Daily Prompts

Comfort Zone, Media, Kids Today – DQ #3

Karen

Describe your comfort zone. The things you need in your life to feel safe.

I don’t have a comfort zone, I have a bubble. I always like to “jokingly”, (not really), tell people, “get out of my bubble.” I’m not a huggie person though I feel like I’m getting better and only with my family, definitely not anyone outside my family. As long as people respect my bubble, I feel happy and safe. But I’m not in a situation where I feel unsafe very often. Especially now that I work from home.

My “comfort” zone is home, in my office, the sunlight streaming through my window, the space heater thawing my bones – just peace and quiet, no drama. My family is my comfort zone.

I feel very fortunate that I have a good life. I know so many people can not say that. There are so many people who are surrounded by ugly, selfish, abusive people, who live in a perpetual state of fear and stress. I’m sorry if you’re in that situation. I hope you can get out of that situation, soon.

Life is too short to be miserable. Truly.

What is the role of most news media in shaping our beliefs for this world? Is it a message of love or one of fear they share?

Wow, this is a loaded question, buckle up, peeps.

The news media’s original role was to inform the people of what was happening locally, nationally and globally. It was created to educate people on the world outside our doors. However, these past few decades, the media no longer informs us, it tries to bully, guilt, scare us into believing whatever the agenda is for that day. It’s about preaching to us from a corrupt pulpit, to indoctrinate us to a certain way of thinking, of only ONE way of thinking. If you dare to question, or disagree, with this agenda, then the media likes to label these free thinkers insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, far-right MAGA wackos, homophobes, transphobes, all the phobes, racists … the list goes on and on. And to my utter disbelief, people snap to attention and lock step into the group-think line because they don’t want to be labeled something, or cause any waves … and it’s just easier to go along to get along, right?

WRONG!

The big saying when I was growing up was QUESTION EVERYTHING. Now, if you so much as dare to ask a question you’re labeled difficult, a science denier and whatever else the current catch phrase of the moment is. It’s absolutely mind boggling to me that people just blindly trust the media. People still, STILL, think the media exists to tell us the truth, to inform us, and people just stare at the media with open mouths and blank stares and nod along with whatever madness blasts across our airwaves. It makes me sick how people choose to be ignorant on topics because it’s just easier to hide their heads in the sand than to stand up and say, “What a minute …”

There is no love, or good intent, when it comes to the media. They absolutely stoke fear in people because people who fear are easier to control and manipulate. Fear is a powerful emotion and the media knows this and has mastered the art of dishing it out to people every day.

This is why I’m a big proponent of getting your news from several different sources. Broaden your horizons. It’s hard to form an opinion, or justify a belief, if you don’t know the whole story and watching/listening to one news source is 100% only giving you one side of the story.

Be smart. Broaden your horizons and don’t allow the media to push you into a hole of fear.

How is the way you were raised helping you today?

My parents taught me to work hard and to be kind to others. I feel like those two attributes are missing from our youth today. It’s all about getting something for free and screw everyone else, what can YOU do for ME?

Also, empathy. Put yourself in someone’s else’s shoes, it teaches you to be patient and tolerant of others when you do that. You have no idea what kind of day someone is having, what kind of hardships they have in their life – be nice to one another. All human deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, as long as they are decent human beings to begin with.

Children nowadays … it scares me how out-of-control our young people are. They don’t value life because we’ve taught them that life is not precious, you can throw it away if you so choose. Fetuses aren’t babies, you’re not really a boy, you’re a girl, keeping secrets from your parents is encouraged, love is love, no matter the sex or the age, up is down and down is up … it’s no wonder children nowadays are sad, confused, angry and generally messed up. But you can’t really blame the children, they don’t know better, the parents, the grown ups in their lives, they know better and just don’t seem to care to make an effort anymore when it comes to raising kind, decent, human beings. I think this tweet pretty much sums it up:

I think she hits the head on the nail when she talks about how kids nowadays are raised without consequences. And then, when those consequences come and bite them in the buttocks, it’s definitely not their fault, nor their problem, but society’s problem. I’m with her, I’m genuinely concerned about this younger generation. Parents, it’s time to stop being your children’s friend and start being their parent. THEY NEED YOU.

Your turn.

At the Moment, Food, Life, Politics

Playing Chicken

Karen

Dude – we got chickens.

When Kevin first proposed getting chickens I thought he was joking. But then when he looked me in the eye and told me he was serious, I thought he had lost his mind.

Chickens? I don’t like animals, why would we get chickens?!

And before you animal lovers sit back, cross your arms and sniff in disdain, I didn’t say I hate animals, I don’t like animals. I don’t like owning them. I don’t like how noisy, smelly and costly they are. I don’t like the work it requires to take care of them. Call me lazy, I won’t argue, but I like animals if someone else owns them.

Kevin wanted to get chickens for a few reasons:

  1. He wanted to see if he could raise chickens. He wanted the challenge. He’s crazy like that.
  2. He was curious to see what it would take to raise chickens – what kind of food would they eat? Where would he house them? Could he keep them alive and safe from predators?
  3. If, (when), the world goes to Hell in a handbasket, was he capable of being self-sufficient enough to provide for his family?

We’ve always been fascinated by people who live off grid. What a life that must be! To actually set yourself up in a house, away from the city, and build an energy infrastructure so you didn’t have to rely on the government for power, sewer, water … to grow your own food so that you didn’t have to rely on artificial preservatives, grocery stores … TAXES.

I watched a few YouTubers that have done exactly that – built a life for themselves completely off grid. It looks like a lot of work, (remember – I’m inherently lazy) and wow – you spend all of your waking moments thinking about where your next meal is going to come from and making sure you have enough basic supplies to live semi-comfortably.

