A shock to the system

Last night we had dinner with a new business partner for Torsten's company. We went out to one of our favorite brewpubs and had a lovely meal. It was a great meeting and the guy we met with was nice, helpful, and very enthusiastic.

It was also the first time I'd eaten at a restaurant in a month. And you know what? I hadn't missed it. And you know what else? It was good, but not any better than the food I've been cooking at home. It didn't tap into any sort of deep craving for more restaurant food. In fact, I think I'm pretty much set for the next month. Or until the next business meeting.

Also, the partner paid for dinner. So that was awesome, since we suddenly have zero extra cash.

Speaking of cooking, I made a new dish the other day. I'll post the recipe on my recipe blog (which I have reactivated, FYI), but let me just say that I had some cream about to go bad in my fridge because we bought too much at the holidays, so for the first time in my life, I cooked with cream. And lo, it was delicious. AND I ate so little of it that I still lost weight the next day.

The lap-band, it is awesome.

In other news, yesterday I got a call from the hospital that did my genetic testing, telling me that my insurance company said that yes, genetic testing is a covered benefit, so I could go ahead and have my testing done at any time. So I told the woman that I had already had my genetic testing done, and had even received the results (not a carrier, as expected). So THEN she looked me up in her billing system and said the following:

"The cost of this service was $4,592.60. Of that, your insurance company paid $65. You should be receiving a bill shortly for the difference."

Can you say INSTANT HEART ATTACK? I swear the hospital must do this on purpose to try to drum up more business for themselves. I almost had a stroke on the spot.

A bit of background: the testing doesn't REALLY cost that much. Insurance pays specially negotiated lower rates, so their cost would probably actually be more in the range of $2000. If you know your insurance won't pay, the hospital offers an up-front self-pay rate of $500. However, if you don't pay up front and then your insurance denies the claim, apparently you're responsible for the full amount. Though in this case I think I'd have a leg to stand on since the hospital proceeded with testing without clearing it with me first.

ANYWAY, I should have known that this woman didn't know what she was talking about, since after all she was calling to give me month-old information and had no idea that she was so out of the loop. However, I opted to take her seriously, forced myself not to burst into tears on the spot, and questioned her on why my insurance would pay ANY amount, even just $65, since I have no deductible and in-network hospitals are covered at 100%. It seemed like it should be an all or nothing type of situation, and of course she didn't know, so I called the insurance company.

And, of course, it turned out that the insurance company received the claim but sent it back because it had the wrong code on it, so they don't have it in their system yet. The $65 they paid was for a separate claim filed at around the same time (office visit instead of labs, I think). So, I called the billing department at the hospital and they said oh yeah, they knew, and they had resubmitted the claim the previous day. So, I won't be getting a bill, and insurance will be paying, and everything is fine. Except that I'm pretty sure the shock of being told I owed $4500 for something that should cost no more than $500 shaved a good ten years off my life.

Mirror mirror on the wall. Or off the wall.

I have a thing about mirrors. I don't get them, and therefore they scare me. I mean, I get them, as in I understand that they reflect things, and therefore the images they show are reversed. But I don't get them in that, say, if I'm in a department store and I catch sight of something in a mirror, it takes me FOREVER to figure out where it actually is when I turn around. I'm not good at figuring things out backward, apparently.

Also, mirrors scare me a little bit. I don't like surprises, and when you aren't good at figuring out where things you see in the mirror actually are in reality, unexpected reflections are a big surprise, you know what I mean?

When Torsten and I had only been dating for a couple months (and I probably would have blogged about this at the time, except I didn't have a blog then... hard to imagine that there was ever a time when I didn't have a blog, right?), we had a little moment.

I was in the bathroom of my apartment brushing my teeth before bed. Torsten was hanging out in the living room. I had my back toward the door and was facing the mirror. Then Torsten got the brilliant idea of sneaking up behind me and scaring me. (This is a clear sign that we'd only been dating a couple months... we obviously didn't know each other that well yet.)

Anyway, his plan worked. Really, really well. I have a very vivid memory of standing there, peacefully brushing my teeth, and then this THING suddenly appearing in the mirror next to me. And yes, I understand now that the THING was my boyfriend, but at the time it was just a THING, a scary moving THING right behind me and OMG I flipped my shit.

Seriously, I shrieked at the top of my lungs and then hid in the towel rack. I know. Towels don't really protect you from THINGS appearing in your mirror. But I collapsed against the towel rack, shaking. And then I cracked up laughing. I laughed and laughed, not because I thought it was funny but because it had scared the shit out of me and apparently I laugh when I'm incredibly stressed? I don't even know.

Except that then I stopped laughing and started crying. Really, I did. I couldn't help it. I was freaked out and I was laughing and I couldn't breathe and then I was crying. I don't think I can adequately explain the shock of seeing him suddenly appear in the mirror like that. It was beyond traumatizing. And yes, I know, in REALITY it wasn't a big deal. But Jesus Christ did it scare me at the time. I can still remember the heart-stopping clench when I saw the movement behind me in the mirror.

Anyway, Torsten was very concerned and kept apologizing and sat me down on the couch and brought me some water and tried to get me to stop crying, and eventually I did calm down and started breathing normally again and we all moved on (though I still have horrible memories of the whole experience).

So the other night I was in the bathroom getting changed for bed and Torsten wrapped his arms around me and put his hands on my bare back, and they were FREEZING cold and very unexpected and I had another moment of heart-stopping shock. Seriously, I swear my kidneys briefly stopped functioning. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as the mirror episode, but it did vaguely remind both of us of it. (Possibly because again, I retreated to the towel rack, which is apparently my bathroom safe place?)

So we were talking about the whole mirror thing, and Torsten casually mentioned that when it happened, I was so freaked out that he was afraid I was going to break up with him.

