Deck Underway, Founder has a Stroke

It’s a bit awkward pulling $1760 out of an ATM machine. It’s fun to play with afterwards though

My uncle is going to be paying for the wood day for our deck (with that money), and probably digging the footings later on this afternoon. So construction will have officially started, which means I need to start taking some pictures as it progresses.

The founder of my church (who happens to be the same age as my father) had a stroke Saturday morning (hence all my tweets updating people). He seems to be doing good and I feel positive that he will make a full recovery. I want to visit him one evening after he gets home, but usually when I go to visit we do some drumming or something. I’d rather avoid having him feel down if he’s not able to do some of those things very well for a while yet. I’ll have to be careful.

Dad’s hyperbaric chamber treatments are finished, but we are still working on healing the ulcers. The chamber helped out a lot, but just didn’t run long enough to finish. I’m not sure what treatments they’ll be doing next, someone mentioned possibly another surgery. I still think maggots would be pretty cool.

Baby’s First Home Owner’s Insurance Claim

As noted on my Twitter and Facebook, the insurance company came back and approved our estimate for the porch, minus $250 for the tree. They are granted $3525, which is realistically $2525 due to my $1,000 deductible. The money will be in my account in 3-5 business days, so next week. Then we can get started on the new deck.

I’m not sure how much a new deck will raise the value of the house, but I’m hoping it’s considerable. I will have to do some research on what something like that does for the value of homes.

The most important part of this deck, is actually going to be a ramp at one end, that declines faintly onto the ground. The reason for this is because my dad’s legs hurt him a lot, and he often struggles with stairs. Should he ever be really sore, or hurt himself, then he can use the ramp instead of any stairs in the house at all, which I’m -very- happy about. It’ll be especially nice if I ever have to get him a golf cart or something to do things around our place on.

So I guess the tree is somewhat of a blessing in disguise. I need to take pictures of the carpenter ant damage at the base of the tree, and I plan to plant a maple in its place once I’ve destroyed the carpenter ant colony.

This entire insurance experience was ridiculously easy. I’m going to write a letter of praise to my claims agent and to the insurance company. Literally all I had to do was submit a claim through the website, talk to the agent for some details, submit pictures through their website, and submit a pdf of the estimate from a contractor of -my- choic through their website, and everything else was done for me. She even had my account number on file because I use it to pay off my dads loan, so she knew right where to put the money.

I thought dealing with insurance companies was supposed to be hard?

Risk Idea Regarding Life Insurance

Dad approached me when I got home, saying that he wanted to know what I felt about him paying -me- money to put into savings towards a ‘life insurance fund’ instead of actually buying a policy. I’m not sure why he’s asking about this, but I’m at least entertaining the idea.

Obviously there’s huge risk involved, I mean it would take about 15 years to get to $15k (which is about what I was looking for to bury him and handle his affairs). However, once he is debt free besides the house (next year), I had planned on saving up $20k anyway just as an emergency fund. We could reach -that- goal in about 2.5 years. Maybe less if I get additional income coming in (definitely a future plan).

So I’m not sure what to do, I’ve love to hear some input. It’s basically a 3 year risk, and I only need money to bury/cremate him, and this year I’ll have all his major debt gone. It would be nice to have extra to supplement his part of the mortgage payment in case I’m not able to afford it on my own, but I’m capable of living fairly minimal, so it may not be too big of a deal (not that I plan to settle).

Hyperbaric Chamber Treatments

Dad’s doctors can be awesome sometimes, despite the insurance companies sucking. They got together and had a meeting regarding my dad (the doctors that is), and found a loophole to get him into the hyperbaric chamber. He starts today, and hopefully we’ll start to see some real progress on the healing of these skin ulcers. I expect to see him healed in 2 months. Here’s hoping! And here’s hoping he stays healed.

He also had a lymes disease test to see if that was the cause of his constant soreness, but it came back negative. So while that is a good thing, I still wish we could find a solution to his general aches and pains.

I’ll be glad when these Wound Care Center visits are over, because even with medicare they are pricey and it would be another bill we can get rid of.

Gettysburg Tourism, a Biopsy, and Lawnmower Destruction

I can tell that Gettysburg Tourism season has started. I hear it’s a nightmare. Fortunately I think I’m enough out of the touristy area that I shouldn’t have to worry about it too much unless going through town.

I’ve seen a lot of campers drive by recently. The Grove plans to have a yard sale up here one weekend to make some money for the Grove. I’m definitely in a decent spot to do so I think (I hope).

Dad had a biopsy done on his leg last week to see if there’s anything else going on with his leg that’s helping cause the ulcers (you’d think they’d have found something, I dunno, a few decades ago). No results yet.

I got a call from dad today that he ran over his cellphone with the lawnmower……….again. It cracks me up when he does it, cause I know he feels bad about it. But it’s still funny how often it happens (one time he did lose it plowing snow though, I’ll give him that).

Fortunately for me, Virgin Mobile (our carrier) will send a replacement phone free, you just pay shipping. I will have to buy him a new case to wear on his belt though, so all in all I’m looking at $20 I’ll be spending.

It’s moments like these that I’m glad we have a land-line though. As opposed as I am to it, knowing my dad it’s definitely a good thing to keep around, despite the extra cost.

And if I don’t hype how much I love Virgin mobile enough, no contracts! Best cell service I’ve ever had out of any I’ve tried. And reasonable prices (for me).