Dreams....

What do you think dreams are? Can your dreams be pictures into the future or the stuff Disney songs are made of? You know... A dream is a wish your heart makes when your fast asleep.... I know for sure bad dreams or scary ones, are not a wish that my heart makes and usually they are triggered by some type, of disturbing movie I have recently watched or even grisly news that I have seen on TV or read about. I can almost always find something in my bad dreams that I can link to something I have recently seen, so I can easily figure them out and put them into perspective. But my good dreams I'm not sure about, I'm not sure if they are just hopeful wishing on my part or if they are really trying to tell me something. Usually I don't dream very often but lately I have been, and I think that like alot of people I am looking for any reason to be hopeful, for the future and that my dreams just may be wishes I am hoping for, but it sure would be nice, to believe that these dreams are a hint, of better times coming. We all need to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope is something we all need to hang onto.

Weather Ride

So on Sunday we woke up to a surprise snowstorm and had up to 8 inches dumped on us. Tuesday and Wednesday we had temps in the upper 40's to even the lower 50's and the snow has been melting like crazy. Today we woke up to a very heavy blanket of fog and and a 3 hour school delay. This afternoon the rain is supposed to start ( up to 1 inch is expected) and maybe even some thunderstorms tonight! Then right behind that its supposed to turn very cold immediately and we may even see some snow flakes again this weekend. Spring is definitely coming, as we are starting into our roller coaster ride of transitional weather, with extremes from one end of the spectrum to the other. Indiana has long been known for very unpredictable weather, we get hard, long,cold and snowy winters and alot of the time winter doesn't want to let its grip go on us until well into Spring, we often have ups and down clear till May, then as the past years have shown, we go from being very cool to being exceedingly HOT! We seem to skip over spring alot and the same is true with fall, we don't always get to enjoy a nice warm colorful fall, we often go straight from summer to cold. The weather is never boring here that's for sure! But it sure makes it hard to try to know when its truly safe to put plants outside.

WHAT's going on????

The weather forecasters have been way off the last 2 days and definitely not in our favor. At midnight on Friday when we turned the TV off, we were still under a winter storm warning with 5-8 inches of snow to be on the ground Saturday. The snow was to start by 4 am they said and was to be at its heaviest by 7:30 am, so after hearing this, I cancelled the 1 hour trip south, we had planned Saturday morning, for a meeting about a scholarship program, my daughter is involved with. Instead we get up Saturday and by 7:30 am the first flakes were just starting and the snow warning had went away and thru out the course of the day we only got a couple of inches. Mind you we were not complaining about it as we were very happy that it looked like we had missed the brunt of this storm.

Then Saturday night again, we listened to the news and weather and at 11:30 pm ,the weather person said we were only to get a dusting more of snow overnight, due to lake effect snow wrap around, but nothing to be worried about. Instead we wake up to several inches of new snow! So my better half is out plowing now. He says we have at least 7- 8 inches out there all ready and we are still getting bursts of snow falling off and on. We read one report this morning that said we will end up with a total of 9 inches today.

Come on Spring.... March is only 6 days away.

Cobra Coverage-- Changes coming, We maybe able to afford it????

Being recently layed off I got my packet of info about 2 weeks ago, informing me that I could continue my same group medical, dental and vision coverage for the family, on for an additional 18 months. Sounds great but I now have to pay the full premium of these policies. $1350.00 a month. Who on earth could afford that??? I knew that our premiums were going up starting January 1 and that our employer was going to make us pay more out of pocket before I was even let go and my significant other and I had decided we just couldn't afford the coverage even when I was still an employee. The cost as an employee was going to be almost $800.00 a month, that was a huge chunk out of my paychecks every month, so we had started looking for outside coverage before I even knew I was going to be layed off. I am Life and Health insurance licensed but I have not actively sold insurance for almost 5 years now so I know there have been alot of changes but I know enough about the industry to know that $ 800 was too much and we could do better elsewhere. The problem is that my employer only offered 3 plans and you had no options to pick and choose from certain benefits from within the 3 options so you were forced to to pay for benefits that you may not want or need but since it was group coverage everybody got the same thing. also the insurance premium for the employee themselves is pretty good but when you try to add 2 children and a spouse onto the policy the premiums just go thru the roof! We definitely were paying more out of pocket for insurance than we ever were using in benefits. We could have easily self insured ourselves for less but then you run the risk of a major injury or illness and then you could be in trouble from huge medical bills. Its always better to be safe than sorry and just have insurance. BUT always shop around and make sure you are getting the best coverage for the best price.

