Yard sale today: which explains the tired. okay results, quite fun actually. May do it again on Monday, or next weekend, we'll see.
My Cousin's Wedding Photos: I took my cousin's wedding photos in late July. It's 351 pictures worth of done done and done. 1st wedding jitters, over. My aunt says I should go "pro," I have some thoughts on that...
Joseph Insurance: Well Washington State DSHS, sucks. We are getting exactly "zilch" for help, after 4 years and countless applications, interviews, phone calls, paperwork run around, and some... umm bad words (hell doesn't count right? ) Joseph doesn't get "help" paying for medicare because he doesn't qualify for medicare?!? What the... he has been on Medicare (part A) since June! As of September, he will be covered by Medicare parts A,B & D. A: hospital, B: Medical and D: Medication, Confusing: why yes, it must be a government requirement to be ridiculous and confusing. Medicare is Federally funded (usually for the elderly, but also the disabled) , Medicaid is state aid. Apparently, if I was pregnant and/or I wasn't working we'd have lots of $$ in food stamps and we'd both be insured. We make "too much money" but still fall under the set limits for the programs we've applied for, so denied yet again. Does this upset you? I want to call them out, I want to write a letter and publish it stating exactly what our struggle for help with the state has been. I keep putting it off, it's so personal, it's a lengthy story and it's scary willingly sending your own story out. But what options do we have? And he does have medicare now....huge blessing, because this weekend we needed to use it.
Joseph broke his foot. An avulsion (or fleck) fracture to his left fibula. Or in simpler terms he broke off the tip of the smaller left leg bone. A tiny little guy, the Doctor said he "should have" broken the 5th metatarsal (or long bone before the pinky toe) as well, but he didn't, and the tissue looks good. But we will be following up with Benton Franklin Orthopedic Association.. after the holiday weekend. Bad timing, he'll have to wait 3 days to even set up an appointment. They will be looking over the x-rays we had done, possibly order more tests... evaluating it for possible surgery (most of these kind of breaks don't require surgery, but some do because the bone tip is still in there.) Joseph is not to put any weight on that foot, use his wheelchair, and wear a walking cast boot.
And thanks to medicare.... we only pay 20% of whatever this is going to cost.
Shaylee work: I officially start my school year on Tuesday, we opted to start after labor day. Pretty darn smart if you ask me. I am starting with 35 student and 3 meet & greets (meet and greets are interviews with potential students, I require an interview for those under 6 years old). I am completely floored and amazed by this, my schedule is almost full, I have extended my schedule twice already.
I won't be playing for Kennewick High this year. This was a decision I made before the end of the school year, and it worked out perfectly: the day I was going to tell Mr. Henderson, he told me that he was moving to China! I am blessed to have such an amazing job, that I love and that pays so well.
Some other thoughts:
We have been looking into housing options, grants, programs, habitat for humanity.. saving our butts off.... and I don't want to become what I have called a "mom-a-tographer" = usually a Stay At Home Mom who buys a nice camera and decides to start up a photography business. They are EVERYWHERE, no offense to anyone who choose this, but a nice camera doesn't make you a good photographer, amateur photographer or professional either. I have always been interested in photography, I would call myself an amateur photographer. I have had photography classes, I learned on an old SLR with film! I now have a nice camera, I have now done 1 wedding (asked, not volunteered) and numerous portraits and family portraits. I am building a good portfolio, and I have a passion for the art side of it... not the trying to make money side of it. But it might be a good idea to do so, to get us into a home of our own, that is important to us. We need that, something of our own, everyone needs their own space right?
**edit** I do acknowledge that there are some amazing women, making amazing artwork with their cameras right now. But there are a lot of others buying expensive cameras, and calling themselves photographers. And all trying to make a buck doing it. **
Houses here are high priced, subsidized housing is terrifying here (read: scary neighborhoods, drug dealer and gangs). I like the idea of habitat for humanity, but you don't get any control over where you live or what type of house you get, and it costs $$ to apply, and takes up to 2 years to build. I emailed someone and found the Kennewick Housing Authority application, it's 46 pages long (not exaggerating one bit) this covers HUD rentals, Section 8 vouchers (rentals, and ownership) etc etc.... lots of paperwork and all the programs have long waiting lists. And lastly I found a Rural development application... interesting, we may qualify, but it's very specific about where and what type of houses or rental properties qualify for this program. These are all things we've considered, we can't adopt or foster to adopt until Valerie and Dustin leave the house (that's with us living here still), or we have our own place. -- this is not currently our family plan right now, but it's a factor as to why we want/ need our own place.
We've explored the option of us moving in my grandma Swanger's house, (with her staying with us, and we'd be paying for everything), but that puts us in a money pit (old house with issues) and it's not really an accessible home with 2/3 people who shouldn't be driving. Again old house, bad floor plan, too many stairs...
So now that Joseph has medicare, it saves us lots now that we aren't paying 100% out of pocket. But not enough to get us into a home loan for a good, and accessible home. So for now we are stuck, not many programs to look at, I would much rather have a some sort grant to put toward a house with money we've saved... and I want to be able to dictate what our housing needs are, rather than try to fit our housing needs within tight program guidelines.
Joseph should be starting with Goodwill sometime in the future, internship again... doing about the same thing he did at EnTrust, but with real potential to be hired on and maybe teach computer classes.. we'll see.
Anyway that's the update. Thoughts and ideas are welcome.
Life is Beautiful, but also so incredibly hard.
2 comments:
Be so thankful you live in the Tri-Cities! Our houses may seem expensive here, but they're great compared to other areas. We have friends that bought a pretty run down house a couple of years ago for 250k! And it was a short sale! We just paid 185k for a 2868 sq ft house... much better deal :)
Thanks for your insight Ashley, and you are absolutely right. We are thankful to be here in the Tri-Cities. :) It's a testament to the strong economy here that house prices haven't gone up or down really dramatically. We are just in a difficult situation, and houses are expensive in general, and house prices have gone up since we were last seriously looking (before Joseph went blind).
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