Pre-Employment Drug Testing

What do you think about pre-employment drug testing? Now that I'm looking for a job, it's become an issue. I don't do anything illegal, but I have a valid prescription that I can't take in case I have to go for a drug test.

Do you think it's an invasion of privacy? Does your prospective employer have a right to know all of your medical conditions and make a hiring decision based on that? Since Florida is a "right to work" state (I never understood the phrasing of that), an employer can make a hiring or firing decision based on anything, even the color of your hair. What if they are afraid their insurance rates will go up, so won't hire me due to my illness?

Besides, every kid doing illegal drugs knows how to scam the tests. I have heard of everything from cleansing kits to fake urine (!) that these kids buy before they take a test. So what good do the tests do anyway?

Cat

I thought I figured it out

I had to go to the HTML for my blog page set-up and hope that I deleted only the right HTML to get rid of the ads without ruining the rest of my blog. I did it wrong, and it made my profile disappear. I am not a happy camper. I WILL get this figured out though.

I think I did it! Do not ever click the monetize tab on your blog. I just wanted to see what it meant. Now I know, and I will never do that again.

Cat

Sorry guys!

I somehow clicked on the wrong thing and now I have ads showing on my blog. But I can't for the life of me find out what to click to get them off of here. So, please be patient with me while I work and try to figure out how to get these stupid ads off. Sorry again. I am sooooo pissed!

Cat

Didn't even know I was famous

I do quite a bit of beading in my free time. It relaxes me, I love to play with the beads, and I end up with lots of jewelry.

Sometimes, after I work up a pattern, I'll send a picture to the designer just in case they want to see how it came out. I don't always do everything exactly as they recommend in the pattern, so I feel they might want to see how my version turned out. This is what I did after I worked up City Lights, a bracelet by a designer named Juanita, who does business under the name Jaycee Patterns.

I was just wandering around the net the other day and I went to her blog to see some of her new designs, and what do you know? There was my bracelet! Even has my name on it. If you want to see it, you can click here... http://jayceepatterns.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html Her entry was posted a while ago, but what can I say, it takes me a while to catch up. ;)

If you like jewelry or beads, you should look around at the rest of her blog. She makes some really nice designs.

Cat

Health Care

Health care reform is on everybody's mind now that we are so close to actually having some kind of reform passed. But does anyone actually understand what the provisions are in the two bills (House and Senate), and how they will affect each of us? I found a website that compares the two bills side by side, and is actually written in plain english language that most of us can understand. The site is the Kaiser Family Foundation and has lots of other information on health care reform as well. If you would like to read the page with the side by side comparison, here is the link to it. http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

It seems that the provisions in the bills are really not that far apart at all, so I can't understand why our elected representatives can't agree on something and get health care reform passed.

I just spent three months with no health insurance at all. It turned out to be due to an administrative error, so luckily my Cobra was reinstated, but I learned a lot during those three months. For one thing, no middle class American can afford health care. A regular doctor visit with the family care physician who I have been seeing for over 20 years costs $120. He certainly doesn't receive that amount when he gets paid by Cobra (doctors only receive a "maximum allowable amount"), so why can't he just charge me that amount instead of bankrupting me? I don't even want to know what one of my specialists charges.

And forget about prescriptions. Just one of my prescriptions cost me $101.42, and I take eight prescriptions, so add it up. Needless to say, I haven't been taking any of my prescriptions.

Buying health insurance is not so easy either. Even though I had a certificate of creditable coverage (something which certifies that you have had continuous health care), I wasn't eligible to buy any insurance because of my pre-existing conditions. So what good is the dang certificate?

I sure hope a health care reform bill is passed before my Cobra runs out. I hope so for me and for anyone else out there who doesn't have health insurance.

Cat

I really can't stand bill collectors. If I don't have any money when I answer the phone, do they honestly think that threatening me with snatching my first-born child (is that really a threat, anyway?) is going to make funds magically appear in my bank account? Believe me, if threats would make make money appear, I'd be a millionaire by now.

