Wild Knitting

Anybody who pays attention to the news knows that many of us in the Midwest and Northeast have been blasted with snow and extremely cold temperatures. Today is the reprieve for us northern Hoosiers. Sunshine, blue skies, and high up around 30, though windy. However, we are bracing for another 7 inches or so of snow on top of the 5 already on the ground. Tonight into tomorrow will be quite different from today. We have already received an email alert from our church telling us to watch for a decision about having church tomorrow. Even if church service is held, I might not make it out. Deep snow doesn’t cooperate well with knee walker wheels. Monday and Tuesday we are forecasted to have highs below zero degrees. Usually, the Juncos are ground feeders, but until my husband made footprints out to the bird feeder, they perched on the feeder shelves.

 My husband and I react differently to extreme winter conditions. He gets cabin fever and looks for any excuse or reason to get out of the house. I like to cocoon. We have already put together 2 of the 3 jigsaw puzzles I received for Christmas. I do have 2 more library books to read. I also decided to try knitting again.

 When I saw the ball of yarn at the give-and-take table I took it thinking someday I might want to try knitting again. This was before I even injured my foot. I liked the colors and the softness of the yarn. I had no picture in my mind what this might look like when knitted up.

I have since learned it is eye-lash yarn. There is a thread/cord with all of these fluffy outcroppings. My scarf knitting book from Half-Price Books has a boa done in eye-lash yarn. It is marked as Easy. I had to get some size 17 needles which turned out to be an unusual size and not readily available. I ended up buying the needles thru ebay; they arrived yesterday. I didn’t want a boa but thought I could modify the directions to make an ascot or small scarf to pin together with a broach. Now that I have tried knitting with this yarn, I would say it is not for the novice knitter. I am finding it difficult to tell what is the stitch for inserting the needle from the bunched up fluff. I started out casting on 10 stitches, the directions for the boa. But it kept growing. Apparently I was treating the bunched up fluff yarn as a stitch? When I reached 14 stitches I worried I would not have enough yarn. I decided to pull the project apart and start over. Big mistake! The yarn started snarling up. I kind of sabotaged my effort to conserve yarn as I had to cut apart the snarls. I will now have to look at the directions for switching to a new ball of yarn mid-project. Something new to learn.

This kind of yarn is not something I would have picked out for myself. However, the colors go nicely with some tops. One in particular I thought would be livened up by the colors. Maybe instead it will just look like something live is draped around my neck. Any way, it will be something to work on while cocooning and while watching Downton Abbey tomorrow night.

 

Enrolled at Last

When I called the healthcare helpline on Monday, I was told someone from the Advanced Resolution team would call me in 2-5 days to try to figure out why I was stuck in my enrollment process. I had chosen a plan, but the confirmation button would not work. I was surprised when I received a call that afternoon. The lady tried several things with no success; she said she would do some more research and call again on Tuesday. She did notice that I had two applications, one done online by me (actually a second try) and one done thru a phone interview in November when the only help they had to offer people who were stuck was to take information over the phone to be submitted later. I explained the phone results which I received via snail mail had errors and would mean gathering up income verification documents to submit to an office in Kentucky; she removed that application.

 

I tried to log on to my application Monday night and all I got were blank pages; no information would display. I decided to wait until Tuesday morning and try again. Tuesday everything displayed OK and when I clicked the Confirm button, it enrolled me in my chosen health insurance plan. I assumed the lady I had spoken with had fixed something. She called around 11 a.m. No, she thought it was still not useable. She was pleasantly surprised to find I had successfully enrolled. Maybe removing the “duplicate” application helped.

 

The next step is to pay. I will probably do that the end of this week. My insurance premiums will be less than half what I currently pay. There is a Pay button on the online account. Maybe it won’t work, but since I have an enrollment number I can always call the insurance company for help.

 

It is a big relief to finally be done with all of the healthcare.gov web problems and be enrolled. I have a higher deductible, but some of the other fees for prescriptions for example are less plus I won’t have to pay for my screening mammogram next fall. I think it will balance out OK. My current insurance, the Indiana risk pool insurance, is a PPO. The new one will not allow for out-of-network providers except in extreme extenuating circumstances. It does allow going out-of-network for urgent care and emergencies. I only use Obamacare for one year. 2015 I will have Medicare and probably a whole set of different problems. ;-)

 

My new year is starting out well. I hope yours does as well. Happy New Year to you.

Foot Note

I thought I would update you on my progress with my surgical foot. My husband has looked at it a few times, and he always says it looks bad, and he doesn’t mean that in a slangy way. Not much of an encourager, but a hard worker as he does so many household chores to keep us humming along. It has been a little over 4 1/2 weeks. The deep purples are turning greenish yellow, the last of the steri-strips came off today, and the swelling is less. I do have a little bit of pain which ups a notch when I do my therapy exercises.

         

The therapist has me mostly doing the exercises on my own at home. There are just 3 simple exercises to increase up and down flexibility. My second session he measured and told me my back ankle movement has gone from 5 (degrees?) to 10. So there has been some improvement. 15 is considered normal. I won’t see the therapist again until January 9th, the day after seeing the surgeon. If all goes well, we will be able to add some other therapies involving more movement. I had been hoping to be rid of the boot, but Aaron (the therapist) told me Dr. Karr usually has his patients stay in the boot as they put weight on the foot. I hit a “wall” last weekend and just didn’t want to deal with the whole boot and knee walker business any more, but of course I do want the foot to heal so continued on.

Thursday night I noticed some lower back and butt pain. I had cooked most of the evening meal myself and maybe overdid? Or maybe I hurt it some when getting out of a chair? Friday the pain was bad enough I had a tough time using my knee walker without being in pain. I switched from Tylenol to Aleve and today I feel good.

Tomorrow I will go to church again and out to eat. I don’t get out of the house much, though, as it is a lot of work. We went out to breakfast yesterday, but my back was killing me. I have to be patient and wait for things to heal.

Still Not Enrolled for Health Insurance

Finally selected a plan and went through the steps to enroll. I got to the place to click confirm, and I got an error message. It told me to log out and try again. I have done that 4 times with no success. After lunch I will try again, and if still no success will call the help line. I guess it is still going to be a struggle to get insurance. I had hoped my troubles were behind me.