Vacation?

One Day at a Time

Two more 7A-4P days coming up.  I average about 3 hrs of sleep on these nights.  It’s still only 11PM, so I’m hoping tonight will be different, especially since I need to run 4 miles tomorrow to keep up with the training plan.  You know what I should do no matter what happens?  Determine that I am going to run straight away when I come in from work.  Get it out of the way.  Running before work is no option as I would have to get up at 5:15AM . . . meaning even less sleep.  After the run I can take a nap if necessary, then if I only get 4 hours of sleep or so tomorrow night, no big deal, I don’t have to run on Friday.  I can get a good night’s sleep Friday night before running again on Saturday.  I’m just going to have to be determined if I’m going to stick with this training plan . . . as determined as I was when I started the running a year and a half ago . . . back then I was running at least 5 days a week.  The difference is, I will have to follow this schedule, not run on the 5 days I want to.

I just checked my most recent paystub online.  I got the raise.  AND I accrued vacation time last year.  WTF?  I thought I had to be full time to do that.  About 33 hrs.  Add that to my personal time and I’ve got 50 hrs I can use this year.  That’s worth about a week and a half’s worth of pay for me . . . all for sitting around doing nothing, LOL.  I need to start thinking about when I want to use it.  Also, they’ve started taking out a little of my pay for healthcare premiums.  It seems very reasonable to me.  I need to go ahead and make a doctor’s appointment, get a general physical, cholesterol checked, etc.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen a doctor.  The first $500 (annually) of medical bills are paid by the company, then I pay until I reach the deductible of $1250 (the first $500 is part of the deductible).  After that, the company pays everything up to $5000 annually.  Basically, there’s no reason I would ever have to pay more than $750 annually, unless I have a catastrophic illness requiring hospital stay.  All pharmaceuticals count toward the deductible.  Also, certain preventive care is 100% free for me no matter what.  Maybe the plan isn’t all that great (compared to what others have, I don’t know) but I’m glad I have it.  Seems reasonable to me.  And of course I’m just tickled pink that I got the vacation time.  Wow.  I also have accident insurance, but I opted out of the catastrophic illness coverage.  Was that a mistake?  I may add that later this year when we have open enrollment again.  But then again, ideally I’d like to move on to a better job before the end of the year.  But who knows, maybe I will have a better job within the same company.  I also have life insurance.  I opted out of the 401K because I just feel like I need the extra money.  I can set aside some on my own . . . put it in my savings account, although interest rates are ridiculously low right now.

-AR