Just another Manic Monday

First, I'd like to thank everyone that's been stopping by my blog to visit and leave comments.  I love having new readers and miraculously, I now have 14 followers too!  You guys rock!

Second, Otin is a rockstar.  Thank you, Otin, for posting a link to my blog on Friday.  You totally made my day and I think you also sent me a ton of readers that day.   :)  Such a good bloggy friend, you are.  Everyone make sure to stop by his blog and read some of his stories. He's quite the story teller and the master of twisted endings.

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I've been meaning to post an update to the situation with my disability insurance and my work, but I was afraid that if I did, my blog would turn into a big "woe is me" party and I definitely don't want that.  It is, however, at the forefront of my life right now and pretty much consuming most of my thoughts and my days so I should probably just get it off my chest and into the blogosphere.  Who knows, maybe some of my awesome readers will have some helpful advice on the situation.

I spoke with someone on the Human Resources team at my office.  They wanted me to come back to work on Friday, October 2nd.  After speaking with her and letting her know that on Monday morning, before my long-term disability application was denied, I had visited my Ophthalmologist for a follow-up and just as I suspected, the pressure in my brain is creeping back up on me. It's building behind my left eye this time, which I could have told him to begin with considering the symptoms I've been having.  After explaining to her that my symptoms are all returning and that my doctor still doesn't want me to work right now, she moved my return to work date to Wednesday, October 7th.  She thought this would give me time to appeal the denial of my disability.

At the end of the week last week, I spoke to a couple attorneys.  One specializing in insurance, whom feels we have a strong case to go after the insurance company for the denial of my claim and is going to help me with an appeal.  If the appeal doesn't work, then we'll go from there.  He also recommended that I talk with another attorney he knows that is an FMLA expert.

I spoke with the FMLA expert and she strongly believes that I should have been offered the chance to use FMLA and that I wasn't.  I know that they weren't running FMLA at the same time as my disability because I was never given any FMLA papers to sign.  Hopefully, my company will go ahead and work with the attorney and set up FMLA for me with one phone call from the attorney.  If not, at $225/hour, I'm afraid of how much this will cost us.

Fortunately, the attorney assisting me with the disability issue is only paid if I am paid by the disability company.  At least filing the issue of the FMLA will buy my daughter and I more time on my insurance (3 months) and give us time with the appeal before they expect me back to work.

Speaking of work, I will most definitely not be going back after all of this. There's no way I could. They do not take lightly to their employees coming at them with attorneys.  Understandable, but I can't just be let go on a "voluntary termination" because they don't feel like following my doctors orders.  My condition was already seriously exacerbated by the fact that I was SO stressed and overworked for about 5 months prior to my leave. There's no way in hell I'll be risking my health and what's left of my vision to go back to work for them.  My optical nerves are already shot, or at least I'm told by my Ophthalmologist.

I must admit though, I work for one of the nation's leading mortgage lenders and I am quite hesitant to ruin my name with a company of this size.  I'm sure at some point, after my medical condition is under control, they'll be contacted by potential employers and I'm so afraid of what they'd say.  I've been there for 7 years and up until now have maintained a fabulous relationship with everyone that I work with.  We will see how this ends up.

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On a brighter note...

I finally got a table to put in my craft area. It's not the lovely antique table my mother-in-law wanted to give me and I was going to refurbish, but it's a table and it will work.  My husband vetoed the old table from his mom and said he wanted something that will easily fold up (why??? no idea.).  So he went to Costco and got me a 4 foot folding table.  This will work just fine since I don't really have to worry about protecting the top of it from paint and glue and it will clean easily.  Plus, it's kind of the perfect size. It just doesn't have all of the character I was hoping for in my refurbished antique table...but I'm still SUPER excited that I finally have a table to use and can start cracking away at my crafts.

Speaking of crafts...by the end of this month, I will hopefully have 3 etsy shops opened!!!  I'm so excited about this.  I will be opening one for my jewelry.  Another for "repurposed" goods.  I have the craving to make art from what would normally be garbage (ex. beads made from recycled newspaper, chicly recovered knick-knacks brought up to date in cool colors and patterns, beads made from old magazines, scarves made from old t-shirts, etc.).  I've found some really cool crafting ideas for repurposing online and I can't wait to get started on them.  Then my 3rd store will be for my digital designs.  I used to design birth announcements, invitations, thank you cards, etc. but my Dell died, and along with it, I lost the program that I used and all of my documents.  I'm getting a similar program to do this on my Mac and I'll be opening an Etsy store to sell my digital goods from.  I've already been working on the templates for that and can't wait until I can load them into the store and hopefully start selling them!

As I open the stores and create my baubles and art, I'll post updates here on my blog so that all of my bloggy friends can love on my stuff.  :)  LOL...that is, if it's worthy of your love.

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I'd also like to draw your attention to the bottom of my post.  I've been meaning to do this since I started my blog, but kept forgetting. When I saw Organic Meatbag's blog, I remembered this was something I wanted to do.  So, Billy, thanks for the reminder.

Since I adore music, I'll be including the song I happened to be listening to while I was writing my blog post.  I love to share music...maybe you guys will find something new to love and maybe you can suggest something I haven't discovered yet!

I suppose that's it for now.  If you made it through all of that madness...you're a saint and I love you.  Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a fabulous day!

♪♫♪  Currently listening to  ♪♫♪

Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron & Wine

The Twilight fans out there will love this...