I was inspired by this post by Linda over at All & Sundry. I’m not in need of too much in the maternity department this time around as I still have a goodly amount of clothing left from last time and a kind friend bequeathed to me her terribly fashionable maternity shirt collection (and no, I’m not being sarcastic, there are some seriously cute shirts she lent me!). But it stands to reason that Motherhood will see me darken their doors at some point as I only have one pair of maternity jeans and maybe another pair of maternity pants. I’ll probably need more than two pairs of pants to wear for the next nine months. So I decided to cruise the Motherhood webpage and see what was “in style” these days for those who gestate.

What the heck?? I saw this on the front page of the website and I swear my eyes about fell out of my head. Seriously, is anyone buying this? Moreover, are they wearing it in public? Because if I see them, I’m going to have a mighty good laugh. There’s so much wrong with this look that I can’t even begin to name it all. I’m far from a fashion guru, but even I can tell when something is butt ugly. Just… no.

And how about this travesty over here on the right? What decade are we in again? And explain to me why I would want to wear some shapeless sack (even if it is purple polka-dotted) while my body is at it’s hugest? I cannot believe that this would ever look even remotely flattering on me, pregnant or not. And what is WITH that bow?? Are you kidding me?

And let’s talk about this outfit, before I get off my high-horse. Again I must wonder what decade I’m in. Is this the 80’s? Because that thing strangling that model around the neck looks like it has time traveled to get here. But then, the pants look straight out of the 70’s. And… what is up with those sleeves? Let’s just say that I think it’ll be a cold day in hell before I wear any of this.

Boy.  Am I ever glad that I won’t be needing a lot of maternity clothes this time around because it looks like the pickings are definitely slim.  I’ll just cross my fingers and pray to god that Motherhood had a pair of jeans that will both a) make it over my thighs and b) not fall off my ass every time I bend down.  Believe it or not, that’s a pretty tall order.

The system is so bunged up it’s not even funny. It’s specifically designed to try to keep a person down, I’ve decided. Since that’s exactly what’s happening to us.

When I was in college, I was stupid. It was the first time I was out on my own and the world was my oyster. Sort of. I was pretty much stranded up here in Reno. I had no car, no friends, no family, nothing. I didn’t have my own phone to call anyone on. If I needed to get to the store, well, I’d better make friends. Preferably a friend with a car. Unsurprisingly, one day I was killing time down at the campus bookstore (about the only place I COULD go) and I saw a booth set up out front. Sign up for our handy, dandy credit card and we’ll give you a free sport’s bottle! Hey, that’s a FREE SPORT’S BOTTLE. Sign me up! Yeah, I signed up for a credit card, while stranded at school without a job and nothing else to do. And for a while, it stayed that way. Until Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving I wanted to do some Christmas shopping. I called up the credit card and they increased my limit, just like that. Let’s go shopping!

To make a long story short, I got in over my head. I got a job that spring, but even then it was hard to stay ahead of the payments and I really lacked the discipline required to have a credit card in the first place. I knew I didn’t want my parents to find out though. By the end of my sophomore year, I was in trouble. I wasn’t able to make payments, and was getting phone calls from the credit card companies every weekend. I just stopped answering the phone. I would be hopefully getting a decent job over the summer and maybe I’d finally be able to pay these darn things off. Or start trying, at least. But then… my parents found out. They saw a credit card statement in the mail. And that was that. They completely took over, they paid off all the cards and canceled them right there on the spot. I would get my summer job and pay them back every penny (plus interest). Out of $350 a week at my cushy office job, I got to have $35. I guess I was pretty luck to get that much. And I knew I’d never hear the end of it. For the rest of my life, I’d hear about it. And that’s pretty much been the way of things.

It was also bad that they canceled those cards. Oh, I understand why they did it and I was glad at the time to have the weight finally off my shoulders. The temptation would be removed, after all. But since, I’ve learned it would be better if I had been able to keep them, make some regular payments, build my credit back up. Because as it stood, all the credit reporting companies saw was that I’d been horrendously behind on my payments before the cards were paid off and canceled. There was no new “good” credit being established. Simply not having anymore “bad” credit wasn’t enough to help raise my scores. I would need to show “good” credit. But I couldn’t get any new credit on account of the poor reports from those old cards. You see how this works? There’s that whole “7 years” thing. In 7 years my slate would be “wiped clean”. Of course, this assumes that no life circumstances would rear their heads in those 7 years and cause any more “bumps in the road”.

Kile had a similar problem, when we met. When we married, we were both “credit-less”. Still waiting off our 7 year sentences. And that would have been that. But then the state decided to stop carrying HMO coverage for Northern Nevada and we were forced to get on the PPO plan. If you don’t know much about insurance, let me just assure you that PPO=lots of out of pocket expenses. And when you have no credit cards and no saving accounts to speak of, you don’t have a lot of room for extra expenses. So we had to hope that we didn’t have too many medical emergencies.

But that’s Murphy’s Law for you. Because that’s when we had nothing BUT medical emergencies. Pregnancies, births, broken ankles, surgeries, etc and so forth. The debt started piling up at the hospital faster than we could pay them off. And the credit scores took another nosedive. It was at this time that we were buying our house. We had to buy a house. The market here in Reno was going berserk and if we didn’t get our foot in the door we were going to be shut out all together. We were lucky enough to get a mortgage where we needed minimal money at closing to make the deal (since we were doing this all on our own, no outside help). The thing is… it was an adjustable rate mortgage.

I know, I know. But the rates weren’t that bad at the time and our plan had been to refinance in a couple years. Maybe Kile didn’t get the refinance going as soon as he should have but he had his reasons for waiting. And I didn’t question them (too much). The problem is, now the housing market is different. We have an enormous amount of equity in our home, don’t get me wrong. That’s not the problem. The problem is the mortgage companies are tapped out after trying to “get rich quick” for so many years and finding a refinance is proving difficult. Especially considering our credit score is still pretty darned poor. Why should our credit score matter if our house has more than enough equity to cover it? I have NO idea. All I know is that Kile is sweating bullets over this.

The idea is to refinance with a fixed rate loan, use the money to pay EVERYTHING off. Medical expenses, small loans and even our vehicles. This would do wonders for us. It would finally give us a chance to come out from under this shroud we’ve been under for so many years. Kile seems to think that’s why it won’t happen, that it’s “our luck” to be cursed like this. I prefer to look a little more positively at the whole thing. If it’s mean to be, it’ll happen. Either way, I feel we’ll be okay. Doesn’t mean it won’t be rough, but we’re used to that by now. We’re a lot better off now than we were five years ago, and that’s the truth. Things could be a lot worse. I just wish they would get a lot better. And soon.

Thoughts Aside
When you have a creditcard, make sure you don’t do a lot of refinance deals. If you are thinking of investing in a real estate, first get rid of your old mortgage deals.