New beginnings

William officially started his job this week. It's the real deal and he's not in training anymore. Right now he's on a rig near Decatur, Texas. Lucky for him me it's not too far from home. Today he was off duty during the day, so he came home for lunch which was nice.  We also got to go walk through our new apartment. There were some issues but hopefully they are resolved by tomorrow. We are supposed to be able to pick up our keys by 4pm. This apartment has been vacant since the end of February, so I don't know why they didn't get it ready sooner. All that said, I'm super excited about it! It is sooooo much better than where we are now! My dad is coming to help us move on Saturday.  Of course it's supposed to rain all day Saturday. Hopefully it works out! (Dad bring plastic tarps if you have any!)  It's going to be weird doing it without William, but my goal is for him to come home for his birthday to an AMAZING new apartment! Yes people! His birthday is in 8 days! He's going to be the big 2-3! Ahhh!

So, I took COMPS and Praxis last weekend. I'll find out the results in a few weeks. I guess that's all I have to say about it. I'm sure I did fine but there isn't much to recount.

This week I redid a dresser that we have. Remember this one? The brown one...

Well now it has a fresh coat of paint! It's black! I'm working on putting new drawer pulls on it so I'll post pictures when that all done! I'm pretty proud of myself for doing it. It looks so much better. 

Look forward to pictures of the new apartment in the next few days! Yay!

Praise the Lord for INCOME and BENEFITS

Updated: See note at the bottom!


William started work on Monday and while he was bored to tears, I was excited about the prospects of income and benefits! I have paid over $1600 in medical insurance payments for my Cobra since November... And William has been completely uncovered (my BIGGEST pet peeve). I have come to know that medical insurance is something that I not only value... but I use! And I use it well! With several chronic and every changing medical conditions, I see specialists as my "regular" doctors and frequently require strange and out of the ordinary procedures and medicines just to get by on a day to day basis.  Let's take a look back at the past year of medicine in Peyton's life. I feel it's needed to understand why I would put myself through the misery of paying nearly $1700 for 4 months of medical insurance.

• Rheumatoid Arthritis: doctor's visit once every 3 months plus RX medication costing me a $150 copay every month! Not to mention all the xrays, steriods, and bloodwork needed just to keep me moving!
• Last March-ish... I got a double ear infection that was so bad that I required multiple office visits and anitbiotics. Oh and my eardrum burst. 
• Fast forward to June... I was diagnosed with a pilonidal cysts that became incredibly infected which required:  1 failed trip to the ER, 1 visit with my general practitioner, 1 speedy referral and visit to a colorectal surgeon (seriously most of you didn't know one of those existed), 1 in-office surgery that same day, lots of narcotics, and several follow up visits.  (Let's not even talk about how I really need to take 6 weeks out of my life for major surgery to get this thing removed or it will come back.)
• Several bouts with typical sickness that comes with working with kids.
• Swine flu in October... fun stuff
• Diagnosis with beta 2 glycoprotein 1 antibodies - also known as Hughes Syndrome - which could require some serious medicinal therapies in the future. 
• A darn good ob-gyn with lots of "consultative visits" to discuss all of the previously mentioned problems and how they affect my reproductive system. 

Yea so there you go folks! That's worth $1700 dollars to me... but honestly no one person should have to pay that much (If only we could get the freaking federal government to agree). So here's the good news!

Today William and I enrolled in our first big kid insurance plan! It's ours. And the best part is... it feels like it's free. It's a mere $890/year! Good grief... that's a drop in the bucket from before. I am SO thankful for my amazing husband and his perseverance in his job search. He could have been discouraged so many times, but he (and his friends and family --thanks Stephen and Dad) didn't give up and he landed the MOST WONDERFUL job ever! People were extra supportive gave him crap about graduating a semester later than expected... but all I can say is that sometimes good things are worth waiting for. He never reads this... but I couldn't be more proud of him. And I know he's very upset about basking in the glory of being able to provide for me for a few months before I graduate... and I am so excited to let him do that. 


Another round of patience is well learned... maybe I'll post a picture of our shiny insurance cards when we get them in our hands!


Update: Just wanted to say that my dad reminded me that good insurance practices were bred into me. Thanks to my amazing parents, I have a nearly bionic eye. And I actually do not consider it a medical issue anymore. And if you know me, you know that it is one of the most weird striking things about me physically (well if you pay any attention to my face).

Interesting article on caffeine....

