Tag: family

What Is Going On With My Life

The past six days were packed with events, and I do not even know where to start.  

It all started when Vlad mentioned that he would come to Chicago to celebrate his (and Anna’s) 30th birthday. Their birthday is on August 23, and Vlad told us that he would have a party on August 29. When I mentioned it to Boris, he said he would try to come, but he had two conferences right before that (ending August 26) and some dental work scheduled for September 1. When he told me he could only come for three days, I told him that it’s not worth it. He replied to the effect that it is important “for the kids,” and I backed up :). I told him, though, that it will be very hectic. And that’s how it was! 

And as if it was not enough, I had an “extra bonus” of an extremely long and tiring discussion with the Russian translator of our book. This story probably deserves a separate blog post, but for now, I will say that it took a lot of time which could be spent more joyfully. I was running on four hours of sleep again, and then the family weekend was here. I promised the translator that I will deliver a final review over the weekend, and since I had zero time during the day, I ran on four hours of sleep for several more days.

The time spent with my girls was such fun, though! The four days were packed with activities and kept everybody, including me, very busy.

And four days before the party Vlad called me and said that he is going to propose to Dylon before the party! And then, he planned a lunch with the family on Monday.

And we had another million activities with the girls, and I took two days off work while already having a backlog :). 

To summarize: I am very happy, very tired, and very sleep deprived 🙂

Vlad and Dylon are engaged!

instagram.com/stories/vladislovingit/2651122523154733922

The Health Coverage

Mom received the approval letter for the Illinois Health Choice program, and I still can’t believe it’s all over! Too good to be true.

It was a ridiculously complicated process, and if it weren’t for Igor, nothing would happen.

From the first day in the US, mom used Access To Care, which is a charity to provide routine healthcare for those who, for any reason, are not eligible for Medicaid. or any other insurance. This program operates in Northwest suburban Cook county. When I told mom’s doctor that we are moving, she said they also cover Evanston and Rogers Park. But it turned out that our zip code is not eligible, and we had to look for alternatives.

After some research, Igor found that program mom could be eligible for: the program for older immigrants who spent less than 5 years in the US and are not yet eligible for Medicare. 

 I tried to submit my mom’s application online. Still, I got weird errors, and I had no time to continue during work hours when we could get customer assistance. 

So Igor spent two hours of his time to complete and submit her application. Later, however, she received a letter that they need her proff of income and some other proof of her status. With her income, it was interesting because we could only provide a statement from a Russian bank (in rubles), but that was all we had. Not relying on the mail, Irog went to their office and dropped the copies.

A week passed, and nobody called back. When a financial counselor from the emergency room called me, I explained the situation. She said she would follow up with the office. Only after that, the Health office called me back and asked what roubles mean and what’s the exchange rate!  

Ten days later, mom got yet another letter asking for proof of status. Since we already sent it twice, I called the office and left a message. They returned my call the next day, looked through mom’s file, and said: oh yes, she has everything! And proof of residence! You

are all good. 

So what it was, I have no idea, but yesterday, mom finally received a welcome letter! She has a doctor assigned, and this doctor is a ten-minute walk from her home! And this State program is tons better than what she had before!

Visiting Michigan

Over the weekend, I was at the beach house of my son-in-law’s family. His mother was trying to organize this trip for a very long time, and each time, something didn’t work. We finally made it, and I was also able to convince my mom to go. The weather was absolutely perfect- very warm and sunny, but not too hot. There is a real forest surrounding the house, and the water is as clean as it can be. Of course, that also meant more time with Anna, John, and the girls.

Continue reading “Visiting Michigan” →

Last Night

Yesterday was the last day Boris was here, and it was one of the most productive days of his stay. Even though he had to leave to the airport at 6 PM, and even though we slept a little bit (by my standards :)), we did a lot! It would be a great day, except it ended with my mom on her first trip to the emergency room.

Igor took her to Devon market for shopping, and somehow she tripped on something on the floor and fall just the moment Igor looked away in search of the shopping cart. She had serious bleeding on the left side of her face. Somebody got her a bandaid, and she even continued shopping; however, she felt lightheaded. When Igor called me, I told him we need to take her to the emergency room to check for a concussion. It ended up alright: the nearest 24-hour emergency was not far away, and we didn’t even have to wait long. She got a CT scan, and she had no concussion, and the doctor put pain-relieving patches on her back and chest where she said it hurt and a stitch on her face. But even with everybody being very efficient, we left the hospital at 11 PM and had to wait for Uber and then drop her off first, and then me.

I am glad we took her to emergency and that I do not have to worry for days whether it could be a concussion, so I won’t even say that I planned that evening differently 🙂

A Visit To Shedd Aquarium

On Saturday, we all went to Aquarium. 

For many years, I had a family Aquarium membership, but when the kids were grown up and gone, I witched to the individual one, occasionally bargaining for a pair of extra free tickets. When I realized in May that the Aquarium is reopening and that now it would be much easier for Anna’s family to visit, I decided to upgrade the membership back to the Family level. My individual membership expiration date was September 30, and I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem to upgrade earlier.

