I was pretty surprised that I was asked to begin with, and a little annoyed, not gonna lie. I can’t even be incognito, or fly under the radar, and I’m STILL picked off. lol I’m happy to help and I actually enjoy training but it’s the blind leading the blind at this point. And OF COURSE, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. It was one of those two steps forward, one step back kind of day. However, we learned a lot about troubleshooting and we had some laughs so it was all good. One of the supervisors contacted her and said she could hang out with someone else tomorrow if she wanted and she told her, no thanks, I’m happy with Karen. Ha! I don’t think this supervisor was trying to imply, “Ew, Karen! Really?” But rather, um, Karen has only been at this for 7 weeks, I’m not sure she’s the best choice and … I would have to agree. But hey, I’m a team player and it’s a good opportunity for me to learn some things, too. You really learn a lot when you have to explain it someone else. I’m continuing to steal work. In fact, one of the girls currently on the UAT (Urgent Action Team) team sent out a blast message with a “gentle” reminder not to work the requests that come through marked as urgent. Which I did, because I’m a stinker like that and I need to practice for when they set me free to roam the field on my own, so yes, she was directing that message at me. Am I used to being called out for doing more than my job? Yes. Do I care? Nope. Unless management tells me to stop, I will continue to be sneaky and steal work now and again. A few girls are out today so yep, I will be raiding their cupboards for juicy request morsels. I’ll be glad when my stealthy days are over and I’m actually in charge of SOMETHING. This sneaking around bit gets old, fast.

December 16:

Mom came over today for our weekly Saturday get together. We ate at a chicken salad place, Chicken Salad Chick, I think is the name of it. It was good, but too much bread. I think we’ll just get the scoop of chicken salad next time. The chicken salad was a BBQ blend and it was … okay. Not my favorite. We also got the potato soup and THAT was good. We’ll go back, just sans bread next time. After that, we came back home and watched a few more episodes of Survivor. We’re on Season 5 and they just surprised the players by making people change teams. I love when they do that. Really shakes things up. My mom says she wishes she could go on that show. I have a hard time seeing her on the show but you know what? I bet she would rock it and surprise everyone! We worked on some crafts after Survivor. Mom is making a really cute kitty purse for her great-granddaughter. She’s the only kid in our family right now so it’s fun to spoil her. Kev and I picked up some Culver burgers and concretes, (their concretes are a Saturday night tradition) and watched Insurgent, the second movie in the Divergent series. I like it, Kevin is bored.

December 17:

Normal Sunday chore day. Kevin’s folks came over at 3:00. I want to say this was the first time he has left his house since being in the hospital, but I could be wrong. He hasn’t been out much though, so it was a big deal to get him out. Kevin drove my car over to their house because it was easier to get him in/out of my car than it would have been with his truck. Jim did really well. He was getting around great and the headset/hearing aid he was wearing actually allowed him to hear our conversation. If I haven’t mentioned it, Jim is off Hospice and they put him on Home Health. How often does that happen?? It’s a miracle that he was able to come back from the brink of death. Kevin feels like this time with his dad is a bonus. My MIL bought a deli tray, HUGE deli tray, and we all had sandwiches, cookies and cake. We played the Left/Right game, which is a tradition with his parents now. They didn’t stay very long, just a few hours, Jim started to wilt and you could tell he was getting tired, so Kevin took them back home. It was great to see them both and Kevin said they REALLY enjoyed getting out of the house. Blake made it over but Brandon did not. He’s been sick. I feel like there is a lot of sickness running around right now. Brandon feels like he got it from a truck driver that came into the office. I asked Kevin to take over some Vitamin C and some Zinc for him. Hopefully, that helps.

