I'm hanging up now. Do what you want with that information.

I find myself wondering what has happened to customer service.  The "service" is seriously lacking in some of these interactions.  Today has been a long day of generally poor service for me.  It seems that everywhere I went sales people were a little too stupid or self absorbed to do their jobs.

Stop number one was at the pet store.  I was purchasing a new carrier for our newest friend "Dave" (picture below) so he could take his first trip to the Vet today.

I had a "15% off cat supplies" coupon.  After the order was rung up, I politely pointed out to the clerk that the coupon was only applied to the cat toy I purchased and only $1.05 and not a full 15% off the purchase.  She mumbled something about not being good at math and that she'd already rung the coupon and an implied "oh well."  I then asked if she could just have the manager manually take off the discount and I was shocked to find out that she WAS the manager.  After assembling the entire store staff they managed to correctly, or perhaps incorrectly (but it was at least 15%), give me the discount.  20 minutes I won't get back.

Stop number number two was at Borders.  I know they're basically heading for bankruptcy, and I can see why.  A bunch of employees walking around browsing books, one apparently on break, drinking coffee and one making coffee - not especially good coffee either.

And when I got home, a call to my credit card company.  The main reason was I accidentally submitted two online payments and needed one of them removed.  That was resolved quickly.  However, I also thought I should point out that the reason I even had to manually make said online payment was because the autopay I set up for the 22nd of the month never actually paid.  She told me "it did pay on December 22".  I said, but it's January 25th.  I said, I'm fine, but another customer might not be.  I know I wouldn't have been if I were on vacation and checking that the payment had gone through today.  I pointed out to the rep (I don't say customer service rep because she was bordering on rude by this point and lacking all intent to serve) that there might be someone in the company who would like to know that the system failed and did not make a scheduled payment.  She said I was the only one that happened to - of course, because she's talked to EVERYONE, right?!  So, I told her, "I'm hanging up now.  Do what you want with that information."

It's a SIT and spin, not a STAND and spin

My youngest (the one who says "Wheeee!" before he goes down the stairs) got a sit and spin from Santa.  He refuses to acknowledge the "sit" part.

There haven't been any injuries (yet).

The New Siding is Wrong

This has been an ongoing saga around here and I've put off posting anything until I was a little less angry and little more sure of the situation.  I'll still hold off on naming names, but I assure you, I will badmouth the contractor if this doesn't get finished correctly and soon!

For those who don't know the situation, let me start at the beginning.  Almost a year ago, there was a blizzard - Snowmaggedon or whatever your pet name for last February was.  So, with a couple of feet of snow on our roof, our gutter gave way and fell right off the house.  On it's way down, it cracked a couple of pieces of siding.  Fast forward through insurance adjustors, siding matching process and quotes, I found someone to special order the closest matching siding and re-side 2 sections of the house for a price that the insurance claim would cover.

Just as they got the end, I noticed it didn't look right.

Apparently someone ordered "dutch lap" siding instead of the straight profile we needed.  Sigh.

So, we wait for the correct special order siding to come in and the crew to come back out and take it all down and put the new stuff up.  They finish long after dark and I head out the next morning to see this:

Need a closer look?

No optical illusion.  It's crooked!  Really crooked.  In fact, it's more than a half inch off level.

So, now we wait again.  Think we'll have the siding right before the next blizzard?

In case you're wondering...here is the little crack that started it all.

Yes, Santa, he did say "tofu."

On the top of my 3 year old's Christmas list isn't what you might expect from a little boy. Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He replied "Tofu" and then followed that up with "It has to go in the fridge." Of course, Santa looked at us for verification that he really was asking for tofu for Christmas and we had to confirm that he really does want tasteless soy protein delivered by Santa himself. Santa correctly assumed that tofu was not on the top of the 2 year old's list. He was much predictable when he said he wanted "cars."

I think we should do Christmas Cards

I love getting cards.  I love people having our cards.  I intensely dislike going through the process of finding pictures, ordering cards, addressing and mailing said cards.  I thought I would use the excuse of trying to be "greener" to get out of it completely and just send electronic greetings, but then remembered that we have some friends and family who just aren't very computer/internet savvy and some people who only get pictures of us when I send cards, so I decided to go ahead again this year.

I'm still attempting to be "greener" and not send as many as in past years, so if you do the internet...here you go!

Where did you get that pen?!

I traveled up to Massachusetts a few days ago with the boys (daddy will meet us closer to Thanksgiving).  We flew.  I spent hours obsessing about how to make the trip go smoothly.  Between worries about the new TSA screening process to snacks and drinks, I didn't think to do much planning about the actual visiting.  We'd done that before, with a lot of success.

But, traveling by plane instead of car means we can't pack everything we would usually just toss into the car.  So, Mr. Mischief's "floor bed" was left at home.  At 3 1/2, we thought he could sleep in the regular bed in Pappa's room and do just fine.  We were wrong.  Very wrong.

Shortly after the first "nap" of the visit, we heard noise coming from the bedroom.  This is what we found...

Grammy and Pappa will be sending us the painting and cleaning bill.  I think it's my payback for how smoothly the airport and flight went.  Honestly, I think I prefer this to being the mother of 2 screaming kids on a 6:30am flight anyways.

My baby was born 8 weeks early

November 17th is Prematurity Awareness Day.

Alexander was born 2 months before he was supposed to be.  He was born while there was snow on the ground.  He was supposed to be born while there were flowers in bloom and leaves on the trees.

He weighed less than a sack of flour when he was born.

He spent 4 weeks in a hospital NICU.

In his honor, for all the babies fighting right now, for the mommies fighting for just one more day and for the babies will never make it home, I am helping the March of Dimes fight prematurity.

Today, I wear purple.

Please visit the March of Dimes today to learn more about prematurity and how you can help.

Love,
Holly