Lazy Sundays

Thoughts from yesterday:
Ashleigh had her highway driving class Saturday morning.  They had enough time that she was able to take her driving test that day instead of having to wait for Tuesday morning.  She passed with flying colors - only 2 points (points are bad).  I guess you can still pass with 36 points - I'm really not sure what that says about the quality of some drivers currently on the roads ?  And then I learn today that the Drivers' Ed car had been rear-ended Friday morning in a hit-and-run by someone from Missouri ... I feel sorry for whoever was driving - talk about a teachable moment!

As we were replacing the ceiling fan in the boys' room, Josh made a comment about how we need to get a magnetized screwdriver.  Daniel chimed in about how the IT guy at his school has one and quickly moved on to "and he let me tighten my screws!!".  There was a slight pause, and I just couldn't help it ... "Daniel, I always knew you had a couple screws loose."

Tim and Ashley got married on a gorgeous stereotypical spring day - bright and sunny and ever so slightly warm.  I really enjoyed how beautiful and unique the ceremony was - from Ashely's Cinderella dress to the bubble wrap aisle runner, planting an acorn in place of the traditional unity candle/sand.  I love it when a couple takes the time to personalize their wedding in such a unique way that so totally fits "them" without sacrificing any of the tradition and ceremony.

And then the snow came ...
Having been warned of a massive early spring snowstorm headed our way, Josh and I decided to stay home and watch church online today.  We had a nice big brunch - bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, waffles - and then Josh took the kids downstairs to play Ratchet & Clank while I killed some time on Facebook and the REGAP site. I'm wondering if school will be cancelled tomorrow.  The theory is that there will be 6-9 inches of snow.  I'm horrible at judging this kind of thing, so I will let images speak for themselves ... what've we got so far ??


Either way you slice it, it's not nearly as bad (yet?) as the "blizzard" of Feb 2011 - 13 inches and all that jazz. I think this one just has a bigger emotional impact cuz the flowers are all trying to come out and it's the end of March!!  I guess I'm just a sucker for how peaceful it looks out my living room window ... all white and clean and fresh.  I do wish we'd had this at Christmas, but ... it is what it is.  Maybe next time!

Update:  The final total for all this snow was 18.5 inches - officially breaking the previous "Snowpocalypse" record.  Of course it was all gone within a few days!!

The AT&T Debacle

You would think that I would remember not to do this kind of thing, but apparently I can't remember  from year to year how badly it gets messed up, so I've decided to post it all up here in an attempt to remind myself.  Maybe this will help me avoid the trap next time.

AT&T runs these special offers now and then, where if you add a service, you get a lower cost for a certain time as well as a cash gift card.  This round was TV for $30/month and a $100 gift card, so I figured "Sure, why not - spend $30 or so, have TV for a month or two, get $100 back?  Sounds good to me!"

So I set it all up, we got the TV installed (we did get an upgraded modem/gateway out of the deal), got the gift card and off we go.  About 6 weeks later I called to have it cancelled and a few days later got an empty box from AT&T with a pre-paid shipping label to return the TV box.  Off to UPS, dropped off on 1/15/13 at 2:36pm.  No problem.

About 2 weeks later, I got an email talking about "Time Sensitive Information" and saying they hadn't gotten the box returned.  So I check the tracking number, and sure enough, shows as delivered on 1/18/13.   ???

Called AT&T, got a girl whose primary language is obviously not English but who was nonetheless pleasant and sounded willing to help.  She informed me that after reviewing the tracking number I provided, she determined that the box was, in fact, received at their Laredo TX dock and that it just hadn't been applied to my account.  She told me she would escalate the issue to make sure we did not get billed.  I thanked her and hung up, satisfied I had done my due diligence.

Lo and behold, next bill comes out on 2/25, and there's the charge - $150 plus taxes - for a non-returned receiver.  Well, now it's the weekend and their Customer Service line is closed, so I got onto the website and used their live chat.  I was connected to a man who assured me that a credit for $150 was "already being in process for removal" and that he would also apply a $10 credit as well to take care of the additional taxes, telling me "So, you can relax on that completely and you are our Elite customer and we don't want you to feel any kind of inconvenience."