December 18:

Back to work. Today is the last day the new girl is hanging out with me. It’s been a wild four days with her. A lot of problem solving, which, I don’t have a lot of patience for, quite frankly. But I need to get used to it because there is a lot of problem solving in this job. I am ready to hand off the new girl, though. I had to give her some of my work to practice on and I don’t have a lot of work to hand off, so, I’m ready to get back to my normal self. She’s very sweet though. We have a lot in common. She’s also a medical assistant, she came from Peds, (aw), married and a grown son. We had a lot to talk about. They haven’t assigned her an alpha yet either so she’s also sort of floating, though, she’s still training. I think she will do fine once she gets more familiar with navigating the insurance websites, but I think she will struggle a bit as she doesn’t seem like she thinks too quickly. I found myself rolling my eyes a few times at some of her questions. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I get impatient with people. I know, shocker. Kevin and I did a lot of Christmas shopping when I got off work. We headed to a Walmart in a different part of town because when I went on the hunt for gift cards last year, our nearest Walmart didn’t have squat. We bought some food to make the taco soup I’ll make for Christmas Eve and some gift cards. Kevin wanted to buy Super Mario Wonder, a switch game, for LeRoy but that Walmart didn’t have it. When we checked online, we saw that another Walmart had it so we headed over there to buy it. While we were there, we bought the boys a waffle, stretchy shirt, and a dress polo shirt for Brandon to wear to work in the summer. We then headed over to Dollar Tree, (though now everything is $1.25 – no longer just a $1, thanks Biden!) and bought a ton of stuff for stocking stuffers. Kevin bought quite a bit for LeRoy’s stocking, too. We ended up shopping for nearly three hours but we made a large chunk in our Christmas shopping. The boys’ Christmas gifts are arriving from Amazon either today or tomorrow and then … we’ll be really close to being ready for our party on Christmas Eve. I ended up walking 14,000 steps today. Woot!

December 19:

I’m so ANNOYED!! I’m going to have to go to the dentist. I’ve got a crown that has been loose for a while and now, whenever I accidentally chew on that side of my mouth, (because yes, I’m chewing on one side of my mouth right now), it’s painful. Whenever there is food on that side of my mouth, I can feel it pull the crown up and instant discomfort. I shouldn’t say pain, it’s not really painful, just uncomfortable. I’m predicting they are going to tell me I need ANOTHER root canal. I think I’ve had .. four or five to this point. I need to call and make an appointment for a cleaning so they can take an xray and tell me what needs to be done. I just had a root canal earlier this year. Honestly, I’m tempted to just have all of my teeth yanked out. Found out today that medical assistants got a .75 cent raise!! Wow! Except … it does not apply to me. Because according to Human Resources, I’m no longer a medical assistant, even though I still have a valid medical assistant certificate, (which I just renewed, by the way, it cost me $143!!). I’m confused and a little pissed off, quite frankly. This .75 cents is cost of living that has gone up these past three years because .. Bidenomics … and I get why they are giving it to existing medical assistants, they ARE undervalued, in my opinion, but also … I’m chopped liver now, I guess. We’ll see how this trickles down to my end of the cesspool in the coming weeks but for now – wow. I feel a little bit insulted. Stepped into a boxing ring today – with an insurance company. I had two cases pending from the same insurance company and MAN, did I have to jump through some hoops. One office needed to contact the patient to ask if he had had an MRI done that was approved back in June by another provider because the insurance company wouldn’t pay for an additional one without knowing if it was done or not and the doctor responded back to me with, “I don’t see he had the MRI done with us, unless he had it somewhere else.” *Facepalm* THAT’S WHAT I’M ASKING! So. I said screw it, I called the patient myself because it would have taken too much time to get someone from the doctor’s office to do it and the patient told me he hadn’t had it done. I called the insurance company back. Nope, not good enough. They needed either the original provider’s office to call and withdraw their authorization, and by the way, they wouldn’t tell me who the provider was so I couldn’t contact them myself, or the patient would have to call himself and tell them he didn’t have it done. I told the office that. But before the patient could call, the insurance company denied the request! AARGH! The patient ended up saying forget it because he was getting ready to get a new insurance beginning January 1st so he’ll just wait and try again at that time. Sooo much time wasted. I need a punching bag in my office.