William is in a constant state of trying to cut back on caffeine... he is INCREDIBLY addicted. So when I saw this post I had to read up for him. He loves Diet Coke and apparently it contains significantly more caffeine than regular coke! Kind of crazy....
Here are the stats that came from this article!

Coffee

Coffee varies in caffeine content drastically, even in the same coffeehouse, on the same day. Everything from roast styles to brewing methods affect the amount of caffeine you get. The lighter the roast, the more caffeine it has.

• Starbucks (Grande) iced coffee, 16 oz: 190 mg. This is double-brewed. Without the ice it contains 380mg.
• Starbucks brewed coffee, 16 oz: 330 mg. Brewed coffee has 50% more caffeine on average than instant coffee.
• Instant coffee, 16 oz: 60-345mg
• Starbucks latte, 16 oz: 150mg
• Starbucks espresso, 1 oz (1 shot): 58-75mg

Tea

The longer a tea is steeped, the higher the caffeine content. If after the first steep, you add more hot water to the tea or tea bag, the tea becomes almost entirely decaffeinated.

• Starbucks Tazo chai tea latte, 16 oz: 100 mg
• Regular black tea, 8 oz: 40-120 mg
• Stash green tea, 18 oz: 78 mg
• Snapple iced tea, 16 oz: 18 mg
• 12 oz Nestea: 17 mg
• Decaffeinated black tea, 8 oz: 2 mg

Soft Drinks

All drinks are 12 oz servings

• Mountain Dew: 54 mg
• Mello Yello: 53 mg
• Diet Coke: 47 mg
• Tab: 47 mg
• Dr Pepper: 42-44 mg
• Sunkist Orange: 42 mg
• Pepsi: 36-38 mg
• Coke: 35 mg
• A&W Cream Soda: 29 mg
• Barq's Root Beer: 23 mg
• A&W Root Beer: 0 mg
• 7-Up: 0 mg
• Sprite: 0 mg
• Mug Root Beer: 0 mg
• Fanta: 0 mg

Energy Drinks

• No Name (formerly known as Cocaine), 8.4 oz: 280 mg
• Monster Energy, 16 oz: 160 mg
• Full Throttle, 16 oz: 144 mg
• Enviga, 12 oz: 100 mg
• No Fear, 8 oz: 83 mg
• Rockstar, 8 oz: 80 mg
• Red Bull, 8.3 oz: 76 mg
• AMP, 8.4 oz: 74 mg

Food

• Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate, 1.45 oz: 31 mg
• Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar, 1.55 oz: 9mg
• Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, 8 oz: 84 mg
• Haagen-Daz Coffee Ice Cream, 8 oz: 58 mg
• Starbucks Coffee Ice Cream, 8 oz: 50-60 mg

Medications

• No Doz, 1 Tablet: 200 mg
• Excedrin Extra Strength, 2 tablets: 130 mg
• Anacin Maximum Strength, 2 tablets: 64 mg
• Midol Maximum Strength: 60 mg

So for all you caffeine lovers trying to cut back... maybe simply switching which product you eat/drink for a while will help! Also lay off the migraine medicine.  It makes sense why they contain caffeine since most people get caffeine headaches... but it's just seriously perpetuating your problem, because in 4 hours you'll just either have to drink some caffeine or get a "fix" from their medicine. 

The day has come...

William and I are in Galveston this weekend for his brother's wedding! We are excited about a mini vacation and the chance to be here with them on their special day! Before we headed down here this afternoon, I picked up a used camera from one of my friends who bought a new one recently. It's a Canon EOS Rebel 20D! I'm super excited to learn how to use an SLR and hopefully I've found a new hobby!

In relation to the post title, the day has indeed come. And a little too quickly I might add. William got a call about an hour ago that he starts work on MONDAY! Like seriously a little more notice would have been nice. But we can't complain because we have been waiting on this day for a LONG time. Everything in our life always seems to be a bit more chaotic than we think it should be, so we should have guessed this would happen. God always answers prayers in his own time and I guess He felt He had taught me enough patience and now thought it right to make us think on the run for a change. Thank goodness we have internet at the hotel so William could do some paperwork this afternoon.

So looks like next week Lucy and I will be studying for COMPS/praxis by ourselves. Oh well... thus is life. Always changing....

I will post some pictures from the new camera on Sunday night! Yay!

Giveaways are Great!

In case you were unaware... a perk to the blogging world is the large amount of giveaways!
Check this one out... blog makeovers are my favorite!