Games I Don't Enjoy

Today I learned how to play a new game called Clever Endeavor. The main gist of the game is that there are 6 clues, starting with harder ones and ending with easier ones, and you have to guess a person, place or thing. Most of the clues are puns or a play on words that you often don't understand until after you know the answer since the guesser doesn't get to read the clues. My mom has several games that are similar to this, including Guest Host and The Biography Game (although both of those are just guessing people). I play these games and never enjoy them but just thought they were not my favorite. After playing Clever Endeavor, I realized that I actually don't like playing them at all. This might not sound like a big deal, but I LOVE playing games, so to realize there are some I don't like at all, rather an entire genre of games I don't like at all, is weird. I do better at games like this that have clues that are mostly facts instead of puns (like 20 Questions), but still those aren't my favorite. I think another reason I don't like these games is because most of them were made prior to 1990 meaning that not only do I have a hard time with the clues and references but often don't know the people. I always finish the game in last place and often feel dumber than I did when I was in Calculus in high school.

Later in the evening, Alex and I played Agricola and I felt better...and smarter.

What I learned: There are some games I don't like playing, and that's okay.

Punctuation Mark

Tonight I was playing Outburst with my mom and Alex and Alex got the category: Punctuation Marks. He easily got all ten answers. He then proceeded to tell us all about this article he read about lesser known punctuation marks, one of them being the Interrobang. This is a mark that is both an exclamation point and a question mark. Why is it that no one knows about this particular mark? It seems that I have very often put a question mark followed by an exclamation point at the end of a sentence because I wanted to portray both meanings. However, since that is clearly not academic, I save it for things like personal emails and Facebook entries. Come to find out, there’s a REAL mark for this exact thing.  Who knew‽

What I learned: There is a punctuation mark that incorporates an exclamation point and a question mark.

Scenic Drive

It was a beautiful fall day-the sky shone bright blue, clouds dotted the horizon, the sun was brilliantly shining off of amber trees-it was a sight to behold.  As we drove, the view improved. The trees were covered in golden, red, orange and some yet unchanged leaves. There were rolling hills offset with fields, quaint farm houses nestled in valleys and horses roaming open plains. Miles and miles passed and still, the sight continued. Where was this picturesque paradise? The farmlands of Wisconsin? Northern England? Somewhere out East? No. It was West Virginia.

Now West Virginia receives a lot of flak for being, well, West Virginia. I’ve driven through parts of West Virginia before, but not on this road. We were on Hwy 35 driving from OH through Charleston when we beheld this marvelous stretch of American Road. When the scenic view ended, we were also surprised to see how picturesque Charleston, WV was. The capital was built along the Kanawha River and cut into the Appalachians. There are dozens of bridges spanning the river, guiding traffic to opposite banks of the city. The freeway wound through the city giving drivers and passengers gorgeous views of both sides of the town. As we were leaving the city, the capitol building greeted us, a beautiful dome rising above the river. I really wanted to stop and walk around the city. I have to admit, I can’t wait to drive back this way in a week. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so surprised going someplace (sorry if there are any West Virginians reading this; I mean no offense). It was seriously one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken.

What I learned: Despite it's reputation, West Virginia is at least a beautiful state to drive through.

Movies Beginning With Y

My mom likes to play guessing games. I suppose you could say that I like playing them as well. While we were on the road today (my mom, Avery and I left this morning to drive to North Carolina to visit my brother Alex) and while Avery was napping, we decided to play a guessing game. Here's how it goes. The first person names a movie-Shawshank Redemption for example. The next person then has to come up with a movie that begins with the last letter of the previous movie, so in this case, an N. Simple, fun, and makes you think. Except there are an overwhelming number of movies that end in E, N or Y but there are a lot less movies that start with these letters. E and N we didn't get stuck on too badly, but after only about 10 Y movies, we were stuck. When we got to the hotel, we were determined to find more movies that began with Y since there clearly had to be more that neither of us could think of. Turns out, there just aren't that many movies beginning with Y. You would think there would be more movies that started with "you," "your," "young" or "yellow" but there aren't. I guess next time we'll just have to think of movies that end with different letters in order to keep the game moving.

What I learned: There aren't that many movies that begin with "Y."

