It has been about 6 weeks since my accident. I am about 2 weeks away from having the cast removed from my leg. We have settled with our insurance company for our car and have now filed a bodily injury claim against the at fault driver. It has been quite a process to figure out of exactly things work in a situation like this. We weren’t sure if we needed someone sort of auto accident lawyer like those motorcycle accident lawyer advertisements you see in the phone book or not. For right now we are waiting to consult with an attorney because we know that the driver who hit me was poorly insured and has no assets. It is such a hard call to know how to proceed in this type of situation. Until we know what type of settlement his insurance company is going to make we are in a holding pattern before moving forward. I just keep telling myself that I am thankful to be alive and no matter what the future holds we are going to be fine.

In the last month I have learned way more than I ever wanted to about auto insurance! It is something I never hope to repeat but it has been a learning experience. Never again will we take for granted the value of paying for decent auto coverage. There are just some things that are not worth saving a buck or two each month. I am so thankful that we had adequate coverage because the driver who hit me was not adequately covered. Had we had to depend on his insurance to pay my bills it would be an even bigger mess than it is. I understand that people can only afford so much insurance but being under insured can ruin you! It only takes a moment of distraction and you could be driving into someone at 55 mph and almost ending their life. They could then rack of thousands of dollars in bills that you will be liable for in some way at some time. Protect yourself! Get rid of that cell phone, quit texting while and driving and get decent auto insurance.

I am pretty sure that my son is clogging my toilet so we need to sit down and have that talk about how much paper is appropriate and how spring plungers work when he clogs the toilet so he just doesn’t walk away from it leaving it clogged. Now for you and I this is an easy and informative conversation to have and I could teach him how to use an important household tool. But, to him I might as well be talking to him about using his hands to unclog the toilet. Anything dealing with bodily fluids is an off limits topic for him so I can only imagine what the “birds and the bees” conversation will be like.

I took home my foot rest today from work. The boot that I have on allows me to hang my leg and foot over the edge of my chair like you normally would w/o the weight hanging down. So now that I have done this I wonder if I will be expected to carry my own files down to the central unit at the end of the hall. I figure now with the boot and the footrest gone, my co-workers will see this and I will lose the sympathy I have had for the last week at work. Oh well, I cant expect someone to get my coffee for me and carry my lunch back to my desk all of the time now can I.

So where I work there are more women than men and most of the women do something else on the side to supplement their income. It’s not uncommon to go by the large table in the common area and find order forms laying out for a multitude of things whether it be for someone working in the office or for one of their children. A catalog for jewelry caught my eye the other day so I picked it up to look inside thinking that maybe I could find something for my wife for a mother’s day gift. One of the other women in the office walked by and made the comment that men look better in silver rather than the gold dangly ear rings I was looking at in the catalog. I looked at her and tried to think of a decent comeback for her but she was already half way down the hall and out of earshot. She was right though, I do look better in silver than I do in gold.

So I went to the Orthopedic Doctor who did my surgery and was met with some really good news. When the nurse started to cut my cast off I was under the assumption that I would be getting x-rays and then another plaster cast. Luckily I was wrong. The x-rays came back good so she fitted me with a walking boot which I found ironic as her last word to me before she pulled it off the shelf were that I still cant put any weight on my leg for another 4-5 weeks. But that I can live with as long as I can continue to take the boot off when I need to in order to let my foot air out, it was kind of stinky when they took the cast off.

One of our children has been deemed to have a disability. This has qualified him for additional insurance through the state to cover the therapy that our insurance doesn’t cover. Someone suggested that we look into applying for what I think is called social security disability. I just can’t decide if this is something we should do? Part of me thinks it would be great to have some extra income to cover all the expenses associated with home schooling him. My wife no longer works outside the home because we feel he is best served by schooling at home. This has been a financial loss for us but he is thriving. The other part of me just doesn’t know if this is what we should do. I understand there are places out there, like Allsup, to help us navigate the system. We just need to decide what is best for our family and what we are comfortable pursuing.

Our washing machine died on Sat. We have know it was coming for a while and have saved up to replace it. I’ve done repairs myself, just replaced the door switch on the dryer, etc. The baffles on my washer have worn out twice. Small loads aren’t a problem because you’re using so much less water/soap that it doesn’t bother me to run a small load. I want to get an extra large capacity since there are 4 of us and I want to reduce the number of loads. (Plus, I want to be able to wash our king size blanket and sleeping bags instead of taking them to the cleaners). I am finding all kinds of contrasting reviews on them online.