It turned out that it was a big problem! There was no way to pro-rate the membership. There were only two options: either to pay the full year of upgraded memberships right away, only for it to expire on September 30, or to wait till September 30 and upgrade then. I could not even “annul” the current membership because “two memberships at the same time are not allowed.” An additional complication was that they already took my money before realizing that they can’t do what I asked them to do :).

I was on the calls with them four times until I finally decided to take the September 30 upgrade. Also, they gave me two complimentary adult tickets and ticketed Nadia as a Chicago resident 🙂

That way, on Saturday, we all went to Aquarium pretty much for free:).

It was so-so-so good to be in Aquarium after such a long break!

Continue reading “A Visit To Shedd Aquarium” →

On The Positive Side: The Birthday Party

Believe it or not, but the presents arrived at 5-30, Anna and & Family returned from the beach at the same time, and Igor and mom came shortly after. I locked myself in my bedroom to wrap the presents while my mom tried to get in and ask whether the presents arrived :).
I’ve got a dozen plastic cups filled with cherries and made two fruit bowls, and secured the candles “1” and “4” in the respective bowls.

The party turned out amazing. I was just thinking about the water balloons, but the neighbor kids were ahead of me and had a whole bucket of them ready:)

There was a balloon fight, and I told them it’s OK to throw balloons at me (I needed to cool down:)). Igor also offered himself as a target, and John smashed water balloons in his fist and threw them back. Also, one of the party items I bought out of desperation appeared to be the greatest hit: the tiny tubes of sparkling body gels! The girls covered themselves in sparkles, and I let them paint all parts of my body not covered with clothes 🙂

Then, a neighbor who is a mother of three girls observed the battleground covered with tiny colorful pieces of rubber and suggested the contest: who will pick up most of the pieces will get the prize! The girls rushed to all corners of the courtyard, and in a matter of minutes, the courtyard was clean. We decided that the race was tight, and everybody got an extra cupcake 🙂

On The Positive Side: At The Beach

I can’ recall being at the beach at 9-30 in the morning since I was 5 years old:). It was great; the beach was empty when we came, and there were waves, and sun, and the water was clean, and everything was perfect

How Many Things Can Go Wrong :)

I will try to catch up on all the things that happened since Thursday because I had no time to write about anything.

It was a birthday week for both of my granddaughters; Kira turned one on Jun 15, and Nadia turned four on Jun 19. The plan was that all the family would come on Thursday afternoon, we would spend the rest of the day on the beach. Then, we planned tons of activities for Friday and Saturday, and we had tons of fun, although the record number of things went wrong:)

First, due to several reasons, they left later, and then hit the rush hour traffic and then came to my place too late to go to the beach.

Nadia, Anna, and I went to the beach on Friday morning while John stayed at home and Kira had her nap, and the beach was awesome. We came to the beach a little bit after nine and were among the first visitors. The water warmed up during the previous several days, and a little bit later, it warmed up even more.
We spent more than two hours at the beach, and Nadia still didn’t want to go home.

After that, things started to fall apart. We planned a birthday party in the courtyard, and I sent an email to the neighbors to come and celebrate with us on Friday at 6-45. One thing I can’t bake is cupcakes, so I ordered mini cupcakes from Vanille Chicago, my favorite patisserie (I blogged a lot about them previously). It turned out that now that I live in the city, I can order delivery, and delivery is free for orders over $50! Yay! I ordered delivery on Thursday because we didn’t plan to be at home most of the day on Friday, and that was the only thing that went perfectly well – the cupcakes were delivered to my doorsteps when promised, and they were flawless.

I ordered both my and mom’s presents from IKEA because they have the best toys ever, and I did it two and a half weeks in advance. They said the parcel would be delivered on Monday, June 14, but it was not, and nothing appeared on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they sent me tracking information with delivery by the end of day Wednesday. The next morning, they changed it for delivery by the end of Thursday, and you guess what happened then… Now, the question was whether the presents will arrive before the party…
In addition, Anna realized that she forgot all the party supplies at home, so we had to buy something instead. I wanted to maximize their time at the beach, so I insisted that I go to Target and pick up the party supplies. Anna told me what she had in mind, but Target was almost out of everything. I spent some time figuring out what I should buy instead (everything worked great in the end), and then I walked to the CTA station thinking whether I should go to Jewel Osco or go back and join the family at the beach. Suddenly, I saw the message from my ecobee saying that my air condition seems not operating properly, which meant that I had to go home and see what’s up.

It turned out that the A/C was indeed not working, which was a problem with 84F outside and having five people and one dog sleeping in the house. Also, my co-worker who lives nearby just texted me that he is coming to visit and see the girls.

I returned home, let him in, and called the Heating and A/C service, which we used before. It was already after 4 PM and Friday, and I knew they do not work after-hours and weekends, so when they didn’t return my call, I realized I needed to find an emergency service.

So here I was, at 5 PM, googling the emergency AC repair, having Anna & Family at the beach, my co-worker in my house, presents didn’t arrive, my mom and Igor calling and asking when they can come, party supplies not unpacked and dinner for seven people not even started, not even mentioning the fruit plates which I planned to make for the girls instead of the birthday cupcakes!

Today

Way too many things happened today, good and bad, but overall the goodness outweighs the badness 🙂 And the day ended perfectly with Anna taking me out for a drink and dessert :).