Friends

The two batches I made for this post all has to do with friends.  My husband says friends are too much work and doesn't see the point in friends, or maybe he does, he is just someone who doesn't need many people.  I on the other hand, an extrovert since birth, have a lot of friends.  And I talk to them about everything.  And it's a good thing I do, because occasionally, you find out information that is super crucial and a little bit life changing.  

#361 Macadamia-coconut Lime Bars

A couple of friends of mine (former co-workers) and I try to meet up on a regular basis since we don't get to see each other at work anymore.  Nothing ground breaking or earth shattering happened here.  Made this 6 serving bar; a flour butter base with ground up macadamia nuts with a coconut, lime juice, flour filling.  

#362 Chippy Peanut Butter Cookies

So health insurance sucks! Auto-immune diseases suck!  Combine them, it really sucks.  A friend of mine's son recently was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  So my friend (another former co-worker) posted about how much work she has put in to try and figure out our company's health insurance and the best one for their treatment options and cost value.  She was kind enough to share her findings with me.  We're talking ultra organized comparisons on Xcel spreadsheets - I was in heaven!  

This ended up being a life saver for me as earlier this summer my surgeon said I needed to have part of my colon removed - this year or next as long as I had no problems.  I started having problems in October.  I was very stressed as my husband and I decided it would be a huge cost savings to switch plans and wait for next year.  Well now I couldn't wait till next year.  But then enter this information.  Boil it down to this - I didn't fully understand the plans and the individual vs family plan and the health insurance fine print.  Ultimately it meant that it was actually cheaper to do the surgery this year (because even though I have the family plan, there's an individual part and I had met that deductible since I've had so much crap this year - we didn't need to meet the family deductible/out of pocket max).  And the plan we were going to switch to - there's no individual component on there (if you enroll in the family plan).  Huge stress reliever!

So yeah  - this girl saved me a couple thousand dollars and huge stress reliever.  The least I can do is bake her a batch of cookies.  She said her favorite was either chocolate chip or peanut butter - so she got peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

Had the surgery this past Monday - and it went well!