Because playing with my money...

...that's right.  Is like playing with my emotions.

Today, I threw my former gynecologist's office right under the bus.  Then I backed up and ran them over again.  I've been going there for nearly four years as they came recommended by someone that I trust.  Also, they speak clear English and that's really important to me when it comes to my medical care.

They've requested-until-I-caved-in me to have a couple of procedures in the past that I knew I didn't need.  I've had these parts for 36 years and I know how they act.  Sometimes they need a procedure, but most times they do not.

The shortest straw has been drawn for me and that straw broke the relationship.

I am fortunate.  I have health insurance (right now).  And for this pleasure, I pay with my soul, but that's another story.  I know how insurance works.  This is not my first time having it.  SO, Doctor, I know that I pay you the co-pay and you bill the insurance.  They don't pay you everything you charge because you overcharge like bars in a strip club.  But this is not my problem.  Until this year apparently.

You see, you've decided to change your policies.  Instead of me paying my lovely co-pay, you've decided that ALL patients should pay you $150 up front and (I shit you not) if after you bill the insurance, you'll cut me a check for whatever I overpaid.

Have.  You.  Lost.  Your.  Everloving.  Minds?!?!?!

I'm sorry.  Never once has one of my bills come back to you.  Never once have I owed your office money.  And this is the shit you're gonna pull?  You tell me I have a deductible (which isn't listed on the card, you had to look online or call) but  you couldn't bother to see that I have a co-pay and you can't rape me for $150 thinking I'm some other moron down here that isn't gonna throw you under the bus?!?!

Get under the bus, bitches.

Yeah, that's right.  I called my insurance company.  I peppered them with questions.  I know you're wrong.  I also know that what you're doing is in violation of your contract with the insurance company.  And I reported your ass.  You know why?  Cuz times are hard, motherfuckers.  While you're living in your big ass house, driving your nice car, some of us are just getting by and trying to stay healthy.  How can you charge someone $150 in these times and expect them to wait for you to send back the extra?  I know that I wouldn't have seen my $110 for over a month and that's only if you didn't try to steal more of it from me.

Not everyone is gonna call you on this, but I did.  What you're doing is uncalled for.  It's filthy and I despise you for it.  I know it isn't common practice either.  I've been to many doctors from dermatologists to chiropractors and EVERY OTHER DOCTOR has been about helping the patient, not screwing them.

Karma is a bitch.

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Addicted...

To buying crap I see on TV. I must be every marketing team's wet dream.

Not only do I see it and want it, I can fully rationalize why I need to have it. While any product might catch my attention, skin care and fitness stuff is where I'm the biggest sucker. It isn't as though I have all of this disposable income, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

It started in earnest with Zumba. I had been to a couple classes and really enjoyed it, so when I saw that I could buy it and have it at home, yeah, I bought it. Granted, it's currently assisting me as I'm going to do the Zumba certification at the end of the month, but for a long time, it sat idle.

Along came Shaun T. and his Hip Hop Abs. Wow! That looks like fun. I bet I could do that. Effing infomercials. And hey, this is a perfect way to get in shape before the reunion (Club Med). Cha ching, cha ching, jackpot, I think I'm in love. Honestly, I recommend the videos. They are fun and they do work. I received several compliments from folks that I hadn't seen in some time that I was still rockin it out with my bad self.

It doesn't end there. When it comes to skin care, I've tried so many things. I have horrible skin. I'm 36 and still breaking out like I'm 16. I eat right and try to drink lots of water, but the genes I have are the genes I have. Proactive? Been there, done that. Dermatologist prescribed stuff? Yep, done that too. Oil of Olay Regenerist (that's supposed to take away the lines and darkness around the eyes)? Yup. Didn't really work for me.

My latest skin care products? Neutrogena Tone Correcting line. Why? Because Gabrielle Union said it worked for her. Sure, she has money out the anus and probably a super dermatologist, but IT WORKED FOR HER or so she claims. It might actually work for me. It'll be a week on Sunday that I've been using it and it is lightening up my raccoon eyes. We'll see if it does anything for my blotches. Probably not more than ceasing and desisting with the picking would, but hey, I'm already a week in.

And now, I've seen another infomercial. Shaun T. is up to his old tricks. He has a new set of videos called Insanity. I've been seeing it for months now and I'm itching to buy it. Rationalization? It's a 60 day program. Hip Hop Abs is a 30 day program. I can start HHA at the beginning of February, rock it out, take maybe a month of rest (doing other workouts) then start Insanity at the beginning of April, ending it at the beginning of June, just in time to be a brick shithouse for the wedding. Go ahead, argue with that reasoning. I dare you.

I'm really considering this. I don't know how to stop. I need help. From the lottery so I can keep buying stuff. If you'll pardon me, I have to go. There's a pole dancing class that's calling my name.

