Blogging Away Debt

Car Wreck, Real Estate Agent and Rotten Food

Yup, the title says it all about how my day went today…not exactly how I’d planned it.

Over the weekend, we discovered that our refrigerator had lost power, and it had been off for at least a couple of days. Can you say grotesque smelling!!! How? You ask, could I have gone that long without noticing the power was out? Well, the kids had said, “Hey Mom, the refrigerator light is out?” and I took that to mean that we needed a new bulb, not that we lost power. Ugh! I didn’t cook a lot either since I was the event planner for a large event on Saturday and then Sunday went from church to choir practice to…you see how it went.

So today after I dropped the twins at the FIRST (competitive robotics) team’s weekly meeting, the little’s and I went to Sam’s to grocery shop. Then I had to head to the bank to get the money to pay my replacement painter…who finished yesterday! It was raining, there was lots of traffic and we were stopped at a red light…the CRASH! A large work van rammed into the back of my large van. Boy, was I grateful we were in the large van and not the little Honda Accord I will be driving once it sells. So grateful! But his van is now un-driveable and mine is damaged.

So while I was dealing with the police and firemen and insurance companies and children who were excited to be so close to all this action, my phone rang and I let it go to voicemail. I’m thankful that the other driver has car insurance. I am thankful that the police responded so quickly so my new replacement food did not spoil. I am grateful that no one was hurt (this is really my first grateful so don’t take these as order of importance.) And what I’m really grateful for is that my dad took us to the movies this week to see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day! If you haven’t seen it, you should, and you will understand why it meant a lot after the day I was having.

So got the insurance claim filed, got home with my new groceries, ran the gymnast to his workout, ran back to pick up the twins, walked the dogs in the rain and went back to pick up little gymnast. It was a crazy full day. It was hard and full of bickering between the kids, lots of chauffeuring to activities and so much more.

But as I wound down from the wreck, I noticed a voice mail on my phone….

A real estate agent called and has a client who is VERY INTERESTED in my house and wants to show it tomorrow. So today was Hope’s Stress Filled, Over-crowded, Rain Filled, Over the top Day…and someone who is VERY INTERESTED in buying my house is going to look at it tomorrow morning. (The ad went out today, the website went up yesterday.)

So sorry for the late post, but today I am so grateful for my many, many blessings…money to buy more groceries when the power is out, a cozy home on a rainy day, a big car that protected us from what could have been a very bad wreck, that my kids are bright and engaged and involved and mostly, right now…that someone who is VERY INTERESTED is going to see my house tomorrow.

Life Insurance Saga Continues…

by Ashley

It’s no secret that husband and I have been in the process of getting life insurance (see related posts here and here)

My life insurance was all wrapped up and squared away by the middle of last month. Husband’s insurance was also done and we were just waiting for his final contract to arrive in the mail. Or so we thought…

We’d received an email saying that his insurance would be more expensive than the original quote due to his weight (phooey!!! I had received the same email, too). But then when we got a document in the mail from the insurance company, it wasn’t his final contract. Instead, it was a request for more information.

More information, still!

Even though husband had given a thorough medical history and completely covered his mystery medical condition that knocked him out of commission for a couple months at the end of 2013, now they want more information. And by “more information,” I mean that they want his full medical records from this period of time.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

When he went to the Mayo Clinic we had to locate copies of the discs containing his scans and that was insanely difficult. I can’t imagine what it will be like to get a complete record of all this information. While sick, husband went to 3 different Tucson hospitals (and was admitted 2 separate times), had a consultation at the Mayo Clinic, was seen as an outpatient with a neurologist, and had a myriad of blood work tests run at a separate facility. So all of these records are in different places. In addition to just the annoyance of physically going to all these places to retrieve records, let’s talk about the bulk of information that we’ll be requesting. I mean, it will require an actual BOX to send this off to the insurance company. NO WAY it will fit in any type of envelope or padded mailer. It would be easier if we could simply fill out the release form allowing these different entities to mail/email information directly to the insurance company, but the company has requested records from us. Maybe we can work around that and simply say the records will come from the medial entities, but its just going to be a cluster trying to get everything submitted. And then what? Will he even get covered or will they look at everything and reject him after the FOUR MONTHS worth of hoop-jumping we’ve been doing? Why is this all even necessary? They know his final diagnosis (atypical meningitis), so why can’t they just use that to determine cost and coverage rather than requesting every medical record he had from this time? HUGE pain in the arse! HUGE!

So the saga continues with the life insurance. In the meantime, at least I’ve got my coverage in place! I take comfort from the fact that if I had an untimely departure my family would have the funds necessary to survive and even thrive. Of course I would like for my husband to be covered as well, but for some reason I tend to feel like I could take care of myself if he were to have an untimely departure. I know that’s probably naïve and immature, but he’s more likely to try to do everything on his own (and therefore need the financial assistance from life insurance), whereas I’m more likely to simply run back to Austin (I could continue to work my contract jobs), live with family for a bit, and get back on my feet. Though the money would certainly help, we wouldn’t fall apart without it. Unfortunately, when hubs had his mystery illness he really thought he was dying – it was very scary – so I had a bit of time to think about what the future might look like for me and the girls if we were left alone (as weird/morbid/sad as that sounds).

Ick – not a fun topic of conversation! But a necessary one, nonetheless. Anyway, we press on with this life insurance drama.