And Its Only Tuesday

This is just going to be one of those weeks. I’m in class all week, which means everything is a bit off, anyway, which doesn’t help.

Yesterday, I tried to find a bag of kibble for Reyna. Because of her allergies, she’s a bit limited in what she can eat (no lamb, beef, or chicken), and there aren’t many allergy formula kibbles out there. Nutro started making a venison and rice kibble a few months ago, and Reyna does really well with that. The problem is that PetSmart and Petco can’t keep it in stock. I checked with Nutro, and apparently their sales staff is horrible at forecasting – they didn’t think the venison kibble would do well, so they don’t have the supplies to keep making it. They won’t be distributing any more of the kibble until late March. So I spent about 3 hours on the phone and computer last night, trying to find an allergy kibble that is reasonably priced, easy to find in the area, and that Reyna might actually like. That’s not an easy combination. I’ve found a kibble that isn’t hideously expensive but does cost more than the Nutro, and I should be able to get it easily on a regular basis, but I’m not sure Reyna really likes it. I got samples of another type of kibble that she does like, but that is ridiculously expensive. So, we’ll start with the lower cost kibble and work our way up until we find something we can both agree on. Finding kibble just shouldn’t be this hard.

I don’t often think about it, but every now and then, it really bugs me that John managed to wreck my car. My poor little truck just wasn’t meant to be my primary vehicle. As if the crappy A/C and wonky heat aren’t enough, yesterday afternoon I started the truck and it was not happy. It was jumpy, ran rough, and did not want to go. After a few minutes of on and off, it went back to normal. This afternoon, it did the same thing. I called my mechanic and popped by his place to have some gas-drying stuff put in my tank. His initial thought is that I got a bad batch of gas last time I filled up. As I was leaving his shop, the truck started acting up again, and the check engine light came on. Not that I like that, but I do appreciate that it happened where the mechanic could immediately check it. Turns out one of the cylinders isn’t firing. Since I have to be in Cary the rest of the week, I’ll drop it off on Monday for him to fix.

I also finally got confirmation that my insurance is all screwed up. I changed this year from an FSA to a high-deductible plan with an HSA. Our HR guy told us in October that we wouldn’t be getting the grace period on our FSA this year, so contributions should have been going to my HSA since the first paycheck of the year. But it wasn’t, for some reason. Benefits finally managed to tell me that we are, indeed, getting the grace period for the FSA, and that I can’t start contributing to the HSA until April 1, regardless of when my FSA runs out. The company could have allowed us to roll our FSA into our HSA as of January 1, but they didn’t. Too much paperwork, apparently. This wouldn’t be a huge issue, except for that pesky nerve test and epidural I had last month. The HSA was supposed to cover my deductible for the year, but I won’t have access to it until April, and I can’t use it to pay for any thing that happens before April 1. Which means my portion of the test and epidural will come out of my pocket. That’s the kind of news I can really do without.

The only really good thing that’s happened this week is that I finally got my reimbursement back from University of Phoenix. It only took them two months to decide they should send me a check for my money. Just in time to pay for kibble and the truck...