If only.........

Cat

My visit to Seattle

It's been a long time since I wrote. I've got to start updating this blog more often!

I just got back from Seattle. I went out there to spend Thanksgiving and my birthday with Lori and John (my sister and her boyfriend) and Ava. Ava has gotten sooooo big! Her current passion is jump-roping. She would do it all day long from the time she woke up until bedtime if she were able to.

I helped her make a few beaded bracelets and necklaces. That was fun. We always enjoy beading together.

I brought her Christmas present there with me but told her she can't open it until Christmas, so she spent a lot of time shaking it and trying to figure out what it is. She told me, "I'll figure it out. I'm a good snooper." Hahahahahaha! She hasn't figured it out yet.

Ava, John and I went Geo-caching one day. That was fun, and it renewed my commitment to take up Geo-caching again at home.

It was cold out there, but it was refreshing compared to the Florida heat. Lori lives right off of Broadway, so I walked down there a few times and just window shopped in the stores. I think I could get used to living there very easily.

Lori gave me a really good book to read on the plane. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She has a great writing style, and now I'd like to buy her other books.

Take care!

Cat

A trip to the food bank

The other day I got really tired of always scrounging around in the fridge for Tara's leftovers, so I looked up the food banks in the area. There is a Helping Hands food bank just about ten minutes away, so I called them. They said I can come in any day between 11:30 and 12:30 and pick up a bag of groceries. I got directions, and the lady told me to "look for the line".

I thought that meant there would be a long wait, so I brought my current bead project and got there about 10:30. There was no line yet, so I sat in the shade under a tree and did my beading. The "line" didn't even begin forming until about 11:15, and by 12:00 there was no more line, so that's one lesson learned for next time.

The lady told me they'd give me a grocery bag today, and I have to go back on the 28th with my bills and stuff to qualify. I actually got two bags, because there is one bag already made up by the bank, and then there is lots of fresh produce to go through and fill up a second bag. You also get a hot lunch served on the day that you are there.

I was really happy with it. The produce was great; grapes, strawberries, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes. And the pre-packed grocery bag had all kinds of canned veggies, tuna fish, those Lipton noodles side dishes, granola bars, instant oatmeal, tomato sauce, spaghetti and bread. The kinds of things I would actually buy. And I think they had a freezer with meat in it too, because I heard a lady asking about it.

I wonder how often I can go? I guess they'll tell me that at my interview on the 28th. And I'll ask about the meat on that day too. I'll let you know how the interview goes.

Cat

Monday Blues

I should have known it was going to be a crappy day from the start. When I woke up, the TV was still on with the same channel from last night, and it was showing the MDA Telethon. I have nothing against Jerry's kids, but the speaker at that moment was an ALS patient. The guy's speech was slurred so bad that I could barely understand a word he was saying, and he had absolutely no control over his emotions (another byproduct of the disease). It was pathetic and sad to watch, and I don't know why I just couldn't turn it off. Some kind of morbid curiosity?

So now I've been crying off and on all day long, and I want to get out to Seattle and spend some time with Lori before there is no more such thing as "quality time" with her. The catch-22 is that now, while I have no job so I have plenty of time to go, I don't have a penny to my name to buy a plane ticket with. I know that her disease is progressing, and who knows how much time I have to make this trip?

So, now I'm wrestling with myself about asking her for the money to buy the plane ticket, but is that really right? I keep picking up the phone, then putting it down, then taking another Xanax so I won't cry on the phone with her, because that will really wreck all my chances of getting the money. She won't want me to feel sorry for her.

I will have to decide something, maybe figure out another way to get the money, over the next few days. Please, if anybody still reads this blog anymore, wish good thoughts for me.

Cat

Hangin' Around

I'm still hanging around the house, no job. I have gotten a lot of beading done, though. Now if only I could find somewhere to sell some of it. Here is the latest pendant I made. It's from a pattern in the August 2009 issue of Bead and Button magazine. (Yes, they have magazines just for beaders, LOL)

Cat