New Years

Well, it was definitely last minute, but I was able to get my home sleep study in before the new year! Tuesday after work I picked up the equipment and slept with all this crap strapped to me that night to measure my breathing and whatnot. I slept like shit thanks to that and some stuff going on with Joe’s son that had my mind going at 120 mph.

After work on New Years Eve we returned the equipment to the sleep center and had dinner at a favorite nearby Thai restaurant (Happy Elephant) which we don’t get the opportunity to visit often enough. I think their main entree prices may have gone up, though, and I didn’t feel that the portions were large enough considering. I think I’d stick to their crab rangoon in the future as they are AMAZING. Hands down the best crab rangoon I’ve ever had.

After dinner we headed over to my parents house to ring in the new year with them and both my brothers. We worked on my parents new computer briefly and then ate a second dinner. We also got a chance to play Aggravation which we haven’t done in awhile. We didn’t end up leaving until a little after midnight.

We slept in on New Years Day but eventually made our way to the mall in the early afternoon so I could cash in on my free birthday burger at Red Robin. We also hit up Kohls as is our tradition but neither of us ended up buying anything. In fact, we didn’t end up spending anything at all since I also had a gift card for Red Robin.

I feel like I’ve lost the ability to shop just for the sake of shopping which is definitely a good thing for our bank account. It’s not like I need more jewelry or clothes anyway. I’m glad I’m so picky or I probably would spend more.

Annoyed

Today has not gone at all as planned. I had trouble falling back to sleep after Joe’s alarm went off, but after taking a Xanax I was able to get almost two more hours of sleep. Once I got up I did a little decluttering and then called my old college buddy as we planned to catch up. Except she didn’t answer even though she asked me to call at that time. So I decided I’d do some deep cleaning in the kitchen in order to “earn” the ability to spend the rest of the day being lazy and streaming Hot Wives of Orlando (a funny Hulu original series) on Hulu Plus (turns out we get a free two-month subscription for buying the Google Chromecast).

But before that, I called the sleep clinic I’ve been working with to schedule an at-home sleep study to find out whether I have sleep apnea. Except they can’t schedule it until my doctor’s office sends them the information we’ve both been asking them to send since LAST Saturday.

Basically, my doctor initially gave me the order for a facility that kept putting me off and putting me off. I gave them all my info on December 2nd and scheduled an in-facility sleep study for December 18th. I explained to them I wanted to know what my out of pocket cost would be and they told me they’d know once I had my insurance info. So when I dropped it off I asked them again and was told they’d need to call the insurance and get back to me. But they didn’t. So I called the next week and they claimed, again, they’d get back to me. But they didn’t. So I called the Monday before my scheduled sleep study and was told the same thing once more. Finally I got pissed off and asked them exactly when they were planning to call me seeing as how my appointment was mere days away. They said the day before. Except when I called them that mourning they still couldn’t help me.

It wasn’t until 3 o’clock that afternoon they called me and guess what? They told me my insurance denied an in-facility study and I’d have to come down and pick up some equipment and do an at-home study.

At this point I was so annoyed that they took three weeks to figure this out that I decided to do the study through the facility tied to the hospital I see my physician through. I don’t even know why she tried sending me to the other place to begin with.

I spoke with the second facility on Friday December 19th and they told me what they needed from my doctor in ordrer to proceed. Since my doctor doesn’t have hours on Fridays, I sent them a fax explaining how I didn’t want to deal with the other place because they were less than helpful, and to please fax an at-home study order to the new facility along with the physical they were requesting. I called my doctor on Saturday to make sure they got my fax and they said yes.

On Monday I called the facility to see if they got everything, and they told me the doctor hadn’t faxed them anything. So I called my doctor and they claimed they did fax it but would do it again. In the meantime I received a call from the first facility because the idiot doctor sent them my fax where I basically said I didn’t like them; they wanted to know what was going on. So I just told them the other facility is easier to get to for me. I was so mad that my doctor would do something so stupid.

