Bliss Insurance

Health insurance may not sound like an incredibly blissful subject and, to be honest, until recently it wasn't one that I that I paid a lot of attention to. We've always been fortunate to have had jobs that have offered insurance and we've always paid our premiums, used it as needed, and most years realized that if we'd have had to, we could have paid our doctor's bills ourselves because we didn't spend a lot on healthcare.

I realized that had changed last year when John had his heart attack. The bills for his heart attack and after care were over $150K, more than our combined annual income. There is no way that we could have paid those bills ourselves and we would have lost our house, been pushed into bankruptcy, or worse. Our share of the bills is only about $2,500 and although that will cause a little bit of heartburn (pun intended), it's certainly a loss less stressful than thinking about being $150K in debt.

A project I'm working on made me privy to the information that my company is a self insurer, which means that they pay Blue Cross Blue Shield to administer the insurance, but the company itself actually ponies up for claims. That means that my company wrote a check for over $100K to pay for my husband's health. Since it was a benefit, I wasn't taxed on the money and the company just wrote the check once BCBS verified it was a valid claim.

The experience has made me seriously rethink my thoughts about corporate America as I used to view corporate executives as greedy thugs out only for themselves. However, realizing that because of corporate policies, my husband's health, and our financial health, was protected, made me rethink my thoughts on corporate ethics. It also made me realize that even though my company has frozen benefits and given paltry benefits, I'm getting a lot more out of the deal than I thought.

Like most Americans, I'm struggling to make sure my bills get paid on time, it is pretty blissful to know that I'm not going to be even more in debt than I already am.

Cooking Up Bliss

Secretly I've always loved to cook as there is something magickal about mixing up ingredients and creating something special. However, my inner domestic goddess was always doing battle with the person I thought I wanted to be as I NEVER wanted to be labeled a housewife and if I fessed up to loving to cook, someone would label me a housewife.

It's only been in the last few years that I've realized that having a job in corporate America and loving to cook are not mutually exclusive. I have a couple of people to thank for that light bulb moment. The person who gets the most credit is one of my fellow manager's at work. She bakes like no one's business and her desserts would be worthy of shelf space at any bakery in the world. She's also a kick butt type of gal who is former military intelligence. No one would ever mistake her for a housewife. After chowing down on a few of her incredibly delectable treats, I realized that maybe it really is okay to cook in the kitchen and in the boardroom.

Since John has his heart attack, we've gotten serious about what we eat and it was mind blowing to read the labels on prepared food and see exactly how much sodium they contain. I realized that if we wanted to eat well and not feel deprived, we'd have to get serious about cooking our own food most nights. I invested in a Heart Healthy Cook Book and between that and the Internet, we've been eating healthy and eating well.

I'm also rediscovering my love of cooking and realizing that being in the kitchen surrounded by the wonderful smells of food makes me incredibly happy. I used to dread coming home from work and having to figure out what to fix for dinner because it was just one more chore on my checklist. However, I've recently reclaimed that time as my buffer between work and home and now I come home, put my apron on, put on my cooking shoes, turn on some Motown and fix up some wonderfully flavorful (and mostly heart healthy food). While the food is cooking, I do a load of dishes or tidy up and by the time dinner is ready, I'm out of the work zone and into the home zone.

Rediscovering my inner domestic goddess is giving me a deeply satisfying kind of bliss that comes from accepting and acknowledging my whole self and not just the workaday self who heads off to the office to play hardball with the guys.

Bliss in the Wii

Okay, I have to admit it, I've become somewhat addicted to the Wii Fit. I faithfully get on every morning to check my weight and my Wii Fit age. The good thing is that once I'm on, I usually make time to play a few games and burn a few calories. It sounds incredibly silly, but the positive feedback I get from the Wii keeps me trying to eat less and exercise more.

I do get frustrated when my calculations of weight loss don't seem to be reflected when I step onto the Wii and it's even more maddening when the numbers go up even though there is NO possible way that I ate 3,500 calories more than I took in in the last 24 hours. However, the good thing about the Wii is that it gives me feedback on how well I hold my yoga poses and I can compete with myself on the games to better my scores from the day before. A good example is the table tilt because when I first started I could barely get through level 3 before running out of time. However, now most times I can make it through all eight levels and I'm working to reduce my score. The same thing on the hulu hoop, my original goal was to make it to 100 spins. It took me about four times to make it over 100, then I was able to get to 200, and my current goal is 300.

It might sound silly that a forty something woman gets caught up in the excitement of beating her score on an electronic game, but I'm a competitor at heart and seeing myself doing better on each of those games shows me that I am improving and that even though the scale hasn't caught up with my diligence, I'm making progress and my body and mind are getting stronger and more coordinated. The Wii might be the piece that has always been missing in my get healthy endeavors because I have to admit it is tremendously frustrating to eat right and exercise and have the scale go the wrong direction.

There's an indescribable bliss in knowing your body is changing and that the hard work is paying off even if it just means I can spin a few more virtual hulu hoops today than I did yesterday.

