Cutie Booty Baby Booties

I love these baby booties. I got the pattern from the SockPixie. Many thanks!



I used some leftover sock yarn for these. They're for my friend Catherine.

It's a Miricle - I Have Health Insurance!

I was waiting to post this because I thought it was too good to be true. It seems that Golden Rule has some administrative issues over there. I received a denial letter last month and I thought that was that.

Then a couple of weeks ago I received an acceptance letter. Strange. I was skeptical, but I received the paperwork and insurance card last week! The same day that I got the card in the mail I received another letter from Golden Rule saying that they were still processing my application and sorry for the delay. I'm thinking that their autogenerated mailings are screwed up or they have entered my application more than once. Don't really care because I have health insurance!

They did place a rider on my policy which says that they won't cover any expenses related to treatment of depression or insomnia. They also provided a manual that spells out in great detail other things that aren't covered. I thought I'd share a few. Some are funny and some are just wrong.
They don't cover:

• a hospital room stay for the first Friday or Saturday of an inpatient stay which begins on one of those days. Translation - if you are admitted to the hospital during the weekend they won't cover the first day. Very strange.
• charges or prep for tissue or organ transplants. Not cool.
  
• a type of chemotherapy called ABMT/BMT. And if that's the chemotherapy that you need, you're out of luck.
• expenses "due to pregnancy." I just like they way they phrased it.
• preventive care including routine physicals.
  
• emergency medical expenses that take place outside of the US.
• injury caused by an act of declared or undeclared war. Survivors of 9/11 you're out of luck with Golden Rule.
• an injury that happens while I'm taking part in a riot. I love this one.
• an injury that happens while I'm committing a felony (whether or not charged). I'll keep this in mind the next time I'm considering robbing a bank.
• an injury that takes place at work.
  
• tonsils, adenoids, middle ear disorders, etc., etc. are not covered for the first six months of the policy. I'll make sure to tell my body not to have any of these problems until the fall.
• anything related to HIV or AIDS if you are diagnosed in the first 12 months of the policy. Very uncool.
  

There are 15 pages of more things they don't cover.

As a side note, here's an interesting article about a healthcare lottery in Oregon. Something has got to give. This industry needs to be completely overhauled.

Happy Birthday to Me

Yeah, it's my birthday! I'm officially in my 30s now. When I first starting thinking about this b-day I was sad. I like being in my 20s. They were good years for me. I cleaned up my life -

• I quit smoking
• I became a vegetarian
  
• I discovered and nourished my love for philosophy
• I married my love
• I graduated from college
• I went to counseling and got treatment for my PTSD and depression
• I took my bastard ex-step-father to court and a jury convicted his sorry ass
• I worked as a professional and made a decent living for the first time
  
• I lived in NYC
• My beautiful daughter Zoe joined our family

I'm very proud of what I've accomplished in the past 10 years, and I've come up with a blueprint for the next 10. My 30s are going to be about me being myself. I'm going to continue to live in a way that is true to my heart and speak my mind even if I know that I might offend someone.

I'm going to stop taking Celexa and work on the underlying issues that are bring my depression to the surface instead of covering them up with meds. To kick it off, I'm going to do a liquid cleanse for 3 weeks. I'm waiting until we get back from NYC because I have to gorge myself at my favorite restaurants while I'm there. It is my birthday after all.

Cleansing the body, cleansing the mind... can't wait.

Blue Who

In honor of the Smurfs being released on DVD I've changed my hair color from red to blue. Well that's not entirely true. I can't wait for for Netflix to send me the Smurfs, but the blue hair is for my birthday.

Don't Drink the Water

AP reported that 24 major metropolitan cities in the US have traces of pharmaceuticals in the public drinking water. The article in USA Today says that US water utilities rarely release test results because they don't want to scare the public.

What I want to know is WHY there are pharmaceuticals in the drinking water. Do pharmaceuticals pass thur our bodies and then not brake down? Are pharmaceutical components being dumped and then contaminating the water supplies? And the paranoid one - are pharmaceuticals added on purpose? Here's a quote from the story

Peter Rogers, Harvard University professor of environmental engineering, said improvements in detection techniques could help fuel fears among the general public.

"We're chasing this down to molecular-sized measurements, so the more you look, the more you find," said Rogers. "I think the government and utilities are quite right to be very skittish about telling people their results. People will claim it is causing all sorts of problems. If I were a water utility, I would stop those measurements right away because if you measure something, it will get out, and people will overreact. I can just imagine a whole slew of lawsuits."

We'll if there are going to be a lot of lawsuits, then by all means, please don't tell us what we're drinking.

Sunset Collage

Zoe

I realized that I haven't posted anything about my sweetie pie Zoe in awhile. She woke up from her nap yesterday and she looked older. Something in her eyes had changed. She was more aware. It feels like each day she is figures out another piece of the world.

Now when we are driving she will dance in her car seat along with me. I'm teaching her all of my favorite groups. She's going to be the only kindergartner that can name David Bowie, Nirvana and Pink Floyd songs by their opening cords :)

I know that I'm her mom, but I have to say that she is the perfect child. Even her tantrums are cute (well...maybe with the exception of when she throws all of her food off the high chair... but that's cute too if you don't have to clean it up).

This picture was taken in January and it already looks outdated.

An interesting side note - it was in the 80s last Monday. We're expected to get an inch of snow tonight. Love ya Texas.

The 3 Year Baby Blanket

I started knitting this blanket in October 2004. While we were in Florence, Skip told me that he was ready to have a baby. We had been talking about it for some time before then and the idea completely freaked him out. I don’t know what changed his mind, but there was a huge shift in his thinking. I was very happy to say the least. I worked on the blanket in between projects until I got pregnant in November 2005 and was so exhausted that I stopped knitting all together.

When I first starting knitting this blanket I was concerned about how the colors repeated and blended together. I would look at each row getting frustrating when one color would pool together to make a blob. When I picked this up again I had to make myself stop looking at the colors so that I could actually finish a row.

I made this blanket in the “window pane” pattern. It’s difficult to see in the picture because of the color variation of the yarn. The pattern was written by someone at the Woolie Ewe, the best yarn shop in Texas. I took my first knitting class there back in 97. The mother and daughter owners of the store, Sue and Jill, are patient and wise, and all around great people.

I’m started on the next project – a pair of baby booties for my friend Catherine. I found this really cute pattern on the SockPixie blog. I’m using some left over sock yarn for 5 years ago ((patting myself on the back for using up some of my stash on a gift)).