Autumn Ramblings

I am so very, very happy! My favorite time of year has arrived yet again! Not even my aching sinuses and croaking vocal chords can wipe the grin off of my face - no sir. I pulled my boxes of decorations down off the top shelf this week and dug out all things deliciously fall-ish. I even found myself some great sales and bought a few new ones! Not the least of which was a new Yankee candle. Oh, if a girl could only somehow come upon a free lifetime supply of Yankee candles...sigh. I've lit my Spiced Pumpkin candle the last two evenings and basked in its yummy glow. I can't smell a darn thing right now, but just the memory of its scent is enough to make me feel euphoric. (I've opened and smelled every candle Yankee makes countless times, after all.)

On another fall-ish note, my youngest child started kindergarten last week. I cannot...cannot...figure myself out. (I thought that was just my husband's problem, but apparently I can't figure me out either.) I have bawled like a baby every time one of my children has started kindergarten. Big, bad, ugly cries. And now, here it was time to let my last one go. I spent all summer long dreading the day. I thought I was going to be a mess - wandering around the house in a fog, wearing black, and eating 5 pounds of milk chocolate. When the day finally arrived, my husband and I walked her into school, got her all situated, waved good-bye to her little smiling face...and then went and bought a freezer. I NEVER SHED A TEAR!!! What in the world is the matter with me?!!! Actually, I think my easy transition had a lot to do with the fact that my husband was home that whole week, so I never had to return home to an empty house.

Speaking of that, there's a reason my husband was home for an extra week and a half this fall - he took a new job! After 13 years with the same company, he decided to pursue a new opportunity. It's a bit of a scary transition for us, giving up the secure and familiar for the new unknown, but it was time. He's now commuting an hour to work every day. We could move to where he's working, but we adore our life here, so we're trying to stay put. We'll re-evaluate at the end of the school year. He started the job Monday, and so far, so good. He's busy trying to learn a whole new set of ropes. He told me the other day, "I know I'll come up to speed, it's just a matter of if I can do it fast enough before they say, 'Why in the world did we hire this moron??!'" Don't worry, honey, YOU CAN DO IT!!!

An interesting thing happens when you change jobs...your medical insurance changes. I know. This is not rocket science. However, apparently I am ridiculously spoiled by always having had insurance, because I cannot for the life of me remember that small fact! As Murphy's Law would have it, every single doctor's appointment we will have for the ENTIRE YEAR fell in the small window of time between when my husband quit his old job, and the medical benefits got set up at his new job. Some of this was unavoidable. We had some appointments for the kids that had to get done before the start of school, and there wasn't enough time to re-schedule them before he quit. First, we tried to order up my son's asthma meds that he needs at school. I have the meds here at home, but they happen to be expired by a little bit so the school won't use them. No problem, we'll order new ones for school and use the old ones here at home. Problem - the order didn't get completely processed before our insurance ran out. So, first, the order was delayed, and then it was finally cancelled altogether. Grrrrrr. Here comes the stupidity part. Are you ready?? OK...

I'd already discovered the lapse in our insurance through the whole incident mentioned above. Somehow, however, given a week's worth of time, that fact slipped my mind once again. (I repeat...spoiled brat! Yes, Dee, normal people have to pay for medical services rendered!) It has been 6 years since I last went to the doctor for a physical. I hate going to the doctor. I'm always healthy, which makes the whole thing seem pointless, and there's never a convenient time to go. Anyhoo, earlier this summer (long before the whole job change thing was even on the radar) I finally scheduled a time to get my rear into the doc. I figured, I'm no spring chicken so I better take care of myself. The appointment has been on the calendar for months. So, on Tuesday, I drove the 20 min. down to the hospital to obediently go to the doctor like I'm supposed to. I left my brain at home - I figured it was unnecessary to bring along for the parts of my body they were going to be checking out. It didn't dawn on me (again) until the receptionist asked me for my insurance card, that I DON'T HAVE MEDICAL INSURANCE RIGHT NOW!!! Have you ever had to tell a receptionist that you need to cancel your appointment (which starts in one minute, by the way) because you were stupid enough to forget until this very moment that your insurance is invalid?! I didn't bother to tell her that this was the second time I had come to this realization! Oh yeah, and did I mention that the receptionist sitting next to her listening to this whole episode of insanity is a friend of mine from church??

Totally.

Completely.

Embarrassing.

I sheepishly re-scheduled my appointment for a month down the road, and got back into my car to drive home. When I got home, I went to write my new appointment time down on the calendar. Still cursing myself for my utter idiocy, I looked at the date which the receptionist had assured me was a Tuesday. Unfortunately, she must have been a little off her game as well, because the date was actually a Thursday...at a time that I couldn't make. As if I wasn't already humiliated enough, I had to call the unit back and re-schedule my appointment AGAIN!!! The whole time the phone was ringing I just kept praying, "Jesus, pleeeease let it NOT be the same chick...and preferably not my friend either!"

There is still some grace left for me in heaven - it was neither.

Apparently, God felt the need to re-instill a little sense of reality to my American self by letting me experience life without insurance for a couple of weeks. For me, it's nothing more than a minor inconvenience that will be remedied within a week or two. For some people, it's a way of life. This lesson has not escaped me.

Well, I'll wrap up this random and wandering post by wishing you a very happy autumn, full of crisp breezes, warm fires, spicy smells and the clear sinuses with which to smell them!!!