We did it!

We voted! Ok, it's not that exciting. Wanna know who we voted for??? Too bad. I'm not telling. I'll sure be glad when this whole thing is over and done with. I've always been told that you don't discuss politics or religion in polite society. It makes sense to me. You're not going to convince someone to change their mind on either one, in most cases. I can see how it's fun for some folks. It can be an entertaining brain exercise. Anyway, it's over for us. We did our part and voted.
Now it's time to move on. What's next for us? I don't know. I'll figure something out. There's plenty to do around here. I suppose I should pick something of the list and get to it!

Well, I'll be!!!

Isn't that somethin'! It's working as good as new now. Thanks for the mojo Busted!

Nerves!!!

This is really getting on my nerves. The stupid "update template" button doesn't come up. So, I still have no layout tab. I can change some stuff, but now I have to refer to my written list of blogs I read, and then type them in to get to them. I don't know what they were thinking. If you're going to make an upgrade for everyone, make it workable for everyone! It's not just me. I'm seeing the same question asked on the help forums with no real answer. The only band aid I've seen is some complicated computer language thing that you have to copy and paste somewhere. I picked this "blogger" thing because it seemed easy and user friendly. It's starting to look like I'm going to have to start over with a whole new blog. I've tested it. It looks user friendly enough. I just didn't want to have to start all over again. I'm still hoping, but hope hasn't been my friend lately.

Success!!!

The Honda is up and running again! It was the igniter. A little cheaper fix than a new computer.

Oh, that was after being awakened at 8:00 am by the police rousting some jackass behind us, banging on doors and such. We also had a lovely encounter with our neighbors across the street while Randy was working on the car. They were playing with a pump pellet gun. And joy of joys, right down their driveway in our direction. Man, I love this place! So, I say to hell with it. We'll sell our stuff for a few bucks, save our pennies, and get the hell out of Dodge. That's really been the plan all along. We fought the good fight. We didn't know the state was going to come down to $15,000. If we did, we would have done things a little differently. The real shame is that my mom and her husband chose not to help us get a little head start. That's alright, we'll keep on keeping on. That's what survival is all about.

The problems I'm running into with making changes on the blog are on Blogger's side. They wanted me to upgrade. Then I lost the layout button and all of my links and blog list. I'm still working on it. I don't do computer language, so I may just have to wait on them to fix it.

Under construction

I'm working on some changes on the blog.

FYI

To avoid finding yourself or someone you care about in the situation that Randy and I are in there are some things you should know and share with your loved ones. There is a federal mandate that states that every state has to have an estate recovery program. Just google “Medicaid estate recovery”. It’s a scary thing. It does not matter if there is a will or not. You could lose your inheritance, or your loved one could lose what you have willed to them. I know this is in the case of one having to go on Medicaid, but you never know what could happen. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Below is a snipit of something I found on an AARP website.
Protections in Medicaid Estate Recovery: Findings, Promising Practices, and Model Notices
Research Report
Erica F. Wood, American Bar Association
Ellen M. Klem, ABA Commission on Law and Aging
May 2007
“Estate recovery has been federally mandated since 1993 when Congress required states to recoup the costs of LTC and other related Medicaid services from recipients’ homes and bank accounts. This makes Medicaid for institutionalized and older people very different from most federal benefit programs. Requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to reimburse the government for services received often stuns surviving spouses and family members of deceased Medicaid recipients.”
It will most likely cost the state more money to foreclose on this place than it’s worth. All I’m saying is do some research and be prepared. We haven’t given up yet. We’re just working on plan C now.
Because I came into this scene late in the game, one day I’ll let Randy tell the whole story.

Crunch time

It seems like everybody is feeling the crunch right now, in some form or another. It’s times like these that you find out who‘s with you and whose against you. Some of that has gotten straightened out for me these last couple of weeks. We got a breath away from saving Randy’s mom and dad’s place last week. Randy wrangled a hell of a deal with the AG’s office. A lot of options/promises were passed back and worth across the table between Randy and me and my mom and her husband. What it came down to was her husband wanted to buy it outright and give us the privilege of living here to clean up and take care of the place like share croppers. Well, my momma didn’t raise no fool! I suppose folks the likes of Randy and I don’t deserve a little place of their own. I even mentioned putting it in just mine and her names and leave the men (and their egos) out of it. The response was a firm insistence that it be put in their names. If she ok’ed this, it was most likely because she had thrown her hands up. She didn’t want this place. She said as much on more than one occasion. It was just too sweet a deal for her husband to allow anyone else to have, when he could just take it all for himself. Greed is an ugly thing. My mother is by no stretch of the imagination a greedy person. I know who was behind this cluster f*ck, as do the ones watching. She went above and beyond to not come between her husband and his kids. And now he’s created a riff between my mom and me that I don’t know if we can ever recover from. In the end, I may have been the one to cut the ties, but enough was enough. With his influence, it was a long time coming. At my mother’s request, I have tolerated his bullsh*t for over 12 years. This was just the straw.
The whole thing makes me sick. All I can do is remind him that karma is a bitch.