mellifera33
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Posts posted by mellifera33
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Bitch? Guess I'm not feeling charitable atm.
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I wouldn't. Chicken is probably the food I'm most stringent about.
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I need to start this challenge. We are looking for a new house and getting our current house ready to rent. We need to save as much cash as possible while sprucing up this house on the cheap.
I need new exercise shoes, tho. Big 5 seems like the best bet--I should be able to get some shoes for $30 or so on sale.
We will be checking our local hardware stores for big buckets of "oops" paints in light neutral colors.
We are hosting Thanksgiving, so I'll start shopping for those things. The kids' Halloween pumpkins are becoming pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pies.
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The Catcher in the Rye. When I was 14, I devoured that book. It seemed so relevant to my cynical, angsty, teenaged brain. As an adult I found It almost intolerable.
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I would like the mountain room divider if it were between, say, the kitchen and living room. Bathrooms really need full walls.
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And speaking of pairs of words, whatever happened to poor ruth? Its antonym, ruthless (without pity or compassion) is used all the time. Shouldn't we encourage more ruth in our culture?!
I had a friend in college who tried to get "gruntled" to catch on, but I guess there are already enough synonyms for satisfied.
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Sure. We have a cranny between the fridge and the wall into which one slips in order to let another person pass through our narrow galley kitchen. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
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NPR
BBC
The Economist
Not a news source, but I check fark.com, a (not) news aggregator, to find stories I might otherwise miss.
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I feel like I see the most about writing actually. But homeschoolers take such a radically different path with writing - especially on this board where there are so many people following a classical writing approach.
I recently had a conversation about homeschooling with one of my high school teachers, and he has found that most of his former homeschool students are on track with math, but many have trouble with writing. I hadn't considered the possibility that the difficulty comes from switching midway through from a model-based writing program to an environment where personal expression is valued above following a model.
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Our family-of-5 premium was 1850/mo last year and would be 2500/mo this year. We aren't eligible for subsidies, so that's 30k/yr for health insurance . . .. YOIKES. I thought it was bad last year. Ha ha ha ha.
Good news is that this latest premium spike energized me to re-shop group coverage for our small business. We had dropped group coverage when the ACA came out for multiple reasons -- mostly because most of our staff who used it could get big subsidies (low wage industry) on the individual market, so all in all, it was a better deal for all of us to drop the group. But, 3 years later, individual premiums have doubled (while group rates have grown at a much slower rate) . . . So, now, with the group premiums via the SHOP (small business exchange part of the ACA), we can buy a group, and the preliminary investigations I've made make it look like I'll be able to purchase a great group policy. We'll probably end up spending a bit extra each month to add back this employee benefit, but it'll be better in the end if we can manage to do it. Pre-ACA, managing a tiny-group policy was a HUGE burden of management time and staff time each year (we had to re-shop each year, meaning all employees had to fill out miles long medical history forms, etc.) but now with the ACA/SHOP, there is no pricing of individuals/health history . . . We will just plug in all their birth dates, etc, and we get a standard rate that is only impacted by the ages. This incredible annual paperwork hassle was one of the big reasons we abandoned group coverage (and the SHOP / group plans were not rolled out in time for the first year of the ACA) . . . But, now that I'm investigating it again, with the drastic simplification of the paperwork, the reasonable costs, and the federal subsidies for tiny businesses, I think it'll be feasible for us to add group coverage for our staff, which should come as a nice surprise to them. :) It may all "come out in the wash" and it'll still be a big cost to us, obviously, but I'd feel better providing coverage to our staff if we can manage it, and I think we can manage it based on what I've seen so far of the SHOP premiums and the SHOP process (about a million times easier than pre-ACA small group insurance shopping, that is for SURE).
So, anyway, yes, the ACA individual premiums are through the roof. BUT, decent group coverage is available through the SHOP (for very small businesses -- under 50 employees in most places), so that's really, really good.
I've been a fan of the ACA. I am still a fan, but I also believe it needs help/tweaking/improvements. It's better than life-pre-ACA was (for us and our business, and I think for many, many families and businesses), but it is still a huge headache and far from perfect.
I sure hope we go to a single payer plan sometime soon. I don't mind paying my share (as an individual/family and as an employer), but, the MASSIVE time suck that managing health care has been for small businesses (and now individuals) is ridiculous, as are the total costs compared to the benefits received.
I am very happy to hear that things are improving for owners of small businesses who provide insurance for their employees. Until recently, DH worked for a very small company, and every year they had a new, more expensive insurance plan that provided less and less coverage and demanded higher and higher deductibles.
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I'm well aware of how a deductible works. And as Scarlett also said, they don't turn you away from services until you pay/meet your deductible. You can pay your deducible over time in just about all cases.
I was a healthcare provider, managed a department in a large medical practice (so knew claims inside and out) for 20 years, and am a mom to a child that regularly racks up medical bills in the six figures most years.
I'm happy to discuss in network, out of network, deductibles, negotiated rates, exclusions, appeals, max out of pocket, co-pays, ICD-9, ICD-10s, CPTs and coding, bundling and unbundling, should I go on?
It seems I hit a nerve here. I'm sorry that you have had to navigate the medical system as the parent of a kid with extensive medical needs. :grouphug:
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I am not sure what you are trying to say here. If you have a car accident they don't greet you in ER and ask for the 10K deductible up front. They bill your insurance and then bill you.