Luckily, I can definitively say that the thought never crossed my mind. In fact, just hearing that he was worried about it made me laugh, a lot. It seems like such a ridiculous reason to break up with someone. I mean, really, what would I have done? Screamed at him, "How dare you sneak up on me? Get out!" and sent him packing right then and there?

But, you know. The rest of my reaction was wildly irrational, so I guess his worries weren't totally off-base.

Still, I think it's safe to say that I am quite glad that my insane reaction to the whole thing didn't extend so far as to break up with the man who I instead ended up marrying. But I am quite glad that he no longer sneaks up on me, ever. We've come a long way since then, apparently.

What about you? What are your irrational fears and tics?

Delayed gratification

So, the only thing holding us back from trying to get pregnant right now is this whole Torsten quitting his job and starting his own company thing.

Which, granted, is a pretty good reason not to be trying right now. But it is also the only thing that I am still struggling to come to terms with about Torsten's company.

Originally I was told that I had to wait a year after surgery to get pregnant. I knew that I didn't really have to wait, but I figured that I would. It about meshed with our vague timeline anyway. No big deal.

But there isn't really a surgery-related reason to wait. With the bypass, there would be, because you lose so much weight so fast and your body needs time to adjust. Though even with bypass, it's not that big a deal to get pregnant before the year is up--you just have to make sure you're getting enough nutrients to nourish the baby.

With the lap-band, since it isn't malabsorptive and the weight loss is much slower, there isn't really a concern about the health of the baby. This is especially true because the fill can be let out of the band, or reduced, allowing you to eat as much or as little as you need during pregnancy. This is one of the reasons that I chose the band over the bypass.

So the real reason to wait a year post-band to get pregnant is mental. It's a big shift to go from being able to eat whatever you want to having to be much more careful about what you eat. It's very challenging for some people to adjust to a whole new way of life, and to learn how to eat the right things in order to get all the necessary nutrients. It's a huge change in your life, and for a lot of people it's the first time they've ever really focused on themselves like this, and so it makes sense to take a year to learn and adjust.

But it hasn't taken me a year. I had a head start because I was already eating healthy and working out before the surgery, so it wasn't a seismic shift in lifestyle for me. Certainly things have changed drastically for me since the surgery, but it's more in the realm of now the healthy eating and working out actually helps, and changes my mindset in a lot of ways.

So at my appointment earlier this month, I was discussing all this with my social worker and she said that as far as she's concerned, from a personal and health perspective, I am totally ready to get pregnant at any time, and there's no reason for me to wait the rest of the year before starting to try.

Under other circumstances I'd have rushed home gleefully and thrown my birth control straight in the trash. But now, under these circumstances, the surgery is no longer our primary reason to wait.

Of course I know, we both know, that if I did get pregnant now it would be fine. We wouldn't be able to throw every little luxury at our baby, but honestly, even if we were millionaires we probably wouldn't do that anyway. Certainly if I got pregnant while we were both earning our standard incomes we would go a little crazier with the buying of the baby stuff than we will if I get pregnant this year. But that's not really it.

It's mostly just that Torsten is taking a big risk by quitting his job and starting his company. He has me and my income as a safety net, and that's great, and I'm totally supportive of the whole thing. But there is a slightly more intangible part of his safety net as well, and that's the fact that right now it's just the two of us and we don't have a whole lot to lose. We have a house, but I can't really foresee a situation in which we would lose that. And there isn't really anything else.

We're adults. We're used to living frugally. We're making this choice for ourselves. We don't have anyone else to worry about as we make financial decisions. We have faith in ourselves, our earning power, and our ability to bounce back if it turns out that this company doesn't work out. We're young and we're flexible and we have very few responsibilities. The timing is right.

Once I get pregnant, that will put a deadline on the success of the company. Torsten will feel, whether or not it's rational, that he has nine months from the day I pee on that stick to make his company succeed. And if it doesn't, he'll feel that he has to desperately seek out the first job he can find in order to support our kid. And in a market like this, it could take quite some time for a job, any job, to come along.

He doesn't need that kind of pressure. Even though we know that if we had a baby now, on one income, with the company earning nothing, we'd be fine, the psychological pressure and the stress it would cause would turn this from the fun, exciting project it currently is to a huge source of stress and doubt for Torsten. And that's not what his company should be about. He has worked so hard for this. He deserves to have the time and space he needs to make it happen the way it should.

And so we continue to wait on the baby thing. And I know that in the end we'll probably be glad we did, because we'll love our baby so much and not be able to fathom that if we'd gotten pregnant earlier, we'd have ended up with a different baby. And a few months doesn't really make that much of a difference in the long run. And right now is really the best time for this to happen. And we can enjoy being just the two of us for that much longer. And it will all work out in the end.

I know all those things are true. I'm comfortable with our decision. I'm happy that Torsten is doing this and I know that it will be worth the wait.

But oh, I want it so much, and I don't want to wait one minute longer to start trying. I want a baby. And I would really, really like to have it now.

New header

So, last night I changed my blog format slightly. Not a complete redesign, and it certainly didn't cost me any money. But now I have three columns instead of two, a new tagline, and a new header (made using my very limited Photoshop skills). Someday I will probably hire a designer who knows what they're doing to do a real redesign of the site, but in the meantime, now that we're a single-income family, my own amateur work will have to do.

Still, I'm not displeased with the results. I made a few other options, all more Colorado- and mountain-oriented, and I liked some of them a fair bit, but they didn't fit with the gray and purple color scheme I have going on with the rest of the blog, and I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of the purple. I know, I'm probably overly attached, but I just couldn't do it.

Anyway, here are the other headers I made:





I do like a couple of them quite a bit, but I think for now I'm going to stick with the lightning. Maybe someday I'll get rid of the purple on this blog, but somehow it feels like it wouldn't be... me without the purple.

What do you think?

P.S. If you feel like reading some content that isn't actually ABOUT the blog, head over to Bodies, where I'm talking about my awesome new heart rate monitor.