But I could do it. I wouldn’t WANT to do it, but I COULD do it. And I KNOW Kevin could do it. In fact, I think he would THRIVE on it because he’s one of those men who thrive on challenges and has the smarts to just figure it out. He’s one of the best problem solvers I’ve ever met in my life. He’s also very handy and can pretty much figure out how to build, or how to fix, anything.

He’s a Jack-of-all-trades kind of man.

I think anticipating the world to end might have been the biggest deciding factor to actually buying the chickens. In case you haven’t been paying attention to all of these food plants catching fire, the skyrocketing price of food and how the government has started the subliminal, (and perhaps not so subliminal) message of EAT BUGS, THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU campaign, it feels a little like our government is trying to starve us out of a hostage situation.

Not to mention, the crap – the additives, the preservatives – the government puts in our food and water, (like Fluoride in our water), “for our health” and well, you have to wonder if that is one of the many reasons people are sick and need medications.

(Medications means Big Pharma – ah – definitely a topic for another day).

But, back to the chickens.

He bought six chickens. And Oh. My. Gosh. They were SO CUTE when they were little!!! Cheeping away in the box he set up for them. Sunning themselves under the heat lamp. Kevin watched a lot of YouTube videos and spoke to some people at the Farm/Feed stores about how to care for the chickens. He worked hard to make sure they were well cared for and they thrived.

He did have one, the runt in the group, that wasn’t growing as fast as the others and when he did some research he learned that the runt had “poopy butt.”

And henceforth, that was the chick’s name, by the way.

Sometimes chicks will not be able to drop their poop and it sticks to their butts. As you can imagine, this causes problems and some chickens die if it’s not dealt with. So. Kevin went in and dug the poop out and the chicken not only survived, he/she thrived.

He’s nothing if not committed. Ha!

The chicks stayed in their box for a few weeks (?) and then graduated to a bigger, plastic tub and stayed in the tub for another few weeks (?), (I’m estimating the time here because I didn’t really pay much attention to his “projects”), while he worked to make a “home” for them.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned that they currently live at the rental house across the street from us. The same house that LeRoy and the boys are currently living in. Not sure how the boys actually felt about co-habituating with chickens, I think they reacted to dad’s “experiment” the same way as me, just shook their heads and moved on with their lives, but that’s where they live now.

The rental house has a fenced in back yard and a shed. (It also has a pool which I worried about – what if the chickens fall in? Can they swim? Will the chemicals morph them into a science fiction character?). So he worked on making the shed into their home. He made a little door for them to go in/out and some ladder thingie for them to roost on when they got larger. He rigged up some sort of contraption for them to get water from, (like a pipe with holes in it), though ultimately I think he figured out it didn’t work that great. But my point is, he built them a home and when they were finally big enough to let out of the plastic tub and run around the backyard, they were living like chicken kings and queens.

We watched them grow up into ugly, red chickens. And then we watched with bated breath to see how many, if any, roosters we may have had because believe it or not, you can’t really tell right away.

I was especially nervous about the roosters because we live within the city limits and we’re not supposed to have roosters within the city limits. Now usually I’m not a big government rule kind of girl but this one I understood – our neighbors would not appreciate waking up every morning to a chorus of crowing roosters, I’m sure.

I didn’t want to wake up to a chorus of crowing roosters.

Kevin started experimenting with what to feed them. He often took our leftovers (a bucket we fondly labeled, the slop bucket), over to the chickens to see if they would eat it. They pretty much ate everything but they didn’t like watermelon or carrots but they LOVED bread.

Chickens after my own heart. Ha!

And of course, they LOVE bugs. In fact, quite by accident, Kevin had a bucket underneath an outside house light when he discovered that the bugs that swarm these lights at night would drop into this bucket, (I guess because they got too close to the light??), and for some reason, couldn’t figure out how to get out so by the next day, the bottom of the bucket was full of live bugs.

Kevin would take that bucket to them, dump the bugs on the ground and the chickens had a bug smorgasbord – they went NUTS for it.

As I said, they live like chicken kings/queens. It’s also a great way to get rid of the bugs.

Fast forward – the chicks grew up and we didn’t have one, two, or even three roosters, we had FIVE. So, five out of the six chicks he bought were roosters which meant we had to get rid of them. He advertised them on Craig’s List and an Asian lady showed up to take them. I’m sure they ended up on someone’s dinner table, but you know what? I don’t want to know … because I watched these things grow up – lalalalala .. moving on.

(Side note: we didn’t truly know the chickens were roosters until one morning Brandon was in the sun room and a few of them crowed. ha!)

So. We were left with one lone red hen. And she is a pretty hen, too. Fat and spoiled. She follows Kevin around whenever he goes into the backyard. It’s pretty cute, actually. But we still wanted eggs, so Kevin went to some lady .. I think, details are hazy, remember, I can’t keep up with his projects, and he bought five more hens. These were teenage hens, grown enough to know they were hens but not mature enough to lay eggs.

Several weeks went by and … no eggs. Kevin wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong. He was feeding them well, they had a nice shed/roost to sleep away from predators, they didn’t seem stressed, they could get in/out of their house any time they pleased … and still, no eggs.

They were officially on probation. No eggs = chicken soup. (Not that I think Kevin could bring himself to kill the chickens to eat. He said he could but …. I know the man, no way!)

Finally, FINALLY, after weeks of waiting, one hen laid an egg. And a light bulb went on over the other hens’ heads and suddenly, we were getting four/five eggs every day. We had so many eggs at one point that we gave them away to Kevin’s parents and my mom. We had a lot of eggs because I couldn’t bring myself to eat any. And trust me, I LOOOOVE eggs. I don’t know, I just … couldn’t do it. It weirded me out. Which I know sounds stupid because, come on, where do you think eggs in the supermarket come from Karen, but it took me several weeks of making sure Kevin didn’t keel over from food poisoning before I cracked the shell, (see what I did there?) and started eating the eggs.

