The blurs in my peripheral vision.

A happy couple gazes at the Arkansas River, side by side, leaning into each other. They're resting from their work on the garden. The man props his shovel across his shoulder. The dirt is tilled and ready for seeds now. It's a pleasant moment, and I've happened to catch it, looking over their shoulders...

In truth, this couple is a miniature statue placed in an empty flower bed on the downtown sidewalk that meanders along the river. I am on my normal jogging route, and have just glanced at the statue on my way by yet again. I don't have an exact description of the little people, because I've never completely stopped to look. I do know it's a cute statue, and every time I promise myself I will come back when I'm not jogging so I can take a picture of it. It's a spring evening, so the slanting sunlight on the figure seems particularly artistic. But after the 10th time, I pass by again and mentally kick myself for forgetting to come by at a different time with my camera. By the time I finish my jog, I've forgotten all about the happy couple, only to remember when I see them again, a peripheral blur.

Isn't this like life? I've got my normal routine with its typical experiences. Not uncommonly, there is something that affects my day and makes me slow a pace, but I've got to keep on with my tasks, so I move on without documenting it. No photos of normal married life, my husband working on the cars; no written poems about how I've been especially loved or hurt by a friend; no creative sessions at the piano after hearing a word from the Lord... I tell myself I'll get to it one day, because these are things that matter to me, but they still haven't happened. Each time I forget, the details of poignant moments fade. They are blurs in my peripheral vision... but really, they're more central than I realize at the time.

What are your blurs?

The neighborhood cat.

A black blur leaps off my porch, runs under my car, and vanishes around a corner. What? I've just parked in front of my house after work and it takes me a moment to process what just happened. Oh yeah, it's the neighborhood stray cat.  

A puzzling creature. Is he friendly? Where does he find food? Does he find enough food? I don't know the gender, who it once belonged to, or the name. All I do know is that he's got long black hair and no one in my cul-de-sac owns him. One neighbor speculates that he used to belong to a former renter in the area, and was left behind when the renter moved away. Another neighbor said she'd try to catch him and bring him to the local shelter, but that hasn't happened yet.

He's got an ongoing challenge with one of the neighbor's outdoor cats, a black short-haired one. My husband and I amuse ourselves by watching these serious interactions from our kitchen window. Mystery Cat crouches in our yard, peering at Short Hair around another porch ten yards away. It's a feline staring contest. Mystery Cat ever-so-slowly moves closer, staying next to the edge of the next door house. After a couple tense minutes, Short Hair turns around and walks away, apparently ending the episode. Mystery Cat carefully leaps up onto another porch and settles down to watch from there. He's probably plotting their next encounter.

Personally, I don't mind cats. I'm not superstitious about black ones, either. On the other hand, I haven't tried to interact with this mystery. I'm not trying to scare him away. I'm not feeding him, and I'm definitely not petting him. I doubt he'd let me, anyway. I just observe him from afar. It's kind of like startling a flock of birds from the fields. They know they own the place; they're just leaving out of self-protection, only to return later when it's safe again. He was probably warming himself in the sunshine on "his" porch today. He leaps away as any outdoor cat does, all efficiency and stealth. I chuckle to myself. He'll be back again tomorrow.

Let's be grown-up for a minute.

I am so frustrated with the world of credit: financial credit. I don't like dealing with it at all.

See, I am a very practical person and a saver rather than a spender. This means I don't care about having the biggest or shiniest expensive toys. If I could live in a world without credit, I would. But because times come when you probably can't pay for a whole item straight from your bank account, paying things off is necessary. And because not everyone can know me personally and see how responsible I am, the only way the secular world can figure out if I'm trustworthy is to base it off how I handle money and risk-taking.

On the upside, it's harder to start getting credit these days than it was pre-2008 (when a bubble burst in the American economy, partially due to credit problems). On the downside, credit is still just as important today, so starting out now means getting credit these days is harder. Ah, such irony! What really ticks me off is that lenders and professionals in the money-handling world are still unaware of this change, and look at me like I'm nuts when I say that credit is hard to get.

My advice to everyone person 18+ is this: if you trust yourself to handle a little credit, get a secured credit card as soon as possible. This is card for people with no credit, so it's sort of like a mini debit card account at first: send in $300-$500 as your deposit, and that's the limit for what you can spend each month before paying the bill. It builds "trust" in the credit company's eyes, and in 6-12 months, you will have begun establishing a credit score. If you don't have any troubles, you get the deposit back, the card becomes unsecured, and you get more benefits, plus continue increasing your score.

Is this a boring thing to be writing a blog about? YES. Is it important and something I wish I had done at 18? YES.

Look out world, I'm old enough to be giving advice. I'm playing with the big boys now...

Strange to think that, as a married person with a steady income, I can be seriously thinking about a nicer car that will last more than a couple years, having kids, and deciding if I want to commit to owning a house. This is big-girl-and-boy stuff, folks. And to be honest, I can't decide if I wanna go that route or just traipse around the Spanish-speaking world while my husband and I are so free from commitments...

So help me God!

--Ellen