Right.

Next time around, now on 3/10, I still see a past due amount (since I only paid $85 on the previous bill) and no credits of any kind.  This time I wasn't quite so nice with the chat but received the same assurances and (this was new) told that I would get an email confirmation of the credit which would be applied within 24 hours.  While I'm doing this, I also posted on the AT&T U-Verse Facebook page.

Ok.

3/11 ... sure enough - no email, no credits.  Now I'm mad and getting tired of it.  I now have a response to my Facebook post, asking me to email with account info etc.  I got a return call, however since it was during the day, of course I was working so she left a VM.  I never did connect with Miss Nancy - I'm not sure if it was a simple time conflict where our work hours overlap too much or what, but I did leave 2 more voicemails which never got any return calls. 

This afternoon, I came "home" from work and discovered a rather large box sitting on my couch ... from AT&T.  I opened it and realized it was empty - yep, they sent me another box with which to return the "non-returned" equipment which tracks as having been delivered on 1/18/13.  Now I'm really mad ... so I call their CS line (800-288-2020800-288-2020).  I get the same pleasant girl who I talked to the first time ... only this time I'm not very pleasant back.  I told her flat out that I've dealt with this for 2 months, made 5 phone calls, and I wanted the charge off my account now.

Maybe I should have checked online first to be sure - the charge actually was (supposedly on 3/13/13) removed from the account and I am now only showing that I owe my normal monthly charge.  I posted a followup on the original Facebook post and asked "them" to let their Laredo dock workers know that they narrowly missed receiving a box containing a few of the choicer contents of my backyard.

At least now it's over - and I am hoping that this post will remind me next time that it's just not worth it to mess around with trying to get a "better deal".  It's just not.

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March Madness

Random thoughts of the morning ...

1. In about two months I will no longer have "kids".  I will have all teens.  I'm not sure I'm old enough for that ???
   
   
2. The last couple of weeks have been pretty stressful ... mostly just life with short-lived critters, a little bit of work blah thrown in, plus tax time and court filings.  On top of it, I have been having dreams lately where I try to talk to my sister and she either ignores me outright or tells me "no" - very painful and I seem to have lost my ability to control my dreams while having them.
   
   
3. We'll have Cheryl's girls, Belle and Hildy, over here this week while she recovers from knee surgery.  They're good girls - they love Nitro and he loves them.  Hildy is Josh's girl and would sleep on him if he'd let her ... as it is she has to be content on the dog bed on the floor since I don't share well.  Belle will sleep on Daniel's bed and allow him to have a corner.  Only thing I will have to watch is the kittens and Belle ... last time she was here, she decided Smoke was a plaything :(
   
   
4. I'm looking forward to seeing the flowers come up in the yard ... already have a few little green shoots coming up.  I think when I take my "Spring Break" vacation time, I'm going to spend some time in the back yard mulching and trimming and cleaning things up so that (hopefully) there will be less work to do over the summer.  I really do love spring - just hoping the weather over that week agrees with me !!

And then there were eight ...

This afternoon, Josh and I took Fink to the vet and let her go.  She seemed to understand and was very quiet and looked us both in the eyes before we left, as if to show gratitude.  Our vet seemed almost as broken as I felt - she was choked up and hugged me before we left - this is one reason why I trust her completely.

Fink will be very much missed, but is no longer in pain, no longer frustrated over limbs that won't move right and a body that doesn't do what she tells it to.  She is whole again, fat and sassy and playing with Cap, Cocoa, Chance, Yogi and Sparta. I trust her to watch over everyone as they join her to wait for us.

RatFink

I'm sitting here today, after having worked 5 hours of overtime, cleaned the rat cage, and cuddled Fink for as long as she would let me ... wishing that my little ratties lived longer.  Fink isn't doing so well - I'm fairly sure at this point that she has a pituitary tumor, which means there is nothing I can do except to make her as comfortable as possible.  She's almost 2 and was the first experience we had with rattie intelligence - and there's a story behind that one.

