Another sticker shock awaited us when I saw that my health insurance tripled from 22 to 23! With a monthly premium of close to $700 you’d think that the service and the choices would have tripled too, but that didn’t happen. I am still having problems caused by a fall in Morocco. So upon returning home I called my doctor to make an appointment. Next availability is end of April. Urgent care it is, so I made an appointment there, filled out all the paperwork, insurance information, history, blabla. 2 days later I showed up to see the doctor, but the admin person told me that there was something wrong with my insurance card, I can either pay everything myself or call my insurance company. I chose the call, where they told me (45 min of talking done by then) that I’m not eligible to visit that urgent care because I don’t have the insurance level I’d need. The one and only urgent care in our whole county is in Atascadero! So I left, frustrated and disappointed and wondering why even bother paying $700 a month when basic urgent care is not even covered? 😖

Another shock was provided by our gardener: A year ago I had planted thyme, groundcover thyme, to grow around each of the stepping stones that surrounds our house. And in order to grow evenly and quick, I planted tiny little batches of this herb, so by the time we will be back from our trip it will all be established and frame each of those stones. And indeed – when we came back from our 8-months trip – we were so thrilled by the growth, by the density and even coverage. We just loved it! “Loved it” you wonder? Yes, loved it, past tense. Because our gardener’s helper came in, declared the thyme to be weeds, and chopped it all off. 1 year of pampering – 30min = almost heart attack! I cannot believe that a “gardener” is not able to distinguish thyme from weeds?!?!? It takes a month to receive replacement thyme and who knows how long until the gardener replants it. It took me 3 weekends and a lot of knee pain for the first round….. GRRRRRRRR!!!

And then there is the car. The batterie in my Audi Q3 was so dead, that not even the remote key would react. At first I assumed that the batterie inside the remote was gone haywire, but after AAA stopped by and tried to jumpstart the car, it was clear that its batterie was dead. Very dead. So we are busy trying to catch up with all those tasks that waited for us, piled up in front of us and got delayed. Oil change and service for Teds car was today, mine is scheduled for Friday.