The Post Where We're Almost Halfway Through January Already

Oh yeah, that's right. I said it. And it's true. In a few short days, we'll be halfway through the first month of the new year. I gave up on resolutions since I typically fail at those in an epic manner. Countdowns, however, I am fantastic at those. Basically because they take care of themselves. I've also got some plans for the next two months, but I'm trying not to go out any further than that for now, but of course some plans extend past that.

Countdowns first:

• 5 days until I get back into the Pole Fitness studio. I don't know if I'll do many actual pole classes, but the conditioning and stretching and the cabaret classes are SO. ON. I'm hoping the cabaret class takes care of my desire to relive my Club Med days of being on stage.
  
• 11 more days of doing Zumba every mornings preparation for going to get the certification. Now that's more my speed. I need to be out and about with the people.
  
• OMG! OMG! OMG!!! There are only 26 days left until graduation!! It seems like we've been trying to get this degree forever but we finally have the end in our sights. See previous bullet and know that I probably will not use said degree.
• 27 days until I can focus on getting my group fitness certification. (See a trend here?) Yeah, I already have my business card pictured in my head. I know I can do this and I'll be great at it. For Pete's sake, if I can teach people to do the flying trapeze, I can teach them to exercise on the ground.
• 48 days until I can (hopefully!) liberate myself from these handcuffs, even though they pay the bills.
  
• 108 days is the target to actually have that certification. Sooner would be better, of course, but I gotta just make some goals here.
• 151 days until I'm officially off the market. (I mean, I've been off the market since 3/4 through 2005, but 151 days till it's all legal and junk.)
• Somewhere around the 170 day mark, we should have everything together to get the hell out of dodge. By dodge I mean Miami. I don't think that there are words to describe how much I'm looking forward to leaving the concrete jungle behind. Hello trees and grass and open spaces!

Wow. There's a lot going on in my life. Funny that I don't even realize that until I write it down.

Also in the plan is trying to finagle my way into a job that doesn't currently exist but I'm trying to talk my future boss into it. Who can resist a well-written proposal?!?! I'm torn between wanting to do this (because it's closer to home, less stress, so freeing) and not (feeling bad because future boss may be somewhat of a pushover, I've seen it, and even though I know this person needs my help, I just feel bad. I'm a weirdo.).

Random sidebar: Do you know this guy? Today's his birthday. Look him up on Facebook and wish him a happy birthday. Tell him Sunshine sent you, lol.

Have you ever shopped for a wedding dress? It's a pain in the ass. I finally picked it out though and now I just have to order it and hope against hope that it won't need alterations. Not because of the cost, just the inconvenience. Golly, I'd have to get in the car and drive like 5 minutes to the store. Ugh! Yes, I'm lazy. I'm all about the party but not so much about the prep. Wait, but I already know what I'm gonna do with my hair. Ha!

Random sidebar #2: "My Maria" by Brooks and Dunn just came on my iPod. It really reminds me of some kickass times that our Don Pablo's crew used to have. Annie, Carrie, Nestor, George, Chris, Lori, Gerth, Mel (!), and all the rest of the crew that followed me "home" all the time, I miss you guys!!

I am convinced that my life story would make either a great book or a great thesis for an up and coming psychiatrist. Maybe I should get to writing down some of my better adventures. You might not believe them even if I told you, lol. Perhaps in another post. Till then...

Blog challenge - week 1 wrap-up

Okay, first let me say that, to be the organizer, I'm a horrible blogger. I managed one lousy post this week and I won't bore you with my excuses as to why I didn't blog more. Let's just leave it as poor time management. So, a big F for me for week one.

The rest of you, however, did some fantastic work.

Kevin put up four posts in combination this week over at The Pop Ogre and I'm So Goddamned Clever. Kevin is a showoff. :-P But, he's a showoff with interesting stuff to say, so congrats for kicking the first week square in the chin. I'm sure that he'll be keeping us giggling for the rest of the year.

Kelleen (I really love your name!!), who is over on Tumblr, with Ashes To Ashes We All Fall Down, gave us at least 5 posts (!) this week. I'm new to tumblr, so please forgive me whilst i figure it out. Kelleen has introduced herself to us and given us lots to think about, or at least she gave me a lot to think about. Thanks and congrats on the first week. :-)

Carolinaware, who shall remain as such unless he wants to pony up any more information, is filling up The WareHouse will all things sports and music as well as ladies and info you just didn't know! He knocked it out of the PARK with, I believe, 15 posts this week. Thanks for making us look like slackers, lol. Seriously, keep it up, you'll inspire at least me to get on the ball.

I believe that in the upcoming weeks, we may have more people joining this little party. I believe that @tyronem and @kaseymcintyre are interested in playing and I'm going to shoot for getting my brother in on the fun as well. (no twitter ID for him)

Let's take this month to get this ball really rolling and then we can do fun stuff to add to the challenges next month. What do you think?

