OK people, put away your pitchforks!

It has been 43 days since my last blog post. The complaints from my fans have become increasingly disgruntled.

August 6: Email from Aunt Wiz: "Alright, I am complaining......It has been TWO weeks since you have blogged. Since the 22 of July... And we all look up to you to be the model. So what is keeping you??? And the Email about your birthday does not count unless you add pictures and tell depressing stories about your advancing age!!!"

August 9: Phone conversation with Lori (the BFF): I told her we were going to Missouri for 2 weeks and that I planned to do a ton of blogging while we were there. She said, "Oh good, cause I keep rolling my eyes every day when I look at your blog and there have been no updates."

August 28: Phone conversation with cousin Katy: "We're going to start leaving a bunch of nasty comments on your blog if you don't get with it!"

So...not a whole lot of blogging got done in Missouri. While I thought about it a lot and intended to write several times, I posted nothing but a big fat goose egg. Nice. What I had intended to do was blog from Dan's laptop, hoping that there would be a wireless connection at one of the family's houses or at the library. I even took two discs full of pictures so I could post a bunch of new photos. Well, the only place with wireless was the library and the one time I made it over there I spent the entire time working on an application for health insurance. Joy.

Since returning from Missouri I have been school shopping (my first-born is a kindergartner now! Stay tuned for photos), shooting, editing, working more on health insurance applications, and generally trying to get back in the swing of things.

I am disgusted with the amount of time the health insurance apps have taken. The insurance we had through Dan's graduate program expired mid-August and we are currently on a 30 day temporary plan that expires September 16th. I know what you're thinking- "what's the big deal? Just answer the questions and sign on the dotted line." Not so. I wish we had a health history that allowed us to answer no to everything and send it on it's merry way. But it seems that we have everything under the sun and they want a detailed description of it all, including doctors names and addresses. Been to the doctor in the last 12 months? Oh, at least a couple dozen times (and please ignore the fact that there have been 3 mountain bike injuries in that period of time.) Been to the ER or hospitalized in the last year? Sure, you have your 4-year-old with toxic synovitis, childbirth, and the post-partum hemorrhage that left Dan needing a psychological consult. Asthma? Yep. Eczema? Uh-huh. Depression? Bingo. Any prescription drugs in the last year? How much time do you have?

Would you want to insure us?

Fortunately, we have been approved for a policy with Humana. It's got a $1000 deductible so it's kind of sucky, but at least we have something to fall back on if the other ones don't get approved. We've applied with 4 different companies! I have spent hours at the computer trying to compile a list of doctor visits, etc, so I could just send the same printout to all the companies rather than fill out the same info 4 times. Unfortunately, their questions are just different enough that I couldn't use the same spreadsheet for all of them, I had to alter each one to meet their slightly different requirements. It's been one of those times that I've been happy that I am so anal about keeping track of all of our expenses in Microsoft Money. For the last 3 years I have detailed notes about all of our doctor visits and prescriptions.

With as much as we go to the doctor, I'm hoping for a low deductible plan, so keep your fingers crossed. I suspect, however, that there will be an audible cackle from the underwriting departments of Altius, IHC, and Blue Cross Blue Shield when they read our application.