NSR: I need to get back to writing, creating

NSR: (non surrogacy related)

I need a live in housekeeper/cook. I don't have a room for you and I can barely pay you, but I need you nonetheless. 😉

My creativity is sitting on a shelf creating dust. I have a book to publish, and working on 3 more. I have more surrogacy design ideas too. (I guess this is slightly surrogacy related- ha! Plus most of my books are about surrogacy. Lol.)

But there are too many "important" things to do each day:

Laundry, dishes, more laundry, put away the laundry and the dishes, preparing meals, cleaning up after meals. More dishes. Cleaning, vacuuming, dusting. Mom duties, wife duties. My kids are older, yet I call it a good day to shower and get a few things checked off my list, mainly dishes, laundry and dinner. The kids are helping out more thanks to Chore Monster. (Google it, get the app, it's awesome!)  I feel guilty to set aside time to write, to create. (Yet I find time for FB, etc. on my phone here and there 😞) 

I'm not very good at organizing or time management. I'm not a morning person and I spend 3 hours each morning getting kids up and off to school. They all leave one hour apart. It sucks!!  I might be able to squeeze in some time there while my more responsible child gets ready. I have to poke and prod the other 2. My hubby has hardly any time off and gets home late. So when he gets home, it's dinner and time together. I spent plenty of time without him when he was in the Navy. I'm proud to say I enjoy spending time with my husband.

I've even neglected my blog. But here I am, so I guess there's hope for me yet!

😉

More adventures with Workforce Services

Well, they changed things on us again. No explanation. Yet they say "Please review the following for details"

• The number of eligible persons in your household has changed  (No it hasn't, we don't have any more people here or any less. They did take my husband off our case because he was a full time student, so maybe they put him back on? Not sure why though since he's still a full-time student. I recently had to do a review, and OHMYGOSH they had a bunch of stuff wrong. For example, apparently I had never been married. So maybe "now" that they "know" I'm married, that changed our people eligible. Who the hell knows? Not me, because they give no explanation.

• Your countable income has changed. (Yep, this is huge mind you.... we get an EXTRA whole $18 more from VA disability each month. Better count that against us! Better cut our food stamps by 70% because we make so much more now.

• Your housing/utility (shelter) costs have changed (Well first of all our Mortgage is actually $5 more a month, so yes they are correct there, that has changed. Also when I first filled out the utility section it was divided up so I had to estimate each because ours is lumped together here. So when I filled it out this time it was all in one, so yes it was probably a little less... but not by nearly as much as they're adjusting our benefits.)

I notice all this last night, so I went to check more into it this morning. We are usually sent messages through notices. Well on the screen there's a note that says 

Important information:

• Everything is okay on your case today.

Well Hallelujah! If they said so, it must be true!

I still want to know what happened. And what do they mean by everything is okay? That is so general. Until I see an official notice saying that everything was the way it was, everything is NOT okay! 

What frustrates me is trying to sort this all out. Is it something to worry about? Do they have incorrect information? As I've said in previous posts, it's not a simple matter of going in and getting it sorted out. I wish... although that is a 30-40 minute drive. Nope, you have to call or chat with an eligibility specialist with a wait of on average, 45 minutes. Well today I hop on the chat and it's only 4 minutes. YES! Oh, but she can't answer ANY of my questions. I'd have to call and talk to an eligibility specialist. Um, I thought that was what chat was for. Apparently not anymore. So after wasting 15 minutes on chat (because I wasn't sure which questions she might be able to answer), I reluctantly call. There's an estimated 28 minute wait. I can't afford to wait 28 minutes. I don't have a home phone, just a cell phone. A 28 minute wait means more like 40 and then talking to someone and get it all straightened out would be another 20 at best. I don't know if my battery would last that long and I just can't use that many minutes.  :(

That was one thing I liked about being able to chat. Plus I had it all there in front of me and I could save it if need be and refer back to what I was told. GGGRRR!

I also had another question which would be another department, so a separate phone call.

Sorry. Had to rant!

Now there's a 7 minute wait so maybe I'll finally get this sorted out.