One evening, not long after getting Fink, she was out and running around on top of our desks, which face each other.  Josh was still at work, and she was over on his desktop, when I heard a gnawing sound.  Sure enough - she was nibbling on the foam padding of his headphones.  OOPS ... she knew she had screwed up and came slinking back over to my side of the desk, where I scooped her up and put her back in her cage.  Josh came home about 40 minutes later and before I had a chance to tell him, he stopped by her cage to say hi.  Well, she had initially climbed up the bars to greet him, but when she realized who it was, she dropped back down and "hid" in the back corner instead.  Of course he picked her up for cuddles to see if she was hurt or anything, and she started licking all over him - she'd always been kissy with me but not so much with him, so that was a little surprising.  That was when I told him about the headphones and we realized she was ashamed and was doing the only she knew how to apologize.

Think about it ... not only did she remember what she had done - 40 minutes later - but she also connected Josh with his headphones and the fact that she wasn't supposed to chew on them, and felt shame for having done so ... and then tried to apologize!

It's just not fair - I think of how smart and affectionate she is, and how awesome it would be to have her around for years and years.  Think of all she could learn if she just had that kind of time!  Maybe that's why God takes them so early - they're just too smart for us humans to be able to handle.

Is it weird or strange that I can get so attached?  A lot of people say yes, especially where a rodent is concerned.  But I don't see Fink (or any of my girls) that way.  They are family - they have fur instead of smooth skin, but they are my babies just the same.  My ratties know their names, come when called (usually, especially when there are yogies involved), and all of them give "kisses" - licking all over my fingers.  They follow me and beg for attention and love - some will even leap out of the cage onto my shoulder if I'm not paying *enough* attention to them!

So while I have the time, this is my tribute to Fink - the first of many, who introduced me to everything a rat can be.  The other girls will have some very large paw prints to fill.

Snow thoughts and backwards logic

Actually had someone tell us tonight that we should stop making our house payment for a few months and pay them $4000 ... so that we could qualify for a loan modification to drop our payment by $300 a month.

Anyone else noticing the jacked up backwards logic there?


On a brighter note, we had some very nice snow this afternoon.  The kids are hoping for school to be closed tomorrow, but so far, no such luck.  I keep checking like a good mom, just in case SPS 186 decides to play it safe and not have buses running and kids standing on street corners in 6 inches of snow ...

Of course, given that this IS Illinois we're talking about, the chances that all this snow will still be here by tomorrow late morning are pretty slim.  Especially with the weather calling for rain in the morning.  The roads are going to be a big fat sloppy mess!!


My random thought for the night ... Nitro is almost 12.  In dog years, that's almost 80, according to a graph on Wikipedia anyway.  He still acts like a puppy - bouncing around today when he saw the snow, begging to go outside over and over just to run around in it.  Mind you - he doesn't like *cold* ... just *snow*.  Hard to get the latter without the former, but that's where it is.  I think he tolerates the cold for the sake of the snow.

Seriously?

/soapbox on

I'm trying hard to understand why a technology school doesn't make more/better use of technology to communicate with parents. 

Just because I work from home doesn't mean I don't work or that I can take 15 minutes to deal with some random issue at any given minute. It simply means I don't have to get all dolled up and drive in to an office every morning.  I still have phone calls coming in, production numbers to meet, meetings to attend, etc.  My day is no less busy just because I'm in my basement rather than a cubicle.  Now, on the flip side, I totally understand that teachers aren't generally able to make their "downtime" coincide with my breaks or lunch in order to talk.

That's where email comes in so handy!!  Why do I get a call from my son in the office - complete with the office staff breaking in and talking to/over him?  Why not an email telling me "hey your kid did this, fix it".  That way, I can deal with the issue when I get off and my child is home ... and I'll even email them back to tell them what was done!

/soapbox off


Man I'm glad it's Friday ... oh wait ... I have to work tomorrow too!