A Rant & Some Things that Make Me Smile

I've been in kind of a bad mood all week.  It began with spending a couple of hours on the phone with both the insurance company and someone from the billing office at the RE clinic.  We'd gotten a bill (nothing outrageous, but nevertheless saying we still owe more money) and I just wanted some answers/clarity about these outstanding charges.  I'm really trying to keep track of everything because there is a good chance we will be putting in for a medical expenses deduction next year at tax time!  After two hours of back and forth, I'd gotten some answers, but those only raised more questions.  I really just hate how complicated the whole medical billing and insurance coverage thing is!  Why is it so hard to get straight answers?

Anyway, after that I had a chiropractor appointment.  The guy that had been taking care of us for the past year and a half (including all through the infertility stuff and early pregnancy) recently left the practice and there's a new woman.  It was my first visit with her and it did NOT go well.  She had a sit-down with me to go over my reassessments and discuss a care plan (ok, fine) but then it turned into a discussion about how we will have to pay more out-of-pocket going forward.  Why's that?  Oh, because she's "just not making enough off of me" because I can't do all of the physical therapy stuff that goes with it now that I'm pregnant.  Actually, I stopped doing some of the therapies because of the side effects I was experiencing with the IVF (like dizziness) but she didn't even bother to read my chart beforehand to know what I'd been through.  I was so offended!  I'm sorry, you're a "wellness" clinic.  Your focus is supposed to be on the "overall health of patients," not on making a huge profit!  We've been patients there for three years and have never been treated like that.  If anything, we've been told not to worry about the money and just focus on being healthy.  I am NOT impressed and it is entirely possible we may not be continuing our care there anymore.

Then, on Tuesday, my boss dropped a bomb.  Without going into great detail, let me just explain that my current position is one that I helped create almost two years ago.  I basically wrote the job description and I love it.  I'm very proud of my work and I know I do a good job.  My boss knows this too and has always been very supportive.  Unfortunately, her boss has always been kind of skeptical about the whole thing.  Not of me, or of the quality of my work, but of the position as a whole.  He didn't think there was enough work to justify creating an entire position just to do what I do, and he's always offering up opinions on what I should, or shouldn't, be doing.  Most of the time, I just ignore his comments since everyone else in a leadership position is supportive of the position.  But this week, he decided to air his skepticism to the Governance Committee based on a report that isn't even designed to track my work.  He claims, based on this report, that there isn't enough work to justify my position.  So now, my boss and I have to come up with what amounts to a "defense" of the position and present it to Governance at their next meeting in August.  So much of what I do cannot easily be quantified in terms of numbers, which means we have to get really creative in how we phrase it so that it doesn't end up sounding like fluff.  And the worst part?  Just last week I had told her in our weekly meeting that the pace was really starting to pick up, and that if new projects keep coming in at the rate they are now, we are going to need to talk about adding a second person in the position.  Of course, now that Governance is all worried about whether or not my position is valid, the likelihood of getting a second person has just fallen to zero.  So now I'm swamped with new and on-going projects and I have to somehow find a time to strategise with my boss about how best to defend what I'm doing.  Oh, and did I mention that the next Governance meeting is the same morning as my 20-week ultrasound?  Awesome.

Anyway, enough about all that.  I just needed to rant a bit and now that I have, let's move on.  To help improve my mood and rediret my thoughts, I came up with a list of things that have made me smile this week.  Here's my list, presented in picture format:

My vegetable garden!  It just really started producing this week!  I love taking care of it, I love watching things grow, and I especially love having lots and lots of fresh produce all the time.  There's nothing quite as wonderful as eating a sun-warmed tomato right off the vine :)

My new maternity clothes!  This is my favorite outfit.  Paul actually helped pick it out and I love it!  [Sorry about the half-picture - I took it with my phone and somehow half of it came out looking like it had been double-exposed so I cropped it out.  Not really sure how that happened...]

Gibbs.  My two-year-old silver lab.  He is such a lover-boy and makes me laugh every day!

 Our cats:  Hugo (left) and Phantom.  People who say they don't like cats because they have no personality have never met these guys - they have it in spades!  They are both so unique and so entertaining.  And they do a pretty good job snuggling when Paul is working a 24-hour shift :)

Macy.  The last of our four-legged children.  She is such a pretty girl and has the most human expressions.  She's lays in the bay window waiting for me to get home from work and always does a little dance when I get in the door.

So there you have it.  That's my Smile List for the week.  Tomorrow I'm going to go to work and look at my list whenever I feel myself slipping back into a negative mood.  And if all else fails... TGIF!