Update:
This is lovely. She says we went from an income of $0 to $2400. Um, nope. We've always been getting the VA Disability and the unemployment. NO changes there! But see they had taken John off the case because he was a full time student, so we qualified as a household of 4 and with him being off, his income was off. I have no income. Well they saw that he got VA disability, so they marked him as 100% disabled! Just assumed I guess as usual. With him being 100% disabled, he was eligible for benefits, so they counted his income which lowered our overall benefits. Without verifying anything. Then she tells me because of this there could be over-payments from before. MY heart flipping stopped beating!!! How can they do that to us when they made the mistake? I told her all the things they said had changed hadn't. We've been upfront with them about everything from the beginning and along the way. I laughed though when she said he was 100% disabled and said no, he's 30%. She said that would probably change things back to where they were so hopefully no over-payments. If there would be over-payments, they would probably have to stop benefits for about 4-6 months to make up for them or have us flat out pay. Either way would SUCK! 
So now, I ask you, was everything okay?

And a few days later.. this is how they fix it:

There has been a change to the Household benefits for this Program. Please review the following
information for details:
• The following individuals have been removed from the assistance program:
JOHN
This decision was based on information from the school(s) that the child(ren) are not
regularly attending school and do not have an acceptable excuse (good cause) for not
attending.
The child(ren) may be added back on to the financial assistance if the school verifies either
by letter or the completion of the form 126, "Verification of School Enrollment," that you are
cooperating with the school and following the process to resolve the attendance problem.

This is my husband they're talking about first of all, not a child. Second, they make it sound like he's not attending school. Well he is, so obviously they didn't check with the school. Third... because of they're reasoning here, we get our benefits back to what they were. It IS fixed. But they make it sound like because he's "not" attending school, we get more benefits. That's how brilliant they are. They can't just say, "Oops we made a mistake, your husband is attending school full time, therefore he's not eligible for these particular benefits." 
So hooray for it being "fixed", but still nerve wracking because it's not worded right, and I don't want it to bite us in the butt later, because of how THEY worded it.

Fed up with unemployment, food stamps, etc.

What a flipping rollercoaster we have been on since John was laid off in October.

We went in right away to apply for Unemployment and ended up applying for Food Stamps and Medical Assistance as well.

Things went smooth for about a week. We got the unemployment, food stamps and medical for our kids. John and I don't get medical. Because John is a Veteran, they say he has "other insurance" and can go to the VA hospital for everything. Not sure why I couldn't get anything.

So we're set up and things are ok and then all of a sudden I get a notice saying that my son is no longer eligible for Medical and will only be covered for the month of November. However, my girls get to stay on. What the hell?

In fact, here's the notice:


We have made a decision about your eligibility for benefits. Below is a summary of the eligibility results.

Childrens Health
Insurance
10-24-2011 December 2011 Change
Children's Health Insurance Program
There has been a change to the Household benefits for this Program. The following individual(s) remain
eligible for this program:
JESSICA
TRISTAN
Please review the following information for details:
• The above individual(s) will be enrolled in the Childrens Health Insurance program. Their
enrollment will continue until the end of your current eligibility period.
Please note that the change to Household Members may show the removal of a member
and at the same time, an addition of a different member.

• The number of eligible persons in your household has changed.

This made no sense to me. It doesn't explain WHY. Nothing had changed, and yet to them the number of eligible persons in our household had changed. After some digging and decoding and hours spent either on the phone, online chat or in the office, we find out that THEY thought our son had other insurance. But rather than calling us and clarifying it, they make a decision and send us a notice that is as clear as mud.

Our food stamps have been messed with as well with UNCLEAR notices. Then we clear them up and all of a sudden there is another problem. And of course, we are sent a very vague notice.

Calling and chatting online is a joke, if not a nightmare. First you get to wait at LEAST 30 minutes for either. Then you end up speaking to someone who doesn't know what's going on and has to decode someone else's notes. The only way we get things figured out is if we make the 30 minute drive to the office. BUT, even then, they are not the ones that send the notices, so they have to do some decoding.