Quotidian

Montana has clearly learned both conditions of being allowed on the couch. She was pretty quick to figure out that if the blanket is on the couch, that's her spot. And it only took one occasion where she jumped on the blanket without an invitation and got a very loud reprimand from both of us simultaneously for her to figure out that she can only get on the couch with an invitation.

So, her latest thing is to stand by the couch, looking hopeful, wagging her tail, and occasionally whining. If we then put the blanket on the couch and pat it, she sails on right away. Sometimes we don't respond to her pleading, though, and then she goes and lies in her bed in the corner of the room. Just so that she doesn't think that all she has to do is whine to get her way.

Still, though. Pretty much nothing makes me happier than being curled up on the couch with my husband and our dog. The two of them are pretty much my favorites in the world, and also the cutest in the world as far as I'm concerned. And all three of us fit on the couch perfectly. I love sitting there with my feet on Torsten's lap, watching the dog curled up and happily snoring between us.

I mean, really. Who could resist these two?


Seriously, sitting on the couch with them there next to me just makes me feel positively swollen with love. No matter whether we're chatting, reading, watching football, doing stuff on our computers... it just makes me feel cozy and happy and loving and loved. I could happily spend days curled up with the two of them.

What about you? What are the little daily moments in your life that you just can't get enough of?

Walkability

When we bought our house, we weren't really looking for walkability. We deliberately chose to buy in a neighborhood that was more suburban than urban, even though it is technically located in Denver. We knew we'd be driving most places, and we're totally fine with that. Our neighborhood is completely residential, perfect for kids to play and ride bikes and for us to walk the dog, but not so much with the "oh I'll just pop down the street to get a cup of coffee" lifestyle. And that's totally OK with us.

Plus, things are super convenient. We're right near the freeway, 10 minutes from downtown, 15 minutes from a huge shopping mall, 5 minutes from two grocery stores, 10 minutes from Whole Foods and our gym, 10 minutes from the dog park, 10 minutes from Costco, 10 minutes from Target... basically it's Colorado heaven. It's exactly what we wanted. Even though I imagine that for some people with different priorities it would be more like Colorado hell.

So anyway, yesterday afternoon I had to go to the grocery store to refill my Synthroid prescription, and I had decided to make a new recipe for dinner and I needed to pick up a couple missing ingredients. I also needed to walk the dog. So finally a light bulb clicked on over my head and I decided to combine the two things.

So, the dog and I walked to the grocery store. It was about a mile and a half each way. It took me about an hour to walk there, do my shopping, and walk home. The weather was lovely, the sun was out, the dog enjoyed the new route, I got my errands done AND some exercise, and I didn't waste gas on an unnecessary car trip.

It's funny that we've lived in this house for nine months and it had never even occurred to me to walk to the grocery store before. And when I told Torsten about it he was shocked that I'd gone so far. I guess since we always drive there we always just think of it as being further than it is.

And, you know, in general I would certainly not walk if we were going to do all our shopping for the week, because that would be a long walk home with heavy bags and quickly-melting frozen goods. But for a quick errand on a nice day? Absolutely.

I still wouldn't give our neighborhood a very high score for walkability, but it's definitely higher than I initially thought. Plus, there's a Starbucks in the plaza with the grocery store. Having a Starbucks within walking distance is the absolute height of civilization, don't you think?

What about you? Is your neighborhood walkable? How important is walkability to you?

Thursday is DRAGGING and it's barely started.

Why is it that four-day weeks often feel LONGER than full workweeks? What is the deal? Why am I so exhausted when it's only Thursday?

ANYWAY, thanks to the exhaustion, here are some bullets for your enjoyment:

• The Love Harder video that we posted yesterday? So far, it's raised $2275 for the multiple myeloma foundation. How awesome is that? (Donate here if you want to add to that total.)
  
• If you have pets, do you get the same comments on them from strangers consistently? The top three things we hear about Montana are "She's so soft," "She runs so fast," and "Where did she get that scar?" Somehow these comments never get old. I can only assume this bodes well for parenthood someday.
• In the last couple weeks I have cooked: chicken parmesan, beef stroganoff, spinach enchiladas, fancy Asian salad, seared beef with mozzarella salad, Thai coconut curry, and spaghetti with ground meat sauce. All from scratch, all relatively healthy, all pretty easy to make. I'm feeling quite proud of myself about this one. (Nearly all the recipes can be found here.)
  
• However, those are all recipes I've made before. I think it's time to branch out. I have some Weight Watchers recipes that I printed out before I quit but have never tried. Now may be the moment. I'd also love any links to favorite recipes of yours.
• Yesterday I went to the gym AND the dog park. Usually it's one or the other. Maybe that's why I'm so exhausted now.
  

The part I haven't been telling you

So, um, Torsten quit his job yesterday. His last day will be in two weeks.

This wasn't a sudden decision. He's wanted for years to start his own company, and now that we're settled here, he's started planning it in earnest. Working with my dad and his best friend, both of whom are also investing to become minority stakeholders, as well as a few other friends/partners, he is now ready to begin work on his own IT consulting firm.

It's happening, for real. We filed the papers to become an LLC. We got a federal tax ID number. We opened a business checking account. The logo and website design are complete, and we've found a vendor to actually build the website. We've applied for liability insurance. We purchased a computer, Quickbooks, a BlackBerry for Torsten, and various other equipment. He is ready to focus full-time on this company, and start working to make his first sale.

Right now I am incredibly thankful that we had a good mortgage broker who pointed out to us that with interest rates so low, it made more sense for us to get a 30-year mortgage and pay it off at 15-year rates as desired than to lock ourselves into a 15-year mortgage with a much higher required minimum payment. This allowed us the luxury of knowing that if one of us lost our job, the other's income would be sufficient to pay the bills.

