The New Adventures of James and Amber

So its been a while... James and I have both experienced unemployment and reemployment in the past year or so. Ho-ray! well sort of. I now have a job that I am excited about and James is going to college. It isn't much but I feel like we might be on the right track for the first time in a while.

Here's to a great 2011. I can't wait to see what the new year brings.

Healthcare

I know we are all talking about healthcare. I had a thought today while eating lunch with a co-worker. Why, oh why are our lawmakers trying to change the whole healthcare system all at once? Wouldn't it be better to fix one problem at a time? Maybe we should just focus on helping those who are so called un-insurable. Make healthcare available to everyone. And when I say available I mean make it possible for them or their employer to purchase. We also need to encourage those who are insurable to purchase insurance.

Once everyone can get coverage we can move on to making the insurance that people have work better. Meaning that the care people need is covered without bankrupting the patient's family. I don't know exactly how to do this, I am not an expert in insurance payments or healthcare. My common sense tells me that there are experts out there, patients, insurance billing specialists, hospital administrators and doctors with relevant experiences. It seems like we are relying on our lawmakers to solve this problem but they are not experts nor are their aids. I believe they are probably asking for help but only ceremoniously. There has to be a way for these experts to come together in a meaningful way to help solve this problem.

Now that everyone can get coverage and it is taking care of the needs of patients we can work on getting the country healthier. I'm talking preventative maintenance. We do it for our cars why not our bodies. Lets reward people for going to their physicals, having their teeth cleaned, going to the gym and eating right. We should also give people the tools to do this, access to information on good nutrition, good exercise habits and what is expected of them as patients.

We as Americans also need to take some personal responsibility in our own healthcare. The information is out there, we just need to go and find it. We need to ask questions of our doctors and do a little research. Make a commitment to eat veggies and take vitamins and exercise, even if it is just taking the dog for a walk. This is fixable. We just need to take it one step at a time.

What do you think?

New Year

So the new year brought a new job. I like it and hope it will become a permanent position soon. I also started running. I don't like it but I also hope it will become a permanent event in my days. I do like the way I feel and that I am sleeping really well. I also love my new iPhone holder too. James is working really hard to find a great new job.

I'm also very excited because my very good friend Andrea married our other good friends Jeremy last month. I can't wait for the reception. The new year has started out well and we are hoping that it will only get better.

James Is Home :)

I flew out to meet James in Napa this weekend and then we drove home to San Diego. He decided it was time to come home and felt he could make better progress here.

We are both ready to start planning for our future for the first time in a while. And I'm glad to have him home. Now we can share our summer adventures rather than just filling each other in each night.

What Owen Has Been Doing while Leo is Away

For those of you who know Owen, our Basset Hound, this will probably be no surprise. Owen has made some new friends while James and Leo are away. In this photo you will see Owen, Mya (that's the pit bull he has mounted) and Ollie. Ollie is a Boggle, half Beagle half Boston Terror. While at Andrea & Jeremy's housewarming party the dogs would chase each other around the yard... take turns being chased and playing games. The funny part is here you can see Owen has mounted Mya but that was usually not the end of it. Every time this happened Ollie would climb right behind Owen... Well you can imagine the laughs they were getting from the party guests. Dinner and a show! I tried a few times to get a picture of the three of them but this was the closest I got.
Its a good thing dogs can't look at the Internet; I think Owen might be either really embarrassed or really proud, not sure which.

A Birthday in Napa

I went up to meet James in Napa - Yountville to be exact - this weekend. It was my birthday and what better way to spend it than with my husband. I flew to San Francisco with Leo (the bulldog). What I trip. We have flown with Leo before but it is different doing it alone. I think I know what a parent traveling with a young child feels like now. There is a lot of stuff to cart around, a lot of this and that to take off and put on. Security was tons of fun. Mostly it was smooth, we even got to sit in the front row so Leo had more room.

I got up there on Friday and promptly took a nap. (I know its funny, I went to Napa and took a nap... haha. Thank you Uncle Sean) I had just come off of two straight weeks at work, traveling to New Jersey and back, working three full days at a trade show and then working the second week. I was totally on auto pilot the whole week before I went to Napa.

We ate some great food in Napa. The first night we went to Bottega (www.botteganapavalley.com) where James said he had the best food he's had since leaving Italy. Mine was wonderful too and the chocolate souffle was, well lets just say, oooohhhh. On Saturday we went to the Napa Grill (www.napavalleygrille.com). The dessert there was out of this world. It was a take on a snickers bar, chocolate mouse with nuts and caramel and some butter cream - yum. I was surprised when I looked them up online to find that they also have a location here in San Diego!

Surprise, surprise there was also some good wine over the weekend! My favorite was a sparkling wine from Mumm Napa (www.mummnapa.com). James and I both love sparkling reds from Italy, known as Frizzante in the Calabria region but they are all but impossible to find in the states. They are tart and frutie with just enough sweetness. Well, I finally found a few that compare. I can't wait to get the bottles in the mail.

We visited a few wineries, Mumm, Beringer (www.beringer.com), which has a lot of history and has been producing since before prohibition and right through, and another that had a reserve room where the owner displays his extensive collection of photography including Ansel Adams! It was a lot of fun. We were escorted by a very helpful woman named Sally who works at the Yountville Visitors Center and who spends a lot of time keeping of some of the Veterans who live at the Vets Home in Yountville company. She got us some great discounts too!

As James says we "Chillaxed" on Sunday just sat around a lot with his "Old Guys". Yes James calls them "His Old Guys". They are a group of mostly Viet Nam era vets who sit around near the little lunch counter scratching lottery tickets, drinking beer and smoking. They have a lot of stories but mostly talk about nothing in particular. I got to know most of them over the weekend. They are all good company for James and Leo.

All in all it was a low key birthday but a good one. And a big Thank You to Andrea and Jeremy for taking care of Owen! I did miss him while I was gone.

James & His Scooter

James Got a Scooter... It is a Honda Ruckus. It is really very funny to see him scooting all around town. He loves it, it gets 107 miles per gallon!! Can you believe 107 mpg? Well I'll have to take a pic of him on it. He has added a black milk crate behind the seat and some mesh to fill in the space under the seat so that he has some storage. He is now very happy to go to the store almost any time I ask!
Just though you might like to know. I'll really have to post a pic of him on it with his riding jacket, helmet and bright orange vest.