Lost Cards and Making Money From Nothing

I had one heck-of-a-weekend, let me tell ya. Saturday I decided I was completely and utterly fed up with my hair color and decided to pay to have it done right. I went to a woman who was recommended to me at a local Fantastic Sam’s, and she picked out a color for me that is a little darker than what I had, but not so dark that you look and go “WHAT?”. I like it!

Saturday I did some grocery shopping. Afterwards Kayte had to work, so I let her drive for the first time. She’s in Drivers Ed in school, so I thought “why not?” Well… she isn’t road-ready quite yet. She kept going into the oncoming traffic lane, then would overcompensate and go into the dirt/shoulder on the right hand side of the road. She did do well at 15 mph, but anything faster and she couldn’t keep control of the car. Lesson learned: more time on the range before taking my car again. Later that night we had company over for dinner. Kayte had some friends over and we, of course, invited them to stay for dinner. One – I think – is supposed to be a potential boyfriend. Whenever you hear “he’s just a friend” but they are really interested in what you thought of him… it’s usually a good clue! We also had two other friends of hers over for dinner. I love having lots of kids around the dinner table… it just feels SO rewarding. It helped that it was an awesome dinner: steaks with a sauce/glaze I found a recipe to, baked potatoes, and pecan roasted green beans. Yummy. After dinner the kids went into the hot tub and Chris and I were able to relax for a while.

Sunday we had Church and then Julie came over for the afternoon and dinner. Chris and I decided to run over to AT&T to see if I could get my iPhone a week early. I’ve been waiting for my contract to run out so I can qualify for a discount. Alas… they wouldn’t let me have it a week early, I have to wait until next weekend. While we were out, Julie was going to let Justin drive to the store to pick up some tissues for Kayte’s school and sodas for dinner (I don’t usually have coke in the house, but Julie really likes it for dinner). I gave Julie my debit card and when we returned, Julie and the kids were just getting back. I asked for my debit card – and guess what? She can’t find it. She had JUST used it at CVS… it couldn’t have gone far, right? We called CVS – they didn’t have the card. Looked in her car (new car I might add), and it wasn’t there. Not in her pocket. Not in her purse. Not on a counter. Not in the sofa. It’s just… gone. I decided to run back to CVS to make sure it wasn’t still sitting on the counter and they missed it.

Julie decided to drive so I could check out her new car. She’s driving down the road and the car is LOUD. Really loud. I tell her something is wrong with her car, and she said it was fine. I told her over and over again that something wasn’t right – even to the point where I hung my head out the window to see if a tire was flat. It didn’t make the ‘whomp-whomp-whomp’ noise, but clearly something was wrong with the car. Julie turned up the radio and said it was fine.

At one point on the drive, Julie pointed out that there was a dummie light lit up on her dash and she wanted to know what it was for. It was an exclamation point – I’d never seen it before on another car, so I didn’t know. I said “easy enough… let me get your book”. I open the glove box – no book. She bought the car yesterday, and immediately took the book OUT of the car? Figures.

We get to CVS and I realize that – sure enough – the tire is flat. Great. Must be what the dummie light was on for, I’d imagine. I go inside CVS to ask about my card and Julie said she’d get on the phone with AAA. It was difficult talking to the guy at the counter – Julie was a little loud on the phone with AAA. Actually, it wasn’t even AAA – she was trying to give them the address of where she was when she realized she was on the phone with the operator who still had to give Julie the number to AAA. That was kinda weird, but whatever.

Julie then realizes that she didn’t bring her purse. No purse. No ID. No AAA card. No nutten. Grrrrrreat.

The guy at the CVS counter tells me there was no card turned in. I go outside to call Chris and tell him to please call the bank for me and cancel my card. Now I have to either get off work to go to the bank during office hours and get a temporary card – or wait 7-10 days for a card to come in the mail. Fantastic.

Julie, realizing that she needs her purse for AAA, calls Chris to ask if he’d bring it up to us. He does, but he’s a bit grumpy about it. Lovely.

Julie is still trying to reach AAA, and I tell her that I can certainly change a tire. By the time Chris shows up, I’m just getting the jack under the car. It took me FOREVER to figure out how to get the ding-dang jack out of the trunk. Chris takes over for me though and has it up in no time. Figuring out how to get the ding-dang hubcap off was awful. Chris asked for the book so we could see how to do it without breaking the hubcap. Where is the book? At Julie’s house. Of course.