They’re quite tasty, actually. The yolks are a bright yellow, much brighter than the store-bought eggs. I usually eat three eggs on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Yes, on those specific days because I have an eating schedule … more on that in a future post. (I do Intermittent Fasting – STILL).

So now we have a steady stream of farm-fresh eggs from our grandchickens. That’s what we call our chickens because I’m starting to doubt we will actually have any grandchildren the ways things are going now.

Which brings us back to why we wanted our own chickens to begin with.

The coordinated efforts of the US billionaires to decrease our population by tainting our food because of the climate change cult.

STOP.

I can see you rolling your eyes. And maybe I’m completely nuts for going down this rabbit hole but … WHAT IF IT’S TRUE? I mean, think about it, our food is already being injected with all kind of growth hormones, additives, preservatives, CRAP, and animals are being genetically modified in order to produce more, more, MORE food, why is it crazy to think that the elites see an opportunity to inject more nefarious crap? Like, the mRNA from the experimental jab, for example?

You know it’s funny, but when I went to research this topic, I came up with pages and PAGES of “news” sites that debunked the fact that Bill Gates tweeted anything about putting mRNA into our food supply and yet, you see that he did in the above video. Granted, he didn’t specifically mention mRNA but does it really matter? Why do we need our food injected with anything at all?

And it makes me wonder if the cause of a lot of diseases, cancers, aren’t somehow linked to the crap that the government, who care for it’s people and chant like zombies that it’s for the “greater good” aren’t somehow poisoning it’s citizens?

Call me crazy, but I smell rotten meat.

I’m all about getting my news from different sources because let’s face it, all news organizations, whether they are left, right, independent, have agendas. So it’s important to get news from several different sources and make up our own minds, right? But when the media starts censoring these dissenting voices, my BS antenna quivers. What’s the dealio? Why the secrecy? Why the determination to censor people who are simply asking questions and/or seeking answers?

Why indeed?

And then, look what happened to Amos Miller, the Amish farmer who has been fighting the government, FOR YEARS, because he refuses to give his livestock any artificial crap and relies solely on decades of tried and true farming techniques to produce quality food for his family and his community? The government hates people like Amos Miller because they can’t control him. They can’t keep him under their thumbs so they do what any totalitarian government does, they try to shut him down by swatting his property and confiscating his food.

“Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer. 

The state’s rules require advance notice, reasonable time frames for inspections, and a showing of credentials, none of which occurred here. Instead, the state unlawfully obtained a search warrant based on materially false statements in an affidavit by a high-ranking state official in an agency with a known grievance against independent farmers like Amos, and, after the raid and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, then illegally ordered detained every item of food in one of Amos Miller’s coolers, including buffalo meat not even subject to federal regulation. “

That GiveSendGo account is here, if you want to help with legal fees for this Amish farmer.

If they can do this to an Amish farmer, what can they do to YOU?

Miller’s Organic Farm seize really got Wendy Bell fired up, too. I highly recommend following Wendy Bell’s podcast on Rumble. She’s a conservative talk-show host who is not afraid to tell it like it is. She reminds me a lot of a female Rush Limbaugh. It’s also fun to watch what goes on behind the scenes of her podcast. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch her, she says what we’re all thinking and it’s REFRESHING.

Okay, back to our chickens.

These issues? The messing with our food supply, the swatting of innocent farmers just trying to make a living and produce quality, drug-free food, this is why we want to do something – I realize it’s a minor thing, minute really in the grand scheme of things, but we often think, could we figure out how to be self-sufficient in an end-of-the-world scenario?

I’d like to think so, but … probably not. But hey, at least we would have eggs to eat.

Thanks for reading.

Daily Prompts

Love, Worry, Happiness – DQ #2

Karen

What has been the main cause(s) for feelings of happiness throughout your life?

My main cause of happiness has been my independence. For marrying a man who respected my need to be independent. He has given me space and I’ve taken it – ten fold. I often think about what a miracle it is that Kevin stayed with me. I haven’t always been the easiest person to love or live with. I know this about myself. Part of my being difficult was the fact that I was, still am, FIERCELY independent. No one will tell me what to do. Period.

But maintaining my independence makes up so much of what makes me, me. I pride myself on being my own person, for having a brain that I’m not afraid to use and I own the decisions I make – good and bad. My independence has gotten me into trouble, at times, but overall, I’m proud that I didn’t lose that critical part of my personality.

I know as women, and men as well, we often lose portions of ourselves when we get married, have children, find careers. We become someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s employee, or employer … we tend to lose the essence of who we are amongst all of these other identities.

There was a time I lost my essence but luckily, I found her after much searching.

I also choose to be happy. I think that’s a critical component of a happy life. No one lives to make us happy, we have to choose to be happy and be grateful for every day that we wake up.

Make a chronological list with the moments that made you who you are today when it comes to love and relationships.

I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to love and relationships – just your average Jane, I suppose. Nothing like girls nowadays, bragging about body counts and multiple baby daddies – or maybe I’ve seen too many TikToks but here is a brief timeline of MY experience:

1981 – Broke a boy’s heart

A guy I had a lot of classes with had a crush on me. I knew this but I never acted upon it. I just wasn’t into him. We remained friends throughout High School but it was awkward and I felt bad that I couldn’t return his feelings because he was, still is, a great guy. (We don’t talk – I’ve just seen him around on Facebook – or I did – back in the days I had Facebook, I’m not on that platform anymore.