Hubby and I feel like we are jumping through hoops. Not just any hoops though, hoops on FIRE! And every now and then we get burned.

I tried chatting twice last week and waited about an hour each time even thought the wait was only supposed to be 46 minutes. One time they closed the chat on me without even starting the session. The other time, no one ever came on. I've been waiting to chat as we speak since 12:55 PM. It was supposed to be a 26 minute wait. It's been about 43 so far. Makes you feel like a really important person. To top it off, I'm sick right now. Don't have much of a voice or patience for calling in and don't feel good enough to make the drive over. So this sits unresolved for awhile.    :(

It is time consuming, stressful and frustrating! All we want is to get back on our feet and have a little bit of help in the meantime. John is even filling in applications for jobs that pay very little just to stay honest. However, NO ONE is calling him back. No job offers... nothing! That's ok though, because he will be starting school next Monday. My baby's going to college. I think I mentioned that if I could figure out how, I'd like to go too.

That hasn't been easy either- figuring out all the school stuff. We thought we had it all figured out, but have had to re-do a few things. We're getting closer though. This will be a cool experience for all of us. Plus he's using his GI Bill, so he's getting PAID to go to school. Can't get any better than that, right?

Oh hey- someone is acknowledging me on chat...49 minutes later. Wish me luck.

Pills and Insurance

Have I ever told you how much I *love* our insurance?

I went to pick up my 14 year old son's medication. Well one of 3. He had to recently see the Dr. to get the prescriptions re-written. He wasn't out of the 3rd one yet, so we didn't fill it. Then he tells me he's been out for a few days. Not only that, but he's lost the empty bottle. Oh, but I have a written prescription, yay!!!

14 year old son stays home while I go to the store. He's having a bit of a breakdown over cleaning his room. It's a bit out of whack, but oh yeah, he's not quite balanced without all his pills.

I drop off the prescription, do a little shopping while I wait. Go to pick it up. I am told I can't, because son's insurance was terminated, he's not an insured patient, etc. Um, what? I ask "Did you run it through Tricare?" (We haven't been with Tricare since 2008, but everyone seems to think we still are for some reason.) She checks... she says something again about not being covered. I ask again if she billed Tricare. It sounds like she did. So I let her know again we are NOT with Tricare, I guess she thought I said we were. Either way I tell her who we are with and she gets the same message. Not covered, coverage terminated 6/30/11.

Really? How's that? I just refilled the rest of his pills about 2 weeks ago and filled one for myself just last week. There's nothing she can do to help me, except offer to sell me the pills I need for my son at $200. No thanks. She tells me he'll have to call the insurance. I say "Yeah, he's not going to call."  She means my husband not my son. Yeah, he won't be calling either, but ok, thanks.

So I pull over, call hubby, can't reach him. So I call the lovely number on the back of my insurance card. They confirm that my son's coverage was terminated on 6/30/11. I ask "WHY"? They don't know, it doesn't show a reason. Ah, lovely! So I ask if it's just him or the whole family. She looks us up one by one and looks like we were all terminated. What the heck? She gives me another number to call. This is getting fun.

Next number I call says we are all covered. We're not showing as being terminated. They don't know what's going on. Oh yay, so I'm stuck in limbo with one person saying we're covered, another saying we're not. And yet the pharmacy is going off of the one saying we're not. I'm waiting to hear back what's going on so I can hopefully pick up his prescription before 9:00 PM tonight. The lady was super nice and tried to reach someone who could help me. She understood that this wasn't a pill you should just stop taking and go without. In the meantime I'm sick to my stomach. Luckily I found an extra pill for him to take to try and calm down and balance him a bit. After all that, I could use a pill.

:(

Permission to cry?

I want to sit down and cry. We don't have a lot of time to pass out invitations. I'm having my dad print some up anyway, for close friends and family and so I can have one to scrapbook. Well I figured I could e-mail invites to everyone else. So I manually entered about 25-30 e-mail addresses, and my e-mail shuts down and I lose it all. I have had so many problems with hotmail using outlook express. GRRR! I do not feel like starting over at this point.

:(