We've been so good all year about paying the extra cash each month with the aim of paying the mortgage off in 15 years. It's going to be painful, feel like a cop-out, this month when I write the first check for the minimum amount. But we've promised ourselves that we will pay back the extra, plus a bit of padding, as soon as we can afford it again. I am tracking the minimum payments in a spreadsheet so we know exactly how much extra we need to inject once it becomes possible again.

In the meantime... well, my salary almost covers our expenses. It pays all our fixed costs: mortgage, car loan, utilities, phone, Internet, homeowners and car insurance, property taxes, dog, and so on. It doesn't cover our groceries, which is a big part of why we've significantly reduced our grocery spending. And it certainly doesn't cover extras like gratuitous shopping and meals out. That's why we've implemented this spending freeze. So far it's going well, but of course it's still new. We'll see how it feels once we're several months in. We are literally buying nothing that is not absolutely essential.

Torsten will be paying himself a small stipend each month, just to cover the grocery bill. We have decent savings in case of unexpected expenses. (I am sure as soon as his paycheck stops coming in, something expensive will break, because that's how this sort of thing always works, right?)

In the meantime, I am temporarily the sole breadwinner. I have complete faith in Torsten's ability to make his company a success, so the only thing that makes me stressed about this is the idea that I could potentially lose my job, thus losing all of our income plus our health insurance. So I had a nice long chat with my boss about all this, and she assured me that I am in no danger of losing my job. And I believe her, so I'm feeling much more relaxed about this whole thing.

In fact, I'm feeling downright good about the whole thing. Yes, it means that we have to be very frugal, and that now would not be a good time for me to get pregnant, and that Torsten will be working very long hours for awhile. But he's doing what he wants to do. He's so happy about it. And it's so great to see him so enthusiastic about what he's doing.

And we are hopeful that it won't take too long before his first sale. But we are prepared to live without a sale for a long time, if it takes longer than hoped to get the company off the ground.

But the company is so awesome. He has a really great concept and a fantastic implementation plan. And he's really freaking good at what he does. I have no doubt that he will make this company a success. And I can't wait to see it happen.

Love Harder

Despite all the hope and positive thoughts we spread back when Brandy and her hot awesome dude (H.A.D.) were still waiting for a diagnosis, they got the news they didn't want to hear. And now all of us are just trying to support them both in any way we can.

The quandry: We feel terrible. Just horrible. And oh so helpless... if only there was something we could DO for them.

The answer: Ummmm. Did you forget that WE ARE THE INTERNET?!?!!??! And also, Yes We Can!!!

The result: Brandy and your Hot Awesome Dude... this one's for you. Love, The Internet.

Our Plea

Our friend Brandy is a brilliant writer, a wonderful teacher, and a generous friend. And she is in love with a man who has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

We are raising money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Fund in his name. For the price of a cinnamon dolce latte, half-caf, hold the whip, you can be part of an effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.

http://www.loveharder.org

Every dollar brings us a dollar closer to a cure. And every donation brings a sliver of hope to a girl who needs all the hope she can get.


(Video compiled and edited by the amazing LiLu. Bonus: Montana makes an appearance! Along with several other awesome pets.)

What You Can Do

• Give. Be part of a worldwide effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide. Every dollar helps.
  
  
• Pass it on. Forward this story to five people. Share this blog post. Become our fan on Facebook.
  
  
• Love harder. Life is short, love is unbending, and no one knows what could happen next. Tell someone you love them today.
  

Where Your Money Goes

• The American Institute of Philanthropy recently named The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation one of the best organizations to give to in terms of their accountability and use of resources.
• By working closely with researchers, clinicians and partners in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, the MMRF has helped bring multiple myeloma patients four new treatments that are extending lives around the globe.
• The MMRF has advanced twenty Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. They need your support to advance these clinical research programs and accelerate the development of better, more effective treatments.
• The MMRF's Multiple Myeloma Genomics Initiative recently became the first to sequence the multiple myeloma whole genome in its entirety.
• A whopping 98% of your donation to the MMRF will be used immediately to support high-priority multiple myeloma research.
• With diminishing funding for early stage drug development and the next myeloma treatments not expected to be approved until 2011, the MMRF desperately needs your help.

Read Brandy's story here.

Geico vs. Progressive

So, yesterday we got our bill for the six-month renewal of our car insurance from Geico. This was the first premium we've had to pay since I got in a car accident a few months ago. The premium had increased by $142 for six months. That's more than $23 more per month. That seems like a lot, especially right now when we're trying to save money.

Also, I'm not thrilled with Geico right now. I mean, from what I've heard from other people we should just generally be glad that they accepted our claim and paid for everything except our deductible, and we did find that they handled the claim well (except for the part where they stranded us in a parking lot for a couple hours after the accident, but I think that was the rental car company's fault) and were polite and efficient on the phone.

BUT. They referred us to one of their "preferred garages," meaning a collision shop where there's a Geico adjuster on site, and they pay directly for the repairs (post-deductible), rather than us having to pay and be reimbursed. We figured this would be a good plan since if there was a problem, we would have recourse with both the garage and with Geico.

And, well... I mean, maybe that's true. The garage fixed the car. It looked good when we got it back. Except for a couple small things:

• When we picked up the car, the brakes were wonky. It felt like there was air in the brake line or something. When we called the garage about this, they said they hadn't worked on the brakes so it couldn't have been their fault.
• The windshield now has a bunch of tiny scratches on it from where they rubbed it with a dirty cloth. We have no way of proving that they did this, even though we know the scratches weren't there before.
  