What did I learn? To be humble and sensitive to other guys’ feelings.

1983 – Student Stage Manager in Drama Class

Crushed on a popular guy in our Drama class – he was the lead actor in several of our school plays. He didn’t give me the time of day so it was a long-distance crush.

What did I learn? That I’m not everyone’s cup o’ tea and that it was okay to just be me – to not change my personality because I thought that was what a guy wanted.

1985 – My First Boyfriend

Or at least, I think he was my first boyfriend. Actually, he was my ONLY boyfriend, now that I think about it. He was a player, though. He was one of these super popular guys that cruised a popular strip in our city, because that’s what the kids did back then – it was the 80’s. And all the girls were ga-ga over him. So I was super flattered that he “picked” me but looking back, he really only picked me because something better hadn’t come along. When someone better came along, he dumped me.

What did I learn? To guard my heart. I was heart broken over that “relationship” and I built some pretty thick walls, that remain to this day, not even Kevin has tore them down, because I will NEVER be that hurt again. Period. End of story.

1990 – Got Married

Kevin and I met through at work. We worked together and he wore me down. I had no intention of ever getting married but … well, the heart wants what it wants.

What did I learn? To stop being such a cold fish and open myself up to another person. It was really hard and I still struggle with that to this day, but I’m definitely softer than I used to be. It’s a wonder Kevin wanted me at all!

1992 – Our first son was born

The love I felt in my heart for our tiny, pre-mature son, (he was born eight weeks early – no explanation – my water broke), was nothing I had ever experienced before. Mama bear was born.

What did I learn? That it’s not only possible to love outside yourself and spouse but that it’s a love so large it impossible to contain – it OVERFLOWS when you have children.

1995 – Our second son was born

Just when I didn’t think it was possible to fill my love cup anymore, along comes our second son. He was born right on time, was over eight pounds and had some STRONG lungs.

What did I learn? That a human’s ability to love knows no boundaries. It also cracked a few of those walls I built around my heart.

1997 – Trouble in Paradise

This is probably something that Kevin would prefer I not talk about but let’s keep it real – we had some MAJOR marital problems seven years into our marriage. It really just boiled down to growing pains. We were becoming different people and we were having trouble adjusting to those changes. He was being a jerk and I was being a b*tch and we were both stubborn enough to not listen, really LISTEN, to one another. We toyed with the idea of speaking to marriage counselor but in the end, we both agreed that we were two intelligent adults and we could work this out. And we did. It was rough going for a bit but we persevered and our marriage ended up being stronger for the struggle.

What did I learn? Humility. Patience. And to think outside of myself. Stop being so selfish and unrelenting. I learned how to compromise and give more of myself without losing myself. We both did a lot of growing up in that time period. It was necessary to our journey but 0/10, would not recommend.

Of course, there are A LOT of holes in this timeline but they are not experiences I wish to put out into the Ethernet but these were pretty pivotal moments in my life. These experiences, and more, really molded and shaped me into the person I am today. Love is always growing and changing and the challenge is to grow and change with it.

Pick a worry you have in your life right now. Now write down one or two ways to look at it with humor.

Humor is my defense. I would rather laugh than cry. And honestly, most things are not that serious, not really.

I worry about our boys, my mom, Kevin’s parents, money, my job … the normal stuff but there is a time and place for humor. I use humor a lot to deflect from my own feelings – I compartmentalize and tend to shut doors on strong emotions. I will open those doors and re-evaluate when I’m ready.

I have a tendency to crack jokes a lot. I seem to have a knack for one liners and zingers – at least, that’s what they told me at work – when I was working with people. Humor tends to distract people and it certainly diffuses situations. Even if you can make people crack a smile, it helps de-escalate events.

Your turn!

Reflections

December 2023 Reflections

Karen

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!

Daily Prompts

Daily Questions #1

Karen

In what area of your life are you most successful? What lessons can you learn from that?

Happy New Year!

To answer the question: I would like to think I have several areas of my life that I’m successful – wife, mother, daughter, sister … but I think an area that I’m really proud of is my working life. I know I’ve said this before, my apologizes if you’ve heard this one, feel free to roll your eyes and snort in annoyance, but I’m proud of my accomplishments in the medical field. When I started, I knew nothing – NOTHING. It was a whole new language for me and I would go home crying because I was so confused and lost. Part of the reason was because the person who trained me was a crappy trainer, but a lot of the reason was because I knew nothing about the medical field. Then, my scheduler position was eliminated and I became a medical assistant because if I didn’t want to be a medical assistant I was told I would need to get another job. I didn’t want to go through the job process again, plus, my family was on my heath insurance so I became a medical assistant – against my better judgement. I had ZERO experience and again, training was crap so I literally learned on the job as I went along. I was so stressed out that I actually ended up in the ER – twice – because I thought I was having a heart attack, (I wasn’t), but I figured it out, by golly, and I got quite good at it.

Lessons I learned from that experience? Don’t give up. I persevered and I conquered. I wouldn’t want to repeat that deer-in-a-headlight experience again any time soon, but I’m glad I stuck it out. I feel like it made me stronger and more flexible at dealing with unexpected crap that gets thrown at me and I’m WAY more chill when that happens.

What words of advice would your 80-year-old self give to you now?

RELAX! Stop living in the future. Time already goes by so fast why you want to hurry things along? I’ve always been the kind of person who lives in the future – what do I need to do tomorrow? What am I wearing? What am I eating? Tomorrow is planned out today, what about appreciating what has been and what is happening right now? I’m trying very hard to live in the moment. To appreciate all the little things and just … breathe. It’s really true what they say, time goes faster the older you get. It’s scary, quite frankly.

DUDE – it’s already 2024!!!

