A week into the new year and I'm not real thrilled with 2007. Friday we received a notice in the mail that our home insurance had been cancelled. Cancelled? Huh? What? Our mortgage company is suppose to pay the insurance. What happened? Well, if you live in Florida, home insurance is a crap shoot from the get-go. Many companies don't write home insurance in Florida, claiming the threat of hurricanes makes it financially unwise for them to do so, (insurance companies have seen bigger profits the last 5 years than ever...even with Katrina and 2004 year of 4 hurricanes to hit Florida). But I digress. Apparently (we figured this out after 6 phone calls and much time on hold on a Friday afternoon), our mortgage company underpaid our 2006 insurance by $30.12. So, our insurance company cancelled our policy, even though our mortgage company had already paid our $1000+ insurance for 2007. Go figure. Desperate to have some coverage (sure that lightning would strike our house over the weekend and us without any insurance), we traipsed to AAA on Saturday morning. Apparently, some insurance companies are setting homeowners up for such short-falls and therefore have a "valid" reason to cancel the insurance. If a company cancels too many policies without valid reasons, they can lose their ability to write other types of insurance in Florida. Our former insurance company is not writing new policies in Florida, therefore we can not simply get new insurance. In fact, no company is writing insurance for our neighborhood (much of which is a flood zone...even though no hurricane or major flooding has occurred in the 11 years I've lived here.). Our only option, Citizen's Insurance. Citizen's Insurance is a state-run, last resort insurance option for people like us, who can't get insured. It is typically much more than a private company's (to prevent a competitive nature...the state doesn't want to take business from private companies, just provide insurance when nothing else is available.) In our case, our insurance would more than double. What a head-ache. And they wonder why growth in Florida has slowed drastically? We are hoping to get this resolved and have our former insurance company re-instate us, especially since it was our mortgage company that 'messed up.' I'm sure this won't go away quickly. Prayers for a resolution (and no fires or floods) are appreciated.
Of course, troubles rarely come in single instances. I also found out Friday that I may not be able to continue working as a moderator for on-line courses. Even though I've done much work for these courses beyond simply moderating (editing, suggesting revisions, creating moderator documents to streamline the entire process). Apparently, I don't have the correct credentials, or more aptly, I don't have my credentials accurately portrayed on my teaching certificate. With our financial challenges, even losing one "session" (Spring, Summer, Fall are the sessions) could make life more stressful. Again, I'm hoping for some resolution but as I'm no longer in the county system because I don't teach in a county school and as the State Department of Education doesn't like to work with individuals, but with district personnel, it could take a while. Again, prayers are appreciated.
And finally, even though this does not affect me directly, it has me upset. Very good friends of ours, married for about 18 years, are speaking of divorce. It tears me up. Partly because I don't believe that divorce is the answer, but instead that they are in a spirally situation and do not have the resources to step back and regroup. The daily 'grind' of kids, family, and jobs create so much pressure the energy left to devote to the problems of the relationship is almost nil. They the wife may give it some work this week, but hubby doesn't see it, so wife thinks, "Why bother?" then hubby tries and wife doesn't react the way he envisioned. And the cycle of destruction continues. I believe they each care deeply for the other and in different circumstances they'd have made it. I guess, I just wish for everyone the marriage we have. I do, in fact, have the very best husband in the world. Marriage is work and I do get upset with him and yell and sometimes even wonder where is this relationship going? But I'd say, as a rule, we both approach our disagreements with the idea of solving a problem, not waging a war. We've gotten beyond "who's right?" to "how are we going to make this work?" Not speaking of my friends, but I've seen too many people approach disagreements with their spouses as preparing for battle. Ugh! [I've seen parents approach their children the same way, it doesn't usually work very well.]
On a positive note, vacation was absolutely wonderful. Have 2 weeks with Hubby off of work was beyond wonderful. We got to spend time with my family and we had a blast playing "Apples to Apples" with them. Lots of laughter. We also played "Imaginiff" with Hubby's cousin's family. Another great family game for various ages. The girls are doing well. They're back to school and swimming. The weather is hot (they like it, I don't). I'm ready for our 2 or 3 weeks of winter. If we don't get a freeze or two, the mosquito's will be horrendous this summer. Besides, I'd like to wear a few of my sweaters this year (it was even warm in Sumter when we went to visit!)
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