Thursday, January 17, 2008

Today is Middle's 4th birthday!! We made monkey bread for her birthday breakfast this morning and then the heavens opened up and dumped about 5 inches of lovely, fluffy snow on us! Of course, the girls begged to go out and I had the foresight to make sure the girls visited the toilet before dressing them in layers and layers of winter outfits!

Here's the lovely birthday girl posing as a popiscle!

As a special treat, we made snow ice cream with the fresh fallen snow and it was SO good! I'd never made it before, but I found plenty of recipes on the internet and the girls were just tickled with eating snow ice cream! What a perfect day for a birthday! I promised the recipe and pictures of the monkey bread... The monkey bread was gobbled up too quick for pictures, but here's the recipe:

1 can Pillsbury's grands biscuits

1/2 c sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 c butter

1 c brown sugar

Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut biscuits into fifths and roll in sugar and cinnamon. Drop sugared pieces into a greased loaf or bundt pan. (I like using a bundt pan cuz then there's more crispy edges!) Melt butter in a small saucepan and add the brown sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves and pour over dough pieces. Bake about 20-25 minutes at 375 or until lightly browned. Flip upside down onto a plate while still hot. Serve when warm and watch the "monkeys" grab for the pieces and gobble them up!

On a serious note, it has been a frustrating week... I check my bank balances online and noticed some charges on there that couldn't have been made by myself or my husband. After making some calls, it turns out someone has gotten ahold of my credit card number and has been spending on my behalf. Arghh! After several calls to the bank and then a personal visit to the bank, we have gotten it straightened out and my card has been cancelled, a new card will be sent to me, the money has been put back into our account and the bank will now take over the investigation. I had to sign papers stating that it wasn't me that spent at those times, that the card has never left my possession, that I have never given out my card number to anyone and my pin number is not known by anyone else but me. Then because of someone using my card, my balance went into the negative digits and I got charged for insufficient funds! So more calls to the bank was made and that was reversed and the charge was deposited back into my account.

It really burns me when there is someone out there who has the skills or the capabilities to do this kind of thing and uses their power for bad instead of good. I wish they would take those skills and apply them in a positive way instead of taking advantage of innocent, hard-working people. If I had never checked my account, I would have never caught that in time and the checks I have written would have bounced and caused me even more charges from both the bank and the people I wrote the checks to. I have enough money problems without someone out there stealing and making things worse for me. I have enough things to do and do not need to add to my busy schedule by running to the bank and making endless phone calls.

I hope this will be the end of that but now I worry about other things like how in the hell did this person get my card number and is there anything else of mine floating around out there? Like my social security number? Am I going to have to worry about identity theft now? For my own peace of mind, I'm afraid I am going to have to go to one of those background check places and do a search on myself to make sure there is no new credit cards popping up in my name that I didn't apply for. What a friggin' pain in the you-know-what!

14 comments:

******* said...

That sound like quite a pain. Well at least you got the money back from the credit card/bank. That sucks. Something simillar happened to me, 2 stores (TJ Max and AG Wright)I shopped at had their files compromised and the bank had to re-issue new debit cards. I'm just happy I didn't get any crazy charges on mine.

I checked out your Ebay things. Reminds me I have some pyrex to sell, too. You ever get any old telephones? Let me know! I'm broke again, I seem to have a run of non-paying bidders. Ugh.

Elsie Button said...

WHAT A GORGEOUS PHOTO!!!

IndianaJones said...

such a sweet day for your middle...
sucks about the bank issues...we've had this happen before and it does freak me out that out of nowhere someone can grab your account info and spend away...we did just what you're doing and it has now been a couple years without incident. Still I obsessively check online and I hate that I feel like I have to.
I keep thinking that ridiculous cliche statement of "why can't we all just get along"... I mean who are these people who have to have quite a bit of intelligence of one kind to break into your account but absolutely no emotional intelligence to understand the repercussions of their actions.
Sorry you had to suffer through this and I hope you have a nice long clean sweep as we've had...knock on wood.