What has been the main cause(s) for feelings of unhappiness throughout your life?

I don’t know that I’ve felt unhappy, per se, sure, there are days when I’m feeling depressed or just plain sad, but I would describe my overall feeling of … dissatisfaction throughout life.

I married my best friend and we’re still happy to this day. We have two boys, men now, that are GOOD PEOPLE. Our families, both sides, are really good people as well – no trouble makers, no one’s in jail, no one’s on drugs … we live in a nice house that’s paid off, we drive nice cars that are also paid off. Kevin just retired – I like my job … ish.

What’s to be dissatisfied about?

That’s an excellent question and I’m not sure I can put my finger on the exact answer. But I have a recurring dream, I’ve had it for YEARS AND YEARS where I’m supposed to be somewhere but the journey getting there is exhausting. There are so many obstacles in my way that I’m constantly having to take detours and physically fight sheer exhaustion to keep any type of forward momentum. I literally dream like I’m in a maze sometimes and just when I think I can see the end, it’s like someone reached in, grabbed the end and pulled it further away from me so that now the goal is distorted and further away. Just writing this makes my heart beat faster – it’s so frustrating!!

At the end of this destination, this journey that never ends, is a goal. I don’t know what the goal is but I’m desperate to reach it. Sometimes, I wake up mentally depleted and overly grumpy because I chased that damn goal all night long!

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what is going on here – I’ve always dreamed of being a writer but I’ve never really written anything. Well, of substance, I guess.

I don’t put much stock in woo-woo dream stuff, but I found a possible explanation that resonated with me:

When an obstacle appears in a dream, it presents you with an objective view of how you use the word ‘but’ as a roadblock. Whenever this word is used in a sentence, it negates the power of whatever preceded it. “I want to be healthy, but…” I know I should study tonight, but…” Obstacles present a tangible vehicle that allows you to understand how you get stuck. In the dream, you are attempting to do something, but there is an obstacle. Source

This aligns perfectly with my frustration of not obtaining my writing dream. There is always a BUT whenever I think, or talk, about my writing dreams.

Your turn!

Crafting, Life

Feeling Crafty

Karen

My mom is passionate about crafts. She has worked on crafts her entire life. She knits, crochets, paints, sews … she can basically do everything and if she doesn’t know how to do it, she will learn it and master it. (It’s true, mom!) She loves it, she lives for it and she’s really good at it.

She has participated in craft shows for years and has entered items in our local county fair for decades. She has won ribbons, awards and sold so many different crafts over the years, it’s amazing.

She’s had a little trouble getting back into crafts, (life, really), since dad died earlier this year. She’s had trouble finding motivation for doing anything since dad died. It’s brought her life, and countless others’ lives, to a screeching halt. What do you do when one moment you have someone so important to your life here one day and gone the next?

It paralyzes you.

I like crafts; I do not love crafts. I’m not into them as much as my mom, but I have fun with them. I love to cross stitch, scrapbook, (I made journals for years – I’m not doing them anymore, I got bored – they were so time consuming! I’m cheating now. I bought a ready-made journal for 2024 so I can jot things down, daily journal, etc), and paint-by-numbers. (Because I am not talented enough to paint free style – I need direction!).

And then, I discovered diamond painting.

I remember stumbling across a video on YouTube one day about diamond painting, (how did that even happen!? – It’s not like I typed in diamond painting in the search bar – or anything to do with painting, quite frankly), and my mouth dropped.

This was a thing?!

I had no idea. So. I do what I always do, I jumped down a rabbit hole and looked for diamond painting kits on Amazon. And OF COURSE, they had tons. And OF COURSE, I bought tons and started obsessively sticking beads to canvas. It’s the most mindless, brain-dead activity you can think of. No disrespect to diamond painters but let’s be real – you pick up a bead and you press it onto the corresponding pattern on the canvas. Badda-bing-badda-boom, instant “painting”.

I like to “work” on my “paintings”, (I’m sorry, but I can’t really bring myself to call it painting, it’s sticking beads to canvas), at the dining room table, after work, put my earbuds in and listen to podcasts while I stick beads to canvas. I’ve gotten quite a few completed, actually. I have a diamond painting portfolio half full of paintings now.

So, to help my mom out, to try and distract her from dad, and because I wanted to spend more time with her, I suggested our Saturday get togethers. We take turns going to each other’s houses every Saturday. We go to lunch first, come back, make some coffee and sit down with a treat and watch two episodes of Survivor, (I’m hooked! We’re on Season 5), and then we craft together.

She works on her NUMEROUS projects and I “paint.”

Mom had a craft show in October and one earlier this month and I helped her set up, tear down, and hung out with her during the shows. This last craft show, I got bit. By the craft bug. I think it would be fun to put some of my “paintings” in the shows and see what happens. I don’t really recall seeing any other booths with diamond paintings, (which – there may be a good reason for that, no one wants them, ha!), I’m building quite the inventory and … why not?

So, I went to Temu, (another recent obsession – have you TRIED Temu??) and bought a punch of Fall/Halloween/Christmas kits along with keychains, Christmas ornaments, and coasters, all diamond painting kits. I think it would be really fun to put a small Christmas tree up with nothing but with ugly Christmas sweater ornaments. And who knows, maybe I’ll try my hand at another type of craft this year, as long as it doesn’t try my patience and I can do a decent job of it.

We’re also trying to talk my sister into making some macramé items as well. She’s been getting into the craft, she’s really good at it and it seems to be making a comeback. Mom bought that really cute macramé Christmas tree you see at the top of this post at the December craft show.

It would be a really fun thing for all three of us girls to do together.

So, let me ask you this – do you like craft shows? Do you go to craft shows? What sorts of crafts do you look for at craft shows?

