Insurance Issues, Taxing Troubles

631: The number of dollars I (???) owe my doctor.

I can't believe we're only a few short days away from February. This month really did fly by. I thought that only happened the month before Christmas.

Remember how I was getting frustrated about all the speed bumps in my trainings because of glitches in the system and typos in the book? I spent all of Monday morning going through all three scenarios in the tax guide so I would know exactly where the issues were.

I don't get it. I got through the scenarios just fine. There was only one typo I hadn't been aware of before. But at least I remembered each scenario more clearly, so that when people got confused at my tax training on Tuesday it was easier to figure out where they had gone wrong.

Wednesday was a slow day, and Thursday I had a doctor's appointment for my last ankle check-up. I gave the lady at the front desk my debit card for my $5 co-pay as soon as I signed in.

LADY: Great, thank you. You also have a balance with us, would you like to pay that off now?
ME: ...Well how much is the balance?
LADY: It's six thirty-one.
ME: Like...hundred? Like $631.00??
LADY: Yep.
ME: ... No, I would not like to pay that off, thank you. I think I'll call my insurance company instead.

I went in to see Dr. Daily, who said my ankle was still puffy and stiff, but on the mend. When I got to my car, I called my insurance company for the umpteenth time to find out what was up. Apparently they had only received one claim from the doctor, so I had them send all the paperwork in again.

This is getting incredibly frustrating. I have had to call my insurance company at least once a week since November trying to get this taken care of, and every time I do they give me a new excuse. I don't know what else they expect me to do...I make like $4/hour so I can't really afford this bill.

Urgh. Moving on.

We've had a lot of calls lately from people who want to make an appointment for us to do their taxes. Since we lost our only HarvestCorps member about a month ago, all of these appointments fall on Kaitlyn and me, even though we're not supposed to do a lot of direct service. Shared Harvest is hosting a tax clinic on February 13, so we've been trying to persuade people to come in then, but most don't want to wait that long.

Kaitlyn and I put together a flyer so we can drive around to local businesses and hang them up. We're also putting out a news release. Hopefully we can get a lot of people into the tax clinic!

And on that note, if you are interested in having your taxes done for free with the Ohio Benefit Bank, and getting your FULL REFUND, call us at 800-352-3663 and make an appointment for February 13. Walk-ins are also welcome. You have to have a 2009 AGI of $57,000 or less to be able to use the program.

Speed Bumps

80: The number of minutes it took to drive to Troy today.

I feel like I've been slacking on my blog lately, but that's probably because I took such a long hiatus over the holidays. Which is funny, because it took me no time at all to get in a groove of sleeping late and eating Christmas cookies.

Anyway, only a week left in January, which means tax season is about to get brutal. I think February is going to be the busiest month for us, what with all the tax clinics and trainings all over Southwest Ohio. At least there are only 28 days to get through.

It's been a little frustrating lately because so many people want to get into training, and we don't have the dates finalized for February yet. It's like they're all trying to squeeze their way in a locked door, and the line of people just keeps getting bigger. It's all very overwhelming.

Right now I'm at a tax training in Troy, and getting tired of hitting speedbumps because of all the glitches in the system and typos in the book. Someone asks a question every five minutes, and my answer is usually "Yeah, that's just a mistake in the software, they're working on it," or "That's just a typo. It should say ___________."

I never thought I'd say this, but oh, how I long for the days of benefit trainings.

The good news is that it's Friday. Thank goodness. I was beginning to think I was in some parallel universe in which the weekend is always at least two days away.

[LONG] Day of Service

12: The number of hours Kaitlyn and I worked on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Day of Service has finally come and gone! Yesterday was spent in several different places doing several different projects. Kaitlyn and I really had a good time!

We started off our day at the Animal Friends Humane Society in Hamilton. We would have had to take a two-hour long orientation in order to actually interact with any homeless puppies and kittens, so Kaitlyn and I were assigned to laundry and dishes duty for the first hour and a half of our day of service.

Because Kaitlyn and I were planning to attend the Martin Luther King Jr. march at 10:00, we were only able to do one load of laundry. The laundry room was an absolute wreck of towels, blankets, mop heads and chew toys. Fortunately, we found a box of latex gloves before we had to handle the pile of hairy, chewed-up, poopy towels. See said mess below:


When we had done all we could do in the laundry room, we were sent to another room to wash dishes. This part wasn't so bad. I rinsed out all the animals' water dishes and food bowls, Kaitlyn put them in the dishwasher and loaded and unloaded as needed. It only took us one round of dishes to come up with a good system. We do work well together.

We left the animal shelter at about 9:30, as we weren't exactly sure how to get to the beginning of the march or whether there would be plenty of places to park. But with the help of my trusty GPS, we found the Booker T. Washington community center rather easily, and ended up waiting around for more than an hour for the march to start. Were we crazy to think that "The march starts at 10:00" really means 10:00? We didn't leave the community center until 11:00.

Still, the march was pretty cool, in every definition of the word. My legs were about to fall off, they were so freezing. We walked about 2.5 miles, so we got our exercise in for the day. Check out all the marchers preparing for the journey:


It was a little after noon by the time we got back to Dexter (my car), so we went to lunch. We had been talking to a guy from Walgreens for about a week about getting some kind of donation for the Battered Women's Shelter, so Kaitlyn gave him one last call at this point and *yay!* another success! After lunch we went down the street to Walgreens and were presented with a $20 gift card to spend. We bought some hair care things and body lotions and added them to the growing collection of toiletries, office supplies, diapers, and other donations we had solicited.

