Another Vacation

I am back from Las Vegas and will be posting many, many pictures (hopefully tomorrow) and telling you all about the wonderful fun that was had. But right now I am exhausted from traveling all day and am needing a vacation from my vacation. Until tomorrow...

Bright lights

I'll be gone for the next week. The husband and I are headed to Las Vegas for our annual trip. I'll be back soon with pictures and a full report of what we did and how much fun we had.

Thanks to everyone for the recommendations on what reading materials to take. Here is what I've decided on: Southern Living Feb '09, Lucky Feb '09, Real Simple Feb '09, US Weekly and People (couldn't resist)--I really wanted to get Pride and Prejudice. I've been wanting to read it for a long time and since Camille recommended it I put it on my list. Can you believe that they don't have a copy at the Hoover Library?! I was shocked. Anyway I did get two Marian Keyes novels (thanks ASC!), Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married and Angels. I am really excited to read these. She seems a lot like this other author that I love...Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham...she writes the Shopaholic books and various other wonderful novels. Does anyone read her? So I also got The Tennis Party while I was at the library. I think it's the only novel of hers that I haven't read yet.

Thanks again for all of the wonderful recommendations. One of my "resolutions" is to read more and not watch so much t.v. (yeah right) so all of these suggestions will come in handy. Have a great week!!!

Taking Suggestions

So the husband and I are headed on vacation next week and I am looking for suggestions. I need a book-or a couple-to take with me. Any suggestions?

Join Me

Help me fight cancer.

I'm participating in Relay for Life. This year I am compelled to donate my time and effort toward raising money for the great organization that is The American Cancer Society as well as honoring friends and family who have fought against this disease.

Every amount, no matter how small, makes a difference and provides hope. My challenge to you all is to get involved. Join a local Relay for Life team (or start your own!) or if you would like to make a donation, please visit my personal Relay page.

http://main.acsevents.org/goto/JenRelay

For those with money to spend...

Tag...you're it
I've been tagged by ASC for a book tag.

Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 2 to 5 sentences, along with these rules.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual book. Pick the CLOSEST!
6. Tag five other people to do the same!

I'm not going to tell you guys how long ago I started reading this because it's just sad that I have yet to finish the first book in the trilogy. I really like it and want to finish it, but.........

The Golden Compass

page 56:

"It'll have to go in your coat pocket whatever it is. Hurry on down to the buttery; don't keep them waiting..."

It was only after she'd said goodbye to the few servants who were up, and to Mrs. Lonsdale, that she remembered Roger; and then she felt guilty for not having thought of him once since meeting Mrs. Coulter. How quickly it had all happened! But no doubt Mrs. Coulter would help her look for him, and she was bound to have powerful friends who could get him back from wherever he'd disappeared to.

Here are my tags---

Camille at Casa del Platt

Camille at Texas Dawg

Ashley at Fun With the Fleniken's

Amanda at In Pursuit
Whitney at My Journey Toward: The Glamourous Life of a Housewife

Big News

...We're opening a pharmacy!

Whew! You have no idea how releived I am to finally tell everyone. We were trying to keep things under wraps until Spencer told his boss (which he did at 8 a.m. this morning) but now we can let everyone know. Stephens Pharmacy will be opening in March '09 (*fingers crossed*)

Please pray for us. This is a wonderful change for the better and something we have been talking about doing for about as long as we've been together. It is going to be a lot of work and sometimes I wonder if we're really ready to be business owners...I mean, I'm only 26 years old...I still feel like a kid most of the time. Running a business is something grown-ups do!

To help you understand...

I want to preface this post by telling you all that I truly do enjoy my job. I work for one of the major chain drugstores and like dealing with the public (mostly). However, the question that my friends and family seem to want answered the most is why it takes soooo long for their pharmacists to fill their prescription. (I mean it's just putting pills in a bottle, right? Why on earth should that take more than a few minutes?) So below I have provided a lengthy but accurate answer to this ever important question.

~Jen

Why it takes so long to fill your prescription...