So now that I am not working we were put in a new delima of what do we do now. Until unemployment kicks in we cant afford to go buy coverage anywhere and the $1350.00 a month was not an option.... Until the Economic recovery bill was signed into law this week. Please note I am not an expert on this and there are more pages and items included in this plan than most of us will ever see or understand, so I can only tell you about what I have been told on this subject concerning myself only. So I can not guarantee the following info is correct for everyone or anyone other than myself. But I called my former employer yesterday and was told that yes part of the bill President Obama signed this week will in most cases allow the government to subsidize 65% of the cobra premium for up to a 9 month period. The package is still too new and my employer said that they do not have all of the details yet but they will be mailing info, to all former employees that will qualify for this new lower premium when they get all of the rules and regulations sent to them by the government. This is the info tht they had at this time, subject to change as they got more details. Apparently if I had all ready signed up for Cobra( which I hadnt yet, thank goodness) and had been paying the higher premiums all ready, they will not go back and refund anything for prior months, it is only for payments starting in March or April and going forward for 9 months. Also if you have been recently layed off( guidelines of that time frame were not known by my employer)and chose not to accept the cobra coverage at that time, you may be given a window of opportunity to sign up for Cobra coverage. Again this is only info I got from my previous employer concerning my specific case so please contact your former employers if you think you may qualify for this or if you have additional questions. Its definitely worth looking into. As we can probably afford Cobra coverage at this lower cost, for 9 months and that may give us enough time to find coverage elsewhere or give us time for one of us to get a job that has good coverage.

4 weeks to Spring!

Oh please hurry up spring, 4 weeks can seem to be a very short time frame or it may end up feeling like it is dragging on forever. Especially since another winter storm is taking aim at us tonight and tomorrow. I have heard varying reports, depending on exactly how the storm tracks, of 5-7 inches of snow. BOOOOO! We just had gotten to the point were we could see the grass again. Sigh........ Why couldn't we get a little help from Mother nature and she let us have a mild end to this winter and an early warm spring? I could really use the break in the heating bills.

Blog Love Award!!!!

Christy from At the Creek, just gave me this award. I am very ecstatic as this is my first award!!! Yahoo! That was so nice of Christy and I am pleased to accept it and pass it on to some of my blogging friends.

Here are the rules attached to this particular award:

* When you receive the Blog Love award, you should place the logo on your blog proudly!

* Link to the blogger that awarded you the love.

* Nominate your friends and bloggers you read regularly, as many as you like.

* Finally, let them know you’ve nominated them to receive the award.

I am still fairly new to the blogging world and there are so many great blogs out there that I like to visit, so I had a hard time deciding who to give this terrific award to, there are so many wonderful blogs all deserving of this award.

Drum roll please...I am passing this award on to the below blogs, that I follow frequently and love:

If you love "The Bachelor" show then you have to check out this blog! Stacey B is the best!

Hair 4 my Princess If you have girls in your life and they love to have their hair done, then this blog is for you!!! Some of the most original and cute hair designs are shown here, with step by step instructions!!

All Things Ribbon Another must site to visit if you have girls. Some of the most beautiful hair bows and dresses are featured here. Check it out, you wont be sorry!

Thrifty Creativity One of my favorite blogs to visit and one of my top droppers! Thank you!! I always find a useful tip to use here!

Half Price/Full Pantry A blog not to be missed! Love this blog. A topper dropper of mine and always has a positive comment for me!!

Cell phone nightmare!!!

More Thorns, More thorns, OUCH!! I just looked at our cell phone bill that came in the mail today and My better half just about had to give me CPR and pick me up off of the floor! I have heard about parents getting scary cell phone bills but it had never happened to me until today. If you remember I just had called my cell provider and had our plan reviewed and made changes and saved almost 65.00 a month, well that savings is gone...... Our bill was 3.5 times the normal this month!! No flowers here for sure!!!! For the last 8 months we hadn't even been using 25% of the minutes on the plan we had, so our account rep, during the account review, suggested we drop to a smaller plan and save ourselves some money, sounded good at the time but now its not looking so good. Even if we had been in the original plan we still would have been over in minutes but not by as much, but the bill still would have been alot higher either way. We have free nights and weekends and free long distance and free mobile to mobile with our carrier and free unlimited texting so how on earth could the bill be over??? A teenager who got overly chatty last month, thats how. And all of her calls were before 9pm , when the free nights kick in and alot of her friends are not with our carrier so the free mobile to mobile was useless. So we were charged for every minute over our plan minutes at .40 cents a minute! So after a very long talk with her and and a call to the cell phone company we are at least sitting up and breathing more easily. They are going to put us on a payment plan and break all of the extra charges up over a 2-3 billing period time frame. Needless to say my daughters cell phone usage will be heavily monitored for awhile and she is going to help pay for the extra charges.