December 20:

Brandon’s car has a leak. It’s a water leak this time. Kevin has been busy watching YouTube videos, (thank goodness for YouTube! I just wish they weren’t so tyrannical), and he thinks he knows how to fix it. He said when he was in Brandon’s car looking around the mechanic that replaced Brandon’s oil/water pump and timing chain seemed to do a pretty good job. I was so relieved to hear that! We were worried that the mechanic screwed Brandon. But Kevin bought the parts and he fixed it!! He’s such a good man! Handy to have around! ha! Brandon didn’t go to work again yesterday. He’s feeling better today. I feel like there is a lot of sickness going around right now. LeRoy is feeling sick now, too. Hopefully Blake and Kevin don’t catch it. Finally bringing myself to eat the eggs the chickens are laying. I still have to buy normal eggs, because we’re all eating eggs and though most days we get five eggs, (we have five hens), some days we don’t so we run out. But I have noticed that the yolks from our grandchickens are a lot more yellow than the ones we buy in the stores. I’m assuming this means they are more nutrient rich, which makes sense because Kevin feeds them REALLY well. It’s safe to say they are spoiled.

December 21:

Had a pretty productive day, at least, productive for me right now. Did about … six (?) cases and they all got approved, eventually. Some of them went to review, which means I have ot upload clinicals so the nurse reviewers can look at the documentation to determine if the request meets medical criteria. Not that I can take very much credit for that, it’s really the doctor’s documentation, but I have figured out that if I highlight the pertinent information in the notes and then upload those notes, I tend to get more approvals than denials. I’m learning tricks, ya’ll. My supervisor sent out an update today – they’re working on giving us access to a new program that is supposed to streamline the UAT process. So, I’m assuming that we’ll be busy learning this program next month, shadowing the current UAT team and finetuning our specific process. I’m excited for this. I focus better when I’m under pressure and I’m an excellent multi-tasker. I feel a little poopy today so I’ve been loading up on Vitamin C and Zinc. I’ve also been forcing myself to get on the treadmill after work every work day and that’s really hard when you feel like animal dung. I’m proud to say though, that I’ve been on the treadmill every work day since starting my work-from-home journey. I’m walking about 50,000 to 60,000 steps Monday through Friday. And you know what? I’m enjoying it. Because I sit on my butt ALL DAY. It feels good to stretch my legs and lungs. Kevin and I sorted through our Christmas stash tonight – I think we’re nearly ready!

December 23:

I’ve got a tooth hanging on by a thread. Well, it’s a crown that’s taking the rest of the tooth with it. It’s been loose for a while and I’ve just been putting off calling the dentist because … who WANTS to go to the dentist? But tonight, I ate something, which pulled it nearly off and now it’s sitting askew and throwing my bite off so … UGH. Annoying. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable and distracting. I’ve been eating on the opposite side of my mouth for weeks now and well, it’s caught up with me, just in time for Christmas. AWESOME! But I have no one to blame but myself. I’m predicting that the dentist will pop it off, (I hope – or it comes off before the dentist appointment, which I would prefer, honestly), and he will say I either need a root canal or have it cut out. Because there isn’t any tooth left to attach a crown, he will probably suggest I have it cut out and just have a hole, which I already have on the other side of my mouth from a tooth that broke off when I was pregnant with Blake. I had my first root canal on that tooth which was AWFUL and I threw up immediately after getting out of the chair afterward, but I think I would rather have another root canal than have it cut out. I’ve had several root canals now, not fun, but not scary anymore, and if the end goal is to have a hole, I would prefer the less invasive way, but we’ll see what he says. Sometimes I just wish I could get all of them pulled and get false teeth, I think I’m headed there anyway. And I’m not even that old! But I have always had bad teeth. UGH – so annoying!

