Such is Life (with pictures)

Taken this morning. It was very pretty.

Good morning! Not a whole lot of interest has been going on around here. Just school and stuff. More of the same on tap for today.

This is one of Joseph from January.

Yesterday, even though I knew it was Wednesday, I got it stuck in my head that it was Thursday so I went to the library to pick up my book and the library was closed. Silly me. And I went to get eggs and it wasn’t Friday (I don’t know what I was thinking—I read the sign but it just didn’t register). That was after I dropped Cedric off at Paul’s after Seth and Joseph and I got home from going to the chiropractor. Last night Joseph had scouts and everyone else needed to go to church. Jonathan Brinker picked Joseph up, I took everyone else to church and after I emptied all the trash cans, went with Seth to get Joseph. The door to the school was locked but a couple other parents were there as well and one of them called the janitor who opened the door for us.

Seth took this one of Kitty on March 10.

Tuesday (I think it was Tuesday) I started filling out the renewal papers for MassHealth and thought it would be a lot easier and faster to do it online so I set up an account and did that and was told I could go no farther because they couldn’t verify my identity. I could send a copy of my driver’s license and they could call when they got it to finish the process. Or I could just call and give the information to someone over the phone. I called. I gave a woman my name and address, etc., and was put on hold. For an hour. And then got a guy who asked for all the information again. And couldn’t tell my ‘s’ from my ‘f’. That was fun. During the being on hold and figuring out the s and f, I was filling out the paperwork and making copies (they provide enough for three people—I have six) and filling out. I signed it as I discovered that this guy ran into the same problem I did—my identity was verifiable so we could go no farther. So I wrote a letter and mailed it with the many pieces of paper.

Lego creation from March 17.

Here is my letter:

Pamela S Flint

64 Pitcherville Road

Hubbardston, MA 01452

March 31, 2015

MassHealth

PO Box 4405

Taunton, MA 02780

To whom it may concern:

Enclosed please find my application to renew coverage for myself and my family. If you need any further information, please feel free to contact me.

In the meantime, I must express what a waste of paper this whole process is. In spite of the fact that renewing online or over the phone is an option, the paper application is still mailed out. I would have been happy to use it as a fire starter this afternoon but found it necessary to fill out in order to mail it in. This is because when I attempted to renew online, I ran into the problem of the Federal Identification Proofing service was not being able to verify my identity (copy of the screenshot enclosed). That being the case, I thought I would call. After being on hold for an hour and repeating my information to two separate people, the same problem was encountered. Not only are we wasting paper, we are wasting time. Luckily, I was able to make the extra copies needed of pages nine through twelve of the application for the members of my family beyond three as well as filling out the entire form while waiting and listening so the time was not a complete waste for me. For the two people I spoke to, however, it was.

In spite of the fact that my time was not entirely wasted, is it really necessary to take four pages to find out information about one person? It takes two inches just to determine what race a person is. It takes almost an entire page to ask about income which most grade school students do not have. Would it not be possible to consolidate this information?

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Pamela S Flint

Joseph's foot and a moose track in the back field on March 21.

Do you think it was nice enough? Did I make my point without going overboard? I also sent a copy of my license with a copy of the screenshot and a letter. It was much shorter and boring so I won’t bore you with it here.

More snow on March 27.

Today I have an IEP meeting at school about Cedric at 1:00. Should be fun. In the meantime, have a wondiferal day.

And another lovely sunrise March 31.