Three Months

Can you believe it has been 3 months since little Pipsqueak arrived? He is a joy, of course, but he sure is putting us through our paces. He is not quite so high needs as Boo was, but he is not as easy going as Pumpkin and Bip.

I remember those first few months with Boo. I had joined a new moms group that met at the mall once a week. We had a little class taught by a pediatric nurse, then social time. All the other babies played nicely on their blankets. Not Boo. During the whole class I stood and bounced and rocked and rocked and bounced. He just fussed. A friend from that group introduced me to Dr. Sears, and from there I discovered the whole concept of the high needs baby. Reading about “fussy” babies and how to help them changed our lives.

And here I am again, with another high needs little dude. Funny enough, their birthdays are 5 days apart, their birth weights were within 2 ounces of each other and they were both born in the Year of the Tiger. Hmmmmm…

But I am (much) older now, and hopefully wiser. I have more helping and eager hands. I’m also much busier, with schooling 3 other children. I am very aware that those eager helpers are watching and internalizing everything I do to mother this little needy person. Especially Pumpkin Girl. What will they take away from watching their mother care for their youngest sibling? Good things, I hope.

Pipsqueak has turned our lives upside down. But look at him! He is so worth it.

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Kudos

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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C is For

Citrus


Mmmm! These are my favorite citrus fruits ever. They aren’t oranges, they are Honeybells. They are only available at the end of January and let me tell you, they are worth the wait.

We ordered a 22 pound box of Honeybells this year and we had no problem eating them all. We eat them while wearing the enclosed bibs (seriously) and with a bowl to catch all the juice.

If you have a “C” photo, leave me a comment in this post with a link to your picture. Flikr, Photobucket, another photosharing site or your own blog…whatever you’ve got. If you missed the last letter, just jump right in anyway!

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Demented

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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B is for…

Bookshelves!

My photography isn’t getting any better yet. Though this picture was taken on one of my camera’s manual settings, instead of automatic, so at least I’m learning. And today was an overcast day so the lighting was bad.

We had these bookshelves built in our music room over the summer. They are a cluttered, jumbled mess right now for two reasons. First, because I really need some good bookends that will hold up a big line of heavy books. And second, they are holding refugee knickknacks from two other bookshelves that got moved from the living room into our master bedroom. Once I get those two situations remedied, they’ll be neat and tidy.

But aren’t they nice anyway? (click on the picture to see it larger – it’s much better that way) The music room is the first room you can see when you enter our house, so I wanted something with a lot of impact. They are nice and deep – I showed the builder my ginormous Sonlight binder and told him I needed shelves deep enough to fit it. The shelves are also really tall – 8 feet, if I remember correctly. Which is particularly funny when you know I’m only 5 feet tall. And I can reach, what do you think – about another foot over my head? So that leaves a good 2 feet of shelves I can’t reach. Gonna have to get a taller stool. Or a library ladder.

If you have a “B” photo, leave me a comment in this post with a link to your picture. Flikr, Photobucket, another photosharing site or your own blog…whatever you’ve got. If you missed the last letter, just jump right in anyway!

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Birthday Wrap-Up

We’ve been having a mild, snowless winter. But God is good and sent me snow for my birthday. Not enough to do anything but say, “Oh look, it’s snowing,” but snow nonetheless.

Phil did good by giving me an Andrew Lloyd Webber DVD collection that included the movie versions of “Cats”, “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The children and I sat down after lunch and watched “Superstar”, which prompted a discussion about what happened to poor Judas after he killed himself.

Pumpkin Girl made me these thumbtacks. I love them particularly because she did them all by herself. She snuck down to my craftroom and found my craft glue, made herself a palette out of wax paper and quietly crafted in her room with her door closed.

Bip gave me a dime from his “Clifford Red Dog” bank. It was all he had.

My parents surprised me by remembering for a whole year that I had said I wanted a brown Betty teapot. Isn’t she cute?

As for my meeting – it was OK, I guess. I was in the back, bouncing and walking Pipsqueak and I couldn’t hear too well. When I did sit down, the people around me were taken in by his toothless smile and gooed and cooed back at him, so I was pretty distracted. Could have been worse.

All in all, it was a good day.

PS- Don’t forget, tomorrow (Jan 24th) is “B” in The Alphabet Project. Jump in anytime, participate as often as you are able!

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About Today

What if you had a blog contest and no one entered? I’m laughing over this, actually! It’s a good thing that the free game was free for me, too.