Continuing our adventure, we drove out to the Atrium medical center in Middletown to visit our VISTA leader, Martha Rose, who was in a car accident over the weekend and has to have surgery on her back. We brought her some flowers, but we weren't able to go in and see her. Fortunately, her mom was in the waiting room and we left them with her. We hope she gets well soon, but we know she's in good hands. Check out that hospital--it's like a hotel.

The last few hours of our day were spent with the long-awaited Battered Women's Shelter project! About ten volunteers met at a woman named Barb's house to put our donations into paper bags for the shelter. It took a few minutes to figure out the best way to do things ("Should we all go around with one bag and just go to town?" "Maybe we should each just have a station." "Do they want different things in each bag or should all the shampoos be together?") But we soon developed yet another system and finished up in no time. It was a really cool organization; everyone was really friendly and made Kaitlyn and me feel more than welcome.

So all in all, it was an incredibly busy, exhausting day, but it was also a lot of fun. One day can hold a lot of great experiences!

MLK DAY

16: The number of people I need to train in the next two days.

As you are all probably aware, Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And while many businesses take that time to sleep in and stay at home, us (we?) VISTAs will use the time to work with various organizations to better serve our community.

Shared Harvest is still open on MLK day, but Kaitlyn and I have strategically alloted our time to spent with three different agencies that day. From 8-12 we will be with the Animal Friends Humane Society. I was hoping we'd go there and have fun playing with the kittens and walking the puppies, but we were told that we would have to go through an orientation to do that kind of thing. So we'll probably wash dishes and do laundry.

Why it takes a two hour training seminar to learn how to hold a cat, I will never understand.

We are also trying to get a hold of the Lighthouse Food Pantry to spend the afternoon there. If that name sounds familiar, it's because I worked with them a few months ago for the National Day of Service. We haven't heard back from them yet, but Kaitlyn said she'd call again tomorrow while I am at my tax training.

And finally, we'll be going to the YWCA Battered Women's Shelter from 4-7 putting together care packages. This project has been a roller coaster ride. The Women's Shelter sent Kaitlyn and me a "Wish List" that they had put together of toiletries, office supplies, cleaning materials, baby items, etc. for the care packages. With MLK Day only a week away, we had to act quickly.

So most of Monday was spent doing cold calls. Kaitlyn and I drove everywhere we could think of who might be able to make a donation: Meijer, Kroger, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack (for batteries), McDonald's and Wendy's (for fast food gift cards), Target, Walgreens, Office Depot, etc.

Most of the places we went to required you to draft letters or fax a ton of information in order to even be considered for a donation. But we did stumble across some good luck. Office Depot gave us an allowance of $25 to spend in their store for some office supplies that was on the list. And a secondhand baby store called "Reruns for Wee Ones" put together a bag of diapers and baby bottles for us. We even got about 50 coupons for a free breakfast from Wendy's.

So I think we're pretty well prepared for Monday. We have a decent amount of stuff to bring in.

IN OTHER NEWS: I have a tax training tomorrow in Xenia and Friday at Miami Hamilton, and I haven't had one since the beginning of December. I hope I remember everything. Wish me luck!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

49,510: The number of pounds of food collected in the holiday food drive for Shared Harvest this year...which is 7,350 more pounds than last year!

Right now Kaitlyn and I are in some sort of limbo between the holiday food drive and tax season. I'm spending a lot more time in the office. I was supposed to do a benefits training in Xenia today, but I had to cancel it on account of it snowed like the dickens all day yesterday and part of this morning.

So far, though, we've had plenty of phone calls to make, spreadsheets to refer to and agencies to research.

And we've definitely had our fair share of excitement! Tuesday found Kaitlyn and me in the conference room, picking off the adhesive from cardboard from Kaitlyn's Check Out Hunger project. We soon grew tired of using our fingernails, and Kaitlyn began using a rather ingenious device comprised of a sharp razor blade and duct tape. After about two minutes, she sliced her thumb open and we had to make a trip urgent care. See Kaitlyn's bandaged thumb, containing nine stitches, on the right. She's always such a trooper!

I told Kaitlyn that we are turning into the most expensive VISTAs ever. We've had our fair share of injuries, what with the stitches, the sprained ankle, the car accident... Hopefully all of that is behind us.

In other news, I am incredibly glad it is Friday. Going back to work after having time off is never a fun thing. I'm still not quite used to my sleep schedule.

Back to Work!

12: The number of days I was on holiday leave from Shared Harvest.

That's right, I've returned! And although I had to use up a small chunk of comp and personal time to enjoy such a glorious week and a half of vacation, it was all incredibly worth it. Forgive my lack of blog postings in December. I hope everyone had a good holiday.

So now I'm getting back in the swing of things. The last two days have been spent dropping off and picking up barrels, and Kaitlyn and I are unofficially DONE with the holiday food drive! This thought brought about a plethora of emotions. We were getting a little tired (physically and mentally) of lifting heavy boxes, dragging skids to the truck and searching for businesses in the GPS. On the other hand, we are going to miss Gus the Bus. See us saying goodbye to him below (in our fancy new SHARECorps jackets): We told our special projects manager, Holli, to tell us if she really needs our help with food drives again, but that we were going to be pretty busy over the next few months with tax season.

And yes, tax season is here. These next three months or so will be a time for tax trainings, tax clinics, and tax questions. Starting at the end of January, I am going to be working almost every single weekend (i.e. Saturdays AND Sundays) at various OBB sites in Southwest Ohio. The good news: Comp time. The bad news: No free time.


But that's okay. I'd rather be busy than bored.

In other news, after two months of crutches, air casts, wrapping my ankle in gauze, X-rays and HOURS of physical therapy, my ankle has gone from severely painful to merely tender and stiff. I'm done with therapy, I am no longer on crutches, in an air cast, or in gauze. I still do some stretches and such at home, but I think I see the end of the proverbial road to recovery.