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03/31/2009: "What credit crunch?"

I don't even want to try to explain why it's been so long since I updated, OK? I mean, I am totally out of excuses. It's a sad day when even I know I am out of excuses, and also maybe a jubilant one, because, you know, you don't have to listen to my excuses. That's gotta be worth something, right?

But I actually have a treat! For you! (Go with me on this)

See, last August I lost my credit card (this may not sound like the best start to a story, but stay with me). This credit card was a mileage card that I got set up with when I was working in high tech. I was going on my first business trip and the company arranged for a "corporate" credit card that gave me airline mileage benefits. I was 24 and thought it was the height of glamor. Whatever.

The odd thing was that the card became my Go To Card. I shifted from writing checks to using the card. I was well-trained in the Art of Credit and never used it for anything I couldn't pay for with cash if I so chose, but even so I used it for everything. Groceries, clothes, fast food... everything. And my father used the card number too, so I got miles for stuff he bought. He charged airline tickets, hotels, cruises, computers... just about every big purchase he made for a few years he charged to my card so I'd get the miles. He was good for it (he was the one who taught me the Art of Credit, after all) so it was never a problem.

I used those miles, too. Dave and I flew first class to Disney World on those miles. I visited Brat in Missouri on free miles. For a couple of years we didn't pay out of pocket for airline tickets because of that credit card. Between my Dad and I, we racked up the miles and I used those suckers.

And then I stopped traveling so a mileage card didn't make as much sense. I was still getting the miles but when I got pregnant I knew I wouldn't be using them any time soon. When I lost the card last summer, I figured somebody was trying to send me the message that I thought I'd heard anyway - "Kristin, get thee a Disney Rewards Credit Card". Because, really, between me being me and me having a child? Disney rewards are a gimme.

What I didn't anticipate was how hard it would be to cancel my lost card.

Oh, it was extremely easy to report the thing lost. Piece of cake. But afterwards they sent me a new one that I didn't actually want because it had an annual fee (why pay that?) and I don't like having a bunch of credit cards (see Art of Credit, above). I just wanted to be left alone with my shiny new Disney Rewards credit card. Alone. A. Lone.

No can do.

I called to cancel the airline card in September. The nice young man who was probably in another country, in an attempt to keep me as a customer, credited back a late fee I was going to dispute anyway, credited back the annual fee and gave me 3000 free miles if only I would keep my card. How could I argue? Fine, I'll keep the card. For a while. I put a note on my calendar to call in 8 weeks to cancel again.

2 months later - in November, after the economy had tanked - I called again. The next nice young man I talked to ("Honestly, all I want to do is cancel this credit card. I thought there was a credit crunch!" "Yes, there is. Which is why you want to keep a card with such a high credit limit! What if you need that money!?" "But I would never USE $29,000 in credit! EVER!") gave me another monetary credit, another thousand miles and begged me to remain a cardholder.

I am almost ashamed to admit I did. But I did.

He also told me that I could use my miles (85,000 of them by that point...) to buy merchandise from their website. And so it was, last month, that I remembered this and recalled that I was going to be charged again for the annual fee. Before that fee was charged, I figured I'd use up my miles on something nifty from their website and then cancel the card for good. Really, this time. Honestly. For true.

Sort of.

I did, in fact, use up as many of the mileage points as I possibly could. I got a set of kitchen containers that I'd been coveting (I know. I am a real swinger, huh?) but... but... but...

... then I got THIS!

For FREE (well, for mileage, but... same thing).

Maybe it doesn't look like much to you, but I am SO thrilled. This camera is so full of features that I will be DEAD before I learn how to use everything. It is a ridiculously advanced camera for me. And the most thrilling thing of all is that it takes pictures in focus, of things I find important and without a gigantic Dark Background of Doom, which my old cheap Kodak did. Additionally, every picture I take of Dessa, with flash or without it, does NOT result in her squinching up her eyes because of the worst red eye reduction flash in the Western Hemisphere. I think Kodak contracted for that - "Oh, hey can we get the shittiest flash ever made?", "Sure thing! Here ya go!". It was like it was trying to screw up my pictures.

I have been playing with the new camera since it arrived last Friday. I'm still learning the fifty squillion things it can do - see Will Die Before Learning Them All, above. But I'm already really happy with the results.



I took this one from the far side of the backyard. The zoom on this camera makes me swoon.



Here is a picture of Dessa trying to walk in Mommy's shoes. It is my child trying to walk in my shoes, which, regardless of the quality of the picture, makes me swoon. The kid kills me.



We're actually doing things in our backyard this year, and Dave's heading up the effort by cleaning out the planter. We have a bunch of pepper plants (7, to be exact. What we will do with a crop that large I cannot imagine but it's cheaper than buying the damn things. They are CRAZY EXPENSIVE in the store!), tomatoes (um... yeah. 8 of those plants. Do not ask me what I plan to do with 8 tomato plants. In January I distinctly remember sternly reminding myself that FOUR was way too many but then the plants came in a pack and I got carried away), 3 zucchini (why stop at one?), a crookneck, and so many herbs I better not even start to list them.

My point is that Dessa was helping Daddy check out sprinkler parts in the above picture. She is so helpful in the yard.

Yeah. Right. Moving on.

Dessa is so very helpful that we need to restrain her. My cousins gave us a pop up playhouse for the yard and we got to use it for the first time this weekend. The thing folds down into a 2' x 2' packet with a carry bag and sets up in seconds.



Dessa had a good time with it. I'd picked up a deck chair just her size and set it inside, then gave her a book. She thought that was sort of neat.



One can only hope that the upcoming warm months provide good photo ops, fun in the yard and a bumper crop of peppers and tomatoes. It's the least I can hope for.

P.S. - I still have the damn credit card. It's now been dropped to a card with no annual fee. I still have the insane credit limit though, which I have to think screws up my credit rating somehow. The hilarious thing was that once the rep convinced me to change to this "new" card with no fees he asked me if I thought I'd use it more often since I haven't used that card ONCE since I've been trying to cancel it. "Probably not," I replied, "But I guess it's OK to have."

If I call to cancel it tomorrow, I wonder what they'll offer me. Anyone wanna make a bet?