Friday, May 12, 2006
Playing catch-up....
Not to be confused with ketchup, heh heh. Haven't been posting very much about the homefront lately. Have been too distracted with packing and trying to get the computer back up to speed.
Ok, last Friday, one of Dan's co-workers decided at the very last minute to take an early retirement. Good news, except the dude has a week to change his mind, and if he does, Dan's job is no more. So far, so good, but it's still possible that Dan could go to work tonight, find out the co-worker changed his mind, and be told that Dan's last day of work is tomorrow! If Dan does get to stay, he goes on a new schedule, which will be 5pm-1am Thursday through Monday (meaning his days off will be Tuesday and Wednesday). And Dan will be the very first person to lose his job during the next round of layoffs, which could happen as soon as July. At least then he'd get a few more months to secure a new job.
Speaking of that, Dan still hasn't heard one way or the other from the Sioux Falls company that does brochures. They decided to run an ad in the paper for the job opening after all and are assessing the applicants for that right now. Also, the dude who's doing the hiring had to go to Miami for a week on business. Must be rough, heh heh. Anyway, Dan's not out of the running yet, but is getting very discouraged because he was pretty sure he had that job a month ago.
Dan did apply for a job with a Sioux Falls ad agency last weekend. This week, they requested portfolio samples from him, which is always a good sign. So we're hoping he can get an interview with them.
I think I may have saved my butt from getting dumped by my long-term disability insurance company, at least for the moment. When I talked to my benefits coordinator last Friday, she said they were just about to make a decision but were waiting for a response to my rheumatologist about something. I'm pretty sure she meant that they were asking him if he agreed with the bogus functional capacity and neuropsych exams they made me do. It was later that afternoon that I received the fully favorable SSDI decision in the mail. So on Monday, I left a message telling them about that. I got a call back requesting that I send them a copy, which I agreed to do. The next day, my April payment, which was more than a week overdue, mysteriously appeared in my account! It's utterly ridiculous that I got a decision from the federal government quicker than from a private company regarding whether or not I'm disabled, but as long as the LTD guys have to keep paying me, I'm not gonna protest too loudly. Now, I have read of cases where LTD companies have dumped a claimant as soon as they received SSDI back pay, so I'm a bit leery of that. I may try to see if my company will allow me to deduct the backpay from future payments so that they'll have to keep me. I'm not very confident they'll agree to it, though.
Right now, I'm sort of in limbo regarding SSDI as I have to wait and see if my file goes to quality review, where my favorable decision could be overturned. If it isn't reviewed, it should go straight to the payment center, where Social Security has 60 days during which to issue some sort of statement regarding benefit amounts. The document I need the most is the Award letter. Once I have that, I can submit a copy of it when I apply for my disability pension through my union. I will also need that letter should I need proof of income to get approval on a new home loan, or to cash in my IRA without a tax penalty, or probably various other things. So I will need to watch my mailbox closely.
The massive de-cluttering project isn't going so well. I probably shouldn't have started with the kitchen because it required the most work, and I got discouraged and ran out of energy. I know what needs to be done, but the motivation isn't there to do it because packing makes me hurt, even when I am careful. Also, we don't even know when we might need to put the house on the market. It could be next week, next month, end of summer, never?? So right now, the kitchen countertops are covered with knicknacks that need to be packed. I decided to use a box and packing system intended for glassware for my various collectables, but this requires that I match up each item with the appropriate size space in the box and carry all the stuff from upstairs to downstairs since half of it is upstairs, which will take several trips. I suppose I will get to it at some point soon because the last thing I want to do is have to resort to panic packing. You know, when you suddenly realize it's only a week until moving day, and instead of sorting carefully through the house and deciding what you need to keep and what you need to throw out, you panic and throw everything right into boxes without even looking at them? I have to admit to doing a lot of panic packing in my life, which may account at least in part for why I have so doggone much junk; I just keep throwing it all into boxes. I am now starting to fully comprehend the usefulness of spring cleaning; this project wouldn't be nearly so massive had I been throwing out things on an annual basis. Instead, I'm finding receipts for things I paid for with cash in 1998, warranties for things I no longer own, and birthday presents I didn't know I had because Dan "helpfully" tidied up for me, put them away and forgot to tell me about them. I found a gift card to a book store buried in a pile of stuff in my bedroom closet. It had been expired for a year, which really ticked me off. On the bonus side, I found $50 in cash, so not everything about cleaning is a bummer. I think when I get past the kitchen, I will be seeing signs of progress and may become more motivated to continue. The last area that is going to be quite time consuming is the command center, so maybe I should save it for last? That way, if I get discouraged, I can look around at the rest of my de-cluttered house to inspire me to keep going.
The computer is STILL not completely where it was prior to the first crash in March. I never was able to recover my Quicken backups, so I had to start over with the financial info. I just did 2006, but even that took me two days. I need the full calendar year in Quicken so I can use it when I file taxes, so I had to dig up all my registers and credit union statements and enter it by hand. I had to take extra time to customize the categories of checks so that the tax deductible stuff will come up in reports and set up from scratch all my automatic withdrawals. And I STILL can't keep an internet connection for longer than 20 minutes! I tried e-mailing Earthlink about it, but got a message stating that this particular problem can't be handled in e-mail! Ack! Why did they have me fill out a form for it then? So I have to call them at some point and try to figure out what the hell the problem is. Rather inconvenient that I have to turn the computer off to call them to ask a question about the computer. Without a decent internet connection, I still can't download software updates or tunes at all. Grumble. There are some other files I need to re-create before we put the house on the market, which I suppose I will get to eventually. Oh, and I owe TWO articles to But You Don't Look Sick. Sigh.
