"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[Xist]

I have had one date with a professor at a university in another state and everyone is getting ahead of themselves. A friend told me to marry her, move wherever, and let Mom and my sister fight to the death, or whatever women under the same roof do.

Mom says that she would rather die on her own than move in with her daughter and have my sister make her decisions.

My sister would eventually put my brother in a group home, where they would not take as good care of him as I will.

The professor has been remote-teaching from her parents' house in the Phoenix area and has authorization to continue for several months.

I don't understand why colleges are eager to resume teaching in-person. I absolutely don't see how having professors teach from their offices or even classrooms costs more than in-person, while schools usually charge extra for on-line classes.

I see comments that they need high-speed Internet for all of that streaming, but my classes had 60-450 people all using the Internet at once.

An article from 2014 says: "Online students aren't paying for facilities they aren't using because like at many other public universities, money for buildings comes from government funding, not tuition, he says." Why Online Education May Drive Down the Cost of Your Degree

Well, that is a complicating factor.

I don't know for how long the professor will be able to work remotely and what will happen with her, but I have preferences in both regards.

If I moved to the valley I could continue seeing all of my regular clients except for the one that attacks me constantly.

The SLP may pick her up. The SLP may not keep her and honestly, that may not make a big difference.

There is currently a house under contract a few miles from my sister for $340,000. It is a little bigger than Mom's house, on a decent lot, and looks vastly nicer.

I would need to earn $78,000 a year in order to make that much--triple my current pay.

If I started my own agency, paid my supervisor $150 an hour to supervise me, and maintained 9 clients a week, on top of my existing clients through that agency, I would make $78,000.

Can you imagine how much I wish I knew all of this before I decided to move to Page?

I don't know if I would be able to stay in the valley, but having Mom and my brother closer to our sister would help, and we should have a far easier time finding a provider for my brother.

Especially if I have my own agency and pay better than everyone else. The state pays:

$18.19 for attendant care,
$22.80 for habilitation, and
$17.55 for respite.

My agency pays:
Habilitation Providers - $14.75
Respite Providers - $12.50
Attendant Care Providers - $12.50

So, they make:
$5.05 per hour for respite,
$5.69 for attendant care, and
$8.05 for habilitation.

Or, let's say that I was authorized for 20 hours of attendant care, and 20 hours of habilitation. That would total: $819.80 weekly. Those services are defined as:

Habilitation services are for individuals that need assistance with working on outcomes that are described in an Individual Service Plan.

Respite services will provide short-term relief for the primary caregiver. These services can be provided any time of the day or evening that the caregiver requests for. The certified habilitation worker will come and help the individual meet their outcomes in the home or community.

Attendant Care is provided to help an individual with their personal hygiene, assist in dressing, and help with meals. Attendant care can be received in the home or out in the community.

https://www.familypartners.net/devel...community-care

[Xist]

I finally confirmed our regularly-scheduled appointment with the client in the group home for this afternoon and went to follow Boss's instructions for installing apps.

It supposedly takes 7-10 days for them to approve our request, although it would install on its own.

The app only shows 4 apps that they didn't put on my iPad and I don't want any of them. In fact, I don't want the ones they gave me!

It doesn't look like they allow us to reinstall the apps they originally gave us, in which case this child's plaything is useless.

They had given me the app that my brother has used for years. Mom paid $300, so if I decided that I need to buy my own iPad, the device itself would be the cheaper part!

BackMarket says this iPad Air 2 is their best one. It has a flash sale for the next 9 hours. They are charging $209 with 16 GB in very good condition.

Yet here is one with 64 GB for $193, although it is only in "Stallone" condition.

Screen: Good condition. No scratches visible when the screen is on.

Body: Fair condition. May have visible signs of use, with scratches and/or dents that can be felt.

Honestly, I don't care about something that kids will use. Nobody is going to think that I cheaped out, just that their kid isn't the first one to use this.

Mom is upset that she cannot use the Chase app on her iPad anymore. Apple stopped updating it and Chase requires a newer iOS than Apple allows, so I could buy this for Mom and use hers, with the $300 app, for therapy.

