I love stamping!

I've been hired to make wedding invitations for some friends of ours. I started working on them today, and this is the first one I've come up with. I'll have to get some supplies that I thought I had but don't before I make the next one that's in my head, but at least this is a start. And I'm really excited because I think this one is so good. :) But that could just be my big head...you'll have to tell me if I'm right. :)

Customer Service Rant #2 and Cole

It took the warranty company three weeks to get me the new lamp for my tv. Three weeks. So Jason and I went to install it this weekend. And it's the wrong one. Someone had put a sticker on it with the correct lamp number, but that's not the same number that's engraved into the lamp. And while it's very similar to our lamp, it just doesn't fit. So we spent like three hours trying to figure out what was wrong with us and why we couldn't get the lamp to go in the way it's supposed to before we realized that there was a difference in the housing that was causing it to not fit. So I called them again. And of course I was told that they couldn't expidite the correct lamp (cause that's what I'm always told althought they finally did expidite the incorrect one). I was also told that I'd have to ship back the incorrect one before they ship me out a new one. At this point, I'm so fed up with them, I said no way, connect me with someone who can get me what I want (which, personally, I don't even think is that extraordinary, just what I should have gotten all along). And of course, she says, there's no one in today that can do that because it's the weekend, you'll have to call back Monday. So today I call again. And immediately ask for a supervisor. And wait on hold for 55 minutes. I'm not even exaggerating. Finally a supervisor gets on the line (I guess they realized I wasn't going to hang up), and offers me what I've asked for all along without me having to ask for it. I, however, am not going to hold my breath until I see the correct lamp in my posession. Did I mention how I didn't want this tv? Oh, so I looked up the warranty company online and found out this is SOP for them. So before you buy an extended warranty on anything, make sure it's not through The Warranty Group cause it's not worth the money.

On to Cole. He's been going through a phase. At least I'm hoping it's a phase. We're so frustrated with him, and really at our wits end. He keeps taking his Bakugan to school and getting them stolen. So I finally took them all away from him, but he keeps stealing some of them back from me cause I keep finding them in his pockets. I found more on him today after school. Meanwhile, his desk has to be at the front of the class by himself or else he gets distracted. I have to constantly remind him to wear his glasses (he's nearsighted in one eye, so it doesn't affect his normal vision, so he doesn't think about it--not to mention he doesn't like being teased for wearing glasses, something I can relate to). He's bored in school so he just chooses not to do his work because he feels like it's way too easy (and it is). But his teacher and I have sat down and talked to him about how if he will just show her that he can do the regular work he can get harder work and be rewarded with things like extra computer time and he still chooses not to do it. He's just making bad choices all the time. Which is why we chose to not have him baptized this month. I feel like if he can't make good choices, he's not ready for that responsibility. I know we're not perfect parents, but we try, and we're raising him the right way. He knows right from wrong, he just chooses not to obey. We've tried punishments, we've tried rewards. I just don't know what to do with him anymore. I really hope this is not a preview of what teenage Cole is going to be like cause I just couldn't stand it. I think one of the hardest things as a parent is to watch your child make wrong choices, knowing that they are the ones that have to choose. At this point, at least it's just schoolwork, later it's going to be worse. So we're at our wits end with him. Please tell me it's a phase and he's going to grow out of it.

Party time

Took my final today, and it looks like I got a strong B, so I'm happy. I'm terrible at biology, so a B is great for me. Now I get to relax for a few weeks before I start another class.

Spring is a blessing and a curse in Surprise. I love having spring training here because it's so fun to be able to go see the major leaguers play close to home and it's much more casual than going to a game at the big stadium (though not much cheaper). The curse is that all the old people are here so traffic is a nightmare, it takes over an hour to be seated at a restaurant, and there's just old people everywhere (not that I mind old people in general, but for instance, there was this old dude that pulled into the gas station behind me today. It seriously took him 5 minutes just to be able to get out of his car. What kind of reflexes does he have and reaction time, and he's still driving?).