December 24:

Today was tough. I was in a lot of pain all day. My tooth was really loose, which caused it to mess with the alignment of my teeth so that trying to bite down on anything was near impossible and painful so basically I gnawed the food to mush so that I could get to the point where I could swallow it. Other than my loose crown, everything went well. My brother and his family came over and my nephew’s family made it and mom brought over her famous Christmas goodies. We had taco soup and mom brought over potatoes and chicken salad. It was a rainy, gloomy day, but we all had a good lunch and then we had a mini birthday party for Hazel. When she was good and distracted, we pulled out the plastic wrap ball mom wrapped up and we played that game. Mom wrapped small items, as well as numbered cards in the ball and one person would roll the dice until they got doubles while another person unwrapped the ball. You kept unwrapping the ball until the person rolling the dice got doubles and you got to keep any items that fell out of the ball when you unwrapped it. After the ball was completely unwrapped, we picked gifts based on the numbered cards we got from the ball and grabbed a random gift. You had the option of stealing other people’s gifts. It was really fun and a game I think we will make a tradition. After everyone left, mom stuck around and we watched “Home Alone” and “Christmas with the Kranks.” We then helped mom get all of her stuff together and she went home. It was pitch black and rainy and I knew she was a bit of a mess missing dad so I worried about her getting home but she made it, safe and sound. She said there was hardly any traffic out, so that was good. All throughout the day, I continued to work my loose tooth with my tongue so that by the time we sat down to watch movies, I could practically turn it sideways. I was so sick of the thing that I ended up going into the restroom between the movies and yanking my damn tooth out. I couldn’t take it anymore, it was killing me. However, I have a huge hole in my mouth now as I took way more tooth out than I expected. It looks like my tooth broke under the gum. I’m saving it and will show it to my dentist when I go in. And yes, I will make an appointment, soonish, to find out what I need to do about this gaping hole in my mouth, but you know what? I feel SO MUCH BETTER since taking the damn thing out. And I’m not gonna lie, I feel sort of bad ass for yanking it out myself.

December 25:

It was a super chill day. We don’t have littles in the house anymore, no grandchildren, (*sad face*), so we told the boys to come over at noon for a big breakfast and gifts. Brandon made it over but Blake did not. Brandon opened his gifts and seemed to like the dash cam we bought him. He didn’t stick around after lunch, he wanted to meet a buddy of his online to play a new game they bought, but he did install the dash cam and said it was “slick.” Whatever that means, lol. We had tacos at 5:00 and Blake did make it over but he was gray and still not feeling the great. After questioning him on what medications he had taken he told me he HADN’T been taking any medications but couldn’t figure out why he was still sick. AARGH! Why do men turn into children when they are sick? So, mom mode kicked in and I made him eat some tacos, drink some ginger ale, take a couple of Tylenol and then gargle salt water after dinner because he said his throat felt like he was swallowing knives. He opened his gifts, (he got the same stuff as Brandon – they have always gotten the same stuff except for a few minor clothing changes), and then I talked him into sticking around to watch a movie. Brandon wasn’t interested in a movie and went back home. Blake wanted to watch an animated movie called “Klaus” on NetFlix. Which normally wouldn’t be an option because we don’t subscribe to NetFlix anymore since they’ve gotten so woke and are putting so many inappropriate shows on their platform, (saw some buzz on “Elite” – incest, a lot of gay stuff .. really twisted storylines – and who could forget “Cuties” about eleven-year old pole dancers??), but, LeRoy had a NetFlix subscription but had canceled it because he has Roku now and there are a TON of shows he can watch through that platform but Kevin wasn’t sure if it had fully canceled and when he checked it, Christmas Day was the last day of the subscription so we were able to watch “Klaus.” Klaus is the story of how Santa Claus began. It was a pretty cute movie, to be honest, and by the time it was over, Blake felt better. I made him take some Dayquil before he left, (because I’m mom and moms can make their early-30-something children do things they wouldn’t normally do), and urged him to take some Vitamin C when he got home. He called into work and said he would be “dinged” a few points for calling in on a holiday but he was so sick, there was no way he could go in. I’m sure his employer won’t believe he was actually sick but I can attest, that he was. I HATE when the kids get sick, even as adults, because I just feel so … hopeless and ya’ll know I HATE not feeling like I’m in control of situations!

