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?
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/31/09 at 08:13 PM [link]

The Cookie Moon

I don't know if you've noticed, but this week we've been having some lovely full moon viewing very early in the morning. Daylight Savings Time, although one of my personal pet peeves, does have it's minor perks and one of them is that you can actually view the moon in the early morning hours, say around 6:45 am. That happens to be the time I bundle up the Pumpkin Seed and haul her over to my mom's for the day (I know! 6:45 is criminally early.)

Dessa recently took an interest in the moon and now when we spot it she cries out, "Oh! Cookie Moon!" in rapturous delight. Don't ask me - I have no idea where this cookie thing came from. We have no books that refer to the earth's major satellite as the Cookie Moon, so I assumed my mom did, but when I asked, no dice. We do have a book featuring Elmo in which the furry red monster corrects Cookie Monster with a stern, "The moon is not a cookie, Cookie Monster! It is made of rock!" but... really? Could she have made the jump? It seems like sort of a leap for a 21 month old. And a poetic one at that.

Wherever it came from, it is relentless. Our new morning game is to spot the Cookie Moon throughout the 15 minute drive to Mom's. (This comes on the heels of 'Look! A Bus!' and 'Where Balloon Go!?', both of which Dessa still plays but, being only a mere mother, I hardly ever anticipate correctly.). As we drive, Dessa eagerly scouts out the moon's location and when she finds it she howls, "I see!! A Cookie Moon!"

I play along as best I can. I point out the moon as it slides from behind tree lines and houses and when Dessa inquires about the location of the Cookie Moon, I encourage her to keep looking. If the moon is being coy I try to distract her with bus spotting. On moonless mornings I begin the alphabet song or begin counting to 10. These work less often ("Dessa, shall we count to 10? Let's count! One..." "No. No no no no no! Cookie Moon!" Sigh).

The Cookie Moon is poetic, but a little exhausting.

---

Last Saturday I had a craving for pizza. We've been working really hard to curb any and all unnecessary spending since it wasn't at all clear whether I would have a job next school year. Between the budget mess in California and the economy in general, we knew that cuts in education were coming and the possible loss of my position has been looming over my head for months. I haven't been teaching for that long, and my seniority (or lack thereof) made me a target.

We found out on Friday that my district will not have to make any teacher cuts this year. I'm surprised you didn't hear my sigh of relief, wherever you are. To celebrate, I untied the purse strings just a tiny bit and pizza was on the menu (the take-and-bake kind, mind you. It's very delicious, takes about the same amount of time as delivery and costs less than half, even when you factor in gas. The purse strings were untied a TINY bit, I said!) After ordering, I headed out to pick up some celebratory wine and then get the pizza.

When I got to the grocery store I happened to notice a woman about my age wheeling a cart with a baby girl about 15 or 16 months old. We exchanged smiles and I saw that the baby was looking a little tired. I got my Chardonnay, briefly considered additions to my shopping list, wandered around the deli section for a minute or two and then, sternly reminding myself to Stick To My List (a budget-friendly mantra that I've been working on heavily since the beginning of the year), headed to the check-out line.

Directly in front of me was the same woman I'd seen when I entered the store. This time, though, the baby was slung over her shoulder, out like the proverbial light. The woman was trying, with only a modicum of success, to get her groceries out of the cart with just one hand, simultaneously attempting not to jostle the baby awake.

"Let me help you," I said, putting down my basket and moving to get the last of her items out of the cart and onto the check-out belt. "Cuddle the baby."

She visibly relaxed. "Thank you so much," she started. "This is the first time she's ever fallen asleep in my arms like this when we've been out."

And suddenly I knew that woman. She was me. It was as clear to me as water. Here was a woman who'd waited a long time to have her child - through choice or circumstances or both - and this was her only child. I don't know exactly how I knew, but I knew.

"Is she your first?" I asked after the cart was emptied, to make conversation.

"My only," she replied with a sureness and a sadness.

It was only when I was back in the car driving home that I realized why I recognized this mother. It was the way she knew that this was the first time her daughter had fallen asleep in her arms that way. She was a mom paying extremely close attention to the details because she'd waited a long time for them. And she knew that those details weren't coming her way again.

