Transitioning

There's been a lot to take care of since changing our last name. We took care of the social security office and DMV on the day we actually had the change finalized once we left the courthouse. The rest of that afternoon I was on the phone with credit cards, insurance people and others getting things changed over. On Tuesday of this week we went to the bank and had our accounts changed there and ordered new debit cards. I still have others to notify. It's a lengthy process. It's coming together nicely though. Yesterday my first credit card arrived with my new name on it, the Home Depot card. I suppose that one will stay pristeen because our current Home Depot card has been residing in a block of ice in our freezer.

Is that strange? We froze several of our credit cards back when we started paying off bills. The Home Depot, one of two of our Visa cards, and a department store card all went into a baggy of water and into the freezer for safe keeping. It's a whole lot easier to not use a card that isn't in your wallet, and just putting it in a safe place still makes it too accessible. If you have to thaw it out first, you really have time to think about that purchase before you make it. So last night Nick removed the baggy for thawing so that when all the new cards come in, they can take their place. All except the department store card....I went ahead and canceled that one. It had been almost a year since I had used it anyway, so why leave the credit open? We have also been lowering all of our credit limits as we call because we really don't need that much open credit in our names. Who on earth charges $5,000 at Home Depot with 23% interest??? We made sure to put a freeze (hee hee) on the accounts as well so that they can't raise our limits without our consent.

So far I've only come across one account that wanted a valid photo ID before they would change my name, despite me sending them certified court papers. Of course it will take a couple of weeks before my new ID arrives. So my Paypal account will have to wait.

Other than that everything else seems to be transitioning nicely. Everyone who has read our story has been super supportive of the change and thinks it's wonderful. The day we had it done, Nick scanned a copy of his court papers and emailed them to his Dad. He called him and told him to check his email; it was pretty important. I wish I could have listened in on the phone because I think the response was a pretty overwhelming one for Joe. Anytime you can make a grown man cry, it's worth hearing. I'm so happy I could have a part in restoring their relationship. It's been fun to watch from the sidelines.

I haven't had much trouble in remembering to sign my name correctly now, although I do still have to sign a couple of things Tressler so sometimes I get confused on which one has changed and which one hasn't. The hardest part has actually been doing my initials correctly. A lot of the paperwork I take care of on the job has to be initialed and I had a nice little flow for 'bkt' in all lowercase. Now that it's bkk, it's harder to stop that t from jumping in there. My second k sometimes doesn't look like much of anything. I also tried to just stop with bk but I've been throwing on that third letter for so long that I still want to, so I end up with some strange formation at the end. I'll get it down eventually.