Giveaway: My Memories Suite Scrapbooking Software

A few months ago I wrote this blog about the loss of my husbands' memories due to his traumatic injuries sustained from his service is Iraq. One way that I have been documenting our memories is through scrapbooking. I have some friends in the area that love to scrapbook too and we got together last month for a whole weekend of scrapbooking. Keeping our memories fresh in his mind is extremely important to us.

When My Memories Suite contacted me about offering this software for free to one of my readers I jumped on the opportunity. Even though only one person will win this amazing scrapbooking software, they are offering those that didn't win a discount on the downloadable software. Use this Share the Memories code STMMMS46189 that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value! What a great discount for all my amazing readers!

I had personally never scrapbooked via computer before so I was excited to check it out. I was thrilled when I saw the Military themed album and downloaded it immediately.

The software is easy to navigate and I created a new page layout within ten minutes of using it. I like the fact that it is easy to crank out the pages and it didn't take me a long time to create one page. Not to mention I didn't have scraps of paper lying around, glue under my nails, wasted time looking for the perfect paper or suffered paper cuts from creating a page.

I also loved that I could attach a song to my layout and can combine it with other pages I made to make a DVD. I could share my combined layouts at parties we have celebrating how far he has come since his injuries.

To enter to win the My Memories Suite scrapbooking software you must complete one or all of these steps by March 15, 2012:
1. Like me on Facebook and comment there to enter to win.
2. Tweet about this giveaway and be sure to mention me in your tweet.
3. You can even follow My Memories for extra entries to the contest.
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4. Comment on this blog post to enter.

Good luck and happy scrapping.

Benefit Halted

Here we go again. Bryan’s combat related special compensation payment for January never arrived. We waited and hoped it was a little bit behind due to the holidays but when Bryan finally called we learned they had stopped the payment. This benefit covers the cost of his hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment and several other bills every month. We received no notice that it was stopping. Bryan receives this benefit because his combat injuries were not considered severe enough to grant him a medical retirement.  Instead, he receives this monthly amount as sort of a reduced retirement check. When he asked why the payments were stopped they said, “Because the VA sent a letter saying your rating was reduced and you only have sleep apnea.”
Last time I checked, he was blown up and his rating hasn’t been reduced.

About five months ago his case manager at the VA called to check on us and said he was listed in the system with only one condition, sleep apnea. I contacted the person she told me to contact to get his entire rating put in the system but I never heard back. I contacted his Federal Recovery Coordinator (FRC) and his VA case manager and made them aware of the situation. I asked CRSC if we could just send his entire award letter to them but they said no because the VA said it changed and the letter needed to come to the VA.

Both case managers have been trying to resolve the issue. We appreciate the help so much but at this point we are still waiting. It takes a long time to get things resolved within a government organization, so we are trying to be patient and hope the payment will resume next month.  It would have been nice if CRSC had given us a heads up and then we could have resolved the issue with the help of our hard working case managers, but we were given no warning. This is a random glitch and I have no idea which VA center sent the letter. In their system the entire award letter has now been inputted but we need a letter sent to CRSC saying it is the same.

I was hoping 2012 would be a year without worrying about benefits or evaluations but I need to just assume this is par for the course. We will get it resolved eventually thanks to our case workers but my patience and our budget is wearing thin.