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If you haven’t heard of pet insurance and/or you don’t have a pet, you may think it sounds crazy. I know I did! However, our veterinarian’s office had a brochure for VPI Pet Insurance, and after looking at the costs, we signed up for this when we first got our labradoodle, Abby. I am about to renew for the third time, as we have really found their services beneficial. They do not pay as high a percentage of overall costs as “people insurance,” but we have appreciated that we get some reimbursement for minor or routine things (shots, exams, etc.). Plus, we don’t have to worry so much when the unexpected injury comes up – for example, when our toddler threw a fast ball at Abby’s eye from about three feet away. VPI allows us to use any vet, so there was no problem when we had to take Abby to the emergency vet after that little fiasco.

When we first got the policy, some fellow pet owners were asking me if the reimbursements kept up with the policy costs, and I was wondering that myself, so I did a little comparison, and I thought I’d share it with you.

As you can see, we have never made our money back, but I also didn’t realize until 2008 that they covered flea medication and some other handy things (included with the preventative care rider). Costs vary by breed and age of the animal, but I have so far found the extra money (i.e. premium costs that we didn’t make back in reimbursement) to be well worth the peace of mind in the event that Abby has major medical issues at any point. If you should decide to get their insurance, make sure to tell them Krista Ehlers sent you… and I’ll try not to spend my $5 all in one place.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Title: Sanity Secrets for Stressed-Out Women
Author: Sue Augustine
Summary: I judged it by the cover: a book recommending bubble baths had to have good stress-relief tips, and it did.

This book begins with the quote: “Some mornings it seems hardly worth the effort to take the cat off your face,” and I could tell it was the book for me! Sue Augustine approaches stress-reduction with practicality and a sense of humor, and I found many useful tips in this book. She certainly hit the old stand-bys (eat right, exercise…) which I usually find singularly unhelpful. That is, when I am stressed out, I don’t have time to exercise and cook, so I tend to do fast food and skip workouts. Thus, when I hear these recommendations, I just think, “Come on! Give me something I can use…”

However, her book is designed for people like you and I – people who may be so stressed, they can’t read an entire book: we need relief and we need it now! She organized the book around 25 “secrets” to reduce stress, with one chapter covering each secret. This way, you can skip right to the chapter that makes sense for you, whether it be “simplify your life” or “celebrate the joys of aging.” If a whole chapter feels like too much, skip to the end of the chapter and read the bulleted list of tips for that topic: you will still get the benefit. In addition, she wrote a number of sections called “the first resort,” in which she points out how to rely on your faith in God to reduce stress, and not as a last resort.

The last section of the book provided a new way to look at stress, and was very valuable. Augustine notes that stress is often caused by how we perceive circumstances, and describes a cycle of stress: (1) Event, (2) Thoughts about the event, (3) Self-talk, (4) Emotional response, and (5) Physical response (i.e. stress). Thus, we can interrupt the stress cycle at any point after the event occurs. She offers a formula called “CPR” – Circumstance + Perception = Result. If we challenge our automatic perceptions, manage how we talk to ourselves about events, and give our emotions only the appropriate amount of weight, we can actually reduce our stress even in the same circumstances that normally cause us problems. (more…)

Popularity: 5% [?]