Do you do any crafts yourself? If so, what sorts of crafts do you do?

And finally – do you have any suggestions on a type of craft I should try next?

Reflections

November 2023 Reflections

Karen

November 1:

I was on FIRE today! I was zipping through tests and getting authorizations left and right. If every day could be like this, I would be a happy woman. Wednesdays are Kevin’s late days. He spent some time with his dad and then he likes to play guitar for a bit – helps him blow off some steam. And because he does that, I don’t see him the whole night. So, we routinely go all day on Wednesday not seeing each other. I didn’t speak to another person all day and I haven’t left my house for two days so after I clocked off, I jumped into my car and drove. I didn’t do anything, just listened to some music but it was good to be outside and getting some fresh air. I grabbed a chili from Wendys, watched a few videos and then hit the sack. Oh. I did leave and drive up the hospital today. Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, a little cafe in the hospital serves baking potatoes with all the trimmings and I love them so much! So, I did leave at lunch to grab myself a potato. It felt weird walking my old route through the hospital and you know what? I didn’t miss it – At. All.

November 2:

Oy vey, this day. It started out with me getting up, walking my mile on the treadmill, (yep, I walk one mile as soon as I get up. It’s a slow walk and I listen to some tunes but it wakes me up, gets my blood circulating and I start the day off with 3,000 steps). Took a shower, got beautified and BOY am I glad I did that. Because as I’m getting my coffee and sitting down at my computer I realize – we don’t have Internet. Swell. Not a good thing when you work from home. Kevin did a little investigating and apparently, our entire area was out. So, I put on some dress clothes and I went into the office. And I hated every minute of it. I’ve gotten very spoiled this past week and a half and having to leave my home so now something I’m loathe to do – 0/10, do not recommend. It was awkward and super quiet and I got a few things done but nothing like I can get done at my home computer where I have everything set up like I want it. It came back on around 10:30 and I skedaddled my butt back home where I clawed and scrapped my way through the rest of the day. Nothing went right and it was very frustrating. I’m more frustrated by the fact that I’m training myself – my trainer has been out all week and though I’m learning a lot, I would learn more and faster if I had someone showing me the ropes. I had to work 8:00 to 4:30, (I have been working 7:00 to 3:30) and as soon as I clocked off, I got back on the treadmill and burned off some frustration. Glad this day is over.

November 6:

Well. I wanted a new challenge and by gosh, I got it. Today was FRUSTRATING. It was a two-step forward, one-step back kind of day. Nearly every case I submitted to the insurance companies went to pending – meaning, they want more information before making a decision. Which is fine, absolutely, they’re paying the bill, they have a right to take a peek at the details, but I’m frustrated with the providers because their notes are so vague. I don’t blame them, the providers are pressed for time – they only have so much time to exam, make a diagnosis and dictate their notes before they have to move on to the next patient, but that puts me squarely in the middle – now, it’s up to me to decipher the providers’ notes and answer equally vague questions from the insurance companies. And then, the insurance companies don’t “receive” our faxes, (which, I have my doubts on that excuse), so now I have to call them, which is time consuming, and pray that I’m giving them the keywords they need in order to approve the test. It’s tough being a patient advocate.

November 7:

I woke up with a new attitude today. This job – it’s not going to go smoothly all the time. There will be problems. I will have to challenge myself to be patient and accept the fact that insurance is complicated and convoluted. That there will be providers that give me nothing and I will be forced to make something. When I woke up this morning and approached the day with this attitude, it was a lot less frustrating. I will always have pending cases and they will likely require some additional information about 60% of the time. This is my new normal. I like the multi-tasking aspect of this job, though. I was asked to cover a co-worker’s alphabet today – she will be out the next few days for personal reasons – so I’m looking forward to working some of those cases. It’s really not anything different it’s still the “S’s” but I will split the load with another co-worker – I’m responsible for working the Sm-Sz’s. I didn’t even realize that the S’s were given to another person – I’ve just been working away. There have been so many new hires that my supervisor will be shuffling alphas around – I hope I find out what group I’ll be with soon. It’s sort of discombobulating to be floating around in the Ethernet like this. Kevin and I started throwing around the idea of getting set up with SkyLink Satellite. It would be nice to have a backup Internet plan and I’m excited to see if it would work from the road. Is so … possibilities are endless! We’ll see.

November 12:

Had another birthday – boo-hiss. I’ve always hated my birthday. I just hate getting older. It’s one year closer to being a burden on my family. I pray I’m NOT a burden to my family. I see what Kevin has been going through with his dad, and though he’s getting better, (he’s actually sitting up, standing up and making it to the toilet – WIN), it’s a lot of work for Kevin. He has to go over there every day to make sure his dad is making it to the toilet and behaving himself. I know he wants to do it, and I would absolutely want to do it for my mom, (yes I would mom!), but looking at the situation from my FIL’s perspective, I would be horrified that my children would NEED to do it. Getting older sucks. It bothers me and I’m going to work very hard to make sure I can stay as healthy and lucid for as long as I can. My sister came down over the weekend and we all hung out together. We did a little shopping, took some Culver’s home for lunch, crafted for a bit, then went back out to a Home Store to try and find a few things. The weather was beautiful and we had a great time. It’s so nice to hang with my sis and my mom! Speaking of weather, we have had a great Fall this year! It’s been dry, but it’s been warm and sunny and I’ll take it. We usually go right from summer to winter so having these beautiful Fall days are a treat. Put my Christmas tree up yesterday. Yep, I’m one of of THOSE people. Hobby Lobby has their Christmas on sale for 50% off this week so I’m heading up there after work to buy some red/gold ornaments. My tree theme is red/gold this year.