I hope her daughter tells her about the Cookie Moon, too.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/12/09 at 08:46 AM [link]

This Is How It Begins

Since well before Dessa was born, my Aunt Bean has been pushing hard for the child to be an equestrienne. Mere days after the baby's birth, Bean could be heard whispering in her ear, "Say 'Pony' Dessa. Poooo-neeeee". By the time Dessa was 3 months old, Bean had supplied her with a rocking horse and the pressure has not let up since.

Sadly, Bean was not the only family member who had such high hopes for my girl.

Auntie AC was just as hopeful, but slightly more subtle in her work. And when I say slightly, I mean it in the slightest way possible. While Bean provided a ride-on horse whose mouth moved and who sang songs about being brushed under oak trees (I am NOT kidding here),

AC provided the real thing.



Of course, if Auntie Bean lived closer, my daughter would probably have been mounted on a horse before she reached her first birthday but (thankfully, I think), she's unavailable for such frightening feats. Auntie AC, on the other hand, lives pleasantly close by and keeps her horse at a completely accessible stable. Dessa has visited before but only this week has she really realized all the amazing and wonderful joys to be had at The Ranch.

The most inviting things at first were the puddles. See, on Thursday, my mom had brought Dessa out to the ranch to see the horses but we'd had rain (finally!) and there was some standing water. Dessa, being a child with unfailing ability to spot The Place She Must Not Go, ran right for the puddles. My mom did an admirable job keeping her out of the mud but Auntie AC, seeing a golden opportunity to get herself in good with Dessa, went out and got her some extremely fancy boots to wear at the ranch.

These boots were almost too fancy to use for mud, I have to tell you. I'm that sort of person. If I have rubber boots, I keep them for special occasions. I don't know where I would possibly need sparkly clean rubber boots, but I would think that I do.

Dessa, on the other hand, is under no such illusions.



She headed straight for the mud and delighted in standing the center of several puddles and stamping her brand new boots in them. She had a ball. I cannot tell you how much she enjoyed this. It was a riot.



The fun, however, was only just beginning. Auntie AC's horse, Howard, is... large. He is... sort of ridiculously large. He scares the living crap out of me, to tell you the truth, because he is ENORMOUS. And I don't mean he is huge compared to small things, like my daughter. He is huge compared to normally sized things, like cars and trees and adult sized people.



That picture is not taken on any sort of wonky angle and nobody is trying to make that horse look bigger than he is. You'd be stupid to try to make Howard look bigger than he is because he is already TREMENDOUSLY LARGE. AC and her trainer know him very well, however, and I trust them completely. I trust them so much that despite how overwhelmingly GIGANTIC that horse is, I allowed my tiny daughter to ride him.

She was held securely by her Auntie, of course. And the horse was being led by the trainer who puts up with No Horse Nonsense Whatsoever, Thank You. And the horse was very tired from being worked all afternoon. And honestly, I was actually OK with it because I know that nobody, Auntie AC especially, would put Dessa in any danger at all.



Still. Horses are big and Howard is HUGE and I am a mommy. I think I was very brave, don't you?



Things were very serious at first, and Dessa knew she was quite high off the ground. I wasn't sure if she would freak when the horse started walking, but she didn't at all. She was very into the whole thing.

There was only one problem with letting Dessa ride Howard. She didn't. Want. To get. Down. Oh, I was totally ready for the ride to be over because hey! all had gone well and she was having a good time, ok, let's get down now because Mommy is now 10 years older than when we started but... Dessa? Not so much. The hilarious part about Dessa's first ride was that she wasn't scared or freaked out at all - she was all smiles and totally into it and just as relaxed as could be (as shown here by The Cheesy Smile).



I, however, was ready to see my daughter on solid ground again.

We distracted her with puddles, of course.

When all was said and done, Dessa had had her first real ride on a horse and Auntie AC was thrilled to have made a horsewoman (horsegirl?) out of her at last. I suspect there will be lots of ranch time in Dessa's future. And I honestly think that's a good thing for everyone.

Thanks, Auntie AC, for boots and horses and a bright future at the ranch!


Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/01/09 at 10:16 PM [link]