In the words of my great uncle, Alle Cuisine!

The Vacation Wrap-up

Well, it's all over for another year. Time to sadly put away the snowboards and the jackets, the thermals and the gloves. Time to come back to sea level with a higher alcohol tolerance and the driest skin ever! Thank goodness for cocoa butter.

Let me share with you some highlights:

• During a ride with Kiddo, I was on the side of the trail to take a picture. As you can see, the snow was a little sparse in places. Kiddo was trying to avoid one of those spots and in turn, lost control of her board and crashed into a tree. Head first. Thank goodness for helmets! (She dented hers, btw.) Fortunately, she has a hard head and suffered nothing more than a little headache. The tree was fine.
• That's what she said. Who is she? I want to meet her. Ha!
• Margaritas and enchiladas at Mi Casa FTW!
• You really just can't ever go wrong at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
• Jerky! Venison and elk and buffalo!
• Vanilla Porter at Breckenridge Brewery. I love beer!

And some of the lowlights:

• Arrived at the airport 2 hours early for our flight only to find lines that went back to the house where we stayed.
• Airline rep said the line would only be 20 minutes outside with the skycap.
• We believed her. Dummies.
• 90 minutes later, we were frozen, still needing to go through security, and our plane was boarding.
• Made it through security in record time, ran over several people on the way to the gate, made the plane but couldn't sit together.
• Upon our arrival in Florida, 2 of our bags were missing. Of course it's the one with all of my toiletries, makeup, etc.
• The airline had no idea where out bag was and told me about 15 different stories.

Happy endings:

• We did finally get our bags a day later.
• Everything was intact.
• They delivered the bags to the house at the exact time we specified.
• Next year, we'll ride all season and take a cruise on Christmas!!
  

2010 Blog challenge

Hi there, folks.  Sorry to be so late with getting to this, but I know you'll forgive me. :)

So, what do you say we start this friendly competition (with no real prize other than saying, hey, I blogged a lot this year) on Monday, January 4.  Each blog post needs to have at least 100 words and there should be three posts per week.  If we want to go really crazy, we could take turns picking a topic.

Please post a link to your blog in the comments and every Sunday (or early Monday), I'll recap them all in a post and send out the link through Twitter.

Am I missing anything?  Let me know and let's have some fun!

Letter to and about 2010

Well, 2010, here you are.  I didn’t stay awake to see you make your entrance, but then again, I haven’t done that in a while now.  I did make it to 11:30 but I really just couldn’t be bothered with trying to stay up any longer.  You’d show up whether I was there to greet you or not. 

I’m not really of the school of 2009 was sooo bad, so hurry up 2010.  I realize that a lot of bad things happened to a lot of people, but on a whole, 2009 wasn’t that terrible, at least, not for me.  2010, though, you, you have potential to be a great year.

You started out in the cold but beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado.  I’ll tell you one thing, 2010 and all of your followers, we won’t be traveling during the holidays any more.  Next year our Christmas will hopefully be white and we’ll just be able to hit a mountain within driving distance.

Looking at the rest of January, my schedule is already full.  The last class of this Bachelor’s degree starts on the 5^th.  It’s been such a long time coming and there really aren’t even words to describe how happy I am to be this close to done.  One Saturday this month, I will need to go and get trained in CPR.  Why?  Well, because at the end of the month, on a Saturday, I’ll be going to Zumba training so that I will be a certified instructor.  Oh, yeah, and at some point, I’ll also need to read through all of my training manuals so that I can also do my group fitness certification.  Might sound as though it makes no sense to finish a degree and then take an entirely different route, but as far as I’m concerned, I can never be good at too many things.  

February will bring (finally!) the graduation. It is the culmination of years of work, of staying home, of banging my head against the wall at times.  Finally, it will be over.  I will have “gotten that paper” and hopefully it’ll be worth it somewhere.

March, April and May don’t have exact milestones as of yet, however, they will be filled with dress hunting, invitation sending and general paranoia about if the wedding will go off without a hitch.  Yikes!  These three months will also be filled with job hunting and apartment searching for the new place out west as well as trying to prep the house we’re in to be in move-in condition for someone else.  These will probably be the three most stressful but entirely worth it months because leaving Miami is really a high priority for me.

June, I’m really looking forward to you.  It’ll be nice and warm and we’ll be on our way to Cancun to be married on the beach.  Immediately following seeing off our guests, we’ll begin luxury lounging at our hotel for a week before we come home and finish up packing the house.  If all goes just perfectly, we’ll be in our new place, wherever that may be, by the fourth of July.

July and August will be dedicated to adjusting to our new neighborhood, hopefully making some friends, and getting everyone settled in their new jobs/schools.

The last third of the year is really just anyone's guess.  I'm probably doing good to have as much planned out as I do.  Maybe closer to the end of the year I'll revisit this and see what's up for the end of the first year of this new decade.