November 14:

I like working from home but I’m so bored. Like, out-of-my-mind bored. I haven’t been assigned a group yet so I’m sort of mooching off other teams and taking some of their work. I feel bad though, because, well, I’m mooching. I’ve been trying to stay busy but there is only so much reading and spreading my work out that I can do. I know I keep bugging my leads but I feel like I’m begging for things to do right now and I don’t like it. Kevin’s dad continues to improve! He’s standing with assistance and can make it to the normal toilet with help. That’s been a huge help for the family as there is less mess to clean up. Physically, he seems to be improving, mentally, he has good/bad days. But he’s 85, so we figure some of that comes with the territory. It’s been a miracle, honestly, that he’s improved so much! I credit Kevin with a lot of his improvement. He’s been going over to their house at least twice a day to help him maneuver getting around. He’s such a good man!

November 18:

I didn’t think this week was ever going to be over! We were finally assigned groups late yesterday and as I suspected, I’m part of the Urgent Action Team (UAT). This team was alluded to when I was interviewed and I was told they were likely going to be put me on that team. This team will be responsible for working diagnostic requests within 48 hours, stat or urgents. I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty. It sounds like it might be a bit stressful, given the time crunch, but I’m up for it. I work better when I’m under a deadline. Finally! I have a work home. I don’t like being in limbo and I certainly don’t like not having any direction. It’s very annoying. Mom came over today and we watched a few Survivor episodes and ate lunch. She brought over McDonald’s McRibs for us. I haven’t had McDonald’s, let alone a McRib, in forever and it was good! Messy, but good. We were getting our crafts out to start working when Brandon walked in followed shortly by my nephew and his wife. We were surprised! They were in town for a convention and decided to drop by and say hello. It was good timing that mom was there, too. They stuck around and we all went to dinner for Blake and Kevin’s birthdays at Whole Hog Cafe, (BBQ place). They wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and since we had already planned on her coming to our house for Thanksgiving we just invited them to come over as well. I heard from my sister, she and her husband are coming over, too, so we reached out to my other nephew and invited him as well. We are planning on having about 12 people over for Thanksgiving. We’ll put our extra sleeve into our dining room table and we should have enough room for everyone to sit around the table. We’ll work it out. We’ve already bought our food and mom is bringing over a lasagna just to make sure we don’t run out since we had only planned on having 8 people at first and now we’re up to 12. That’s okay, though, we’ll make it work. Our heater is acting funky, again. We have so many problems with our heater. It’s a design flaw, or a flaw designed to need constant maintenance, however you want to look at it, so we called our service people to come out on Monday to take a look at it. The condensation builds up then starts dripping right on the flame so it starts popping and clanging as the flame struggles to stay on. Awesome. It’s always something, isn’t it.

November 20:

I contacted my lead today to ask how I go about starting to work requests with my UAT group … and I was told that the people that are currently doing UAT will continue doing UAT until February and that I needed to, in essence, continue mooching off other people’s work until that time. I wanted to cry!! This seems like such a waste of resources! And I feel guilty for basically doing nothing and getting paid for it! This goes against every fiber of my being and I pray that I’m able to keep busy with SOMETHING until they’re ready for me to help take over the group. Wow. This is unacceptable and I’m pissed!

November 22:

I’m stealing. I can’t help it, I need to practice cases and I haven’t been assigned anything specific so … I have to steal to practice. I hate to mooch off people’s folders/cases but … what choice do I have? I’ve been doing a lot of ECHO requests – echocardiograms to be specific. I feel like there have been a lot more requests for ECHOS lately, but what do I know, I’m a newbie I wonder if this is normal or if people are having more heart issues because of the experimental vaccine that was forced on people. I’m sure we’ll never know. Or talk about it, for that matter. At any rate, I’m compiling my resources and watching the UAT’s folder and how they are processing things so .. I feel like I’m getting a base knowledge by just watching. Hopefully, we have a meeting next week and I’ll be able to do … SOMETHING. I’m itching to get started. Management sent out a notice yesterday sort of summarizing what our group will be tasked with and it sounds like they want someone to work the late shift – like a 2:00 PM to a 9:00 PM shift. BUT, that person gets an extra $1.35 an hour if she agrees to it. I’m tempted though it wouldn’t be my first choice. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m just going to have to be flexible, both getting started and when I’m elbows deep in the job. Brandon called me last night. His car broke down on the way back home after work. He said he heard a POP and then a light came on that said to shut off his engine immediately. AAA towed him back home and now we have to figure out what is wrong, how much it will cost and how long it will take. Kevin met Brandon when it broke down and when Brandon turned on the engine to back onto the tow trailer, he said it didn’t sound good. Awesome. More trouble. BUT, at least it didn’t break down on the highway, (he was in town), and he wasn’t hurt – it could always be worse, right?

November 26:

