A little progress

It's not much, but I've lost 3 lbs which takes my BMI from 27.98 to 27.43. Upper limit of 'normal ' weight BMI is 25.

Do you GoodSearch?

We've recently moved our home page from Google to GoodSearch, a search site that raises money for (at last count) 56,000 non profits. The only drawback I've found so far is that you have to reenter your chosen charity each time you start up. I usually stick with the group that brought me to GoodSearch in the first place, namely Beaver Creek Reserve, but if you're like Abe, you'll shop around and find a new charity everyday. You can also shop through the site at popular web retailers, like Amazon and Zappos; the latter donates 6% of sales initiated through GoodSearch to your charity. The way I see it, you can't lose by searching and shopping via GoodSearch.

Andrea's Quilt

 

We started sewing today!! Andrea was amazing. The rotary cutting is a little much for her right now, but she is catching on to the sewing machine quickly, and she definitely has her own design ideas! I have never sewn "in tandem" before (one person doing the foot pedal and the other guiding the fabric) and we were great! Except for one broken needle and a few mismatching squares that had to be taken apart and put back together, (just minor upsets in the life of a quilter!) we just hummed right along!

It was fun, and has inspired me to start my own quilting back up again. I found the cutest fabric this week at JoAnn's, so watch for further posts on a quilt for Conor and Theresa's baby!

Life Insurance: DENIED!

It appears that ING Life Insurance is a lot less sanguine about my life expectancy than I am. And really, you can see their point: after all, if I were to die, I'd just be dead, whereas they could be out $100G.
Here's the back story. When Dan and I were signing up for benefits last fall we decided it might be a good idea to carry some additional life insurance with the higher debt load we're carrying because of the mortgage on our new house. We figured out that we could buy the same amount of insurance with less money if we took out spouse life insurance policies rather than increasing the amount of our individual policies. We signed up for the programs knowing that 'proof of insurability would be required', but didn't give that much thought.
With one thing and another, we put off filing the insurability questionaire until a couple weeks ago. ING promptly responded by denying Dan's application for insurance for me. Seems that they don't think I'm a good risk until I am treatment free for 2 years - which would be May of 2009.
For now, we'll go without the additional insurance or, perhaps, shop around elsewhere. The additional amount we wanted to carry was a nice-to-have not a must-have. But the denial was a reminder of one important way cancer has changed my life: my health history is no longer a string of "No"s and "Never"s.
By the way, it's very likely that my request for insurnace on Dan will be approved. He had his health exam yesterday morning and he (thankfully) has no serious health problems - current or past.

This and that

Not much thinking power left at the end of this day so I'll just post some random notes:

• I'm taking 'on call' duty this week, which means carrying a pager; the wee hour calls are the worst; got one last night at 12:30. Called in ever so reluctantly and was told that our contractor in India was handling it...grrrrr. Had a hard time getting to sleep after that.
• Mose passed his driving exam today; I was very nervous this time and was so happy when he was successful. He drove to youth group on his own tonight and will take Abe to school tomorrow. One more step toward independence.
• We're having a lot of fun watching the geese in the green space. Two pair seem to have settled for the breeding season (see yesterday's post for a picture) but others come and go. A couple times today there were eleven grazing at the same time. Last year, the space was host to one pair and twelve goslings. I'm assuming some or all of these are from the same family. Not sure how all of that works in the goose world.
• Mom sprained her knee yesterday. She sounded pretty good when we talked today but worried about whether she'll be healed up enough to enjoy their trip to Florida late next month. Thankfully she didn't break any bones - perhaps the Fosamax is contributing to better bone health.
  

Financial Literacy

My dear friend, Rosemary, of the Women's Perspective, has been teaching Financial Literacy at a center in Bridgeport, CT for a number of years, and ever since I heard about the classes, I have dreamed of having the opportunity to do the same in Chicago. Unbeknownst to me, at Julia Center, a ministry to Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Westtown neighborhood of Chicago, it was Sister Beatrice's hope to offer financial education to the women involved the the programs there. When Women's Perspective obtained a grant from the Sommers Family Foundation for a pilot program in Chicago, both Sr. Beatrice and I saw a dream coming true! In February and March, I have been blessed to teach a Financial Literacy course at Julia Center. Tuesday was our last class for this session, and I was very moved as I handed out the completion certificates to the 13 women who finished the class. Now Julia Center is seeking funding for the program to continue next year.

Snow birds return