I promise to do better this time.

So last post I said I'd try to not be so wordy. I don't know if it really worked. This time I'm going to try AGAIN not to be wordy, but I'm not posting any photos, so it will seem like I'm wordier than I really am.

I'm not off to a good start, am I?

Anyway, two important things happened today. One - my friend Jesica (Jipty to all who know me well) is in hard-core labor right now. On Saturday at 5:40pm, after taking castor oil to hopefully bring about some kind of labor, Jesica's water broke. She's been laboring on and off ever since, but today the contractions became regular, and according to her wife's Facebook page, they're now at the hospital. This means that baby should be here before too long! How many hours of labor is that? And how many hours of labor without drugs? Too many for me, and I'm sure too many for Jesica. I'm sure I'll get more details post-birth, but I almost don't want them. I'm on the fence enough as it is about having children, and hearing about prolonged labor won't make me lean toward the wanting children side, that's for sure. But I'm rooting for a healthy and quick labor from here on out! Good luck, Jesica and Chris. Your life will never be the same, but in a good way. I'm excited for you!

On to important event number two, though this one is not nearly as exciting. It's more annoying than anything else. Someone stole my credit card number! Yes, I've officially been a victim of credit card fraud. I was at Star Market on Sunday night buying our week's worth of groceries and I slid my card through the little card reader at the self-check out lane. Five seconds later I get a message that reads, "This card has been declined. Please use another card." Well, I don't have another card, not one that I use, anyway. That card was my credit/debit card, and I use it for EVERYTHING. I don't like to use real credit cards. Don't have good experiences with them. So Doug, who doesn't have his wallet with him, tells me to try to use it again. Maybe it didn't read right. So I do. And it's declined again. My immediate thought is, Great! Someone stole my card number and wiped out the money in our checking account (this is where our card is linked). And Doug had just gotten paid that Friday, too, so that would have been awful. Doug told me to not worry about it, that once at Panera his credit/debit card was declined and it was because the cashier ran it as a debit but didn't enter the pin or something like that. Anyway, I go home, put the groceries away, and then go online to check my bank account, and there were no suspicious charges. So I figure that Doug must be right, it must have been an issue with the card machine at Star. So then this morning I go to use the card to get Marieke a Christmas gift online, and I get a message saying, "Card declined. Please try ordering with a different card." This is weird! I am getting irritated now, so I call my bank and I tell them that my card is declining; I'm then told that there is a hold on my card because of suspicious activity. I am transferred to someone in the fraud department, and the nice lady asks me to confirm or deny some charges. December 2nd, $35 at Target in Watertown, MA. Yup, that's me. December 4th, $50 something dollars at some gas station in Georgia. NO! Not me. December 5th, $150 at a Target in Virgina, December 7th $250 at a Target in Virgina... she named some others, but by then I was not really hearing her. I denied all the charges I didn't make in our lovely southern states, and then learned that these charges will be deducted from my checking account, but I can contest them. I have to go to the bank and fill out some kind of fraud affidavit, which will take 10 days to process, but once it's processed the monies will be placed back in my checking account. Not to mention the fact that my credit/debit card is now useless, as it's been decommissioned, and I won't get my new one until next week sometime. Looks like I won't be doing any Christmas shopping this week! This is so inconvenient, and really annoying. A little scary, too. I mean, how did someone get my card number? I blame PayPal. I bought something for Doug on eBay for his birthday and paid with my credit/debit card via PayPal. That was the last purchase I made with the card before it was stolen. I am glad that my bank was smart enough to recognize that I probably wasn't buying a whole lot of gas and goods at Target in Georgia and Virginia last week, but still, why did they wait so long to put a hold on my card? This is just the wrong time of year to be out that kind of money, too. Good thing Doug had just gotten paid, otherwise I probably wouldn't have had the funds to cover this stupid fraud.

Anyway, I'm done venting. I should have written more about Jipty and her baby... that's such a good and happy event. Instead, I filled up a whole book about how my credit card number was stolen. Why is it that the bad always trumps the good? It's no fun being a Grinch. But by next post I'll have more news on Jesica and Chris's baby, so that will be good news at least. I want more good news.