So now Delta Dawn and I have one thing in common. When I was really little, and I mean really little, that was my favorite song. I used to think that 41 was terribly old. Now, not so much.

I try to have low expectations for my birthday. That way, I’m not too disappointed. Gee, could I be more of an Eeyore? Though a popped balloon and an empty hunny pot would look good in comparison with what I’ve got in store today.

Oh yeah, baby – today I get to sit through an hour of mandatory religious education parents meeting. With a baby. Booyah! We have to do this twice a year. I don’t know why. The first meeting of the year I can understand. Lots of new information, we’ve got to be volunteered to sit in on each of our children’s classes, we get leaned on to provide stuff for the silent auction fund raiser.

But the second meeting? I don’t know. Last year the meeting started with an announcement that the bishop still had not made a decision about changing the age for Confirmation. Then a show of hands as to how many of us had children in the Confirmation class. Nobody. So then we proceeded to discuss the moving of the Confirmation age. For thirty minutes.It was painful. I don’t know what was discussed for the next 30 minutes because at that point I was hugging my knees, rocking back and forth in the corner, humming “Delta Dawn”. At least in my head.

I could probably get out of today’s meeting by just dropping the kids off in the parking lot like usual – buh bye!- then driving away. I can avoid the RE coordinator person who is standing outside the building rounding up parents for the meeting. But I’m such a rule follower that I’ll park the car properly and drag little Pipsqueak to this meeting.

Do you think I’ll earn time out of Purgatory for this? Probably only if I stop complaining about it!

But it is my birthday and that’s a Good Thing! There’s a couple of presents sitting on the table and the children made me cards. Surely that outweighs one lousy meeting!

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Birthday Give-Away

You all know my birthday is Wednesday, right? Well, in honor of my special day, I’m having a little bloggy give-away.

One lucky person will win a free, downloadable, FULL version of the computer game Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove.

How best to describe Dire Grove? First off, it is a hidden object game, like I Spy. You must find each object in a given list to unlock further clues to the mystery of the main story line. The story line itself is a little spooky. From the Dire Grove website : “In the fall of 2009, four graduate students traveled to a small township near Blackpool, England. They were never heard from again.” Your job is to figure out what happened to them.

I would say that Dire Grove is spooky rather than outright scary. The background music does add a level of tenseness, especially if you’re playing at night when everyone else is asleep. But I didn’t find anything gruesome, though I haven’t actually finished the whole game. Other games in the Mystery Case Files series, which I have finished, were fine. It has an ESRB rating of 10+.

Here’s the official Dire Grove website: Dire Grove. And here’s just one site which reviews the game: Dire Grove Review.

Anyway.

The winner will be given a coupon code and a special website to download Dire Grove. The coupon must be redeemed by February 1, 2011. The coupon code may only be used once, but the winner may pass it along to someone else they personally know who might enjoy the game. I just ask that you don’t hold a giveaway of your own.

To enter to win, leave me a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite computer game is. If you don’t have one, that’s OK, just tell me that. For more chances to win, subscribe to my blog feed, blog about my contest, or link to this post on your Facebook page. Leave me a separate comment for each thing you do. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

Contest will be open until January 19, 2011 at 11:31 PM (my birth date and time).

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Hello?

I learned from my friend Sandy’s blog that yesterday was National Delurking Day. Well, since I missed it, I declare this to be a Delurking Weekend! Leave me a comment over the weekend – just to say “hi”! I’ll borrow from Sandy and give you something to write. Tell me who you are, how you found my blog and what kind of chocolate you like.

I like all kinds of chocolate. From the humble Hershey bar, to this dreamy, creamy stuff I found in Norway. I don’t know it’s name, but it has a cow on it. Somewhere I might have the wrapper from the bar I ate lo those many years ago and when I find it I’ll figure out a way to get me a whole stash. I might have found it at the Norway Pavilion in Epcot, but I’m not sure. I also love hot chocolate, especially chocolate-raspberry flavor. I will seriously consider selling my first born son (especially when he’s ornery) for some good white chocolate. I’ll happily consume Godiva chocolates. Another favorite is Joseph Schmidt’s truffles. I was introduced to both the man and his chocolates when I was living and working in San Francisco. (Oh how sad. In looking for a link to him, I see Joseph Schmidt’s confections were purchased by Hershey and has now ceased production. )He’s a really nice man and his chocolates are were divine.

Ok, enough about me and my love of chocolate – now tell me about you.

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