Category - Family Life

Ever since we moved in to our new house we’ve been doing our part to stimulate the economy. It’s our civic duty, you know. I lo-o-ve me some internet shopping! Never have to leave the house, lots of selection, easy to compare prices. Love, love, love.

The only problem is customer service. I’ve been sitting on a complaint I’ve been wanting to air on my blog. I ordered a product from what was clearly a work at home mom. She got it wrong. She promised to replace it. After several emails, it was clear she was ignoring me. I am out my money and the product is no good. I really want to give you more details, but I just don’t think it is the right thing to do. I’ll just assume she got in over her head and got embarrassed and didn’t think she could fix it.

That sound you hear? That’s me biting my tongue. Or sitting on my fingers. Whichever.

Anyway! How about some good customer service stories?

Lands End – if you place an order through a Sears store, you will get free shipping and they will honor any sales prices or coupon codes you have. You can return any Lands End product to Sears within 5 years, even without a receipt! AND you don’t have to pay return shipping.

QVC – I’ve shopped with QVC for years. I love almost everything I’ve purchased and what I haven’t loved, I’ve returned for a refund. Recently I bought a food product from them that was incorrectly labeled. I sent them an email just to let them know, and they ended up refunding my entire purchase price.

Yugster – I don’t know much about this company, but Philip bought something from them recently. The product broke, but the manufacturer would not honor the warranty because they said Yugster was not an authorized seller. Yugster, on the other hand, refunded the entire price – over $200.

Good customer service is just good business. It’s not about giving people their money back or about the customer always being right. It is about doing what is right and making the customer feel good about shopping with you. So many times we hear all about the bad, I just felt like sharing the good.

Do you have any good customer service stories to share?

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Signs that your children are enjoying Harry Potter?

When they dress their little brother up as a dementor. Anyone out there able to whip up a good Patronus?

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I’ve been encouraging the children to get more involved with cooking meals, but this is a bit much.

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As I sit here typing, the snow is coming down and our lows tonight are going to dip past 0 degrees. Wind chill will be -20. Negative twenty. Fortunately Philip came home early and he doesn’t have to go back to work until next year. We are stocked up with winter storm essentials – toilet paper and eggs. We haven’t had much snow this season at all, so we’re hoping for enough to sled.

Looking back at this last year is always fun, so here it goes.

In January I turned 40. I got some pretty good gifts!

In February I was happy to start baking bread again and Boo became a Boy Scout.

March brought two new family members – our kitties Mittens and Cinnamon.

We traveled to Tucson for Easter in April where we attended the vigil mass and were the godparents for my cousin’s son.

I finally admitted in May what I’d known since the end of February – that we were expecting another baby!

June found us sailing away to Mexico.

In July I reflected upon the things we learned during our first year of living in Colorado.

Pumpkin Girl auditioned for the Nutcracker in August.

I got brave in September and shared some pages out of my watercolor journal. Only one person commented (thank you, Jani!)!!! Ouch. 😉

As October came to an end, our little Pipsqueak arrived and Boo turned 12, all in the same week. Amazing.

Speaking of Pipsqueak, November was tough on him as he fought off jaundice and had kidney ultrasounds.

We wrapped up the year remembering Becca on her seventh birthday and celebrating Pumpkin Girl as she turned ten.

All in all, a good year! I’m looking forward to seeing what next year brings.

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Boo was a little angry with me over a school issue. A little while later I headed upstairs to nurse the baby and I asked Boo if he would make me a sandwich for lunch. He said yes, but rather grudgingly.

He brought me this.

Barely enough peanut butter to cover the bread and he clearly just plopped some jelly on without spreading it out.

A side view, to get the full effect of the blob of jelly.

Adolescence has clearly set in. Let the games begin!

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Ah, the joy of sleepless nights!

Why don’t babies tell us what is wrong? Seriously, if they would just tell us what they need we’d get it for them. Of course, we all know that babies communicate by crying, but that is so last century! While the rest of us are busy emailing, texting, twittering (twitting?) and Skyping, those cute little babies are still relying on millenia old technology.

So you know what I was thinking? They need little emoticons that appear over their heads to tell us what’s on their mind. A diaper means “change me.” A bottle for “feed me”, a heart means “hold me.” Bubbles could indicate gas, and z’s let us know that they are sleepy.

Wouldn’t that be great? The software, which I’ve named Baby Thoughts 1.0, would wear off by age 2. We wouldn’t really want to know the thoughts of anyone older than that, would we?

My only obstacle at this point – how to install the software? Alas.

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