Month: December 2010

Holiday Preparation

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Alternate Title: Preparation H. ;)

Now I remember why the flickering snowflakes we used to put up when we lived in the apartment have been sitting in a box for the past 6 years – they won’t stay put on the patio door! We finally found some suction cups and it turns out they won’t stay stuck to the door. After spending a half hour putting them up, and even using tape to help keep them in place, they are probably going to come down. Maybe we can hang them over the garage or something because they are really cute, just a pain in the ass. Kinda like me. ;)

I plan on taking a picture of the lights on the house this year at some point but I’ve been too lazy and it’s been too cold outside. Those two do not a good combination make.

So are we the only ones who have not yet put up our tree? We are putting it up this year, we just haven’t gotten around to it yet. At this rate it will be up for less than two weeks, but that’s fine by me given the configuration of our house and no real good spot for the tree.

I’ve been baking cookies for the treat bags I plan on handing out to my coworkers tomorrow. Monday I made snickerdoodles. I’ve only had them once before and wasn’t that impressed, but the Better Crocker mix is awesome and the cookies turned out delicious! Today I decided to make Gingerbread Men cookies, except the dough wasn’t dry enough and every gingerbread man was torn limb for limb as I tried to pry them off the counter to put on the cookie sheet. Yes, I floured the counter and the rolling pin, the dough was just too moist. I gave up and made regular round cookies and they too were yummy. I used to be a die-hard Pillsbury fan but between these cookies and the moist chocolate cake I made for K in August I’m sticking with Betty Crocker for the foreseeable future.

I’m a little peeved with Target.com at the moment. I placed an order for a gift for E on Black Friday and was getting nervous that it hadn’t shipped two weeks later. Yesterday I got an email from them stating the item likely won’t be delivered until February because it’s out of stock. Gee, it wasn’t out of stock when I purchased it. Either they have inventory control issues, or they realized what a great deal this item was (and it truly was as I can’t find it anywhere for less than $40 more) and decided to use that cop-out instead of fulfilling my order. In any case, I canceled the order and found something comparable elsewhere and I don’t plan on shopping their online store again. I’m pretty sure I had an issue with them the last time I ordered years ago. It’s too bad since I love their store so much.

Snowy Day

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Ugh. The first substantial snowfall of the season has arrived. Can it go away now? Once again my plans to visit Milwaukee Public Museum have been thwarted. I really do hope we get to go before the special frog exhibit ends.

Since we were snowed in (not literally), we tried to be somewhat productive even though we didn’t do too much before 11 am.

This is what I got accomplished:

Reorganized my recipe binder – I finally threw out the recipes I was hanging onto that I knew I was never going to try, making room for the recipes I have tried and liked but didn’t have room to file appropriately.

Created an Evite for a Roller Skating Party I’m putting together to celebrate my birthday next month – It’s been ages since I’ve roller-skated and I miss it. We’d have parties when I was in school and even though I didn’t have an outgoing personality, I always went because I loved to skate.

Reorganized the hall closet – It was getting pretty messy and I had to get a lightbulb to change out the one that’s “guaranteed to last 8 years” but only lasted less than 5.

Joe worked on my car. He was going to change the wheel bearings and brakes but only ended up doing the brakes because he couldn’t get the axle nuts removed. We tried calling a bunch of places to see if he could rent the appropriate tools but most places didn’t offer them, some were closed, and the one place that did have what we were looking for informed us how difficult it would be to get them off even with the tools they had available.

Thanks to Rental Max for their extreme helpfulness. One of the employees discussed the project with Joe for quite awhile. Talk about superb customer service! They didn’t have to help at all since we weren’t going to be renting any tools from them.

By the way, I’ve got another good customer service story to share. I contacted Hanes recently about some underwear I bought over the summer. I usually wear a size 5, but it was a bit tight, so I got a size 6. The problem is the crotch is like an inch wider in the 6. As if someone’s crotch is going to be that much bigger one size up! So I mentioned it and they asked for some additional details and are mailing me a check for what I paid for the package of undies.

I noticed I’ve had good luck with my complaints if I’m matter-of-fact about the issue. Some people just send nasty comments and I don’t blame the company if they ignore them in that case. Although I will say I’m disappointed with Clean and Clear for never getting back to me when I expressed concern over them discontinuing my favorite foaming face wash. I guess you can’t win them all.

Drool-worthy television

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I know I’ve been talking about living with less and spending less money, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that I want one of Samsung’s LED TVs. The one in the picture is awesome! I saw it at Walmart a month ago and haven’t stopped thinking of it since. Definitely a “want” item, not a need. Our plasma is still in great working condition, although I’d be remiss to point out it’s not even full HD, but it works fine. One of these days, though, I plan to get an LED. Maybe even a nicer one at 240Hz, although I hear nobody broadcasts in it currently. I’m not really interested in a 3D TV, though.