Category: Neighborhood

USPS Ridiculouness

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I had to make this it’s own entry since it’s so long.

Back in December I posted this to Facebook:

Let us count the ways in which the post office has screwed up in the past two weeks, shall we?

– 1 package was marked delivered 12/12 but has never materialized. Filled out a form on 12/17 and have never heard a peep from anyone. Since as far as the seller is concerned, it was delivered, so we have no recourse (it was a Christmas gift for me from Joe) and are out $20

– 1 Christmas card envelope was delivered without the card inside

– 1 Christmas card (from Terri) was in our Informed Delivery on December 23rd but has never materialized

– We received 3 village newsletters (1 on one day and 2 together on the same day)

– We received 2 pieces of mail that are not ours (one for the next door neighbors and another for someone who lives two miles away)

– My Cure Wish box set is missing. I pre-ordered it over the summer and it was supposedly shipped in November. This one might possibly still show, but I have no way to ever know where it is because the seller doesn’t provide any tracking information. Lesson learned; will not order from overseas again. To add insult to injury, I’m out $31 and could have gotten it from Amazon already for $10 less.
Until this year we’ve never had an issue with the post office but this is beyond ridiculous!

In January I posted this update:

1 – Today a man left the missing Christmas card from Terri in our door. This was caught on my doorbell camera. I do not recognize him from the neighborhood and when I went out to retrieve the mail, he looked to be sitting in a car out front, so who knows how far away he came to deliver it, but that was super nice of him! Unlike whichever neighbor got my Christmas gift and kept it. Lord help me if I see someone in the neighborhood wearing my t-shirt….

2 – I previously filed a second claim, this time online, for the missing Etsy package and the post office came back saying the postal carrier delivered it (I’m sure they did – just not to the right box), so I spoke to Etsy customer service, opened a case, and was refunded yesterday. I tried dealing with the seller directly but all they kept saying is “tell me how I can help” even after I told them how they could help. I was even willing to order again from them if they could ship the item UPS (which I told them I would pay for) but their response was “tell me how I can help”. I think there was a language barrier. An Etsy rep assured me the refund would not be deducted from the seller before I summitted my claim (I think Etsy eats the cost) as I did not want to harm a small business. It’s not their fault the post office sucks!

3 – I’m still waiting to hear back from the place I ordered my Cure box set from. I submitted an inquiry a week ago and it said to expect 5 business days for a response due to heavy volume. I wonder how many other people never got their orders. Without a tracking number how can I confirm they even really sent it? Ugh.

The Universal Music Store, where I ordered my Cure box set, did in fact reimburse me, so I ordered the set from Amazon and not only did it arrive in two days, it was $10 cheaper. Lesson learned; no more overseas pre-orders for this gal.

Haunted Trail Walk & Halloween

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Saturday, October 29th

Our local park district offered a haunted trail walk for $5 per person this year, so we signed up with our friend, D. We had attempted to attend the event last year but it was cancelled due to rain. This year it was just very cold outside. The park they chose to hold it in was one we’ve never been to before but was close by which was nice. But that’s where our luck runs out.

This park had a small building they were using as a staging area for each group but you had to wait outside for your turn and like I had mentioned, it was really cold out! In addition, even though there were lights on the exterior of the building, they weren’t on, so it was pretty dark. The person checking people in had to use a flashlight and even then couldn’t find us on the list until another person intervened. The whole thing was very disorganized.

In fact, they were running behind, so we had to wait about twenty minutes past our scheduled time in that freezing cold. This one lady was smoking and no matter how far away we stood, I could still smell it. I thought it was pretty rude of her to be smoking at all considering how many kids were in the area. Plus she was with kids! Of course she ended up in our group and even though she wasn’t smoking on the actual walk, the damage had already been done and my hair smelled like smoke when we got home.

I’d like to be able to say all the annoyances were worth it in the end, but sadly, they were not. They had stations set up along a walking path that were like chapters in a scary story about an escaped kid or something (it was so lame I wasn’t even paying attention) and you could tell the people involved hadn’t participated in such a thing before so they weren’t very good at acting or scaring people. Needless to say, it wasn’t scary in the least (and I’m a wuss), or fun, and I couldn’t wait until it was over so I could get back into the warm car. We definitely won’t be signing up for that in the future.

Monday, October 31st – Halloween

On Halloween we got about 10 kids or so which worked out well since I had put together 9 treat bags from the large bag of candy we got from Walmart.

Look at the uneven distribution of flavors, though! I think I might just hand out full sized candy bars next year.

Mums The Word

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I love mums in the fall! Every year it’s a challenge, however, to find the best ones without spending a fortune because I like to get a few different colors. It’s also a delicate balance between picking the correct time to buy and finding quality plants that will produce big blooms. Well, this year we achieved the trifecta and not at the place you’d expect. I got three 8″ mums from Meijer on September 25th for only $6 each.

I dropped the pots they came in into another larger pot with soil in it and I think this has kept them draining well (and I only water them occasionally).

Here’s what they looked like on October 6th.

Since then they’ve gotten fuller and are still looking good because I also brought them inside twice when there was a frost advisory.

Compare that to the big $18 mums our neighbor bought, never maintained, and now look like rotted death, which you’ll have to take my word for since I didn’t get a picture of them.

Robin’s Nest

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A couple of years ago we had a robin’s nest in the small tree out front, and this year we had another one. It was higher up and the momma bird did not like me trying to get pictures. I had to actually stop because she started attacking me, even if I was just walking past the tree (which I have to do to get in/out of the front door) when taking the dog for a walk. Needless to say, I didn’t get as many photos of the baby birds as I would have liked.

The nest was discovered on May 10th

The hatchlings on May 29th

They left the nest sometime in late May, early June

Loose Dog

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On the way home from picking up Taco Bell yesterday we saw a dog running loose in the neighborhood, dragging a leash behind it. Joe got out of the car but the dog wasn’t interested in coming near him, so we drove around the neighborhood to see if anyone was out looking for it.

We didn’t see anyone, and when we returned back to our part of the subdivision, we saw the dog sitting in front of a door to one of the townhomes.

Joe went to see if he could check for a tag, but the dog kept growling at him. We ended up going home and posting the details on Nextdoor and a local Facebook group.

No one commented on my Nextdoor post, but Joe’s Facebook post got some activity. Someone suggested calling the police, which hadn’t occurred to either of us, so I did that. Other people went out to look for it (as it wasn’t where we last saw it once the police arrived). Luckily someone posted that it was eventually captured and returned to its owner. I can only guess it was far from where it was being walked when it got loose which is why we didn’t see anyone looking for it.

Since hindsight is 20/20, I wish we had stayed by the house where it was cornered and called the police so they could have grabbed it sooner, thus reducing the chance it would get hit by a car. I blame my hanger because I was feeling faint and needed to eat and the whole delayed that process. That’s what I get for waiting until I was already starving to go get food!