rich

This is really rich.

I've been carrying a balance on my credit card for a while now. I never did before, but towards the end of my unemployment I suddenly had to use it to pay for things with money I didn't have, which I'd never done before. (This is because of the Magical Vanishing $1500 Incident.) Since then I've never had the dough to pay it down.
Since then I've been paying $5 a month in finance charges even though the "minimum repayment" has always been 0 and I've always paid $20 because that's what I figure I can afford.

Since then my bank has happily told me that because my credit is so great I can have the guarantor taken off my account.

Today they doubled my credit limit.

And gave me some 'checks' I could write from the credit card to use it to pay for things that, presumably, one doesn't usually use a credit card for. "Write checks to yourself!" it said.

So they're actively encouraging me to be worse with money. Go USAA! You guys rule. No, I won't be writing myself a check, thanks very much, because I know how much longer it'll take me to pay down the balance. At this rate it'll be the end of the year before the $800 balance is paid. I'm not making it worse.

Though the APR is, on the surface, lower than the interest rate on my student loans. *ponders* But there are terms I don't understand, so, I somehow think not.

net gain: fifty cents

Just went for an Adventure with Dave. ( springtime on wheels )

I feel both blood-movey-good from exercising, and fat from eating. I think the two activities cancelled one another out.

For dinner we were thinking of grilling some chicken things (thighs are so much tastier than breasts, and have a much silkier and less-dry texture) but the cool marinade suggested refrigerating the meat in it overnight, and we'd only have about a half-hour... So, tomorrow's supposed to be just as nice, so we'll grill them tomorrow. Meantime, I think we'll Go On A Date instead. Where should we go?

I do hope tomorrow's as nice as today. Dave's drainage project didn't fail entirely, just was slower than he thought, but over the course of the day the water table beneath the lawn has lowered a few inches and perhaps tomorrow it might be ungooey enough for me to do a bit more gardening. (His drainage method, as suggested by his mother and aunt based upon what his great-uncle used to do, is to dig a hole in the middle of the lawn deep enough for water to collect, stick one end of a hose in it, fill the hose with water, run down to the end of the driveway and stick the other end of the hose down there. It's slightly downhill. And all night and all day it's been dripping quite slowly, leaving the street a bit damp and muddy just there, and the lawn has been drying, partly from the sun and partly from the hose, I think. So... it's very slow, but it may wind up being effective.) At least the puddle is gone.

I did take a bunch of pictures today. None came out great, but there are some of the crocuses. If I get my spring-clean on tomorrow, I'll take pictures of that too. So soonish I'll put up a happy springtime gallery.
I also did several loads of laundry and hung them out on the line. So I have clean sun-smelling sheets, and my work shirts too. Tomorrow I have one more load to do, mostly my work pants and vests and apron, so those will smell sunny too. Yay! I have an immoderate appreciation for sun-dried clothes.

Also: My daffodils have come up and some are nearly ready to bloom.
(Others haven't come up. This makes me sad. But the ones alongside the house, and a few in front, have. So there. Perhaps the others will change their minds.)