For years I have heard from Mom about her big box of papers she has accumulated, primarily health insurance paperwork, and needs to have it addressed. Usually when I am visiting Mom doesn't permit me, ahem, to handle any projects at her house, saying I am so busy. Actually I am not, or I wouldn't be watching reruns of "NCIS" or her other favorite programs. At last, I got permission to shred her papers.
The first order of business was to garner permission from the insurance company as regards these papers. I called the number on the card and after several false starts or restarts, finally got hold of a person. I had to answer many questions before she told me my name wasn't on the list of those they could talk to about my mom's health insurance. Mom was right there and yelled, "It's okay!" and I jumped in with saying, "All she wants to know is how long to keep EOBs." Immediately the lady relaxed and we visited like old friends. She said Mom has been with them since 2006 and I said we had every single one of those EOBs yet. She said to shred away! The ones that come in the mail should be used to verify that patient saw the doctor on this date, etc. and can then be disposed of. If questions arise later, both the doctor and the insurer have copies of the form. That's all I needed to hear, and away I went!
For about two hours I fed paperwork into the shredder, filling four bags with shredded paper. The fifth bag in the photo is household trash also ready to get hauled out. Some of the items in the box, an archive box, was dated from 2005, but the rest was 2006 to last year. Thankfully Mom does not have all that many doctor visits or it would have been twice that amount of paper. One less thing for Mom to think about, the box is now empty!
We also visited her bedroom closet where I looked at her slacks and tops to see what colors of pants she needs. Having such skinny legs makes it hard for her to find dressy slacks to fit properly so I wanted to see what tops she had to match things up. She can use about any of the standard colors to pull her outfits together. It sure would help if she could buy complete outfits when she shops but ordinarily buys the slacks one time, and a top later, not necessarily coordinating. Jill said they should make clothes for older folks like they do for toddlers, Garanimals, so they could mix 'n match. Makes sense to me, too!
For dinner, Mom opted to stay in while Lynn, Jill, and I went The Green Street Tavern. While there we saw our 'old' neighbor, now called Ed (Jr. to me!) before being seated. The owner of the place greeted me, welcomed me back from FL. That is so cool! Lynn and I had the perch dinner but Jill had liver and onions (ewww!) plus we shared a plate of cheese curds. Somehow, we weren't able to polish them off. The soup which came with my meal I had packed to-go (cost me a quarter!) for Mom. As much as I like their soup, I knew it would make me too full and she'd enjoy it. I loved our evening out!