• The driver's side lock, though functional, always remains in the locked position, whether it's locked or not. When I called them about this, they told me to come in any time so they could take a look. When I came in, they looked at it and told me they'd have to tear the door down to find out what the problem was, and they didn't have time to do it that day, so I'd have to make an appointment to come back, AND THEN after that I'd need ANOTHER appointment to have it fixed once the part came in. Which is good and well, but why did they tell me to just come in whenever in the first place? Everything that happened when I brought the car in could have been discussed over the phone. What a freaking waste.
• The panel below the glove compartment on the passenger side fell off one day a couple weeks after we got the car back. Turned out one of the latches that holds it in place was broken, most likely by a mechanic who was in the car and kicked it by mistake. Torsten managed to wedge it back in place, so it's not a big deal, but when I told the garage about it, they said they hadn't worked on the inside of the car so it couldn't be their fault.
• The hood, which they replaced, now has a small crack in it, which needs to be repaired so it doesn't rust. It looks like a tension crack caused by a shoddy paint job. However, when I showed it to the guys at the garage, they said that it was caused by something falling on the hood. We have no way of proving what caused it, so it's our word against theirs, and guess who wins when that happens?
• Also, not that this is a big deal, but when we got the car back the trunk was full of trash. Plastic, empty boxes, old seat belt mechanisms. Obviously we just threw it away ourselves, but isn't that weird? Why wouldn't they just toss the trash in their own dumpster?

This garage, it's worth noting, offers what they call a lifetime guarantee on their work. So, to recap: five problems with the car, two relatively serious (brakes and hood), and the only one they're willing to fix is the door lock, which is the least important. And there's nothing we can do about this.

After talking to a few other people about our experience, I've come to the conclusion that the way Geico is able to charge so much less than other insurance companies is through using shoddy garages that cut corners. We didn't know this before, and of course we have no confirmation still, but let's just say that I would never use that garage again, ever. And I'm not so impressed that Geico referred us there. But Geico was SO much cheaper than everywhere else, so maybe we would have gone with them even if we had known? Who knows.

ANYWAY, now that they've raised our rates considerably, guess what! They aren't the cheapest anymore! I was able to get the exact same policy with the exact same levels of coverage with Progressive, after informing them of the details of the at-fault accident, for $58 less over six months. That's $116 less than we'd be paying with Geico per year. Of course, it's still $170/year more than we were paying before the accident, but oh well. There's nothing we can do about that.

Also, even though I didn't really want to do this considering that we aren't big fans of Geico anymore, I did call Geico to tell them about the Progressive quote and find out if they were willing to match it. They weren't. And that settled it.

So! We are now insured with Progressive. Or at least, we will be, starting in February. And I could not be happier to be leaving Geico behind.

Eight months out

So, I'm eight months out from surgery and I've lost 65 pounds. And a bunch of other awesome things have happened too.

Sibling relationships

OK, I'm going to complain about a commercial again. Except this time I'm not REALLY complaining about the commercial, it just made me think of something, so let's try to avoid the kerfluffle that happened last time, shall we?

Have any of you seen that Walmart commercial that's out right now, the one featuring the family playing Monopoly? If not, you can see it here, but also, I'll summarize: the older sister is winning while the younger brother is losing. So, the girl sneaks a hotel off Boardwalk and gives it to her brother while her parents pretend not to notice. The brother quickly sets it up on one of the dark purple properties, the other one of which only has one house.

Ignoring the flagrant rules violation here (you can't have a house on one property and a hotel on another; sets have to be within one house of each other) AND the fact that if she WERE going to give him a hotel, she CERTAINLY would not have taken it off the best property on the board, what kind of bizarre older sister is this?

Because, well, I have some vivid memories of playing Monopoly with my older sister growing up, and I'm pretty sure that she never sneaked a hotel over to me. Maybe the other way around. She was more about conning me into bad deals (Baltic for Boardwalk, anyone?) and then throwing in $100 Monopoly money on top of that to make it seem good. I don't think I won, ever. And she reads this blog, so maybe she can put my suspicions to rest right here, but I'm pretty sure she "borrowed" from the bank on more than one occasion. I'm just saying.

And it's not like I'm angry at her about it now. In fact, I think it's funny. And I'm sure if there had been a sibling younger than me I would have turned around and done the same thing to them. In fact, my sister and I might have ganged up on the mythical third child. It's not like I was angelic--I just couldn't outsmart my sister at Monopoly when I was six and she was nine.

I always just assumed this was standard. I remember a childhood of not being allowed to touch each other while we were riding in the backseat, and bickering over who got to use the bathroom first, and having tricks played on me, and me annoyingly trying to tag along with her friends and being rebuffed. And that wasn't bad. I mean, we definitely got closer as we got older, but we never hated each other. And we're good friends now.

What about you? If you have siblings, what was the relationship like, growing up? And if you have or want kids, what kind of sibling relationship would you like them to have? Are you hoping for the Walmart-commercial ideal, or more of a Beezus and Ramona dynamic?

I kind of want Posh to be my new BFF.

Did anyone else kind of love Victoria Beckham on American Idol last night? This was my first exposure to her as a person, and I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, yeah, she didn't say that much, but I think a lot of that was due to her having trouble breaking into the other judges' dynamic (and actually, as a side note, watching VB struggle with that gave me a new respect for Kara, who did it a lot more seamlessly last year).

But the thing about Victoria is that I always assumed she was an uber-bitch because she just LOOKS so sharp and pointy and stand-offish, and her outfits are always SO high-fashion, but I was so impressed at how NICE she was. She just... was REAL. And friendly, and smart. I wished the other judges would let her talk a bit more because I found myself really wanting to hear what she had to say.

I mean, watching her, I could totally see her as a mother, and a good one at that, and that's something I never understood about her before.

My question is, did everyone in England already know this, and we Americans weren't in on the secret? Or, for that matter, did everyone in the US already know this and I was out of the loop? Or does everyone else still think she's totally frigid and I'm just living in my own parallel universe?

AND, if it turns out that people agree with me, do you think this one night of exposure on American Idol will help her establish more of a fan base in the US?

The funny thing about this is that until last night, I wouldn't have even CARED. But now I feel bizarrely INVESTED. I LIKE her. I don't know what it is!