The Bliss of Balance

Somedays there is nothing better than curling up under the covers with a good book, a furry dog, and a glass of hot chocolate, but there's also something to be said for being busy and for having tasks that give you a sense of purpose and a feeling that you're contributing to something bigger than yourself. The trick is to find that perfect level of balance between so many tasks you can't think straight and so little to do that you're dying of boredom.

Back in the days when my friends were warning me that I really needed to find balance in my life or I was going to self destruct, I thought there was some perfect level of busy that would bring my life back into balance. Sadly, I've found that life isn't always like an algebra problem where if you apply the perfect formula and know all the variables, you'll get the right answer. Life's a little more like art where what worked yesterday might not work today.

Finding balance in one's life is learning to appreciate the ebb and flow of life. The level of busy that feels right today might not feel right tomorrow. For instance, over the Christmas holiday, I was pretty much a slug as I spent some time each day cleaning house, but mostly I read books, slept, spent time with my family, and generally recharged my batteries. I thought about working a few times over break, but mostly the feeling passed and I went back to being a vacationing slug. However, now that I'm back at work, I'm feeling the the urge to dance to a different rythm, one of working 8 to 9 hours a day and then spending time with my family.

In years past, I would have kicked myself for kicking back over the holidays and relaxing when I could have been so much further ahead if I would have put my nose to the grindstone and short changed my family and myself in the interest of work. However, after the tough lessons of the past year especially the one that companies don't really care about how much you sacrifice, I've realized that I need to make sure to take care of myself and my family because if I don't, no one else will look out for us.

The really interesting thing about work is that it does expand or contract to fill the available time. Sure, working over the holidays might have meant I finished some tasks a little earlier, but taking the time to relax and recharge means that I'm looking at things with a fresh perspective and the tasks are taking less time because my batteries are recharged.

The one lesson I've learned over the past year is that work will always be there, but the important things don't aways wait for you to finish your work. I've learned to seize the time away from work as my time. That doesn't mean that when duty calls, I won't work the 14 hour days to push a project over the finish line, but it does mean that after we're over the finish line, I'll take some time to kick back relax and recharge.

Bliss Queens

Julie Powell got bad press by Julia Child as the cooking queen proclaimed she thought Julie's blog, which chronicled her efforts to cook her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking a stunt. I have to admit that Julia's comments and my own jealously over her getting a book deal while I struggle to get readers tainted my view of her blog and made me reluctant to get sucked into all the hype over Julia and Julie. Add to that the reviews that said Julia's portions of the movie were amazing while Julie's portions weren't up to par had me convinced that the movie wasn't worth a trip to the video store.

I broke down and rented the movie when I found it in a RedBox for $1 and my opinion completely changed once I watched the movie as I realized that Julie didn't start out intending to get rich from her blog, she started it for the same reason a lot of us start blogs: as a way to share our lives and to write about what we want to write about instead of what corporate slugs want us to waste our words on. At the time, her life was extra stressful as she was working for an agency that handled calls from 9/11 victims. Cooking and blogging let her escape from the pressure cooker every evening, gave her something to look forward to, and gave her a way to stay on track. Did she harbor dreams of striking it rich with her blog? I can't say, but if she did she wouldn't be alone as deep down all of us want our blogs to be recognized for the amazing works of literature they are.

Having read Julia's memoir, My Life in France, just a few weeks ago, I was expectedly nervous about how the big screen version would compare to the printed page and, surprisingly enough, I wasn't disappointed. Meryl Street's portrayal was as true to the book as you can get in a 2 hour movie. I felt her humanity and her passion jump off the screen and into my heart and left the theater feeling ready to go search for some grainy television footage of Julia's famous cooking shows.

I haven't read Julie's book so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I found myself rooting for her as I watched the show. She came across as someone who started the grand adventure to cook all of Julia's recipes in a year as a way to prove to herself that she could start and finish something. It's funny because at the start of the movie, her mom calls her and tells her that she's in over her head and that she should just quit. Mom chimes in again toward the middle of the movie and tells her that she should finish what she started. It's moments like this that ground the movie in real life and make Julie seem like the girl next door.

Other moments hit home for me too especially the honesty in her husband's voice as he told her that he regretted suggesting the blog and that since she started it she'd been self absorbed and it was all about "me, me, me." Unfortunately, my hubby has also told me that I'm somewhat self absorbed in my blog and that it was all about "me, me, me." Hmm..maybe that's a theme with bloggers we write about the things that are closest to our hearts. Our blogs are a way of communicating and sharing who we are.

After watching the movie, I searched out Julie's blog and in its pages, I found the same honesty that pervaded the movie. Her blog was a way for her to share herself and her life with the world. Did she get excited about having followers and having the New York Times come calling? Of course she did, every writer in the world gets excited about the thought that someone out there is reading what they wrote and cares enough about it to comment on it. My deepest dream is that someday I'll write a script about finding my bliss and people will watch it and something will resonate deep within them. That's the bliss of writing, it's about touching other people's lives with your words and, hopefully, helping them understand you and themselves just a little bit better.

Now as to the self absorbed comments, I am going to try to include some posts this year about things you can to do find your bliss.

Until next time, Bon Appetit (okay, I couldn't resist).