Well, he gets it off and the lug nuts were on there TIGHT. Chris couldn’t get them off by himself without a big ole’ torque bar that he needed to use for leverage. There would have been no way that I could have done that on my own had he not shown up. That was two times over the weekend he rescued me – Saturday I needed his help at Publix and he came right up.

It’s about then that Julie shares with us why she thinks the tire went flat. Kayte was driving and she kept driving off the road and hit MANY pot holes. Apparently Julie was screaming telling her to stay in the lane… the screaming just made Kayte more upset… and it was probably one of those pot holes – in addition to old tires – that cause the flat tire. The funny thing is – I had TOLD Julie that Kayte was NOT yet “road-ready”. I had told her that she couldn’t keep it between the lines and that she needed more time on the range before driving on the streets again. Regardless, Kayte drove and the flat tire was a result.

Chris and I told Julie that she should talk to Drivetime – telling them that the car she bought YESTERDAY got a flat tire within 24 hours, and that they should replace the tires for her. They were closed, so she ended up taking the car to Tire Kingdom to get a tire put on.

She came back to the house and apologized many times for losing my credit card. I told her over and over again that it was okay. And really – it is. I mean… I’m upset that it happened. I’m frustrated that I have to get another card and give that information to all the people who direct-debit my bank account. We don’t write any checks anymore… we pay everything electronically – so there are going to be a lot of people who try to use the card and can’t. I’m frustrated, but not angry.

As Julie sat there and we talked (Mom came over and we had a nice little chat – the three of us), I realized that Julie is doing absolutely the BEST she can. She’s working – has a job where she sells vacation packages. When she sells one, she makes a small bonus – in addition to being paid $8 an hour hourly rate. She’s lost a lot of weight – 80 lbs to be exact. She’s just “not eating”, she says. I’m certain this can’t be good for her… but at the same time… she really needed to lose weight. The sad thing is that she has lots of hanging skin now. Mom talked to her about seeing if Tricare would pay for skin removal if she ‘lost it all and kept it off’. I can’t imagine this is something Tricare would pay for… but who knows.

The one thing in our conversation with mom that gave me pause was Julie’s boyfriend. It came out that he had some court stuff going on. Now… I don’t really care if you stole something, or if there is some other kind of non-violent crime. What I do worry about is either 1) a violent crime or 2) drug abuse. Either one of these could and would greatly impact my sister. She wouldn’t tell us what exactly happened – I just know he was arrested for having a gun. What he was doing with the gun and why they stopped him I don’t know. Was it used in a crime? Was he just walking around with a gun on him and the police decided to talk to him? I don’t know. I don’t even know his real name to be able to look it up. Needless to say… I worry about my sister given this new information. But she’s a grown woman and is going to do whatever she wants. I am – however – thrilled that the kids can’t go to her house with him there. Obviously there is something to this guy and we don’t know it all.

One thing I forgot to mention… it’s good news for Julie, but makes me shake my head. Remember she hasn’t paid a house payment in well over a year now. When she closed on her house – they sent her a check for $1,200.

Twelve hundred dollars? Really??

How did that happen?

I can’t say that I totally understand it myself. The house sold for less than she owed. She had tremendous debt from not paying her homeowners fees. All of that was wiped clean… and like I said before, I’m thrilled for Julie in that regard. Although she says she didn’t make any money – in my mind, she did profit from the mortgage payments she kept instead of giving to her mortgage company. But that’s all a wash and that’s cool. But… how do you get a $1,200 refund? It was supposed to be something about her homeowners insurance. I just… am flabbergasted. Huh… I don’t think I’ve ever typed that word before. LOL

The good news for Julie is that she was able to take that money and pay off her car and she was able to get a new one from Drivetime. So basically, she’s back on the same footing she was a month ago, before her car was stolen. Except that she has a newer car and no house worries.

Well, Jonathan made it home from New York. His flight was delayed about two hours because of the snow. They were able to take off though and get him home about 11 last night. He was SO happy that he was able to see snow. He had a great time, but was too tired to tell us ALL the stories of his trip.

I should run… it’s 10 and I need to get the kids to bed. I know I usually ask you to say a prayer for us… but tonight, I’d like to ask you to pray for a friend of mine, Jenn. She is having some surgery on Wednesday for breast cancer. She is an amazing woman, a good friend, an excellent teacher (was teacher of the year a few years ago), and a strong Christian. We are praying that she will be cancer free after the surgery.

“Please God, bring healing.” – Exodus 12:13