In which your intrepid heroine signs up for a Medicare seminar

My HMO provider recently sent me a flyer on their Medicare Advantage options. I turn 65 next spring (I know, right?), and I understand pretty well how insurance works, and I am going to have to create a spreadsheet to investigate my options and keep them straight. I will just state for the record that my HMO provider's Advantage options do not seem all that advantageous to me. I now understand why so many elderly folks have to choose between food and medicine.

I'm reasonably sure that once I retire, I will not need the Lexapro and muscle relaxer. The diuretic is most likely a temporary thing, and the Metformin will be with me until I rejoin Beloved in the sweet bye and bye. But if I were to take all four of them from now until I kick the bucket, we are looking at $360 to $600 a year just for insurance premiums and somewhere between $4,000 and $5,500 for total out of pocket.

Which only confirms the wisdom of my paying off the mortgage early, so that I will be able to live on my pension, my 401K, and my Social Security. And suggests that I might want to keep working beyond my currently estimated retirement date of eight years from now.

We shall see. Meanwhile I have signed up for a free insurance seminar that allegedly explains the benefits and disadvantages among 20 different companies in an entertaining fashion.

In knitting news, I put a few rounds on the current baby sock while waiting for Grandparents and Special Friends Day to start at the bitties' school. And Firstborn brought me back three lovely balls of wool from her recent business trip to Germany. Achtung, baby!

Secondborn's TV has been re-homed to Fourthborn, as the stand wouldn't fit on the table which Middlest uses. It's still a win/win in everybody's book, as Middlest's TV is very nice, just smaller.

Trying to hit three kids' classrooms today was more complicated than toggling between two kids' rooms in the past. BittyBit is a 6th grader and comes up to my shoulder. BittyBubba is a 4th grader and is catching up fast. Bittiest is a 1st grader. The first two made the honor choir and will be singing in Philadelphia in March. I'm hoping that finances and workload cooperate so that I may tag along to the city of brotherly love. And Fresh Prince. (Don't be silly.)

I had a big old nap when we got home from Fort Worth, spent a couple of hours mucking out my inbox, and am going to sew a little. My muscle relaxer is kicking in, so I don't know how productive I will be, but I'm definitely in the mood to stitch, and if I do some of that tonight, it's far more likely that I will finish Grace's dress tomorrow and she can come out and play.