Trying not to judge

So, first of all, a lot of you had interesting things to say on yesterday's post. I think you're right (and I would do well to remember this, especially since it was one of the major lessons I learned last year) that these people's comments are really about them, not me. However, I don't think it's jealousy, exactly, that's sparking these types of judgment. I think it's more that people assess the kind of effort and work it would take THEM to plan and research the way I do, and assume that it takes me the equivalent amount of time and effort, and therefore judge. Whereas in reality these things come naturally to me, so it isn't an effort at all.

Also, I think people see one or two characteristics in a person, know that they've seen those same characteristics in another person that they know well, and assume that the two are alike in all aspects of whatever characteristic it is. When in fact that's often not the case.

So, since I was just complaining about other people judging me, I think it's only fair that I talk about me judging others, too.

This whole thought process actually started with the fact that our gym has become very crowded this month with a bunch of people who have clearly made it their New Year's Resolutions to become fitter and/or lose weight. And oh, it's so annoying that the machines are full and the lockers are full and there are people everywhere and you have to wait. And the annoyance makes it easy to look down on these people as poseurs, fakers who really just exist to get in the way of those of us who are REAL gym-goers.

But seriously... that attitude is not productive. Everyone has to start going to the gym sometime, and what better time than New Year's, from a standpoint of self-motivation? I am not any better than anyone else just because I happened to start at this gym in the summer. So I need to get off my high horse and recognize that we are all in this together and just get over myself, basically.

Of course, this isn't to say that I won't be relieved when February rolls around and the gym crowds thin out. I'm just trying to be tolerant about the reason for the issue.

I think this applies, in general, to most situations. It's really easy to think, well, this way worked for me, it's been great for me, so why is that person too dumb to do it this way as well? But it's just so counter-productive. Obviously there's not one right way for everyone to do things because if so, we'd all be doing everything the same way and succeeding wildly, you know?

I'm not saying I'm trying not to judge at all. We all judge, all the time. It's how we make decisions. There's nothing wrong with that. But some judgments are more negative than others, and a lot of judgment is useless, and CERTAINLY directing negative judgment at someone and making them aware of it is useless.

So, you know. I can judge. I can observe and make decisions and form opinions about things that people do. But instead of aiming those judgments outward and letting them make me feel dismissive about other people and what may or may not work for them, I need to try to channel them into informing myself about what might or might not work for me.

On thinking too much, and other uninformed judgments

Here's something that people tell me a lot, in one form or another, directly or indirectly: You think too much.

I am SO SICK of hearing this. Yes, I'm naturally inclined to analyze. I like to think and plan ahead. I like to consider options and possibilities. I like to be prepared.

BUT. I am not obsessive about it. I am not paranoid. I am actually fairly laid-back. I swear! (And my mother and husband agree!) I don't freak out about every little remote possibility. I don't like to waste time and energy on statistical outliers. I don't feel the need to be prepared for every possible eventuality, and so I don't freak out about the possibility of outrageous scenarios.

But if I know that something IS going to happen, or is LIKELY to happen, or I WANT it to happen... well, yeah. I think about it. I process it. I analyze it. And I try to move forward with as much awareness as possible.

So, yeah. Not everybody would have a pre-conception appointment, or be reading books about childbirth and baby names well before becoming pregnant, or meet with a genetic counselor. Not everybody would do hours of research about the city they're thinking of moving to, down to knowing how many sunny days it gets every year (for the record: Denver gets 300). Not everyone would begin researching dog breeds and rescue programs months before they were in a position to get a dog.

But that doesn't mean that because that's how I like to do things, that there's something WRONG with that, or that it's OK to COMMENT on that in a manner that is AT ALL pejorative. I do plan for things, but only WITHIN REASON. And I am actually remarkably good at adapting to unexpected situations.

There isn't really any one thing that's driving this post--nobody has said anything particularly abrasive to me about this recently. Though I AM still thinking about the way the genetic counselor reacted when she was asking about health conditions that run in my family, and I mentioned that my dad has a hereditary heart condition, but that I had already been tested for it and I don't have it. When I said that I'd already been tested for it... she SMIRKED. Seriously, it was very clear from her face that she thought she had me all figured out as one of those over-the-top, goal-oriented type who has a spreadsheet for every aspect of her life.

But seriously! My dad has a serious heart condition that requires very careful medical management. It would be irresponsible for me NOT to get tested for that condition, ESPECIALLY before trying to get pregnant. And she's a freaking GENETIC COUNSELOR. Her JOB is to work with people who plan ahead. If I weren't the planning type, I WOULDN'T BE THERE.

But it's not just her. People are always saying things to me like "Wow, I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this," or "My goodness, I can see you've really done your research," or "Oh, I can already tell you're going to be a really involved parent." Which SOUND innocuous, in type, and often are innocuous, in person. But SOMETIMES the knowing way they say it, often laced with judgment... well, you know. It gets under my skin.

AND, the thing that annoys me the most is that 95% of the incidents where someone tells me they can tell I've been thinking about something for awhile? Are in response to comments that I made completely off the top of my head without ever having thought about whatever the topic in question is before in my life.

All I'm saying is, yes, I understand that I am analytical, a Planner, but I am actually NOT type A, and even if I WERE, who CARES? Everyone operates differently. I am fully aware of what works for me.

And you know what? Not everyone researches the shit out of the city they're about to move to, but not everyone would move across the country to a state they've never even visited before, either. And you know what else? Denver has turned out to be EXACTLY what we expected based on all that research. So, sometimes it pays off. Certainly, my personality and analytical tendencies have led me to a great place in my life.

So please, let's all just note the difference. Pointing out that I'm different from you? Fine. Being impressed at how just how different we are? Fine. Commenting on how well these tendencies have worked out for me? Great! Asking questions about how I make this sort of thing work? Fabulous. Every comment on this post? Lovely and supportive. But telling me that the way I think is wasteful? Not helpful. Acting judgmental and condescending about my natural inclinations? Quite off-putting. Telling me that another way WORKED FOR YOU and therefore I'M DOING IT WRONG? I will get VERY STABBY.

