Our Healthcare at Work

Hopefully, we're close to being finished with home repairs. But we had something else crop up that I haven't written about because it's never happened to us before!

A bad result on a blood test! My husband gets two blood tests a year. His weight is the cause of it, I admit. If he would lose at least 30 pounds, all of his problems would disappear. He takes medication to keep it under control.

Imagine our surprise when we got a call from the doctor's office to say one of his readings was off the chart and to have an ultrasound immediately. We panicked!

The call came in on a Tuesday and the ultrasound was performed on Thursday. The technician said we would receive a call from the doctor on Friday with the results.

We waited all day, our hearts heavy and scared. At four o'clock, I couldn't stand it anymore and called the office. His doctor is on vacation this week and won't be back until Monday.

I told them, that's not good enough. Could another doctor read it for us if it's that critical? The receptionist said she would see what she could do.

We got a call from the office an hour later telling us that his doctor will talk to us on Monday after he reads it.

He's going to be swamped on Monday when he gets back. Do they realize the agony they have put us through?

The Joys of Owning a Home

Why I chose this book today is because I'm ready to write a sequel to it. I have had ten days of hell with home repair.

Last August, we had a breaker blow out in one of our upstairs bedrooms. When the service man came, he encountered my husband (normally I'm the one to handle service men who work on commission) and he talked my husband into a free maintenance check on our heating and air conditioner for $150.  My husband is a salesperson and why he didn't see this, I'm clueless. When I came home, I said to my husband, what did you do? The company specialized in electricity, not a/c and furnace? This company continued to plague me and we had paid money which was not refundable, so I said, fine. Come out but only check one unit because the other one is still under warranty.

They came out and found everything wrong with it. They even performed a service on it without consulting me and cost me $500. I could have a band aid repair for $6000 or a new unit at $16,500. Are you freaking kidding me?

I called my trusty service and they provided me with a free second opinion check up. Taking the list from the first company, they painstakingly went through the service report and the only thing they found wrong was that the unit uses Freon gas and it needs to be converted to today's industry standard. The repair, even though expensive, was nothing compared to what the first quote was.

Next? My husband chose to work from home on Tuesday because he had a dentist appointment which involved out patient surgery. When I signed online before him, we had no Internet or land line service. I called Frontier and they tried to help me but couldn't. They arranged for a technician to come on Wednesday. What about today? My husband figured out how to get online by using his work cell phone and I too could use his phone for my work,

The a/c repair came the same day as this. He had to turn off the air in order to repair the unit. It was 99 degrees that day. Then, the bolt broke off the new part and he had to go to down town Dallas to pick up a new one. A long hot day.

A breaker blew out in our guest bedroom but I'm not calling that company and researching someone else who doesn't pay their workers on commission.

I'm not done yet!

Wednesday. The pool. The Polaris, (pool cleaner) is at least seven years old. Every year we've had it repaired because the price of a new one is $600 - $800. Guess what? It's not working. My pool man gets a kick out of telling me these things because I wear my emotions on my face. Not only that, the pump it uses is broken too. I called the office to okay the repair and the girl cheerfully tells me it will cost at least $600 for the pump and probably $250 to repair the Polaris.

Frustrated, I'm doing laundry while all of this is going on and I throw the last load into the dryer. It won't start. I know my husband will explode when I tell him. I asked him to unplug it, since I can't reach it and that doesn't work. He doesn't say a word. After dinner, he went into his man cave and ordered me a new dryer to be delivered on Saturday. I was told not to do laundry at all until Saturday.

Are you kidding me? This household? Between the towels and the sheets, I can't maintain it. I don't want to spend 5 hours doing laundry. Oh? Flower Mound does not have a coin operated laundry facility. The closest ones were at least twenty miles away and in undesirable areas. I thought about it and remembered a club I joined when I first moved here, many women didn't do laundry at home. They sent it all to the cleaners, because they didn't have the time.

