reaching 210* Fahrenheit

Wednesday Whine of the Week...

Deep breath. Yes, let's try that again. Inhale, exhale. Where to start?

About 9 months ago, my medical insurance company decided that one of my medical supplies was too expensive- my test strips for my glucose monitor. Now, it isn't like they refused to pay for them. They would pay for them, eventually, but... so long as everyone jumps through their seemingly arbitrary hoops. Deep breath.

1. So, the Dr writes the Rx. 
2. The pharmacist submits the Rx. 
3. The insurance refuses the Rx. 
4. The pharmacist contacts the Dr's office and requests what is called a "prior authorization.".
5. The Dr submits the required prior authorization paperwork to the insurance company. 
6. The insurance approves the Rx.
7. The pharmacist waits a day and resubmits the Rx and hopefully everything has happened in the correct sequence and the prescription is filled.

Not once has that happened. Not once.

Now, does anyone else see a flaw in the process? There are a whole lot of places for the ball to be dropped. And how would anyone know who had dropped said ball in order to rectify the game playing? And so there might be a delay in the process.  For this reason, I try to start early. But then there's the issue of the insurance company not even considering the Rx request until they deem it's time to be refilled and the ball can't even start rolling until that time. You can't do the prior authorization prior to needing the prior authorization. Kooky. Then there's weekends and such. Days when the Dr's office is closed. Days when the insurance company loses paper work. I have to say, my pharmacist is amazing- along with the staff there. The other two variables are...variable and considerably less trustworthy.

It all sounds like a complicated whine about a simple problem, right? But there are some serious ramifications. See, I can't give up on these particular strips and settle for the less expensive strips/monitor that the insurance company will pay for the first go around.  The glucose monitor I have is connected to my insulin pump via radio waves. It's a package deal. The pharmacist understands this. But unfortunately, the nurse at the Dr's office doesn't and the insurance company obviously doesn't. Every month, I have to explain and explain. I even changed Drs because the nurse had to be hounded and reminded of that every month. Several times. And now, the new nurse says she'll get to it and it'll take a few days...???? I don't have a few days once it becomes clear that they didn't get things straight the first time. Life's a chump. 

Now that's the real problem. When your body doesn't make insulin, ya need to know where you're at in order to take care of that, manually. If ya don't know if you're high or low... Well, honestly, I don't want to die, not like that, not today.

( And ya know what? That pharmacist deserves something really special. He gave me almost a month's worth of strips using an old prescription on file. No charge, 'cause the Dr's office and the insurance company were dragging their feet. Any suggestions for an appropriate gift for service above and beyond the call of duty? )

I am just stumped. Stumped, I tell ya. Maybe today will be the day when everything works like it should.  That would be proof positive that I have entered an alternate reality.  Just way too unrealistic.

And guess what? Yesterday, the Dr mistakenly left the quantity empty on my insulin Rx. According to my pump, I have less than 24 hours... Head banging on desk. Over and over and over.

old fashioned iris

peach iris

peony

Friday Favorites...

I skipped Wednesday's Whine of the Week.  I'm winding up for a whine of epic proportions, so stayed tuned for a doozy, next week.

Aren't spring flowers incredible?  Love it!  After the dull winter months to see all that color bursting forth. Amazing!  Gets me all inspired for gardening.  We've been working hard in the flower garden.  Moving plants, removing weeds.  Rearranging the "furniture"- huge rocks and boulders. One of them weighed more than John and me, combined.  But with the help of a crowbar and a dolley we managed.  I'm sure it looked pretty comical, like trying to find your balance on a teeter-totter when the other person weighs more than you!  We're both pretty sore, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel- and I feel confident it's not a train.  John has been a huge help to me, though he does get a bit hesitant when he isn't sure that I'm sure.  Who likes to move things repeatedly?  He dug up my pond and we're trying to get it into its new location.  It's a pretty big pond and this is its third location.  But Daniel installed it the other two times so I don't know what his problem is. kids.

jelly roll quilt that needs to be altered for me

I love this quilt I saw in a quiltshop, recently.  Like the colors and the design. Unfortunately,  the pattern calls for using jelly rolls.  I hate that.  Is cutting 2" strips that hard?  And I dislike sewing little squares to strips and then cutting off the excess.  I just don't enjoy that- Id rather use squares and HSTs.  Just me. I'm gonna graph it out and make my own pattern for it. It's simple enough.  Aren't the colors great?

monkey bread by a monkey

early morning snuggle

bekah's beauty salon

When did my little ones get to be so big?  Bekah is my Betty Homemaker.  She made Monkey bread the other night and it got rave reviews.  Abe loves to snuggle- and since he is such a little furnace Eva is more than happy to oblige.  The mornings are still quite chilly.  They look like little puppies.  And I like to watch the girls fix each others' hair.  A sure sign they are growing up when they don't need me to do it for them.  Though they still come to me when they want something a little more complicated than a braid. 

That's some of my favorites: flowers, quilts and kids. You all have a great weekend and I'll catch you on the flip side.

never too much orange! Love how the quilting turned out

My Mundane Monday...

Lovely morning!  There's a heavy fog on the prairie and while that may not sound like all that great of a start to a day... it's very rare here and so a refreshing change.  I took a couple small quilts to the post office, this morning, and guess what?  I wore my house cleaning clothes and an apron!  I seriously considered putting on town clothes but then I thought... for a one mile trip to the post office that's in the middle of nowhere??  nah. Going against propriety can be very refreshing, too.  And getting something in the mail?  Well, you know how postally challenged I am, so another refreshing event.  Good all the way around.  (While at the post office, I noticed a really pretty lab roaming around.  When I returned home- it turned out to be mine!  She'd managed to get out of her kennel.  But bless her heart, she found her way home in no time.  shew!)

happy spring!