Ack. Even though I took breaks typing this, I'm still getting hand cramps. Later.
Ok, last Friday, one of Dan's co-workers decided at the very last minute to take an early retirement. Good news, except the dude has a week to change his mind, and if he does, Dan's job is no more. So far, so good, but it's still possible that Dan could go to work tonight, find out the co-worker changed his mind, and be told that Dan's last day of work is tomorrow! If Dan does get to stay, he goes on a new schedule, which will be 5pm-1am Thursday through Monday (meaning his days off will be Tuesday and Wednesday). And Dan will be the very first person to lose his job during the next round of layoffs, which could happen as soon as July. At least then he'd get a few more months to secure a new job.
Speaking of that, Dan still hasn't heard one way or the other from the Sioux Falls company that does brochures. They decided to run an ad in the paper for the job opening after all and are assessing the applicants for that right now. Also, the dude who's doing the hiring had to go to Miami for a week on business. Must be rough, heh heh. Anyway, Dan's not out of the running yet, but is getting very discouraged because he was pretty sure he had that job a month ago.
Dan did apply for a job with a Sioux Falls ad agency last weekend. This week, they requested portfolio samples from him, which is always a good sign. So we're hoping he can get an interview with them.
I think I may have saved my butt from getting dumped by my long-term disability insurance company, at least for the moment. When I talked to my benefits coordinator last Friday, she said they were just about to make a decision but were waiting for a response to my rheumatologist about something. I'm pretty sure she meant that they were asking him if he agreed with the bogus functional capacity and neuropsych exams they made me do. It was later that afternoon that I received the fully favorable SSDI decision in the mail. So on Monday, I left a message telling them about that. I got a call back requesting that I send them a copy, which I agreed to do. The next day, my April payment, which was more than a week overdue, mysteriously appeared in my account! It's utterly ridiculous that I got a decision from the federal government quicker than from a private company regarding whether or not I'm disabled, but as long as the LTD guys have to keep paying me, I'm not gonna protest too loudly. Now, I have read of cases where LTD companies have dumped a claimant as soon as they received SSDI back pay, so I'm a bit leery of that. I may try to see if my company will allow me to deduct the backpay from future payments so that they'll have to keep me. I'm not very confident they'll agree to it, though.
Right now, I'm sort of in limbo regarding SSDI as I have to wait and see if my file goes to quality review, where my favorable decision could be overturned. If it isn't reviewed, it should go straight to the payment center, where Social Security has 60 days during which to issue some sort of statement regarding benefit amounts. The document I need the most is the Award letter. Once I have that, I can submit a copy of it when I apply for my disability pension through my union. I will also need that letter should I need proof of income to get approval on a new home loan, or to cash in my IRA without a tax penalty, or probably various other things. So I will need to watch my mailbox closely.
The massive de-cluttering project isn't going so well. I probably shouldn't have started with the kitchen because it required the most work, and I got discouraged and ran out of energy. I know what needs to be done, but the motivation isn't there to do it because packing makes me hurt, even when I am careful. Also, we don't even know when we might need to put the house on the market. It could be next week, next month, end of summer, never?? So right now, the kitchen countertops are covered with knicknacks that need to be packed. I decided to use a box and packing system intended for glassware for my various collectables, but this requires that I match up each item with the appropriate size space in the box and carry all the stuff from upstairs to downstairs since half of it is upstairs, which will take several trips. I suppose I will get to it at some point soon because the last thing I want to do is have to resort to panic packing. You know, when you suddenly realize it's only a week until moving day, and instead of sorting carefully through the house and deciding what you need to keep and what you need to throw out, you panic and throw everything right into boxes without even looking at them? I have to admit to doing a lot of panic packing in my life, which may account at least in part for why I have so doggone much junk; I just keep throwing it all into boxes. I am now starting to fully comprehend the usefulness of spring cleaning; this project wouldn't be nearly so massive had I been throwing out things on an annual basis. Instead, I'm finding receipts for things I paid for with cash in 1998, warranties for things I no longer own, and birthday presents I didn't know I had because Dan "helpfully" tidied up for me, put them away and forgot to tell me about them. I found a gift card to a book store buried in a pile of stuff in my bedroom closet. It had been expired for a year, which really ticked me off. On the bonus side, I found $50 in cash, so not everything about cleaning is a bummer. I think when I get past the kitchen, I will be seeing signs of progress and may become more motivated to continue. The last area that is going to be quite time consuming is the command center, so maybe I should save it for last? That way, if I get discouraged, I can look around at the rest of my de-cluttered house to inspire me to keep going.
The computer is STILL not completely where it was prior to the first crash in March. I never was able to recover my Quicken backups, so I had to start over with the financial info. I just did 2006, but even that took me two days. I need the full calendar year in Quicken so I can use it when I file taxes, so I had to dig up all my registers and credit union statements and enter it by hand. I had to take extra time to customize the categories of checks so that the tax deductible stuff will come up in reports and set up from scratch all my automatic withdrawals. And I STILL can't keep an internet connection for longer than 20 minutes! I tried e-mailing Earthlink about it, but got a message stating that this particular problem can't be handled in e-mail! Ack! Why did they have me fill out a form for it then? So I have to call them at some point and try to figure out what the hell the problem is. Rather inconvenient that I have to turn the computer off to call them to ask a question about the computer. Without a decent internet connection, I still can't download software updates or tunes at all. Grumble. There are some other files I need to re-create before we put the house on the market, which I suppose I will get to eventually. Oh, and I owe TWO articles to But You Don't Look Sick. Sigh.
Ack. Even though I took breaks typing this, I'm still getting hand cramps. Later.
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