Meanwhile, I am supposed to see a client in 90 minutes, and I had always used my iPad for flashcards. I found an app for my phone, but I cannot hold it with two hands as easily.

I used to use my box of 156 flashcards, but he always managed to knock it to the floor.

If this client throws my phone I am dropping him!

I am going to look for my $35 RCA tablet. If I can get that to work and my client throws it, I will still drop him, but I wasn't using it anyway.

[Xist]

I drove down last week and stayed at the professor's parents' house. It was interesting. Her parents were great and the house was big and beautiful, but in as much need of repair as Mom's.

We had our second or third Zoom date tonight. A friend asked why we didn't just use Facebook.

We tried and it gave us all kinds of problems. We switched to Zoom and it worked great--at first, but the problems were more manageable.

Somehow ENMU figured out that I took some irrelevant classes at a community college fifteen years ago and required me to submit transcripts, which was a pain.

It turned out that the community college somehow messed up my name, but I forgot how.

I squared away ENMU, submitted transcripts to the clearinghouse, and then the clearinghouse said "You attended the community college? You need to tell us about that."

My ENMU transcripts say:
1. I attended fifteen years ago.
2. I didn't take many classes.
3. The classes that I did take had nothing to do with speech therapy.

The clearinghouse told me that my grad school applications were incomplete until I gave them the information (they already had) on the irrelevant community college that I attended fifteen years ago that didn't matter.

I received that e-mail while I was talking to the professor. It seemed like each time that I remembered I was either working or talking to the professor. I wanted to give her my full attention, but I also wanted to knock out this before it was too late.

The clearinghouse gave me three options for requesting transcripts and gave me instructions for each:

1. Find Mesa Community College.
2. Have transcripts sent to the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Science and Disorders.
3. Give them this super secret code. Don't give it to anyone!

None of them showed Mesa Community College. I checked each twice. When I searched for "Mesa" it showed places without Mesa anywhere.

They weren't in Mesa, either.

However, I happened to see that one showed Maricopa Community College.

Mesa is a city in Maricopa County.

I selected that, it asked which community college, and I selected Mesa.

I couldn't find an option to send to the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Science and Disorders, but eventually I found the Communication Sciences and Disorders Centralized Application Service.

Somehow those two are affiliated, so I chose that.

It never asked for the super secret code, which I wrote down because I was told I would need it.

It had me read the terms and conditions for a mandatory $5 transaction. Then it asked if I wanted to attach a file (probably not). I selected No and it said "You totally need to attach a file."

What file? Why?

At this point I had three separate tabs open for one simple task, but none of them mentioned attaching a file, so I made a text file that just had my super secret code.

It said that it wanted my signature. It wanted me to sign with my mouse, but my signature never comes out the way that I want with a pen. My signature with a mouse looks like a drunk kindergartener tried to sign with the wrong hand and had a seizure.

I have an image of my signature, so I found it, but it wanted me to sign a PDF, so I clicked on the button to receive it by e-mail.

It never arrived. I tried multiple times.

However, I did receive an e-mail that my request failed because I did not attach a file.

So, I clicked on "Print, Sign, Scan, and Submit" even though that was obviously stupid, so I wasn't going to.

I saved as PDF and signed it with a program. I tried to upload it, but it said that was un unsanctioned filetype, I needed to use a GIF, PNG, TIFF, or JPEG.

So I exported to PNG, obviously the best.

"That is un unsanctioned filetype. You need to use a GIF, PNG, TIFF, or JPEG."

I tried all four twice each and it gave me the same error. The professor suggested changing the filename and it accepted.

I think that it couldn't handle dashes, but I have had programs give me that error. This didn't.

Apparently it had worse programmers.

It took ninety minutes to figure out all of this because:

It showed the wrong name for the sender.
It showed the wrong name for the recipient.
It specified the filetype, but not in\valid characters in the filename.

We have had better dates!

[Xist]

The clearinghouse showed one last university (somewhere in Texas) that was still accepting applications. Their website gave poor and questionable directions about doing everything through the clearinghouse. They had a second application, but it was a 2-page PDF that they could have done through the clearinghouse. Allegedly it was fillable. They said so many times, but only the last part, where you list the relevant classes that you took. So I used my PDF editor, but that required creating dozens of text boxes, and I thought that it looked unprofessional having everything misaligned horizontally and vertically. I had over half an hour, so I started lining up everything, and lost track of time.