December 26:

Hard to get back in the swing of things after the holidays. But it’s not as if I’m super busy to begin with though I have stolen 44 messages from various other folders that are waiting to be worked. Don’t be too impressed, these requests are not scheduled for a few weeks so I have some time to work on them. You don’t want to work a precertification too soon or you run the risk the patient reschedules the test and then the DOS (date of service) is outside the authorization window and you don’t want to wait too close to the DOS because if there is a problem, like insurance wants more documentation, etc., then you don’t have a lot of time to work out those kinks. Considering I’ve never been assigned a certain type of test and/or certain alphas to cover, I’m just picking and choosing testing for me to work on. I try to pick testing with insurances I’m not familiar with to not only get experience working with that insurance company but to challenge myself, too. Because let’s face it – I’M BORED.

December 27:

Want to hear something weird? I’ve been obsessed with streamers that play Fortnite. Weird, right? I’ve got a handful of Rumble streamers that I watch play Fortnite religiously. Not only do I find it entertaining to watch them but these streamers … are just a group of good people. They talk about their families, they seem to genuinely like each other, they’re funny and my favorite one is a Christian. He even goes so far as to read a random book from the Bible before his stream. How cool is that?! But honestly, it dawned on me today that the biggest reason I watch these people on Rumble is because they keep me company. Now that I work from home, and I’m pretty bored doing it, (can’t wait for February to get here!), I’m a bit lonely. True, I’m not really a people person – I CAN be a people person if the situation calls for it, but my go-to is being a loner. But there is only so much alone time a person can take before you start talking to yourself, (and answering yourself). I know Kevin said he would listen to podcasts while he worked to keep himself company, I hang out with streamers, apparently. An announcement was made today that one of our Team Leads was quitting. My first instinct was to think, “I could do that job! Pick me!” but let’s be real, I’ve only been with the department for eight weeks now and though I’ve had to steal work in order to do work and I know what I’m doing, no thanks to teaching myself, (can you tell I’m bitter?), I’m not ready for that responsibility yet. But someone will quit sooner or later and then all bets are off!

December 29:

First snow of the season. I hope the last snow of the season. I’m not a big fan of snow. Finished a diamond painting today. Because, what else am I going to do? I did work a few cases today – I had one that flat-out denied me because I didn’t choose the correct facility and one I had to fax in a prior authorization form, along with the records, for which I don’t even know if it went to the right area so I’ll have to call on that one, too, on Tuesday. Working from home has been great, but everything else? I’m beginning to think I made a mistake, quite honestly.

December 30:

Hung out with mom. We ate at Fazoli’s, went back to her house, watched a few episodes of Survivor, (they are getting ready to merge on season 5), and crafted to an audio book, “The Shack.” Kevin and I grabbed some Qdoba for dinner and a concrete from Culver’s (a weekly thing), and watched “Abduction.” Typical Saturday/night.

December 31:

Did typical Sunday chores, (laundry, clean bathrooms, floors, ) and then mom came over at 3:00. Though I told the boys mom would be coming over at that time, I didn’t really expect them to come over until closer to 5:00 when we had pizza. But I was pleasantly surprised when they came over at 3:00 PM and we played Carcassonne. I didn’t realize, though, that the game we pulled out was one that Kevin had bought at a thrift store and it included an expansion pack – a river. We had never played with a river before but it was hard to figure out and it added another challenging element. We played two games and my mom won the first one and Brandon won the second one. I placed last … I think both games. Typical. We had Godfather’s pizza for dinner and played a few games of Poker after dinner. We then watched “Escape from New York” with Kurt Russell and then mom left. We went ahead and watched “Idiocracy.” As the name implies, it was super dumb but it had a good message – about how people are becoming more and more dumb as the years progress and before long, we’ll be reduced to overgrown toddlers who think buttcheeks and farting are funny instead of figuring out how to keep the human race from dumbing itself into oblivion. I’m not sure the boys were big fans of the movie but that took us to midnight. The boys left shortly after that, Kevin went to bed and I stayed up till about 1:00 AM watching videos on Rumble until I fell asleep. Not a terribly exciting New Year’s Eve, but we had fun just being together. Because everyone says it, but it’s true, I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE STARTING ANOTHER NEW YEAR!