Health Insurance

We had to wait 6 months before Richard and I would be eligible for health insurance through his work. But we had to apply for me to be covered when he started there. His work will pay for his insurance so we only had to pay for mine. We didn't know how much it was going to cost and figured if it was too expensive that I could always opt out. That's just what I did. He called me up about an hour ago to tell me that I wasn't going to be insured because it would be $1000 a month. That's right a MONTH! It costs more then our freaking rent does. The only way we could afford that is if we were living rent and bill free and that's not going to happen.

How does the government think people are going to be able to have health insurance by 2014 if it's so damn expensive? Especially the people who struggle and live paycheck to paycheck like we do? We are a one income house hold we just manage to make most ends meet with a little help from mom. I would get a job but it's just not an option at the moment, there is no way for me to get to and from work. It's not fair to penalize people because they can't afford to have health insurance and it's WRONG to force people into something they can't afford to do. Why do they have the right to tell me what I do with MY money? Or lack of money.

so there is my rant, do with it what you like but know you will not convince me that the government is right in this.

Rain Rain GO AWAY!

This is Archimedes from The Sword in the Stone, this is also how probably a lot of Alaskan residents feel at the moment after a week of nothing but rain and looking forward to more rain for another week. We have a small lake in the parking lot of our apartment complex right in front of the dumpster of course, so I have to wade through it to throw anything out. Mom even has a corner of the backyard that is under water at the moment. I have a feeling it isn't going to stop raining till it starts snowing. I keep expecting to be carried away by all the water. Thankfully though the wind has finally stopped blowing. 

I spent this week helping out mom getting stuff ready for the nursing conference that is going on Friday-Sunday. I typed up a bunch of stuff for her so she could finish up some other stuff that needed to be done. I think I was able to help her out and take some of the stress off of her for a bit. I also stapled packets together for her as well. I was all about the paperwork, and helping her remember to do stuff. 

I have also come up with a great gift idea for my brother, with a little help from mom on what to do with it. I would love to get it done by Christmas but in reality it will probably get done by his birthday next year and that's ok. I found a bunch of patterns of Mario characters and objects on the internet this morning for bead fusing but I'm going to cross stitch the pattern instead and then combine all the squares of cross stitching into a wall hanging quilt. I was able to print off the patterns while at moms today with out him finding out about it, now I just gotta make sure I have the right color threads and figure out how big I want to make each character then start stitching. This might be the first major sewing project I do. Of course hopefully with a little help from mom. 

Also I need to finish knitting my shawl and knitting my blanket as well. Hopefully I will get those done this winter. I just haven't been in the right mood for knitting. I also need to catch up on my reading too. So much to do and all the time in the world to do it and yet all I manage to do is play computer games and video games. 

A really good friend of mine has moved back to state, I'm so happy to have her back. I ran into her, her hubby and their little boy at the store the other day and we are going to try to get together and do something this Sunday. I so enjoy spending time with them. She also wants me to teach her how to knit, which I will gladly do once they find a place of their own to live. She can't hang out at my place due to being allergic to cats. 

Well I do believe I have rambled on enough for this post, I think I will try once again to get some sleep.

Up and Running

My New Blog is up and running. It has two recipes on it that I have made this week. The title is still a work in progress and I might change it if I find a better name for it.  but here is the link feel free to check it out. http://recipesfromak.blogspot.com/ 

New Blog

I'm starting a new blog, this one is going to be different then the one I am in now. The new blog will be recipes that Richard and I like and also new ones that we try. I'm doing this so I can share the recipes easily. I will also rate the recipes and suggest improvements to the recipes if needed. Oh and if it's spicy since not everyone can handle spice like Richard and his dad can.  My main issue with the new blog is the name. I can't think of what to call it. I have it all set up and it has been created but I want a catchy name to go along with it before I really start posting on it.

I called mom at work today and had her and the gals she works with brain storm and they came up with some cute names. The ones I like are:

Briggs Bites
Kramer's Kitchen
The Naughty Oven
Stephanie's Succulent Scrumptious Recipes
Food-N-Things
Stove Top Munchies
The Tasty Table
Arctic Appetizers
The Yummy Igloo
Tasty Snowball or Snowflake
Moose Munchies

I'm still looking for suggestions so feel free to leave your idea in a comment and I will let you know when I pick a name and fully launch the blog.

Wild Wind Wednesday

Tuesday Night/Wednesday Morning we had a pretty bad windstorm blow through Anchorage. This poor May day tree and one farther down sadly didn't make it through the storm. You can see how bad it's leaning into our driveway at the apartment, right after I took this photo maintenance came and took it down.