Nuts!

[Xist]

I mentioned a teletherapy job opening somewhere. It is a clinic affiliated with the autism school up here that stopped all therapy services two years ago, while insisting they provide everything all of the time to everyone. Since it said teletherapy I thought I would suggest they ask the school if any students need speech therapy and then the state would pay them about 50% more.

Instead, they had someone leave with 30 clients, and they only want someone to fill that spot.

Three lies:
"Temporarily remote"--all in-clinic
"From $30 an hour"--$30 hourly regardless of experience and qualifications.
"Lexington Therapy Services is looking to hire an enthusiastic and highly motivated SLPA who is looking for a rapidly growing company that continues to add therapy services to our outpatient clinics, in-home services, and school based therapy programs"--No, clinic only, even though they don't provide therapy in-schools.

The interviewer really only asked 2 questions:
Are you going to hit on all of our female employees?
How desperate are they?!

How soon are you going to move?
For a teletherapy position?
That was when I discovered lie #1.

Thirty clients at $30 an hour would pay significantly more than I am currently getting, but with my two latest clients, who are just Base Rate, I would earn 73.7% as much--working one-third as many hours.

Those additional 20 hours each week would earn me $157.87--$7.89 hourly.

I am not abandoning my family for less than $8 an hour!

I happened to check local job openings before getting ready to see my girlfriend (but mostly work on my Accord). The local school district posted an SLPA opening again. I tried to apply last year, but they hired someone before I finished.

I guess that didn't work out!

I really should have asked my new supervisor for a letter of recommendation. Hopefully my old one still says nice things about me.

This only pays $29.395 annually, which isn't much more than I earned last year averaging 8 hours a week, but that is W-2, so it includes benefits and retirement.

Hopefully I could get a benefits waiver like Page offered. Had the VA acknowledged that I had coverage I could have saved $500 a month, not that the VA coverage is great.

Huh.

I was sick 4 times the winter of 2019-2020. I was sick 1 time the winter of 2020-2021.

Maybe if I work with kids 50 hours a week I would want good benefits, but then again, I don't remember being sick in Page.

I didn't use any sick days!

Anyway, I just need to finish finding documents, request my 39-month driving record, submit, and then get ready to drive down.

[JSH]

"I was sick 4 times the winter of 2019-2020. I was sick 1 time the winter of 2020-2021.

Maybe if I work with kids 50 hours a week I would want good benefits, but then again, I don't remember being sick in Page.

I didn't use any sick days!"

The first and last statement go hand in hand. In 2020 / 2021 COVID made it socially unacceptable to go to work when sick. Prior to that most people just went to work sick and got other people sick. Why burn a day off to be miserable at home? In 2020 - for the first time ever - I saw managers send sick employees home and tell them to stay home until they were recovered.

Even my manager - who is notorious for coming to work sick - stayed home when he was sick last year.

[Xist]

I only ever remember using one sick day--for any purpose--and I was legitimately sick. When I came in the next day the administrative assistant said "You sounded horrible on the phone!"

I wasn't even trying!

Sometimes my voice sounds worse the first thing in the morning, though.

People were implying that my body started to fall apart when I turned 40. Sick 3 times in 3 months sounded better than 4 times in 5 months.


I did need to work while sick in the Army. I hope that changed in the last year, too.

[redpoint5]

Happy birthday?

I'll be 40 this year too. My body started breaking down when I was 30 and I questioned if I'd ever walk again due to a pinched nerve in my back. 2 months and 30 lbs of unintentional weight loss later I regained function and climbed Mt. Rainier.

I'm in much worse shape now with no excuse other than having a kid and being slightly depressed/unmotivated with Covid protocols.

[ME_Andy]

I started taking a resveratrol supplement recently. Would recommend it.

[Xist]

That was from March of 2019.

I did two sets of 50 push-ups on Wednesday and Friday. I may be old, overweight, and unable to chase down an ice cream truck...

A taco truck wouldn't stand a chance, though.