Tuesday morning, April 5, 2011

Well, like always, the weekend off from work just flew by. It is always nice and enjoyable, but goes by way too fast. I wish I could make the week fly by fast, and then make the weekend just feel like it drags on. I wouldn't mind that too much. Thankfully I really didn't feel like I had a whole lot I absolutely "had" to do, mainly because I completed all my school work before the end of the week, which meant that I didn't have anything due for school over the weekend. I enjoy doing that because it allows me to focus my energy on relaxing and spending time with the family.

Sunday evening though, after I had gone skating with lex, omg, I must have gotten a good work out because I was laying on the couch half asleep for a few hours while we were all watching a movie together. Of course, I barely remember anything about that movie before I took it back to the redbox to turn it back in, but it was the fact that we were all together hanging out that mattered the most. Of course, while we were doing that, usually Zoe is constantly like "I want to watch MY show!" We are slowly getting her trained around to the point where we don't always have to watch what she wants to watch, but instead she is being more agreeable to hang out with us even if what we are watching is something she is not interested in. We have her new doll house that she got for her birthday down in the family room so that she can go over and play with it if she is bored with what is on tv.

On the to-do list: Erin told me tonight that ally and zoe's grandma (Betsy), said that getting ally a pair of roller skates for her birthday coming up at the end of april would be a great idea and that I should forward her a link to some. Being grandma, I was hoping she would be able to find some that she thought would be really good, because naturally if I send her a link, I'm going to find some decent ones for lex that are not too terribly expensive and forward her that link. Where as, if she picks some out, she might actually pick ones out that were a little better. But, I will have to remember to look them up and forward a link to her so she can check some out. I went online and found some speed skates for myself that I would like to get asap, and I added it to my wishlist on skates.com and created an account so that I could log in at a later date and finalize it. When I bought my last pair of skates back when I was with Lori, they were Carerra Quad-Speed skates, quad basically just means that they have 4 wheels, 2 in front and 2 in back, where as roller blades are referred to as inline skates.

Anyway, when I bought my last pair of skates (that are now too small apparently), they were like $140. Not cheap for skates, but decent quality that I used them for a couple of years without really showing much wear and tear on them. The only reason i can't use them anymore is because my feet have gone from size 9 when I was with Lori, to size 10.5 or 11 now. So anyway, I was looking on skates.com and I found similar skates, but was trying to see what the cheapest ones I could find were that matched the types of skates I was looking for, and the cheapest I could find were $99.00. Expensive, yes, but I don't forsee my shoe size changing again, so I think it'll be perfectly fine. I really look forward to seeing how much better the experience at Roller Den it is when we both have our own skates. The floor would still be an issue, but if we have good skates of our own, I think we would enjoy it even more.

So, on a closing note, we are working with this credit repair guy through quicken loans, and he recommended I get a credit card or 2 with a credit limit of $300. I have a credit card through my USAA bank but the limit is only $250.00. I went onto a few of the possible card options that the repair specialist recommended. One of them approved me but offered me an interest rate of 50%. I was like "hell no.. not interested." Thankfully, I really don't have to do anything to cancel that one because they require a security deposit of $95.00, and if it isn't paid in a certain period of time, the card is canceled anyway. I wouldn't be able to use the card without paying that deposit, so basically we got the card in the mail today, and I said "where are the scissors?" and cut it up into little pieces.

Then tonight I went onto this mastercard offer that I get an email about all the time talking about "rebuild your credit" etc etc, and I got approved for that one, and it has an interest rate of 8% which is 1% better than my american express, but the only catch is, 1) I have to print off the entire application and mail it in, and then they will send me some deposit package, and I have to pay a security deposit of no less than $200.00. 1) I do not have an extra $200.00 just to open a card, and 2) it's just too much of a pain in the butt. Now if they said, they'd give me a credit limit of $300.00 and would charge the $200.00 on there to get me started, technically I would automatically owe $200.00 and would have a $100.00 available credit limit and could pay it down to where I would have an available limit of $300.00, but nope, a lot of these companies want money up front and I'm like "see ya!"

So anyway, yeah, a lot going on. What can I say? I do want to be able to improve our credit and get a home loan, but I'm beginning to wonder "at what cost" it will come. I mean, I have always tried to steer away from credit cards, and then when I got my american express, it was an offer through usaa whom I trust, but I was planning to stick with just that one. Then the repair specialist tells me "i'd recommend trying to have 2 cards with a $300.00 limit". It's almost to the point where I say "can I have my $150.00 fee back that I paid you guys? I'm not interested in being with your program right now." But, of course, we want a morgage and this seems to be how we will get to be home owners. So, we shall see, but I will keep you posted.

On that note, I bid thee farewell for now.

C signing off.