On Tuesday I called back the second facility and asked if they’ve gotten the info from my doctor yet, and they told me just the order, but not the physical. So they faxed my doctor asking for the physical.

As of this morning the doctor hasn’t sent it to them and I’m running out of time to get this done for only $50 as opposed to $300+ (thanks to Joe’s kids always going to the doctor the family deductible has been met this year and I’d only have to pay 15% of the cost whereas if I wait to have the study done next year I will have to pay for it out of pocket in full).

I’ve spent so much time on the phone going back and forth with this that I’m at the point I am going to be screaming at my doctor’s office tomorrow morning when they are back in. I don’t usually get like this but I’ve had it with the office manager (which happens to be my doctor’s husband). This isn’t the first time he has made things difficult for me. I guess I’m going to have to switch doctors after having the same one for over a decade because I’m ready to strangle this guy!

On top of that, I just had the worst experience with Petco. A friend alerted me to a deal they had online where for every $25 eGift card you buy, you get a bonus $5 eGift card. I figured I’d get $50 and a $10 bonus since I buy the rats’ litter from Petco, except when I placed my order I never got the bonus eGift card. When I called I was told that promotion expired at 3 am this morning even though it’s still appearing on their site. When I pointed this out, the guy said he could transfer me to customer service so they could do something to accommodate me, except the guy I spoke to was a total moron. He kept talking over me and not understanding anything I was trying to tell him. I will admit, I lost my patience at one point and yelled, “well maybe if you stopped interrupting me you’d get the confirmation #!” LOL But seriously, WTF? I spent a half hour on the phone with him and received no resolution. He claims someone has to call me back in 24-48 hours but I’m not holding my breath. If they weren’t so incompetent I’d just cancel the order, but I’m afraid they’d deactivate the gift card code but not refund my money. It has really left a sour taste in my mouth in regards to that place, though. Honestly, I’m a bigger fan of Petsmart, but the Petco brand paper paper litter has the best smell, texture, and price compared to Yesterday’s News so I always buy it.

Now I’m just so annoyed I can’t concentrate on the Hot Wives show so I guess I’ll go take a shower since I hadn’t gotten around to that yet today.

Cyber Monday

My credit card has gotten quite a workout today! And what a day it has been!

I had a doctor appointment in the morning and on the way there Joe called me to say he had been called by our alarm company because our alarm was going off. He called them back to let them know it was a false alarm. We’re not sure if the police ever came but I think we get at least one free pass for a false alarm so I’m hoping they don’t send us a bill. I must have accidentally set it off when I was leaving. I put in the code to disarm it before re-arming it, but I might have screwed up the code and I couldn’t hear it because the touchscreen is in the living room and the furnace was running when I was leaving which drowns out the beeping. Ugh! The whole thing put me on edge for the rest of the day.

My appointment was to see a neurologist about how cold my hands and feet get. From his physical examination he couldn’t find anything wrong, so I have to do some blood work and a test where they give me mild electric shocks to test my nerves’ response which I scheduled for next week. Sounds like fun.

After the neurologist I had to stop at the place where I’m going for a sleep study later this month to fill out some paperwork. Unbeknownst to me, since I wasn’t paying attention, the place was literally a block away from the neurologist’s office. That was convenient! Good thing I checked the address before I started heading in the direction I thought it was!

Once I got home I had lunch and then did some laundry and cleaning. I also went online to buy my parents a Christmas present. I’ve been wanting to get them a computer for awhile and I finally found a decent one that won’t break the bank. Last year I tried to split the cost between myself and my brothers and it didn’t go over well (the idea, since we never ended up getting one) so I decided to do it on my own to avoid all the drama this year. Of course, an hour or so after placing my order the same place (Newegg.com) where I got it sent me an email about a 5% off promo code that was only good for six hours today between 3 pm and 9 pm. So I missed out on that deal. Awesome.

In addition to my doctor’s co-pay and purchasing the computer, I also ordered one of those Entertainment books for next year since it was on sale. And I donated some money to the Illinois Food Bank. Needless to say my credit card needs to be put away!