Did I get enough bright colors in there, ya think?

This is the bedrunner I made for a friend who recently had surgery. (Actually, Lisa and I made it.  She cut out the circles for the centers of the flowers and she would want her accomplishment properly acknowledged.) I thought Kelli could use something cheerful on her bed.  A bedrunner lays across the bed- top, middle, bottom or even vertically.  It looks like a table runner only much larger- this is long enough for a king-size bed and about 25" wide. Hard to take a picture of it and I had to set it out in the yard and stand on the picnic bench.  I could have put it on my bed but then I woulda had to clean my room and anybody that knows me knows that ain't likely to happen.  Not today. While quilting it, Lisa discovered that I don't plan these things out.  In the words of the joker in The Dark Night, "Do I look like a man with a plan?"  Nope.  I just stand there staring at it, sit there staring at it.  Do a little bit and then stand, sit and think some more.  It all came out very nice, I think, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got the pattern from Kim Schaefer's Skinny Quilts.  I modified it, but that's a very, very nice book and I just love her patterns.       

blue baby





Courthouse steps made easy!  Love this pattern and the construction of it is uber easy. I especially thought my Mom would like it as she is making more baby quilts these days- but its so quick, a full size quilt would be a cinch.  There are two blocks in this quilt that are made the same- just with a different color configuration.  The light square is made from both light and dark strips and the dark square is of all darks(or in this one, I just used blues that I liked in all shades and it works fine.) And it's a great way to use up some of those 2" strips!

block A

block B with color coordinated toes! 

 
Block A:

• one 3 1/2" square for center

of the 2" strips cut:

• 2 dark 3 1/2"
• 2 light & 2 dark 6 1/2"
• 2 light and 2 dark  9 1/2"
• 2 light 12 1/2"

Block B:

• one 3 1/2" square for center

of the 2" strips cut:

• 2 dark 3 1/2"
• 4 dark 6 1/2"
• 4 dark 9 1/2"
• 2 dark 12 1/2"

Easy peasy. I like this block better than the log cabin block because you can sew strips on both side of the block before having to head to the ironing board.  Much faster and I think they come out more square that way, also.  I love scrappy quilts, but I'll give a tip to those of you who have a hard time making it work for you.  I think it really helps to have some consistency in the quilt- like the center blocks are the same fabric.  Kinda ties it all together and makes people think you actually planned it that way- which you did!

God's orange flower- perfection!

5 out of 6 sons at the movies- looks like more than 5 sets of legs.

Back in the Saddle...

My son and a few others have mentioned that it's been a month since I last posted here at Prairiequilts.  Sorry about that.  Sometimes life just isn't conducive to blogging.  It's like I tell my endocrinologist when I'm not doing what she feels I need to do, "Let's not confuse my noncompliance with ignorance."  In other words, there are things I know I should do and things that I would like to do but this is the real world and life has a way of getting in the way.  And its all good, just different.  How's that for a completely nonsensical excuse?  But I thought it might sound better than the same ole "I was busy" routine.

  My oldest, Joe, and his wife, Laurie, were here for over a week in April.  Having them here for a longer amount of time is just wonderful. Daniel- son #2 and Mary...um, "friend" of son #3, even got to come for a couple days so we had a great time.  Guess what?  Both of my clothes dryer doors stay closed without having to have anything propped up against them!  How cool is that?  Joe is very handy.  It took him longer to find the parts than it took him to install them.  So all my kids came for a visit and I'm zeroed in on my dryer doors working properly... well, you try jamming a baseball bat against a dryer door to keep it closed.  It takes skill and lots of practice to make that thing stay wedged in place.  So now I just shut the door and >Voila!< the door stays shut!  Amazing!  And it happens every day.  All day.  And we do a lot of laundry so it's a constant reminder that Joe loves me and wants to make things easier for me.  So it isn't just a little thing, is it?

funnel cake

elephant ears

Fried dough... it's just one of those things that say...well, I don't know what it says exactly, but I like it's language!  My sweet daughter in law had never had funnel cake or elephant ears.  Now that was just sad.  So, we had to rectify the situation and made them while she was here.  The jury decreed that they were both good and, in typical Laurie fashion, she was unable to determine which one was more to her liking. So we had to sample a whole lot of each... and none of us came to a clear decision.  Personally, I like the elephant ears more- they have yeast so that puts paid on it in my book. Recipes available if ya need them- just email.

birthday kids

everybody after the pinata was decimated

Jacob and Mary had their birthday last month.  Jacob says that she was his first birthday present as she was born on his first birthday.  Her family came up and we had a fun day of a trip to the bowling alley and knocking a pinata around (Lupe tried to teach us the song you should sing while hitting said pinata... let me just say that when someone speaks a different language than you do and they say, "Just follow along" it gets a little confusing.  So we'd sing something like this..."lalalalalala, pinata, lalalalala, pinata!" If we were the self-conscious types it could have been embarrassing.  But everybody knows we're not.) We had a nice meal and a cheesecake for dessert. Poor Mary had a bad cold, but she was a trooper.  Jacob made her go on a treasure hunt to find her presents- even made her dig a hole and climb a tree- but she easily forgave him when she found a complete tea set spread out on the porch table.

"Uncle" Jacob and James 

  We babysat my great nephews for an evening this week.  James had never been left behind, but he coped very well.  Whoever last fed him a spoon of rice became his favorite person.  If he wanted picked up, he'd go to that person- until being fed by another.  He knows the hand that feeds him. Isaac had a blast playing with race cars and the bunny rabbit.

Believe it or not, I kept it brief.  Tough to even begin to cover the goings-ons for a whole month.  I still have quite a few quilty projects to show, but they'll keep.  Have a great week and maybe...just maybe...I'll catch you on the flip side!