Last evening, I took the kids and headed to the nearest JC Penny, aka a half an hour away. I didn’t even get to head out until 6. First we had school, then my sister-in-law stopped by to pay me for my brother-in-law’s phone bill. Apparently she’s as brainless as I am, haha, because she’d forgotten her checkbook and left to go to the bank. While she was gone, UPS arrived with the wedding book I’d made them. She returned, paid me, took her book and only then would Kayleigh finally take a nap. So it was 5 pm before K got up and we could get started out the door.

Drove out there and took the kids to Sonic because OF COURSE I didn’t get us anything to eat for supper before leaving, then we were in the car wash getting rid of all the salt and snow grime that built up over this last snow, when Steve called. The whole reason I had to go to Penny’s was to return some things I bought online that arrived and totally did not fit. Guess what? Yeah, I’d left them on the kitchen table! My purse had been sitting RIGHT by them and somehow I managed to get that.

Elijah wasn’t phased, of course, he was on a mission to spend his Christmas money. Well, the Christmas money he knew about. :P (Really, my kids have enough stuff as it is, they don’t need to just run out and spend all their money when I can save some of it for them for a rainy day or whatever.) So we went to Walmart so he could spend his $15 on – you guessed it – a Transformer.

I made a list before we left. Apparently I can’t even do that right and I forgot to write down several things and forgot several of the things I needed from there. Ugh!

I used to have this great memory, what happened??

Oh, my gosh, these things are annoying!

The other day, I spent 30 minutes building the crane thing. Elijah had made it through steps one and two but couldn’t get any further so at his insistence, I took over. The building of the thing was frustrating enough but then I handed the finished product to him and within two minutes he had busted it. He insisted on putting the tracks on the wheels and that just made the whole thing fall apart. So then I spent another 15 minutes fixing it. And within five more minutes? Busted again. Build it yourself! I have declared I’m finished.

But the reason these things are of the devil? The same reason they fall apart. First of all, they don’t fit well. Then they are warped or something and so they peel off from one another anyway. Supposedly they fit “other standard blocks” (ie Legos) so I guess that’s something but I would almost stand to say they would have the same effect with other blocks. They’re incredibly hard to snap together.

Maybe when he’s older I wouldn’t mind getting him a set of K’NEX that are just the connectors and things, none of those stupid blocks, but in the mean time, I’m boycotting these things… before I lose my mind! Ahhh, thankfully, however, he can build the tractor and one other smaller/easier item himself. At least that’s something, even if it doesn’t stay together but for a few minutes.

Wednesday night I ordered my camera that is coming with two lenses and a couple of other things, also a memory card and an extra battery. The battery and memory card shipped from one location, everything else from another. One in Kansas, one in Georgia. Both shipped earlier on the 17th (Thursday). Both made very good time and met up in Memphis the evening of the 18th. They were due to be delivered Saturday, the 19th.

I waited all day. All day. I was here all day. That is, except for a short half an hour at noon where I ran to the store. Even so, Steve was here then.

I kept thinking, when is it going to get here? In my previous experience with FedEx, they always arrived in the morning. So right around 6pm I finally called. The lady said that the delivery person was still out and I would have them by 8pm.

At 8, there was still no delivery guy, so I refreshed the pages with the tracking. It now said:

5:48 PM — Delivery exception — Customer not available or business closed

And that, in a word, is pure crap.

So at 5:48pm, the driver apparently decided he didn’t care anymore, or couldn’t be bothered to make a delivery for me, or that he just plain wanted to go home.

So I called again and this time, thankfully, got someone who spoke English as a first language. She looked up my tracking number and said that, unfortunately, she didn’t have contact with that center because they closed at 11am. Not to mention, they are closed on Mondays so it’s going to be Tuesday before I get my packages!! She put in a complaint and said a manager would call me Monday or Tuesday.

I know it’s not her fault, so I was really nice to her. But I did say that I hoped nothing was wrong with the packages, I said, “because I know that the longer it stays in transit, the more chance it can get damaged.” I’ve seen that from experience. She agreed and I continued, “I mean, it’s very important, that’s $900 worth of stuff there.” She agreed again and said she had noticed who the shipper was.

But here’s the kicker. What a wrong day for the driver to claim no one was home! Right at about the time he claims he was here and no one else was, the Domino’s guy was arriving. My parents were barely here and my in-laws were arriving. People were entering and leaving the house, there were four extra vehicles outside. Except for our people, there wasn’t much activity at all on our little drive, the FedEx guy never even got close to our house, never even tried to make contact. The driver has no excuse.

Oh, and the lady on the phone asked me if the guy left a thing on the door stating he’d been here and I said no, because there wasn’t one (because he was never here to begin with), and she actually sighed and said to me, “I don’t know why the drivers do the things they do sometimes.”

So, yeah, I’m kinda ticked. This isn’t a case of bad address or something stupid like that. It’s about a lazy driver. And the manager is going to hear about it when I talk to him/her.

that’s great. Havent ever seen such offer before. Cann’t believe it’s true. Click through the links below to check if this is nt a dream!

Well, anyway, here’s the whole thing. I mean, seriously!

Yeah, that’s not obvious!

I guess their reward is that they do find people who don’t have spam protection on their blogs but for anyone who has any kind of decent blogging system, you’d also think that default settings would block that comment… you know, like the allowed links in WordPress’s options.

So I just feel like… duh… here.

Yay, me.

/sarcasm.

Go away, crazies.

I recognized this company as soon as I saw the brochure. I had seen a vehicle at Walmart one night that had a sign for them on the side of it. I had laughed my butt off then and now again, I had to laugh. This company calls themselves

Dream Photo’s

Do you see what’s wrong with that? I know it can’t be just me.

Yes, the apostrophe. Photo’s.

This is a pet peeve of mine, the incorrect use of apostrophes (now you all know).

For the record, apostrophes are not used when simply adding an “s” to a word. That makes the world plural, as in more than one. However, when you own something and add that “s,” then you can add that apostrophe. Or when you’ve omitted letters when combining two words together. Oh, look, I just did it there. A lesser known rule of the English language, however, is that you can use an apostrophe in a plural of an abbreviation or number, such as 5′s. But please, oh, please, do not use an apostrophe in regular plural words!

Now, I’m sure it’s a very nice company and their prices seem reasonable, but I am just completely blown away by this blatant mistake. The first time I saw it, at Walmart, I just sat there in my car for a few minutes and stared at the sign. I could not figure out why that would be on the sign like that. Did the sign maker make a mistake and the company owner not notice?? Apparently not! They use the term “Dream Photo’s” in the brochure three times. It never says something like, “Dream Photo’s photography is…” or “Dream Photo’s located at…” No, it says “Dream Photo’s by…” and “At Dream Photo’s we…”

Sorry, again, BIG pet peeve. I can hardly read something that’s written like that without doubling over in laughter until I am unable to finish it. Reminds me of the time we saw the messed up McDonald’s sign:

I mean, seriously, what’s up with that? Why can’t anyone spell or use proper punctuation in America anymore?