Health Insurance

I worked in an insurance billing office for over 7 years. I'd like to think I know a bit about insurance, how it's billed, how to read bills, how it's processed, how to appeal. etc. I also know that for someone who didn't work in insurance for 7 years, health insurance can be very confusing-the bills, denials, discounts, copays, deductibles, test codes-all of it to a non-trained eye looks like gibberish. On top of all of that, if someone believes they have been billed incorrectly or their claim was processed incorrectly, etc, it is even harder to figure out how to appeal.  There are various numbers to call, a lot of transferring between departments, different letters or forms you might have to fill out-I understand why a lot of people don't bother and just pay the bills they get.

Fortunately for me, my experience in insurance gives me confidence when dealing with claims.  Also fortunately for me, I have never had a huge issue with my insurance that warranted me having to do anything other than pay the bills I received. I have been very thankful for this.

However, now I do have a problem with a bill (regarding Avery's emergency room visit). So Jared and I called UHC and were surprised to find that the first person we talked to was helpful, knew the answers to our questions and promptly gave us the address to send an appeal to. Not only that, but we didn't even have to fill out a form, send copies of bills, nothing. Just a letter. It seemed too easy. So today I was finally getting around to mailing out this letter and noticed that the address to send appeals to online is different than the address that the guy at UHC gave us; one was the appeals office in Atlanta, the other in Salt Lake City. Knowing how long insurance companies can take when you send the right information to the right place, I decided to just send the letter to both addresses. And then, just to be safe, I attached a copy of our insurance card and a copy of all three bills we are appealing. I guess I decided that sending just a letter probably really was too good to be true.

What I learned: Never trust insurance companies.

Organizational Chaos?

I really like being organized. I really like organizing things, like putting things in neatly labeled files or folders and arranging things on shelves and in drawers. Weird, I know, but it's true. As much as I like organizing however, I think I realized something about myself today. I tend to be really organized at one point, and then I let things pile up to ridiculous heights. My desk will be COVERED in papers that need to be filed, stacks of thank you cards I need to write, a folder of medical bills, old programs and ticket stubs, receipts, random notes-all these things in chaos on my desk until one day I just can't take it anymore and I organize to my heart's delight.

I LOVE it. I love going through the massive stack of random papers, sorting them into piles, filing things away, putting other things in folders, rearranging things in my desk until it's all perfect once again. And I always tell myself, I will never let it get that bad again. I just need to take a few minutes every day to put things away (like I do so well in the rest of my house, which is kept meticulously organized and put away at all times despite having a toddler) and it will always be clean and organized...and then it never happens. I let it pile up again and then 6 weeks, 2 months or more goes by and I have to take hours to get it all organized again. This has happened so often that I think I subconsciously do this on purpose so that I get those few glorious hours of organizing every so often. I create the chaos so that I will have something to organize. Should I be seeing a therapist?

What I learned: I like organizing so much that I create messes so that I can later organize them.

I Am Braver Than I Thought

Everyone who knows me well knows that I enjoy singing.  I am in three choirs-the large choir at church, the motet choir at church (usually consists of 8-12 people) and the Lutheran A Cappella Choir of Milwaukee.  Also, if you know me even better, you might know that I suffer from severe stage fright.  This means that it took me a long time (and I mean long-probably about 3 years) before I didn't shake with terror every time the motet choir sang in front of church.  I even get nervous still when I go to communion.  It's bad.  Because of this crippling fear, it took me a long time to even get the nerve to audition for LAC, but in the end I did and made it.  At that moment, that was the bravest I'd ever been in my life (pathetic, I know).

So this year, LAC is performing at Trees of Hope, a fundraiser for the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society (http://treesofhopewi.org/get-involved/events/). Our choir director asked if a few small groups would get together to perform a few songs as well as the choir performing as a group.  I was asked by another choir member to be in their quartet! I was so honored with the request (apparently when the guy was trying to decide who to ask, a few choir members suggested he ask me) that I said yes.  Once I got over the excitement of being so singled out, I realized what grave danger I was in.  I had just agreed to sing with only three other people in front of hundreds of strangers...cue heart attack.

Tonight our quartet practiced for the first time while the rest of the choir was moseying in and surprisingly I was quite confident singing and did not feel nervous. As soon as I just focused on the music and saw that a)it was easy so at least I knew the chances of me messing up were slim and b)I was at least not singing by myself, the fear melted away.  I got caught up in the joy of the song and just sang it like I was singing in church.  I even got the added confidence of the director saying it sounded really good and it was just our first time through sight reading!

Anyway, I know this may seem foolish and petty to some of my friends who perform music and act in plays all the time, but for me, this was a huge step. I really thought I would crumble under pressure and instead I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Now, let's hope the same remains true when we sing it in front of strangers on November 18th!

What I learned: I am capable of singing in a small group in front of people.