Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year


Welcome to 2009. I hope everyone had a safe and happy night.

New Years mean fresh starts. While in reality, there's not much difference between one day and the next, drawing that line brings optimism that things can get better. And let's face it--no matter how good we may have had it, we're always looking for ways to improve. 2008 brought a lot of challenges. People lost jobs, savings, their homes. We have a new president. Some see that as a good thing, while others are wary.

Are you a clean slate person? Is today the first day of the rest of your life? Have you set your goals for 2009? And remember--they have to be measurable!

For me, my 'have to get organized' goal needs to be refined. A measurable goal for today: I will find and file 5 sets of workshop notes. Much more measurable (and a lot less daunting) than looking at the boxes of paper and saying, "I need to do something about these someday."

My writing goals are working in reverse as I see how many words I can cut from my manuscript rather than how many new ones I write. My mantra has become, "Does it Advance the Plot?"

On a personal level, it's taking one day at a time, and trying to step back when things I can't control leap into my path--like finding out that for some unknown reason, our medical insurance was canceled on Dec. 20th, retroactive to mid-November. Hubby's hypothesis is that someone keyed in the wrong account ID--perhaps someone died and they cut his benefits, but our ID was input. Normally, this wouldn't be too bad, except we both had minor procedures done in anticipation of having to switch carriers on Jan 1st, which our 2008 carrier now won't want to pay for. And, minor or not, they're going to be beyond our budget. So, while OUR paperwork shows we have coverage under Plan A until Dec. 31st, and coverage under Plan B beginning Jan 1st, the insurance company says, "nope." And there's nothing we can do about it until Monday. So, I'm doing my best not to think of the red tape that will fill our lives, or for how long.

4 comments:

Dara Edmondson said...

I always work on cutting clutter around the new year - just cleaning up for a psycholigical fresh start.
Sorry to hear about your insurance woes - that gives me a headache just imagining what a pain that will be to fix!

Terry Odell said...

Clearing clutter is good. However, I tend to just move the clutter to a new place or a new pile, and I end up with 'neater' clutter, but I still can't find anything. Like what the heck did I do with the screws to attach the wall hanging my daughter gave me?

The only 'bright' side to the insurance issue is that hubby has to deal with it, since he's the primary policy holder.

Unknown said...

Ew..insurance nightmare for sure. I have to get organized, too. But mostly that's just filing the things I have yet to file and going through a couple of boxes that haven't been opened since...well...Albuquerque!

And if the screws aren't in the drawer in the kitchen, scour Dad's work bench... ;)

Terry Odell said...

The screws were still in the little red plastic packet -- I didn't take them out. Should have been easy to spot, unless they went out with the cleanup.