Winter Wonderland

Oh the weather outside is frightful... but the fire is so delightful...

You better believe I was taking advantage of my fireplace last night. A cold front and some wintery weather has swept through the northern Colorado region dumping a few inches of snow and making the roads a slick icy mess. There were 50-60 accidents reported last night, that doesn't surprise me at all (my poor Saturn went slipping and sliding two or three times). I will be leaving work early today to get home before the sun goes down, because tonight's low is supposed to be -1 degrees, so there is sure to be plenty of ice on the roads. Oh well, despite the nasty roads, all the pretty white stuff makes the area look like a winter wonderland. Here's a pretty picture to give you a taste...

National Tina Day!

So for those of you who know me well, you know that my birthday is May 19th. Of course in NY the school year runs from September to June, so I was always able to celebrate at school with my friends. However, once I got to college, my birthday always fell JUST after the end of the semester. Since I am pretty big on birthdays, I decided to declare my 1/2 birthday as "National Tina Day" and celebrate that. I still joke about it from time to time. So Cullen learned about "National Tina Day" and decided to send me flowers for the occassion. I was pleasantly surprised at work on Friday by a gorgeous arrangement of a dozen red roses. They got delivered to the Dean's office, so I went to pick them up there and the girls in the office were all jealous heehee. Needless to say I thought it was really sweet. Nobody has ever sent me flowers at work before, so that made it even more cool. They were so beautiful I decided I needed to share them, so I took a picture and posted it above.

So what else is new? Hmm it is Thanksgiving this week! I can't believe it! I leave for NY tomorrow, and am looking forward to spending the holiday with my family for the first time since before Memphis. The semester is really winding down now. It will be Christmas before we know it! I already got one of my Christmas gifts - a new grill that my parents bought for me. Well technically I bought it, but they will be covering the cost. We brought it home this weekend and assembled it - thank goodness for Cullen because I could not have done it myself. The grill was christened last night with some brats... mmmm... I think Cullen is more excited about the grill more than I am. I'll have to see about getting him an apron and chef's hat for the summer =) Curious about which grill I got? See the picture below...

What's wrong with this picture?

I'll tell you what is wrong with it - the current temperature is LOWER than the reported daily low. Stupid weather reports... I froze my butt off walking from my building to the UC. And why was I headed there at 8 AM this morning? - to get information on my health benefits at the open enrollment fair. And that leads me to my next topic of discussion....

Medical insurance and how it rips you off!

I happened to notice on a recent mailing or two from my medical insurance that things were not being covered as they were being charged to my lovely $250 deductible. I had thought my deductible was met months ago when I had my toe surgery, but according to the recent charges it had not been. So I wondered if perhaps the annual deductible was scheduled for the SCHOOL year rather than the calendar year. I decided to be proactive and take the opportunity to speak face to face with a real person rather than dealing with automated phone menus and customer service reps that are consistently grouchy and short (who can blame them- that job must be awful). Anyway, turns out there was a computer or system glitch that reset deductibles... apparently it affected 1000s of claims. But did they tell any of us about it? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Sneaky bastards. I was about to pay a bill for a physician visit, after speaking to the rep this morning I was told not to pay it. She is going to investigate my account and help clear things up for me. So I'm glad I went.

I also found out my lovely $250 deductible is increasing to $350. Being a part of a slightly larger network is not worth that money, so I switched from PPO to HMO- that will become effective Jan 1st. With a $15 co-pay fee I would have to go to a doctor over 20 times before the money would add up to that nasty deductible alone (not including the 10% in network and 20% out of network I'd also have to pay.

Anyway enough about my medical insurance woes. In other news, today is Thursday which means tomorrow is FRIDAY! I can't wait for the weekend.

60,000 Miles

Well this morning was a milestone for my car. I bought a Saturn SL2 in June of 2000. The first car I ever owned (and still own today). Amazingly, I managed to not put that many miles on it, even though it has been from NY to TN to CO. Those two trips alone put on about 2500 miles within 4 days of driving. Anyway, this morning when I pulled into the parking lot at work, my odometer ticked at 60,000 miles. Since I'm trying hard now to save money, hopefully I'll be able to drive it another 60,000 miles :)

Had a fantastic weekend. Enjoyed some lazy Saturday and Sunday mornings... though I didn't lounge around ALL day. I did get out and play some tennis on Saturday- Amy and Joe better watch out, I'm starting to get some good shots in, too bad I'm not consistent at all. Oh but with practice... I bought a grill at Lowe's (Mom and Dad's generous Christmas present to me). The box was so big it would not fit in the Saturn, so Cullen is going to borrow his Dad's truck and we'll pick it up next weekend. Perfect opportunity to grill out for the Bronco's game.

So as of today Christmas is 6 weeks away... however there is another holiday fast approaching. For those of you who are familiar with it, National Tina Day is this coming Sunday- better get to shopping! =)

My New Mantra

After having a great weekend, facing Monday morning is often a daunting task. I know I am not alone on this one. Today, a very clever man came up with an optimistic spin on tackling Mondays. I liked it so much I decided to adopt it. My new Monday mantra is this:

Monday morning is simply the first step to Friday afternoon

Isn't that great? I hope y'all have a fantastic Monday =)

In other news I passed my Karate test last week, so I am now an advanced yellow belt. Sounds intimidating huh? It's an interesting belt, half yellow, half orange. The belts keep piling up, I still have all my old Taekwondo belts, even my white one. I should probably buy a belt rack to display them.

Oh yeah, seems I am turning into quite the cook, who knew I could cook? Apparently I can. I made a killer chicken soup this weekend. Amy had a party and told me she made my 7 layer dip, and it was a huge success. Woohoo! I have to make an appetizer for Thanksgiving this year (yeah like we need an appetizer before we totally gorge on Turkey and trimmings)... either way I have to make something, and it can't require baking since the oven will be taken by the bird. I can use an oven ahead of time like earlier in the day or the night before, but I don't want to bring something that needs to be served right out of the oven I'll be looking for recipes this week and hopefully will try something out before I go to NY. Of course I'm open to suggestions...