Anyhow, there are very few spring training games in the evenings, so we don't get to see a lot of games. Tonight was awesome, though. The Dodgers moved their spring training camp out here so they played at our stadium (which is home to the Royals and the Rangers) vs the Royals. It was an evening game so it was cooler (it's getting in the mid 90s already during the day), and they had fireworks. Unfortunately, though, the Dodgers had the trifecta of suckiness: bad pitching, bad fielding, and bad hitting. We ended up leaving after the fireworks at the seventh inning stretch because we needed to get home and get ready for tomorrow. But we had a good time, and the kids had fun for awhile until the Dodgers started losing really badly. Every five minutes while the Dodgers were winning, the kids had to ask if they were still winning. Lindsay especially. Oh, and Lindsay and Cole both wore their Dodger shirts, so we were in true blue spirit.

Jason and I are really excited for tomorrow. From the time we got married, Jason has been dying to go to this tennis tournament that's held in Indian Wells, Ca. Since we moved here, he's really been dying because it's only about four hours away. So this year I relented. We got some really nice friends to take our kids for the weekend and we're going to go see some professional tennis. I'm excited because I get to see my love, Roger Federer, play. Since we bought tickets to the semifinals, we get to watch two matches, so we get to see four of the best men's tennis players play live. And then we compromised and instead of going to the final on Sunday, we're going shopping at Cabazon (anyone from so Cal knows that this is THE best outlet mall around). Not to mention we're staying at a really nice looking hotel in Palm Desert with a water slide and everything and no kids! I'm glad we get this time together to relax and have a good time. I need it after the last 8 weeks.

I'm so sick to death

At the lack of customer service. No one builds anything that even resembles quality, and then when it breaks, even while under warranty, they aren't willing to do anything about it. We have this really big TV (that I didn't even want) that has now been unusable for over a month because a lamp burnt out. We paid a serious amount of money for an extended warranty for instances just like this. And here we are, more than two weeks after I've contacted them and still no lamp. After speaking to a supervisor today, I'm more frustrated than ever because they're not helpful! I think that's my biggest problem is that no one will help! Her first comment to me is that there are no notes in the system from Monday (when I called previously), which of course means that I didn't call. So I must have hallucinated that conversation. She tells me they have to find out what the hold up is and that's going to take another three business days. So why they didn't do this on Monday is beyond me. I asked them to order me another bulb and have it expedited and was told no. And of course my only recourse to get my tv working is to order the stupid bulb myself (which can cost a lot of money I've been told) and then I'll have an extra one when the warranty bulb comes in. But isn't that why I paid all that money for the warranty?

Well, now, I've just had an interesting development. While I was typing my next rant about Ikea, the store manager there just called me and is fixing my problem for me. We upgraded to a king sized bed over the weekend and got our bed from Ikea in Tempe. When we got it home and started opening the box, I noticed a huge crack in the headboard. It's aestetic for sure, it doesn't affect the bed, but I didn't pay for a new bed to have it cracked. Unfortunately, the store is out of stock on that item, and therein lies the problem. I've been callling them every day since Sunday to sort out my problem. The first time I talked to someone I was told they wouldn't get the bed in til December but I only have 90 days to exchange it (I was like, huh?). So it now looks like they won't get the bed in for two weeks, but it took me calling back three times just to get this far. Further, I really don't like sleeping on a mattress on the floor (and I was able to sell off the old bed, so I don't have an option), so I just wanted to use the new bed frame until the headboard comes in and then we can exchange it. I was told no, and then I was told that once I put the headboard together with the bed frame I won't ever be able to get it apart without damaging it. First of all, it's already damaged, second of all, how do you ever move it? It must be one of those new disposable beds. Maybe that's why it was so cheap! Anyhow, I kept getting the runaround from the call center, kept being told different things, it was really ridiculous. Oh, and we don't have a truck, so we had to borrow our friend's truck just to get it home, so now when it does come in, I have to borrow it again and drive all the way out there? Well, the store manager just called me and after a really nice conversation with him, I get to use the broken headboard until the new one comes in and they're going to deliver the new one to me and pick up the broken one. Honestly, that's what should have been offered all along, but it took me four days of headache just to get it. Really ridiculous.