The Elephant

My green bean and sweet potato casseroles are cooked and cooling in the fridge and the turkey is finally defrosted thanks to a bath in the sink for two hours. I’ll be throwing that bad boy in the oven tomorrow morning, making more sides (stuffing, mac n cheese, etc.) and then bringing everything over to my parents’ for Thanksgiving.

For the record, I’ve been feeling better mentally the last two weeks and I’m not sure why. In fact, my sleep has been horrible so I’m flummoxed. Which just proves that my moods are completely beyond my control. Yay!

Here’s some stuff that happened recently:

A few days after we had dinner with my cousin I came home to an Amazon package. This was inside:


CousinGift01

CousinGift02

CousinGift03

A little backstory – Over dinner I was telling my cousin’s boyfriend about how when we were kids my grandma took me to the circus and I got to ride an elephant. She also bought me a super cute powder blue inflatable elephant which I loved. Well, one day about a month or so later my cousin came over to my grandma’s house to visit and spotted my elephant in the basement. She decided she wanted to “ride” the elephant even though it was far too small for such a thing and before I could stop her she sat on it and it popped. I pretty much hated her after that day (not that we were ever close to begin with, but that cemented my dislike of her). Of course, when telling this story I changed it to “I didn’t like her too much after that”. My cousin thought the story was funny but couldn’t even remember the event because she’s younger than me and couldn’t have been older than six at the time.

After opening the package I messaged my cousin to thank her and we had a good laugh over it. I didn’t tell her, but I plan on blowing it up and putting it in different poses and sending her photos. I just haven’t gotten around to it.

You know those sliding windows that are at the drive-up pharmacy? Well, my company has something similar to deal with visitors so they can’t just walk into our office. It’s also where we tuck outgoing mail to be picked up. Last week at work I slid open the window to put some mail in there and the entire thing fell out of it’s track! It actually fell inward toward the receptionist/HR/admin (she’s a jack of all trades) onto her desk. It made a terrible racket and scared the crp out of both of us. Thank god it didn’t break as the glass is thick and could do some real damage. Apparently it was off the track the day before and the guy who “fixed” it didn’t do it right. Now I’m scared of the damn thing.

Last Friday Joe and I decided to go play BINGO at the local church. I invited a friend/former coworker to join us and we had a nice time even though Joe and I didn’t win shit (my friend won $10 which paid for her admission which was nice). Now my friend wants to go to BINGO every month, but that’s too much for me. It gets tiring sitting around for three hours. I told her maybe every other month would work better.

Warmth Update

I’ve been doing what I can to make myself comfortable (i.e. warm) at work lately. The VP never got back to me regarding the space heater issue, but I did some research online and learned that it’s super easy to blow a fuse with a space heater because they typically use 1500 watts which equals about 12 amps and most outlets are either 15 or 20 amps. The outlets in our cubicles are daisy-chained and have several computers, monitors, etc. plugged into them, so the chances of the space heater blowing a fuse when someone’s cubicle printer kicks on are high. I don’t even want to chance it, so I ordered a heated carpeted mat that uses much less power and should work well if the reviews online are to be trusted. It should be delivered next week sometime. It cost me $100 but it will be well worth the cost if it keeps me comfortable this winter. It’s definitely cheaper than resigning!

In the meantime, I’ve been messing around with what clothes I wear and how I layer to see which combination works best. It’s been a bit difficult, however, because the office temperature isn’t the same every day. For instance, instead of layering nylons, cotton socks, and then my wool blend socks, I eliminated the cotton socks because I read one’s feet will get colder if there are too many tight layers not allowing air to circulate. So far that seems to be working better, but then again, it’s about two degrees warmer in the office lately so it’s hard to tell which is having a bigger effect. Also, I’ve been bringing my lava seat after microwaving the insert at home each morning. At lunch time it has lost most of its heat but it definitely helped keep my butt warm through the coldest part of the day since the office is always warmer in the afternoons.