I don't operate that way. Thank goodness for the hot and dry conditions. I did my wash and draped the towels on my patio furniture to dry. It only took thirty minutes tops and they were done. A little scratchy but at least they were clean!

The dryer arrived on Saturday morning and works like a charm. It doesn't match the washer, but I don't care. I have a feeling it too will join the dryer in laundromat heaven.

NO MORE BREAKDOWNS!!!

Prayers for Dallas

What a sad time in Dallas. My heart and prayers go out to all whose lives have changed because of this.

To a brighter time. A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Lexi Thompson. In Grapevine, TX, there is a huge golf store, Golf Galaxy which carries everything pertaining to golf you need. Lexi Thompson gave a pep talk to young aspiring female golfers and challenged them to a driving contest. At the age of 19, she was gracious and kind beyond her years. I asked her many questions about her career and she answered all of them. I am so proud that she's ranked number four in woman's golf!

I should receive my first round of edits on The Sin Bin towards the end of July. Looking forward to them! Feels so good to be back in the saddle again!

Is Anything Easy?

I am so excited! I signed my contract with Resplendence Publishing this week! The Sin Bin, is scheduled for a 9/7/2016 release date.

It has been a hectic week and I lost my patience and broke into tears. I know people face worse problems than I have. But when little things keep happening and you try and fix them but can't, it is so frustrating.

I do my writing full time. That is my job. I also take care of the day to day running of a house hold. Grocery shopping, appointments, repair appointments, lawn work, laundry and other duties as assigned. This leaves my husband to do his job full time without any interruptions.

I have to admit, my husband is not happy with me being a full time author. I have published six books, but my publisher switched genres and my seventh book was rejected. It's been over a year while I've tried to find a home for it.  Yes, I'm getting small royalties but not as much as I had hoped. It was accepted by Resplendence Publisher but I wasn't sure about the release date. My husband would prefer I had at least a part time job. The hard part with trying to find a job for me is my age and the fact my husband has five weeks of vacation and uses them. Try telling that to a potential employer. They laugh in your face. I even said I would take them without pay and I don't need insurance because I'm covered under my husband's. This came about because a friend of ours, who is in the same business as my husband, was let go after ten years of service. He told my husband they were getting by because his wife has a job and they were living off of her paycheck. Hint, hint, hint. I hate to be nagged at...but I'm getting off track here.

Back to my frustrations. We subscribe to the daily paper. We are paper readers and always have been. We like to do all the puzzles in the paper and photocopy them so I can do mine and my husband can do his. For the last three months, we've been having problems with the delivery. First month, the carrier would throw the paper in the puddles in the street. Or they would only put one cover on during a torrential rain storm. I made three calls and the paper was delivered two hours later.

Second month was Russian Roulette. Would we get a paper or not. More calls to Customer Service. You think that they would see a problem here, but no. Finally I got a hold of a manager who oversees our area. He told me that he was having a problem with finding someone to deliver it. It was between him and his assistant to cover our area. The paper came for three days and then no more. I called again and the rudest and incompetent person answered. She kept interrupting me saying, "It is on it's way." I asked to speak to a supervisor and she said I couldn't. I hung up on her. I looked up the contacts in the Circulation Department and found a name. I emailed my experience with the delivery and a response came immediately. He apologized and said the problem would be rectified.

In the meantime, my husband's beloved car was issuing an error message and he was concerned. He looked it up in the book and asked me to call our repair shop. I did and it was a serious problem where the car had to be towed to the shop. I met my husband there and he used my car for two days while his car was being repaired. My daughter needed her car, so I was stuck without transportation for two days, I hate being without a car!

Since this happened all at once, I broke down into tears of frustration. I woke up the next day and I had a paper. I also has a contract for The Sin Bin and a royalty check from my previous publisher and the car was fixed; the repair covered under warranty.

Life is good until I start the washing machine and the start button falls off. Here we go....