So now if you're still with me at this point, you'll like my last story. Yesterday I happened to be walking home from my friends house and saw Charlie at the park with Bailey running down the street. I happened to know that the Omaha steak guys were on my street just minutes before and I have a no soliciting sign up on my door. So Bailey opened the door for the guys, accidentally let go of Charlie, and he took off. And he takes off far! So I was able to track him down (after he peed on my neighbor's front porch--sorry!) and drag his little butt home. I went out looking for the steak guys because I was going to cuss them out (I had already been on the phone with Ikea before that, so I was in a bad mood!) and they were nowhere to be found. There's no way they could have finished knocking on my street in the time it took me to bring Charlie back home. So I tell J what happened (he had been in his office right next to the front door and didn't know what was going on cause Bailey didn't say a word). Well, not even ten minutes later, he was going out to the park that's a little further down to drag Cole home and who does he see? He flags down the steak guys and he's acting all nice. He asks them for a brochure. Then he asks the guy what it says. When the guy tells him, J looks at him in surprise and says, "Oh, you can read?" The guy tried to tell J it must have been another guy that knocked on our door (Um, yeah right! There must be two sets of steak guys going around our little neighborhood at the same time). J just told them to never knock on our door again. Really, can't they read the stupid sign? I'm tired of chasing down my dog!

Birthday Party Recap

Sorry for the delay in posting, this ended up being a crazy week with my class winding down. Next week is my final, but at least that means it's almost over. Somehow we all survived the party, though I don't think Jason and I have quite recovered yet. I know I'm exhausted anyhow (of course the fact that I haven't been to bed before 1 am yet this week might have something to do with it). In any case, Cole had a blast which is all that really matters.

Our plan had been to take the boys to the movies, but of course they don't publish movie times two weeks in advance, so I had to take a guess as to what time the movie would be playing the weekend of the party. And wouldn't you know I guessed wrong. The weekend of the party, they moved the showing an hour earlier so that the movie started right when the boys were due to show up. And wouldn't you know that there were no other movies appropriate for eight year old boys playing after 5 pm. We'd planned on taking them to Hotel for Dogs (which got moved to 5), and barring that, Pink Panther 2 (which no one is showing any more). So Jason took Cole down and rented a movie instead, which was better on our wallets, and then I was able to really give them a bunch of goodies to much on, so they liked it. So the boys just played until after dinner, then Cole got to open his presents. After that, we just watched movies until they fell asleep around midnight. When we made them move upstairs to bed, of course it woke a couple of them up enough so they started talking again, so we had to do the whole "stop it boys" "seriously, go to sleep" business for awhile. Luckily they were all pretty tired so it only lasted a half hour or so. The next morning I went and got doughnuts and OJ and they got all sugared up. I missed the end of the party because at about 3 in the morning, Charlie (our beagle) had a rough night and I was up with him half the night. I think he got to scavenging after the boys and ate something he shouldn't have had and got a tummy ache. So after I went out for doughnuts, I went back to bed and let Jason deal with them. But, Cole says it was the best birthday ever, so we're happy.

We must be nuts!

Five 8 to 9 year old boys are here to spend the night. What were we thinking! Actually, I was thinking they wouldn't be at my house that much except for sleeping since Jason was going to take them to the movies, but when I looked up show times, I found that the only kid movie playing nearby after 5 was Jonas Bros (which Cole actually would have enjoyed, but I'm not sure his friends would), and for some reason I refuse to let him take the boys to see the Watchmen or Mall Cop. I must be a bad mom. :) Anyway, I must be crazy to have not only agreed to this madness, but actually have suggested it, but it is Cole's special day. We only let the kids have parties on even birthdays, so he's been looking forward to this for two years. Now we get to spend the rest of the night making sure he has a good time with his buddies. :)

Eight years ago...

Little Cole Buddy joined us. It's so hard to believe that it was eight years ago now, and Jason and I (well, me more than J) get so overwhelmed sometimes with how fast they're growing. What a little joy he was...such a sweet baby and a cute curly haired toddler. Now he's eight and getting ready to be baptized. I can't help thinking back to the silly little guy who wanted to wear his sister's tutu or the goofy little kid who was so excited to go to kindergarten. It's a good thing that this involves typing instead of talking cause I'm getting all choked up thinking about how fast my little buddy has grown.

So for Cole Buddy: happy birthday buddy! We love you and hope you have a great day!