Sarah vs. Prudential Life

Recently I had a little run in with Prudential Life Insurance. I won't go into all the details but the short story of it all is that Prudential tried to stick me with the medical records retrieval bill without my prior authorization. A bill over $100, mind you. Well, I made about a dozen phone calls in 3 days and could get NOWHERE with them. Everyone I talked to told me I would just have to pay it. Well, I would have none of that! I knew I was right and I told the last customer service rep I talked to that I would be writing complaints all of the internet if that's what it took.

So, that same day, I wrote a letter to Prudential's Underwriting Group, filed a formal complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and filed a complaint with the Colorado Division of Insurance. (The Division of Insurance can actually fine them if they fail to respond to me.)

And....... I WON!

I got notice today from the BBB that Prudential has agreed to waive my bill because they were in the wrong.

HA! Take that Prudential! I don't go down without a fight!

Family Visit!

This last week, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece flew in from Raleigh for a visit. It was so great having them all here! My niece, Abigail, is 6 months old now and so animated and cute. We really bonded and I enjoyed doing all sorts of goofy things to get a laugh or smile out of her.

Here she is attempting to eat my face:

We took Abigail for her very first swim ever. She wasn't too impressed. I think maybe the water was a little cold:

We also visited the Downtown Aquarium. It was FANTASTIC! If you've never been, I highly recommend it.... especially for kids. Abigail loved watching all the fish and talking to them.


We also had a play date with Corinne who is 10 months old. For most of the date the two girls didn't seem too interested in each other, but towards the end they started trying to touch each others faces. It was pretty cute:


Abigail also got some close encounters with our cats. They all got along wonderfully, and Abigail especially enjoyed getting a good hold on Tiger's tail. He jumped away about a half second after this photo was taken:

Here's a video of Abigail enjoying the fish at the aquarium:

Baby Tiger

In anticipation of my niece visiting, I got out the pack n play and a borrowed bouncy seat from a friend. Today I opened up the guest bedroom where these items have been kept, and Tiger didn't waste any time doing a safety check on all the baby products. After a thorough nap in the bouncy seat, and checking the inside lining of the pack n play, he seemed satisfied. Awww... doesn't he look cute napping in the little baby seat:

O'Malley has a new friend

Lately we've been letting O'Malley outside.... as in free to roam the neighborhood. For the longest time we wouldn't allow this because we had heard of cats in the neighborhood being eaten by foxes or coyotes. However, he seemed pretty miserable inside, and he often likes to make us miserable as well with incessant whining and meowing, so we decided to start letting him out.

The first few times we let him out, it was torture not knowing when or if he would come back. But alas, he did. He usually wanders off for an hour or two and then comes back. Sometimes he just lounges in the backyard. He also has gotten acquainted with our neighbor's outdoor cat and the two of them were chillin' in the backyard this afternoon:

Car's fixed!

Took the car to Pep Boys yesterday (luckily it started and made the entire drive with no problems). They did a full diagnostics on it and decided to try replacing the spark plugs. That apparently did the trick! Got a few other issues fixed that needed to be done (brake lights replaced, tires rotated, general tune up stuff). And the bill was just under $300 to boot. We were so glad that this wasn't a $1000+ car bill. Maybe we can get some more life yet out of that 300M!

Early Valentine's!

Daniel and I sort of celebrated Valentine's Day last night. Rather than try and go out to eat on Saturday night, along with every other couple in the area, we celebrated last night. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (yum!) and then went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". We really liked the movie! It was very moving, and the cinematography was amazing! Both Daniel and I gave it 4 stars.... and we don't often give out 4 stars. Besides the weird lady in front of us who occasionally would talk to the entire audience as if we were hanging out in her living room, it was a wonderful evening. (Okay, she only did it twice! I don't mean to exaggerate!)

It was late when we drove home and was starting to snow. When we were within about a mile of our house, the car died at a stoplight. Ack! This is the Chrysler 300M mind you. Luckily it started back up and we commented several times that we hoped there wasn't anything more serious with it. We got home okay; however, the car would not start at all this morning when Daniel tried to head to work. Somehow we're going to have to get the car to the shop and figure out what's going on with it. If it needs a lot of repairs, we will probably just look for a new car since that car is not worth much at all.

O'Malley will eat anything!

With every meal we eat, O'Malley sits himself down in the chair next to me and begs for morsels of my food. It's rather annoying, and I've tried to teach him not to paw at me during this process, but to no avail. On the other hand, it's rather humorous to see all of the foods that he will scarf down that you wouldn't think a cat would be interested in. We have discovered that he will eat tortilla pieces, lettuce, green beans, pinto beans, and more.... and now we can add spaghetti to the list. Last night after much begging and pawing, I gave him a spaghetti noodle.

Well, lo and behold, he ate it right up and immediately pawed at my arm for another. I gave him another piece and he gobbled it down within seconds. It was quite humorous.... so we decided to get out the camera and take some pictures of him being fed entire noodles. I was hoping for that perfect "slurping the noodle" picture, but he would always put his head down to eat. So here's some pictures of me dangling a noodle in front of him and him eagerly going for it:




And here's our Lady and the Tramp moment:


Later that night we had lemon meringue pie and discovered that he not only liked the meringue, but rather enjoyed the lemon filling as well! Crazy cat!

stuff.....

January shaped up to be a pretty good month business wise. I won't quote any numbers, but my income this January was much better than that of January 2008. It would be nice if I could keep those kind of numbers all year long.

The piano playing is still coming along. I've got a few simple songs that I can play through now. I really am starting to enjoy playing and it doesn't feel too much like work.


Next week my sister, brother-in-law, and niece are coming to visit for a week. I have so many photo shoots planned for my niece that I don't know how we're going to ever leave the house! Can't wait for them to get here!

Keys of Fury!

I had my second piano lesson this week and I'm loving playing! My homework for next Thursday is to memorize a few easy songs and get them down pat. I've been so obsessed with this task that my hand muscles have actually become sore. But I'm so excited to expand my talents!

Daniel and I also went rock climbing again today. We try to go every Friday since we have a prepaid punch card. Afterwards we finally broke down and went to REI and bought our own harnesses. (We already have our own shoes). While we were there, they were having a killer sale on snow shoes... which we had been wanting to buy. So we bought some of those too! We're really excited now for our next snowshoeing excursion!

Looking forward to the weekend...