Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition

‘es pining for the fjords

My understanding is it will be a symbol, kind of like the USDA Organic symbol. Not necessarily similar in design, but just that the organic symbol means it’s met USDA criteria for being organic

I’m glad you’ve recovered! They did say it was more likely for my spouse to have a lung collapse again, which is scary.

Luckily my spouse’s employer has someone whose whole job is to fight with insurance. She got insurance to admit that in an emergency we didn’t need pre-approval which brought our bill down some.

My spouse had their lung collapse. Insurance denied it because we didn’t get advance approval for their lung to collapse.

I was in the store the other day and saw they now make electric ones

Along the same vein, if there’s a meal that always brings back good memories, make that. And if you’re comfortable sharing, invite some of your friends to eat it with you.

The same goes for activities - is there a game or something you did a lot back home? Could you teach some friends in NZ how to do it?

Finally, if possible, can you set up a regular time to play games online with friends or family back home?

Several years ago we lost power for 4 days after an especially bad storm. We don’t have good enough cell service at our house to usually use data or run a hotspot. Mostly it’s like camping except we get to sleep in our beds.

Prepare: We keep filled water jugs for both drinking and flushing the toilets.

We have a small generator to run our fridge, so once a month we run it for about 10 minutes. We keep gas and spark plugs for it handy.

We have a weather radio that’s solar powered with battery back-up.

We have a solar-charging battery bank (to charge our phones) as well as lanterns and flashlights that use AA batteries and a stash of extra AA batteries. Winter here can be quite cloudy, making solar lights harder to use sometimes.

We have a camping stove and extra fuel, as well as some easy to prepare foods. We use the food when we go camping and get new ones to store for emergencies, making sure the food doesn’t expire. We cooked outside (it was summer but even in winter I would do the cooking outside).

For winter we have a kerosene heater and extra fuel and wicks.

Entertainment: I would guess you’re especially asking about evenings, as during the day when our power was out we’d go outside if the weather was nice. In the evenings we played board games and card games, did puzzles and crosswords, did art (drawing, coloring, and painting), did crafts, and read.

If we know ahead of time bad weather’s coming, I’ll download some shows and movies to my tablet. We also have a DVD player to connect to my laptop while the battery lasts.

At-home laser tag game? When we were kids my brother had one - 2 battery powered chest plates you wore and 2 guns. We’d turn the lights off in the basement and play.

Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, pasta, yogurt, steamed veggies, lots of rice dishes, pulled pork, chicken, venison, Thanksgiving turkey breast when it’s just the 3 of us

It’s extremely helpful when I forget to thaw meat for dinner (which is more often than not)

There is a trick to the pasta, but it saves me from panic dashing into the kitchen when the pot boils over because I forgot to check it

I cook most of our meals in it. We even have 2 so I can cook the meat separately since I’m vegetarian

But wait! There’s more! (not really, I just know I sound like an infomercial)

Cherry for me. Common flavor in lots of fruity candy mixes but not my favorite. I do like cherry sours on their own though

Canid and canine generally mean any of the dog-like animals: domestic dogs, wolves, fox, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, wild dogs

Parrot applies to members of the Psittacine family: parrots, macaws, parakeets, cockatiels, cockatoos, parrotlets, lorikeets

Herps and herpetofauna are used to collectively refer to amphibians and reptiles: frogs, salamanders, newts, lizards, turtles, snakes

Bear means all actual bear species but is also often used in reference to pandas and koalas (just don’t say it in front of my scientifically accurate kid)

Waterfowl is ducks, geese, swans

Depending on why or how you’re using categories, you can also group by characteristics: Do they have fur, feathers, or scales Do they lay eggs or give birth Are they predator or prey Do they eat meat, plants, fruit, pollen, or some combination

Shows from my youth I’ve watched with my kid: The Muppets Full House Animaniacs

$0.13213 per kWh plus a $0.58915 per day “customer charge”

For bills that are due on a regular basis but not monthly (car registration, oil changes, pet’s annual check up, HVAC check ups if you own a home, etc) - figure out how much each costs per year, add them all up, divide by 12, and set up an auto-transfer to a savings account for that amount every month. Don’t forget to include that amount in your monthly budget too.

I’m the same way, I wouldn’t even try it if I was a passenger in a car

If you have insurance through your employer, then no the insurance company can’t raise your rates. And part of the reason for the Affordable Care Act (ACA, sometimes called Obamacare) was to make it so people who are getting the insurance themselves also can’t have their rates raised or get turned down for insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. However insurance companies can raise everyone’s rates when the insurance is up for renewal each year.

Most insurance plans have several different costs: 1. The monthly premium you pay to have insurance coverage. Some employers pay this themselves, otherwise it gets taken out of every pay check.

2. Co-pay: Usually a set amount ($30, for example) you pay to see a doctor for office appointments that aren’t an annual check-up*. So say I get an ear infection and see my primary doctor to get it treated, I’d pay the co-pay for that visit. Sometimes things like x-rays, blood work, CTs can be a set amount, other times it’s something like insurance will cover 65% of the cost. For some plans, co-pays are included when figuring out if you’ve reached your deductible.

3. Deductible: The amount you have to pay before “co-insurance” kicks in. Co-insurance being the percent of your bill insurance will pay (for us it’s 75% after we pay $3500 in a calendar year).

4. Out of pocket max: When you’ve spent this amount in a calendar year after that insurance covers 100%. Often plans have both individual and family maximums, with the family amount being higher.

Usually the more you pay in monthly premiums, the lower your deductible and out of pocket maximums will be. So each year people have to try and decide what they think their health bills will be next year when picking their plan (you can’t change plans mid-year unless something happens like changing job, getting married/divorced, having a kid). If you’re pretty healthy you might pick a lower monthly plan with higher out of pocket amounts because you don’t expect to have to pay much out of pocket. If you’re someone with a chronic condition or you’re expecting to need surgery or a costly treatment you might go with the higher monthly plan so you don’t have as high of out of pocket amounts.

For example, my spouse had to go to the ER a few years ago for what turned out to be a collapsed lung. They didn’t have to stay in the hospital overnight. I forget the total bill (or I’ve just blocked it from my memory), but our part ended up being about $5,000. Insurance kicked in after the bill got to $3,500, and they covered 75% of everything that was over $3,500. The most we would’ve paid was $6,000 (the individual out of pocket max), however we would still have to pay bills for myself and our kid up to $12,000 (family out of pocket max).

*Another part of the ACA was to make annual preventative screenings (like annual physical, mammogram for women over a certain age, prostate screening for men, etc) free.

Someone curling their eyelashes while driving 65mph

Sending you a hug

My kid is devouring the wings of fire series.

For me I’d say the Children of Man series by Elizabeth C. Mock. I hadn’t read Wheel of Time before starting Children of Man. Now that I have I see a lot of Wheel of Time influence, so in that genre Children of Man isn’t really groundbreaking.

That said though, I still really enjoy the characters and the story, and am anxiously waiting for the release of the 4th (and final) book.