Sunday morning getting up

Woke up about six thirty this morning after about five and a half hours of sleep, and no amount of tossing and turning would get me back into the arms of Morpheus...so I took advantage of the early rising to go to the 8:30 a.m. service at my church and get it out of the way early. Now I'm sitting out on the porch in the shrinking shade of the morning, listening to mp3s played over my desktop box's sound system through my open windows and screen door (and occasionally hearing a train whistle hoot from the railroad tracks that are fairly close). The screen is a little hard to see in the brightness, but it's a nice day out while the morning lasts, so I figure it's worth taking a few minutes.

Some of the neighbors in the apartment house opposite mine (the ones with the occasionally-annoying little kid who doesn't seem to understand that it's not nice to play with other peoples' water hoses) are moving out; they've got a pickup truck with a big horse trailer (the kind that mounts in the bed of the pickup instead of on the trailer hitch) pulled up to their door. Considering that my folks used a horse trailer to move me into this apartment, I find it a bit amusing to see the neighbors using the same means to move out. Maybe I'll start calling horse trailers "Ozark moving vans."

( An ill friend; writing on my laptop; Vingian footnotes )

Evening thoughts & credit stuff

Well, I didn't get too much done today. As a matter of fact, I got nearly nothing done today. I spent the day playing mp3s from my desktop machine while writing, reading A Fire Upon the Deep, or otherwise noodling on the laptop, either indoors or outdoors. A haze of drowsiness that has stayed with me all day has prevented me from accomplishing too much, I suppose.

But sitting out here in the darkness with my computer close to hand, it's hard to worry too much about it. Especially what with the money coming in from contest wins, paychecks, and other sources. Tomorrow I get to find out if I'm getting $100 more, from that 100 quality score I mentioned the other day. I can't see any good reason why I shouldn't...

With the added money, I anticipate bringing my credit card balance down to below $1000 this month, as well as putting a little more than usual in savings. And I find myself wondering. I've been getting offers in the mail for "Platinum" Visa cards...the kind where you're preapproved and you get the first six months interest-free, but you have to kick in a $40 annual fee. I find myself wondering...since I'm paying about $30 a month in interest anyway, might it not be more economical to kick in that $40 and sign up, transfer the balance from my current card over, and use the interest-free time to whittle down that balance further? Then I can cancel that annual-fee card once I get it paid off, and I've saved some money.