The wild and crazy life of "us".

Will has been after me to post because so much has been going on. I agree, it's just hard to figure out what to post about. While time has seemed to just crawl lately, I realize that it is actually moving much faster than normal and I'm not able to keep up. We have had so many changes in our lives, in just the last little while, that it is hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll take a stab at it and we'll see where it leads.

January was cold here with lots of ice. Years ago, I was the substitute on the mail route I now have. So I was not surprised by the amounts of snow and ice that cause problems on the hills. I was surprised to find out that the roads in the city were the worst. People did not shovel and the city did not plow. That in mind, Will and I made the decision to find a right hand drive jeep. Jeeps are very popular all over the world, but finding one with RHD and little or no rust is difficult since they are not making them anymore. Before you ask, the conversion kits are dangerous, with a "belt" running from a steering wheel on one side to the other. Most people would have no problem with this, but you have to take into account the "stupid things happen to Deanna rule".

We had been searching for a couple of weeks, with no success. We actually found one that looked great in Green Bay, until we actually saw it. There were lots of little things wrong with it and hidden rust all over. I kept looking...then one day I found a jeep online that he had put the advertisement up on that day. Only problem was that it was in Oregon. Still, I had to consider it, since I found it by what I thought was coincidence. We all know how God likes to work through that coincidence stuff. It turns out that it was not too far from my cousin Kent's house. I emailed Kent and he graciously went and looked at it and took pictures for me. He sent them back. I bought the jeep. Now it's sitting in Kent's driveway, waiting for me. All for less than a third of the price of the Green Bay jeep.

Mail count this year was stressful. I was worried that my route would get smaller, which means same amount of work for less pay. God was good as always and it turned out that the route was 5 minutes into the next larger pay bracket. Yahoo! I didn't have to count this year, but felt I should since the count last year was done by a substitute that had not counted before. I didn't know if it was accurate. Here I was trying to make sure everything was right and it could have blown up in my face,but it didn't. I'm thrilled.

So let's tally up the roster here.....mail count good (check), pay raise coming (check), jeep bought in Oregon with cash so no loan payment (check) life is looking pretty good, but there's more.

For the last 2 years I have been fighting with the insurance company that we had with Will's work. They kept raising deductibles etc. Then they refused to pay for 3 different visits to the tune of $1200 plus. We are still arguing about that. So, on January 1rst we changed to insurance with my work. It sounded really good on paper, but you know how that goes. About 3 weeks ago, Jessalyn suddenly spiked a fever of 102 that would not go down with tylen*l, started throwing up uncontrollably and had low right side pain. We were off to the ER.

Oh great. When we get there, I made the last payment on Jake's last visit (broken nose). I thought to myself. I wonder how much this one will set us back because she had oodles of testing and IV's etc. The benefits explanation came in the mail and I was afraid to open it.....eased it open and started reading (the last thing I need right now is another payment).....ok, hmmmm, charges are about $2700......what do we owe?? Page one.....patient responsibility....NOTHING! Page two......patient responsibility $75....ok, where's the rest????? What?? They payed the entire bill??? Are you kidding me? We only owe $75? Praise the Lord!!!!! What a shock after the previous years of deductibles. Thank you God!

The next week I was back in the Dr's office with Jake who was having chest pains and shortness of breath. In a 17 year old? You have got to be kidding me. They did tons of testing on him and drew blood, which is a hugely traumatic thing for a kid with a needle phobia. Everything came back normal thank you God, but he was still having the symptoms...hmm. I remember when I was about his age having the same symptoms. They called it Pleurisy back then. I don't know if Dr's agree that it's an issue now, but I remember how painful it was back then. I put Jake on an over the counter anti-inflammatory and it seems to be helping. Now we are waiting for this bill, but I am not as worried about this one.

Will and I are set to fly out to Oregon next week (Thursday) to pick up my jeep. This year marks our 20th anniversary, so we are going to take a whole week to come back and call it our anniversary trip. I have always, always wanted to see the Redwoods in California. It has been a dream for years and now it looks like, God willing, I will get to realize the dream. We are going to try to spend one night in a hotel on the beach and watch the sunset. I also would like to take my hubby out to eat some fresh seafood, which is something we both love, but do not get here in Wisconsin for obvious reasons. We plan on just toodeling home with a stop at Glacier. We will buy a new card for the camera since the old one is full and hopefully will share pictures with every one.

So there is the first bunch of happenings here in Donaldsonland....I'll try to post more soon.
Have a great day!
dea