The original post I referred to suggested that you might have to pay the $10,000 if you have $200,000 in medical bills. I'm just saying that the amount of the deductible is the same whether you have $10,000 in medical bills or $500,000. The deductible isn't your share of an enormous bill, it's the amount that you have to pay for health care before the insurance starts taking care of it. If you have $10,000 in medical bills every year, and a $10,000 deductible, you will then be paying $10,000 every year. It would be easy for a family to have a minor, but expensive medical issue every year and be on the hook for $10,000 each time. One year a difficult birth. The next year--knee surgery for someone. The next year--several rounds of strep and a tonsillectomy. How many middle class families could pay $10,000, plus high premiums, each year for several years in a row?
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Scarlett (I think) has made a few great points I would like to reiterate. Even if you have a $10,000 deductible, one day you MIGHT pay that off if you are in an accident and have $200,000 in claims. At least $190,000 will be paid and you can slowly chip away at the $10 grand.
But that's not the way a deductible works. The deductible is the amount you pay out of pocket *before* insurance starts paying anything. For example, the year that my daughter was born, we had a $5000 per person deductible. Maternity care and a C-section came to about $40,000. Baby's hospital stay and cardiac workup came to about $10,000. My totals were "bargained down" by the insurance company to about $8000. After we had paid $5000 of it, insurance picked up 80%, so we paid $5600 oop, insurance paid $2400. Baby's bills were bargained down to about $5000, all of which we paid because we hadn't met the deductible yet. So with insurance, our billed amount was about $50,000, the negotiated amount was about $13,000, we paid about $10,600 out of pocket, and the insurance company paid about $2,400.
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I wonder if the horror stories of 10 year olds who can't figure out 5+7 are a result of delayed instruction plus a learning disability. My very anecdotal experience: my 9 y/o has dyscalculia, and despite several years of what I consider solid instruction, has some trouble with grade-level math. If he had only experienced living math, he would be completely lost. On the other hand, my more typical 6 y/o, who had only had "living math" and MEP reception level before this year, has immediately picked up on skip counting, adding and subtracting, inequalities, etc. In other words, delaying formal instruction for a typical kid might be fine, assuming they actually are in an enriched environment, but delayed instruction plus learning disability = disaster.
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Can you explain the situation and let the kids' parents make a decision? That seems like the most straightforward way to handle it.
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Yeah, that stinks. And I say this as a non germ avoider. Your kid has day-glow green snot? Come on over. Puking? No way.
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"Reception to be held immediately afterwards" to me suggests that people are -- while not literally standing outside the ceremony --- all dolled up and basically waiting around while the ceremony is happening.
I think a party days/weeks after is a bit different. You are not seeing the couple announced by the band as "first time as Mr and Mrs....." while you were permitted to see the ceremony an hour earlier.
Huh. I didn't get this impression at all. I would assume that if the wedding is at 6 in one spot, and the reception is afterward at another spot, reception guests would be invited to the reception spot at 7. That would be logical, anyway.
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Education Unboxed is a great resource for those who are wondering what to do with c rods.
MEP is a great free program for math. The activities are fun and remarkably "thinky" for young kids.
Ronit Bird's materials are awesome for kids with dyscalculia.
None of them are independent.
This doesn't really address the OP's question, but the above resources are great to pull from if one is wanting to avoid boring, worksheet-based math in the early grades.
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Where did you guys live where people passed out Mary Jane as a Halloween treat? :leaving:
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It can also mean that someone who understands how to highlight the finer points of each room comes in, tells what to remove and rearranges your own furniture to showcase the room's best potential. ;)
In our case, that would be removing all of our stuff and bringing in nice stuff. :lol: Unless "yes, the dog-destroyed blinds missing half the slats really highlights the south facing window in your bedroom" and "the cheeto-stained, artfully slashed with scrapbook edging scissors couch shows what a fun family atmosphere is possible in your living room" counts as staging.
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And road trips convey this much better than a book. Just my opinion.
I lived in WA state for 4 years. I have traveled all of it. I lived in Seattle and my aunt and uncle (mom and dad to me while my parents were in Africa) lived in Spokane. My grandparents lived in Portland. We climbed mountains, skied in the winter, took ferries to the San Juans, where my friend started a B&B.
A 25 hour course by book wouldn't have done any of it justice.
We always take along our Roadside Geology of Washington book on road trips so we can point out the....basalt.
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I think in this case it's the fact that Walter sounds close to water -- thus watermelon.
Regards,
Kareni
Thank you. :D
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I don't think you could get away with that in most high schools. Great book tho.
Really? My conservative suburban high school assigned it in 11th grade. Maybe the giant brouhaha that year over AIDS peer education overshadowed the English class choices.
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We haven't sold a home, but have looked at many, and I prefer to view empty houses. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I assume that staging is used to hide issues with the house, and I would rather see the issues to begin with than to waste time putting in an offer and finding the issues in inspection. Realtors hate me. I'm the one saying, "oh, nice painting--is there a hole behind it? Is that area rug hiding water damage on the hardwood floor? Is the giant wardrobe hiding mold growing in the corner?"
Of course your brand new house won't have those issues, so I'd go with what your realtor advises.
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Why no squeezing? (tea content)
in The Chat Board
Posted
I squeeze, but I like the tannin mouthfeel.