Thanksgiving was great! PERFECT weather – sunny and 60’s. Kevin had cooked the turkey the day before Thanksgiving and had it cut up and ready to go so all we had to do was put it in the oven and warm it up. I made the rolls the day before and put them in plastic bags to keep them fresh so that worked out well. The only thing we cooked on Thanksgiving were the potatoes and corn, (put them each into a crockpot), green bean casserole, ham, (Kevin cut it up, poured a brown sugar glaze on top and put it into the oven for about an hour and a half, stuffing and gravy. Mom came over at 10:30 and helped us finish getting ready. She also baked two pumpkin pies, an apple pie, some cupcakes and some cute “drum sticks” made of pretzels, caramel and dipped in chocolate. Then my sister and BIL came over at about 11:00 and honestly, we were ready to eat by then. But we told the boys and my nephew’s family to come over at 12:00 so we sat around and chit-chatted until noon. My nephew’s family still hadn’t arrived so we went ahead and started eating – they arrived about 12:15. The food turned out great, Kevin is SUCH a good cook, (I’m the clean-up party), and had some good conversations. My sister and BIL left about 2:00 so they could get home before dark and my nephew’s family left about two hours later. Everyone left with A LOT of leftovers. It was SO NICE to have my sister and BIL come! It was a good day. We missed dad. I know the day was hard on my mom – this is her first holiday season without dad. It’s hard dealing with a gaping hole in our family. I drove Brandon to work on Friday since I didn’t have to work. All four of us went grocery shopping after he got off work. We usually go out to eat and then grocery shopping on Friday nights and since Brandon didn’t have a car, he wanted to tag along and his shopping done and I couldn’t NOT tell Blake in case he wanted to do, which he did, so that was fun. We ate at HyVee – we had Chinese food. It was pretty good and the price wasn’t bad. Kevin and Brandon went to pick up his car yesterday. It seems to be running okay but the check engine light has been coming on and it seems like Brandon’s battery is weak. But it’s running and that’s better than buying a new car right now! Brandon did say that he felt like it had a lot more power than before. The mechanic replaced the oil pump, (which is what broke), the water pump, (which wasn’t too bad – he showed the parts to Kevin), and the timing chain. Hopefully, Brandon won’t have any more issues with the car for several years. But Kevin and Brandon are going to O’Reilly’s today to have the battery checked out. If it’s weak, they will have them replace it. Brandon’s old battery was replaced by AAA and though AAA is a GREAT service and has saved our butts several times, we do wonder how “new” the batteries are they use whenever they replace them. We’ve had our batteries wear out faster when we relied on them to replace them. So, when it’s all said and done, Brandon will have spent about $2,200 dollars to get his car fixed. Which – ouch. But it’s still better than buying a new car. Kevin checked on Craig’s List and Brandon’s car, which is a 2012 Chevy Cruise, was going for $8,500. Brandon paid $7,000 for his car five years ago so it’s MORE expensive now than when he bought it! Bidenomics!

November 27:

Took advantage of some Black Friday sales – online, of course. There is NO WAY I’m dealing with crazy, stressed-out people right now. Stressing a bit that I can’t think if anything for the boys this year. Blake needs jeans, so I bought him some jeans, but Brandon can’t give me any ideas. We filled up a wallet with gift cards for them last year. And Brandon used nearly all of his, Blake used the Shoe Carnival and Amazon gift cards but has hardly touched the food gift cards. Which is annoying because he was the sole reason I bought them gift cards to food places – because he doesn’t eat! lol Bought something for my mom, but since mom reads my blog … will just have to keep that to myself for now. *wink* I’m so bored with my job. I literally have nothing to do. I am literally stealing from my co-workers just to give me a few things to work on. I feel terrible but I can’t do nothing! Plus, I need the practice. I’ve been watching the UAT (Urgent Action Team) folder where all of the urgent/stat requests get sent to watch how they process things and I’ve learned a lot from doing that but you don’t truly know how to do something until you do it. I just need to relax and enjoy this down time because when the current UAT’s contract runs out and everything shifts over to my team, I will be crazy busy keeping on top of things. Which I prefer, I like staying busy.

November 29:

I’ve been covering another girl from the MRI group while she’s been out and I have to tell you – I’M LOVING THIS! I’ve already completed four requests this morning, all of them were approved, thank you very much, and I’m feeling alert and productive. Unfortunately, she comes back tomorrow so I’ll have to give her group back to her but this was just the confidence boost I needed. I can’t wait till I have my own work! Made a trip to the hospital today. I go to the hospital every Wednesday because one of the cafes sells large baking potatoes with all the trimmings and I CRAVE them sometimes. I went up to get my potato today and stopped by my old office. It was so good to see the girls again but you know how it is, it’s different. Almost awkward, because I’m not part of their world anymore. I popped in to see Emily – that was bitter sweet. I hope she’s not mad at me for leaving. She’s really not like that, she’s one of the most gracious people I know but … I felt guilty. Though it was really nice to see the girls again, I think that might have been my last physical trip up there. I’m still on Teams and I’m sure we’ll talk there but … I just have to accept that that chapter in my life is closed. It’s sad but … here’s to looking at new challenges! Leroy mulched our Fall leaves today. We have four massive Maple trees in our yard so you can imagine the leaves. We don’t rake the leaves, we mulch them making good fertilizer for next year’s grass. People that rake their leaves … WHY??

November 30:

November is over. Wow. Why?? Stole more work to do today. The girl I was covering was back so I’m left with crumbs. I’ve been stealing urgent requests, though. I figure I need to practice on those the most since I will be part of the team that takes them over soon-ish. My Team lead sent out an invitation to a meeting next Thursday so hopefully, we can iron out the timeline a bit more so I’m not left wondering – IS THIS ALL YA GOT?? It went well, though. I’ve been learning to troubleshoot, which is frustrating, but necessary. Especially since I will be working fast – I need to be as efficient as I can be. My goal is not to call insurance companies very often – that is a drag, and a time suck. I signed up for Bath and Body Works Rewards, (thanks mom). And … I’m in trouble! lol My mom has been telling me for a while now that they have pretty good deals on their Rewards program and I’ve just rolled my eyes, but I stand corrected. I ordered some yummy smelling hand soap to put in the bathrooms so our Christmas guests will be suitably impressed and I saved about $7 in shipping by setting it up so I can pick it up from our nearby store. Sweet! It rained today. A soft, slow rain all day. It was a perfect day for a pot pie lunch and to work from home. I’m still on the fence on whether working from home was a good gig for me, but today? Definitely a perk.

Thanks for reading!