You come to the counter. I am on the phone with a drunk guy who wants the phone number to the grocery store next door. After I instruct him on the virtues of 411, you tell me your doctor was supposed to phone in your prescription. Your Doctor hasn’t, and you’re unwilling to wait until he does. Because I'm in a generous mood I call you doctor's office and I'm put on hold for 5 minutes. When I finally get to talk to someone they inform me that your prescription was phoned in to my competitor on the other side of town. Phoning the competitor, I am immediately put on hold for 5 minutes before speaking to a clerk who puts me back on hold to wait for the pharmacist. Your prescription is then transferred to me, and now I have to get the 2 phone calls that have been put on hold while this was being done. Now I return to the counter to ask if we’ve ever filled prescriptions for you before. For some reason, you think that “for you” means “for your cousin” and you answer my question with a “yes”, whereupon I go to the computer and see you are not on file.

The phone rings.

You have left to do something very important (such as browse through the monster truck magazines) and do not hear the three PA announcements requesting that you return to the pharmacy. You return eventually, expecting to pick up the finished prescription…..

The phone rings.

.…….only to find out that I need to ask your address, phone number, date of birth, if you have any allergies and insurance coverage. You tell me you’re allergic to codeine. Since the prescription is for Vicodin I ask you what codeine did to you when you took it. You say it made your stomach hurt and I roll my eyes and write down “ no known allergies” You tell me……

The phone rings.

.……you have insurance and spend the next 5 minutes looking for your card. You give up and expect me to be able to file your claim anyway. I call my competitor and am immediately put on hold. Upon reaching a human, I ask them what insurance they have on file for you. I get the information and file your claim, which is rejected because you changed jobs 6 months ago. A very not nice man barges his way to the counter to ask where the bread is.

The phone rings.

I inform you that the insurance the other pharmacy has on file for you isn’t working. You produce a card in under 10 seconds that you seemed to be unable to find before. What you were really doing was hoping your old insurance would still work because it had a lower copay. Your new card prominently displays the logo of Nebraska Blue Cross, and although Nebraska Blue cross does in fact handle millions of prescription claims every day, for the group you belong to, the claim should go to a company called Caremark whose logo is nowhere on the card.

The phone rings.

A lady comes to the counter wanting to know why the cherry flavored antacid works better than the lemon cream flavored antacid. What probably happened is that she had a milder case of heartburn when she took the cherry flavored brand, as they both use the exact same ingredient in the same strength. She will not be satisfied though until I confirm her belief that the cherry flavored brand is the superior product. I file your claim with Caremark, who reject it because you had a 30 day supply of Vicodin filled 15 days ago at another pharmacy. You swear to me on your mother’s….

The phone rings.

……..life that you did not have a Vicodin prescription filled recently. I call Caremark and am immediately placed on hold. Upon reaching a human at Caremark, I am informed that the Vicodin prescription was indeed filled at another of my competitors. When I tell you this, you say you got hydrocodone there, not Vicodin. Another little part of me dies.

The phone rings.

It turns out that a few days after your doctor wrote your last prescription, he told you to take it more frequently, meaning that what Caremark thought was a 30-day supply is indeed a 15 day supply with the new instructions. I call your doctor’s office to confirm this and am immediately placed on hold. I call Caremark to get an override and am immediately placed on hold. My laser printer has a paper jam. It’s time for my tech to go to lunch. Caremark issues the override and your claim goes through. Your insurance saves you 85 cents off the regular price of the prescription.

The phone rings.

At the cash register you sign….

The phone rings.

…….the acknowledgement that you received a copy of my HIPAA policy and that I offered the required OBRA counseling for the new prescriptions. You remark that you’re glad that your last pharmacist told you you shouldn’t take over the counter Tylenol along with the Vicodin, and that the acetaminophen you’re taking instead seems to be working pretty well. I break the news to you that Tylenol is simply a brand name for acetaminophen and you don’t believe me. You fumble around for 2 minutes looking for your checkbook and spend another 2 minutes making out a check for four dollars and sixty-seven cents. You ask why the tablets look different than those you got at the other pharmacy. I explain that they are from a different manufacturer. Tomorrow you’ll be back to tell me they don’t work as well.

Now Imagine this wasn’t you at all, but the person who dropped off their prescription three people ahead of you, and you’ll start to have an idea why…..your prescription takes so long to fill.

Introduction

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and starting a blog. Hopefully it will be a way for friends to stay in touch and for me to share some interests and ideas with other people. So...I'm very new to this and it is going to be a learning experience.