Do you have Medicare?  Do you understand it?  While working in a hospital doing regular insurance billing I was asked to switch over to handling Medicare.  I didn’t care to.  But even then I had to deal with Medicare and I have to admit that I never did understand it.  Now I am at the beginning of getting my Medicare, not because I am old enough, but because I qualify for it because of a disability.  My spouse is about to go on disability through his job but will also apply for regular disability, and although I could stay on his health insurance, don’t see much sense in paying for Medicare and health insurance through his work.  The problem is that I have to look for a prescription plan through Medicare and then the fact that even then my medicines will not all be covered.

Medicare has what they like to call a ‘coverage gap’, where they won’t pay for medicines, although the beneficiary (Medicare recipient) pays for the premiums.  Anyway, once you AND your prescription insurance plan have reached the total payments of a bit over $2,000.00; they won’t pay again until the total cost of medications reach just over $4,500.   Hm, does this sound good?  Makes me wonder what all the people on Medicare are doing to be able to afford that gap.  Do they just give up taking their medicine for the rest of the year?  It’s true that you can get ‘extra help’ but that isn’t for everyone and those who are eligible have a really low income.  The extra help is just for the prescription plan premiums, not help in being able to afford medicine during the coverage gap.

I recall my Mother telling me that one of her prescriptions, the top antibiotic, cost $500 and she telling my sister not to buy it.  She was in her coverage gap period and she was not about to pay that much for one prescription.  I’ve got to find out how much my medicines cost for one year and see how long I’ll have to go off of my medicine.  Although, being bipolar doesn’t mean not taking medications will kill me, it might drive my family insane instead.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’ve never been anywhere other than the Bahamas, but even then didn’t consider the fact that if something happened to me over there, that my medical insurance company wouldn’t cover it.  I’ve read that medical treatment overseas is much less than it is in the states, but even so, a major operation or treatment could still run into the thousands.  Most insurance companies won’t cover you out of the country.  What would happen if your luggage got lost, other than being inconvenience.  Would your insurance pay for it’s replacement, and which insurance company would that be?  A lot of my family members have been traveling to Cancun, but I’ll bet it never entered their mind to get travel insurance either.  The Travel Insurance Center ca show you the different kinds of insurance that you may need while out of the country, as well as helping you to find the best values for them.  They are an accredited business and as you may realize, these companies can’t stay in business should they steer you wrong.  That won’t happen with this company and it would be a very wise idea to go and visit them before you make another trip out of the US.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Hooray for another New Year coming up.  I’ve got my New Years resolutions in mind .  Do you?  Many people make these resolutions and promptly forget them (myself included), but there’s nothing wrong with trying again.  One thing I keep saying I’m going to do is keep my receipts separate and keep track of what is spent on certain people.  I always forget until a month or so and by then it is too late.  But, a few of mine are to lose weight, stop smoking, pay more attention to my family and less attention to my computer, keep better track of my finances, save money, and hey, I think that’s all of them although I no doubt will think up more.  But those are a lot and maybe I won’t be able to keep all of them.  The important thing is that I will try.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Cooking dot com is having a sweepstakes for cookie recipes that they want to include in the Eating Well magazine later on this year.  The grand prize is a $2,000 gift certificate and the other prizes aren’t so bad either.  If you’re a cook then you should go and read up on this sweepstakes and see if you would be interested in participating.  One of the other prizes is one of those very expensive mixers.  I am going to let my friend know about this one too, as she is a cook and makes up her own recipes.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This is the time of year that our minds start to think about deep cleaning as well as other methods for improving our homes and with the weather so nice outside we want to spend a lot of time out there also.  This means that we start to look for recipes for quick and easy meals, sandwiches especially.  Here are a few recipes for sandwich material.

Potato Salad

Peel and boil some potatoes, the amount depends on how much you want to make.  Try six large potatoes.  Cut them into cubes and boil them, but do not let them get very soft.  If you do, your potatoes will become mushy, more like mashed potatoes and this is not the consistency that you want.  If they break easily then they are too soft.  Put eggs into the potato water to boil, about two or three.  When done, drain the water out of the potatoes and cool the eggs by running them under cold water.  Peel and dice these into the potatoes.  Chop up some onions and add those in.  Some people like pickle relish in theirs, so add this if you are one of those.  Salt and pepper to taste, although it’s my opinion that the salt should be added to the potato water while boiling so that it seeps into the potatoes rather than just being on top.   Put in one or two tablespoons of mayonnaise, depending on the amount of potatoes that you cooked, start out with one.  If that seems to be enough, then squirt in some regular yellow mustard.  Mix together but don’t mash it up.  The mustard is probably about two tablespoons.  The mustard turns the salad yellow and adds flavor.  This is the recipe that my family always uses and everyone that eats it says it is the best that they have ever had.  I don’t put relish into mine but my Mother put it into hers.  In my opinion the relish makes it sweet and I don’t care for it that way.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have a nephew who coaches little league softball and of course he always needs  softball trophies. A good place to find these is at QuickTrophy.  QuickTrophy has all of the usual types of trophies to hand out such as ribbons, medals, dogtags, and many different kinds of regular trophies to choose from.  And of course they have trophies for other sports as well.  Instead of handing out the same old trophy season after season, look through their awards and choose something different each year.  The same old trophies year after year has got to get old after a while.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

No matter what we do there is no way to prevent age spots nor wrinkles as we age.  There is a way to remove these effects from our bodies which would require some form of microdermabrasion or laser treatments.  Last year during the viewing for my Mother’s funeral I saw a lady that I had not seen for over 30 years, a friend and ex-neighbor of my family.  The amount of age spots that she had on her face and upper chest were numerous and all you could see were those spots.  I seem to recall that she was a sun worshipper as she was always very tanned (we lived in Florida at the time).  But on the other hand, my Mother had once spent a lot of time doing picking in the field, before she went back to High School and received her diploma.  And she had very little age spots except on her hands, but even there they were not large or numerous.  My Mother got very dark from working out in the sun and even 30 years afterwards still had held onto this darker coloring (we are Caucasian).    Age spots and wrinkles are a part of life, but not one that people have to put up, if they can afford to visit a dermatologist.  A laser can easily remove these age spots, but I am not sure of the cost nor whether or not medical insurance would cover it.  I somehow doubt that it would.  Get more information on this subject at Healthy Skin Portal dot com.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I bought a used Apple Iphone for $99 from AT&T and it worked just fine.  But I was not pleased with Apple because they were too cheap to print out a manual for a phone that cost a lot, especially last year when they were $400.  Even cheap phones give you a manual.  Then I dropped the phone and even though it was in a case, the display quit working.  I had to drag out my old Razor and charge it up so I’d have a way to call someone. The cordless house phones always seem to be dead.  So today I bought a corded phone that also came with a cordless handset.  Now I can actually answer my phone.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Last year when I had to visit Florida for an extended period of time I stayed in a Choice Motel.  Because we took the entire family and we had a dog we were put into one of their dog rooms.  This room was in horrible condition and stunk.  The counter in the bathroom on the underside was swollen from being wet and was chipping off.  The carpet was stained, the glass windows were blurry, and even though it was a pet room we were not allowed to smoke inside of it.  But perhaps the Dallas Texas hotels are not this bad.  I would assume not since this is a much bigger town and they probably have a lot more traffic than the town that we were in.  Visit the Choice Hotels International site to look for a motel/hotel where you are visiting or just passing through on your way somewhere.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!