The benefits jungle

This week there was a teleconference for new employees to help us figure out our benefits choices-- life insurance, health coverage, death and dismemberment(!), dental, annuities, etc. It was overwhelming. When the guy leading the session was talking, I was scrambling to find the form to which he was referring. I felt a bit like Arlo Guthrie must have felt in the draft office (from his song/monologue "Alice's Restaurant")-- "Kids, this- piece- of- paper's- got- 47- words- 37- sentences- 58- words- we- wanna- know- details- of- the- crime- time- of- the- crime- and- any- other- kind- of- thing- you- gotta- say- pertaining- to- and- about- the- crime- I- want- to- know- arresting- officer's- name- and- any- other- kind- of- thing- you- gotta- say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there." Oy. I'll just do my best, but this is ridiculous. On the other hand, it's good to HAVE benefits....

Still alive....

Things have cooled off nicely here in the soon-to-be frozen tundra. We've been so busy that I've not had time for blogging.

We got a new fridge, oven/range, washer and dryer, dining room table, dining room chandelier, and sofas. We just had a new roof put on. (Most of the roof is metal and just needed sealing.) We are going to have a gas stove (that looks like a wood-burning stove) installed. It'll be asthetically pleasing and will help with warming in the winter months. That'll about do it for our redocorating money.... We still have some painting to do, but that's not that expensive (if we do it ourselves).

We've made so many friends here. The people are so friendly. I hope that a few of them become REAL friends.