Blogging And Coping

Well, if there was any doubt that we're heading toward winter, it's been dissolved! When we headed out for our morning walk about 9:15 this morning, with the sun shining brightly, it was 21 degrees. After confirming our expected overnight temperature yesterday evening, I swapped out the regular sheets for the flannel ones before bedtime. They felt so good!

I had a somewhat successful morning. I took a deep breath and made another foray into the Healthcare Marketplace. The site was functioning, and I was able to set up my account. I got far enough into the process to know that the State of Missouri has no health care discounts that I'm eligible for. I still had the option of continuing to see what plans were available – and to hopefully see if I still qualify for Federal tax credits due to income......or lack of income.

That's when I hit a black hole spiral – I attempted to continue but got a notice that I had an important message to read. I would try to read it, but I could not see a link for the message. I tried logging out, logging back in and continuing. Every time I got to the same spot and was stymied. By the time I realized my head was spinning and my eyes were crossed, I determined it was time to walk away and try again later. At least I have an account now – that's progress!

I've worked for the past hour and a half on another counted cross stitch Christmas ornament. It's a snowman, so I'm working with white thread on a white background. And still it's easier than navigating the government health care site!!

When I started this blog, it was with the thought of chronicling our mutual unemployment. While I've gladly strayed from that thread frequently, it's still lurking in the background. But not for long. We knew we were on the downhill slide, so we checked our account balances online. At the end of the State portion of our unemployment, hubby got his last two weeks in a double payment. We don't know why, but that's put him a week ahead of me. So he has 4.6 weeks left, and I have 5.6. During the Federal portion of our unemployment, three weeks of our payments have gone to the Federal government's pockets instead of ours due to the sequester. I have no doubt the government's pockets are more empty than ours, but it seems a crazy way to recoup money!

It's a crazy time of the year for the unemployment payments to end, just before the holidays. The good thing is that overall, we do have pretty low overhead. We've looked ahead and have lined things up to minimize our financial needs even more than we already have. And thank goodness we are at the point in life we are – our children are grown, so we aren't trying to care for children on a limited income.

We both feel settled with the decisions we've made and the direction we have chosen. I find myself occasionally thinking about other people who are surviving on unemployment payments -people who are younger, people who have children. So many people have been unemployed longer than we have without the “perks” of receiving Social Security income, having Medicare and V.A. Health care.

In the big picture, it's scary to think of where we may be heading financially as a nation. I don't want to sound cliché, but if there was ever a time to pray for wisdom for those in power, this is it.