We lost power at 10pm Tuesday night and didn't get power back till 4pm Thursday, that's 42 hours with out power (YIKES!). That was by far the longest I have ever gone with out power, needless to say I don't want to do that ever again and am very thankful that this didn't happen in the middle of winter. Sadly the food in the fridge didn't fair so well and it spoiled, on the other hand we only lost a few things from the freezer. Thursday morning we took the frozen food over to moms house where we have a freezer that we bought a few years ago for extra storage as our freezer here is on the small side. It's still there as we have yet to go back to get it, but will be doing that tomorrow while we do laundry.  The major thing I didn't like about not having power is Richard and I sleep with a fan on more for noise then to help cool us down but it does both which is a plus. Going 2 nights with out it was tough, neither one of us slept very well with out it. Thursday night we both slept through the night and didn't wake up till the alarm went off to get Richard up for work. Today we went shopping and replaced the food that went bad, mom was nice enough to help us replace the food as well so a BIG THANK YOU to her.

In other news, I wasn't able to get any pants from the clothing store that's closing but I was able to get a few shirts and a nice fall jacket. They were completely out of the pants that I liked, I figured I wasn't going to be able to get any but it would of been nice. I do love the shirts and jacket I got though, I was in desperate need of some new shirts so that worked out really well.

I have also set up a few goals for myself in the month of September, one is I'm not going to drink any soda for the month, the other is I'm going to try and lose 20 lbs this month. So far so good. I have lost 4lbs and haven't had a soda. Tuesday I walked 3 miles on the treadmill then haven't walked on it since but, for good reasons. Wednesday and Thursday as you know I had no power and my feet have been hurting ever since the 3 mile walk. I believe I over did that just a little. But come Monday I will be back on the treadmill and will only walk prob a mile and see how it goes from there. I do have a plan for increasing how many miles I walk. Just got to be careful about it.

Minecrafting sewing pants

I have gotten sucked into a video game/computer game, all thanks to my brother. For quite a while now he has been into Minecraft on the computer. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a game where you can make pretty much any kind of building your heart desires by mining materials and crafting them. I have watched him play and make some pretty spectacular buildings for well over a year or 2 now. He has made a fire breathing dragon, a huge library (see mom I can spell it right even if I don't pronounce it right), numerous houses of different designs and sizes. He is very creative, you should see some of his drawings. I have always been jealous of his skills. Anyways, he had me try out the game on the xbox 360 and I kinda liked it for how long I played it cause it was just a demo. I had it in the back of my mind for a while and I started having the urge to play it more and more so I forked over some money and bought it for the xbox and started playing it. The more I played the better I got. I managed to make a swimming pool complete with diving board and a couple of houses. I am in the middle of making my biggest house yet on that version of the game. I have even set that house on fire, on accident and was able to save 98% of it thanks to the fact that I had water on hand (my brother says I'm a true player now cause I have set a building on fire).

I also have Minecraft on the computer as well. Why you ask, well because it was the first version of the game and you can do more stuff on this version plus the world is 8 times bigger then earth. Lots of places to explore and get lost in. Yes you can indeed get lost in the game, it's happened to me before and even my brother a few times. You can also die in the game either from monsters at night, falling from high up, drowning, or burning up in lava. I easily lose track of time while playing the game, in fact yesterday I sat at the computer dang near the entire time Richard was at work playing the game. So yeah I'm addicted thanks to my brother but that's ok cause it gives us something to talk about with each other. Which sometimes will drive my mom nuts cause he will want to show me what he has done and she will want to go somewhere.

In other news, I did in fact use the sewing machine I got, till it started acting up on me, I haven't used it since cause I need mom to take a look at it and see why it's binding up all the sudden. So it's just sitting on the table at the moment cause I keep forgetting to bring it with me when I go up to moms house or have her come in to look at it. Well that and mom has been working a ton of overtime and has been extremely tired so don't want to push something that can wait. She has a week off coming up in a few weeks but she will be busy getting ready for the nursing conference that is happening here. It will get looked at sooner or later not in too much of a hurry.

A local clothes shop that I frequent is closing at the end of the month, which sucks big time. I go there to buy my pants so I have no idea what I'm going to do for pants after they close. Mom is taking me there today to get me a few pairs if there are any left in my size. Most of you are thinking what's the big deal just go to a different store to get pants. Well the big deal is, is that I hate hate hate HATE pants that sit across my stomach have been that way since I was little. It's not comfortable to me plus it actually  aggravates a stomach problem of mine. I can do skirts perfectly fine but for some reason jeans or most any kind of pants constrict and cause the problem to flair up. So I wear leggings that sit on my hips. I guess I will have to start looking in catalogs for pants that look like they will work till I lose some weight.