I assume this applies to other people and any characteristics that are particularly noticeable about them. So, what about you? What traits and qualities of yours often draw comments from others?

Mouse

When I was little, my uncle Michael, who died of AIDS when I was ten, always called me Mouse. The nickname was based on the fact that I was born in the zodiac Year of the Rat, and he always told me it was the year of the mouse because he didn't want me to think I was a rat.

Yesterday at work, we were doing a team-building exercise that involved reviewing a list of animals and descriptions of their main characteristics, and selecting the animal that we felt most closely described us. The list was long so I scanned down the characteristics without paying attention to the animals they were listed with. One listing jumped out at me: "Scrutiny, order, organizer, and an eye for details." I immediately knew that this would be my choice to describe myself, particularly in a work setting. Then I looked over at the animal these words were listed with. It was a mouse.

I don't normally place stock in stuff like that, and in my head I know that it was just an irrelevant, random coincidence. But somehow it feels... serendipitous.

I miss him.

Straws are my new nemesis

So, this one time (OK, fine, last week), I decided to use a straw to drink a glass of water. And that turned out to be one of my worst decisions in recent memory. Here's why.

Why Mint.com doesn't work for me

With all the financial discussion going on around this blog recently, it makes sense to discuss the whole Mint.com thing. I have heard so many people raving about how great Mint is, and how it has revolutionized their finances, and generally changed their lives. And that's great. I totally see the point. I see why Mint is great, what it does, and how it is useful to lots of people.

But I hate it, personally. Not for other people. I think it's great for people who haven't been monitoring their finances, and know they need to start. It's great for people who don't really have a system in place. It's great for people whose systems are confined to their house, or office, or just aren't really working for them for whatever reason.

But for me. Oh, it drives me crazy. Well. It drove me crazy. I've stopped using it now.

I think the main reason why I don't like it is that I have a system that I have been using for years, and it works very well. I have a spreadsheet in Google Docs, which allows me to look up bill due dates and amounts from any computer. I sort bills by due date and put monitoring dates on inactive accounts, so I remember to look them up and make sure there isn't some activity that I'm forgetting about, or that is fraudulent. I mark unpaid bills in red so that I notice them. I have usernames (but not passwords) associated with the various accounts so I don't forget my login. It works. It's worked for years. I like it.

Still, I'd heard great things about Mint, and I thought, Ooo! It will do all this FOR me! How great! So I set up an account this past summer, and input all my information. Which is where I ran into my first stumbling block: Mint doesn't have access to all our financial information. It can't get our car loan, for example, because it's through a random credit union that isn't supported. It can't get a couple of our credit cards, and it can't get our savings account because the bank doesn't allow it access.

So, really, that alone is a dealbreaker for me. How helpful is it to have this thing that's supposed to manage your finances if it's only managing MOST, but not ALL, of them? NOT HELPFUL AT ALL, in my humble opinion.

But I plowed on, because I thought oh! It'll still be great for tracking MOST of our finances, and giving a GENERAL IDEA of hot-button spending areas.

HOWEVER. As I moved through the system, I noticed several other complaints. Chiefly:

• It feels less thorough than my own system. It's harder for me to log in and see at a glance exactly what's going on with all our finances and what's due when and what our balances are. As I've mentioned before, we have a lot of credit cards (though we don't use most of them), and so this is especially important to me.
  
• Relatedly, I don't totally trust it. I know I CAN trust it, but I trust myself more. I sometimes worry that things are slipping through the cracks, and then I review my spreadsheet and check all our account balances to make sure everything is in order. I know there are some areas where too much control is a bad thing, but in finances I don't think that's the case. I like to know what's happening at all times, and feel that I'm in charge of managing it, so I don't forget anything. Mint took too much of the process away from me. I think I learn from doing, and when I don't do, I don't process things and remember them as well. This is a problem for financial management.
• The categorization ended up not helping me that much. The categories weren't always accurate, and they often weren't specific enough, so when I got those notices that said I'd gone over budget on whatever category, half the time they were wrong. AND I got annoyed even if we HAD gone over budget, because I already KNEW that and there was a REASON for it to begin with. (And yes, I know, it's just a website with limited information, not a personal critique. I never said my complaints were RATIONAL.)
• It seems to have a tiny bit of a lag with updating information, which wouldn't be a problem except that it sends out weekly summaries on Fridays, which also happen to be paydays, and it never seemed to know our current bank balance INCLUDING that day's paycheck, so whenever I opened the weekly summary and saw our alleged net worth (which of course didn't include our savings because the savings account isn't supported on the site), I had heart palpitations.
• It sends out payment reminders too early for my taste. Maybe this is customizable and I could change it, but I never bothered to look, because I was already OVER IT. But one email, over a week in advance, isn't going to cause me to remember to pay the bill. Only my spreadsheet causes me to remember to pay the bill. This relates back to the second bullet point about how I have to personally do things in order to really absorb them.

So! No Mint.com for me. I'll stick with my spreadsheet, low-tech as it may seem. (Crazy that we're already in an era where a Google Spreadsheets seems so passe, huh?)

What about you? Do you use Mint, or have you used it? What do you think of it? If you don't use it, what kind of system (or lack thereof) do you use to manage your finances?

Purchasing restraint

So, in keeping with the goals I posted yesterday, Torsten and I right now are in ultra-save mode. We are trying to avoid spending money on anything. Seriously, anything at all. Basically, if it's not absolutely essential, we aren't buying it.

I've started keeping a mental list of the things that one or the other of us has mentioned that we'd like, and that under normal circumstances, we would purchase or at least seriously consider. So far, I've calculated that we've saved ourselves several hundred dollars. And that's not including the savings from not eating out and avoiding excessive trips to the grocery store for last-minute meals.