Mr. Sandman said...

What a bummer... You may want to order your free credit report (you can get one from each major agency).

The website is: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Unknown said...

This happened to me before almost a year ago. Someone charged $400 on our checking account for tickets to Pirates game, and I knew it wasn't us. We never would order something like that. I went through the same procedures as you are going through. It's not easy and frustrating. Little things slip out somehow, and these hackers know what they're doing. I learned always be vigilant when it comes to money.

Wendy said...

Oh my gosh! That is one of my worst fears - someone getting my credit card and spending my money. I would just ... well, I don't know. That's precisely why I don't have an ATM or debit card, and I canceled my credit cards. If I want money, I have to physically go to the bank and write a check.

I love the picture. She's just beautiful!

DJ Kirkby said...

Hi honey, I dont know what those bisquits are or else I would make this recipe! The Santa's arrived, havent had a chance to open the box yet though! I have sent you an email explaining why. Happy birthday to your lovely popsicle girl... xo

jenny said...

Rosa-- Seems like everyone has gone through some sort of credit theft problem at one time or another. I'm glad that this was caught early!

I looked at your ebay stuff, too! Cook clock! :o) I'll keep an eye out for old phones. I see them at yard sales here and there, but it isn't one of my interests so I pass them by. Anything in particular you are looking for? Don't those non-paying bidders suck?! I just had one myself before christmas.

Elsie-- Thank you! :o)

Summer-- I know what you mean about "why can't we all just get along?" I say tha all the time! lol Too bad people laugh instead of taking it seriously. I hope we will have nothing else pop up with the credit card or anything else for a good long time! Same goes for you!

jenny said...

mr-- Thanks for the info! I'll check it out.

moxiemocha-- Ouch! $400 for tickets! That's something I'd never do either! These people spent money at a online store for big and tall men. We aren't big and tall, or at least not so big that we can't shop at normal sized stores. I hope this will be the end of that. Wait and see...

jenny said...

Wendy-- If we didn't live where we do, I think we could do away with the debit card and get cash from the bank when we needed it. But where we are, our bank is 45 minutes away. I'm not a check writing person, except for when it is time to pay the bills, so I depend on my debit/credit card. e don't use the regular credit cards anymore and trying to pay them down. Almost there!

Dj-- You can make your own dough with flour and yeast I suppose, but I learned the shortcut way of making monkey bread. Do they sell unbaked rolls of biscuits in the refridgerated section of the food store where you are? you open the wrapper and it pops open to reveal (usually) 8 bisquits or rolls that you place on a pan and bake. Nice when you don't have time to make from scratch. checking emails now!

Sparx said...

Oh man, that's such a drag - the theft, not the wonderful birthday party! I had a cheque book stolen in the post before it reached me and my accounts was drained - took ages for the money to be put back and it was so upsetting and worrying. It is indeed the last thing you need.

Also, these dough bicuits - is it like a bread recipe or a sweet recipe? What do you call biscuits there - the term seems to mean something different where-ever I've lived!

jenny said...

Sparx-- Oh man! I can only imagine the hell you went through with your checkbook! I usually leave my checkbook at home and I had to use it at the food store recently, seeing as how my card was cancelled because of the theft. I was nervous the whole time and kept checking my pocket to make sure it was still there.

As for the monkey bread, it is a soft bread recipe and it gets sweetened by being dipped in cinnamon and sugar and then with the brown sugar on top. I have seen recipes from scratch before and I will look up the link and send that to you, ok?

DJ Kirkby said...

Oh I dont know, I will look for those when I go to the store next.

Christy said...

The credit bureaus can put a freeze on your name so new cards can't be issued. I know because my wallet was stolen a few months ago and I put a freeze on my name. Then I tried to get a new credit card because 1 of the ones I had handled the stealing so badly I cancelled them. Well, I couldn't get a new card! So, it does work.

My husband just had his credit card number stolen once and we've had no fall out from that.