Here are the things that we've casually mentioned that we'd like, and immediately vetoed as not necessary right now:

• A few interim dining room chairs to go with the dining room table that Torsten's parents gave us for Christmas (assuming $25/chair, that's $100)
• A replacement bracelet for the gorgeous bangle that Torsten gave me for Christmas but that I had to return because it didn't fit over my hand (at least $100)
• A dual trash and recycling can to replace the paper grocery bags we're currently using for our recycling (around $50)
• This amazing purple watch ($75)
• A new bathrobe for me because mine is so big that the pockets cross over to the wrong sides of my body when I wrap it around me (around $30)

That is over $350 that we could EASILY have spent on non-essentials over the past week or so. Now, we don't normally spend that kind of money on random things, and yes, a couple of them are holiday-related, but some of them aren't. And we've been spoiled by the fact that we earn more than we spend into feeling that if there's something we really want, it's OK to just buy it. And while that has certainly been an enjoyable attitude, at the moment random materialism is not the goal. Saving money aggressively is. So these purchases are on hold for now.

I don't NEED a new bathrobe--too-big bathrobes are fine because the belt holds everything together. I certainly don't need a watch just because it's purple; I already have a perfectly functional watch. Yes, I loved the bracelet that Torsten gave me, was sad when I had to return it, and wish I had been able to pick out a replacement one, but I'm fine without a bracelet for now, and he gave me other nice things for Christmas. Yes, our crappy Ikea chairs look ridiculous next to our gorgeous new table, but for another year or so, who really cares? And yes, the paper bag with the recycling is annoying and falls over often, but there's no reason for us to buy some fancy stainless steel contraption when a $10 plastic bin will meet our needs just as well for the time being.

So. No non-essential purchases. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing how much money we're able to save this way.

What about you? Are there any things you want, but aren't buying for yourself? What types of non-essentials are worth the money for you?

New Year's Resolutions

I don't normally do New Year's resolutions. But last year was such a big year in so many ways that there's a lot of stuff that kind of got tabled as we dealt with more immediate things. So now, this year, there are several things I'd like to get done. I'm pretty excited about all of them. As you'll see, many of them are relatively big things--my resolutions aren't so much in the vein of "clean the bathroom regularly." Though of course I'd like to do that stuff too.

1. Get our finances in order. Financially, we're relatively well-off. We both have good jobs and we earn more than we spend. Our only debt comes from our mortgage and our car loan, and we are paying both off aggressively. I have an automatic 403(b) contribution from my employer. So we aren't doing too badly.

However, there are a lot of things we could be doing better, and I want to make that happen. I want to start by meeting with a financial planner to help us figure out how to balance our spending and saving priorities. Off the top of my head, the things we could/should be funneling money into include retirement funds, college savings funds, an emergency fund, and house upgrades (new windows, new blinds, proper furniture, etc.). Plus, there are things we'd like to spend money on, like travel, and I think it's OK to make that a priority, but I'd like some advice on balancing priorities.

I'd also like to hear some input on things like how much life insurance we should each have, whether it makes more sense to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible or put more money into retirement accounts, what types of personal retirement accounts we should open in addition to our work-managed accounts, whether there are any estate tax issues we need to worry about in relation to Torsten not being a U.S. citizen, and so forth.

Basically I want some advice on being a grown-up and having our finances reflect our grown-up status. We'll see.

2. Start working on obtaining a child. Yes, I know it sounds crass the way I've phrased it, and yes, the phrasing is partly a joke. However, it's also a nod to the fact that pregnancy is not the only way to become a parent. I want to explore our options, select one, and begin moving down that path, whichever path it may be. And I want the path to be selected and the movement down it to begin this year.

3. Help Torsten advance in his career. I am very happy with my job. It's progressing in the direction I want, I feel valued, and I love the work that I do. Torsten's job is a bit more complex. He's doing the type of work that he wants to be doing but faces more obstacles and hurdles, and also more work than he's really able to handle. His boss seems to be open to trying to improve things, so hopefully that can start to happen. It would not take that much for Torsten to be much happier and more relaxed when it comes to work. I see my role here as the support, encouragement, and occasional outside voice of reason for when he's too close to a situation. I really think things can improve here, and I want to help make that happen.

4. Spruce up the house. The things that we want to do to our house are beyond the realm of what is feasible in a single year. If we had gobs of money we would start by replacing the windows and blinds, landscaping the front and back yards and building a water feature/goldfish pond in the backyard, getting a hot tub, and buying nice furniture for every room in the house, specifically the dining room and the guest room. There are many other things on the list as well, but those are the staples. Obviously we are not going to spend that kind of money this year, and certainly not just on the house (see Resolution #1 re: competing priorities), but I would at least like to make progress in this arena. Like, say, obtain more than four dining room chairs so we can actually host more than two guests for dinner.

5. Be more deliberate about our food. We both try to eat relatively healthily. We focus on lean protein, healthy fats, and whole grains, and try to avoid high amounts of cholesterol, high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and sodium. But we aren't super extreme about it and do certainly eat processed foods as well. And honestly, we're OK with that. But what is not OK is how we don't plan our meals. When I was on Weight Watchers I was really good about picking out recipes for the week, figuring out what groceries we needed to purchase, and buying only those things. However, in the past few months we've devolved into more of a day-by-day habit, always needing to go out and get something, and often that something is pre-made which means it is both more expensive and less healthy than cooking for ourselves.

We just bought a chest freezer, and made good use of our Costco membership filling it with healthy foods. We tried to be realistic about our lifestyle, and not buy only ingredients but also some reasonably healthy frozen or refrigerated dishes that can be thrown together quickly on nights when we are too tired and busy to cook. We need to plan in advance what we're going to cook, and shop deliberately just for the ingredients we need. This can also allow us to clip coupons and pay better attention to sales. We have really slacked off in this department, which goes back to resolution number 1, as well. I think with careful planning and more time devoted to cooking, we can reduce our grocery bill by at least a third.