Thursday

DO NOT USE Village Eye Works for you glasses

Village Eye Works came highly recommended. I purchased an adorable pair of glasses there. When they arrived after 2 full weeks, they were the wrong frames!!!! They sent them back and 1 week later, I was told they did not have the glasses yet because, while putting them together, the technician broke the lens and they had to reorder them. So, the 3rd pair of glasses came in another 2 weeks and they were adorable, but guess what! I couldn't see a thing unless it was so close to me that I looked like Mr. Magoo. So, I took them to my eye doctor who told me they had put the prescription in upside down. The reading part was at the top and then for the reading part, they tripled the prescription so I couldn't see anything out of the bottom.

I asked for my money back and Village Eye Works gave me a hassle, so I just called American Express and told them to dispute the charges. I returned the glasses and finally after 3 months, American Express said they had credited my account. However, there was a $300 charge for FRAMES, that they did not credit. Guess why?

Village Eye Works had put on the receipt that they only do "in store credits." No cash refunds. They had refunded the money for the lenses because of their error, but would not refund the money for the frames "because they could not return the frames to the company that makes them." They were a "custom" order. What a crock. When I purchased the glasses they made a big deal of showing me how easily the pieces were interchanged and popped them on and off of different pairs of glasses to put together exactly what I wanted.

I had talked to the Village Eye Works at least a half dozen times to try and work this out. I spoke to 3 different people, including the manager. No one ever told me about their return policy!!!! It was in small print on the receipt, it is not posted anywhere in the store.

Additionally, the manager had told me that they had reviewed my prescription and he knew they had given me the wrong lens strength and asked if they could have another chance to make it right. I told him that I didn't want to mess with them any more, three chances was enough and I just wanted my money back. He said that since I had opened a dispute with American Express, he didn't want to give me my money back, but to just wait and let American Express take care of it. He did not then, nor did he at any time, tell me the store's refund policy.

No glasses are cute enough to deal with this kind of service. This is inexcusable. I had indicated to the manager, that I was not mad and I would not be bad mouthing them around town, however, with this result, all bets are off. I want the world to know that they were dishonest and unfair in their practices.

I realize that technically, they may have a LEGAL leg to stand on, but, come on, it is time for businesses to stand up and take responsibility for lousy service. I protest businesses that give lousy service. Village Eye Works, just got added to the list!

Wednesday

2 Days and Counting

I did something I have never done before last night!

I did a "practice" pack of the suitcase. Weird.

I was told by my good friend Maria Hoffman, that the worst part of a self-drive trip, like we are taking, is that every day you have to drag your suitcase into a new bed and breakfast at night and then in the morning pack it all up again and drag it back to the car (that's what Tarzan is for, right?).

So, I got the genius idea. I am packing a space saver plastic bag for each day we are going to be gone. They don't require a vacuum, they are the roll the air out kind. I didn't believe it would work, so we bought some and guess what? They are awesome. I will have 7 neat little packages and each morning when I get dressed, I will put the dirty cloths in the bag I just emptied and seal it up so I have no groady, dirty cloths in my suitcase and I never have a jumbled mess.




And I bought the cutest luggage for the trip. I have a whole matching set of these brown and white polka dot suitcases. Tarzan says only someone with ovaries would buy luggage with polka dots on it. He is taking his own, plain black bag that looks like everyone else's. Whatever. Rachel has luggage that is trimmed with a leopard print. We will be stylin' all over Ireland. Hey, that rhymes.

Tuesday

SPT-Something Borrowed

“The spt challenge this [month] is: may means *wedding month* to me. and, no, this challenge is not going to be about weddings (unless you want it to be...) this month's challenge is simply:
  • tuesday, may 6 something old
  • tuesday, may 13 something new
  • tuesday, may 20 something borrowed
  • tuesday, may 27 something blue”
So this week is something borrowed. It's a shame I don't have a picture of this. If I can figure out how to get a good picture of it later, I will add it.

Twenty years ago, I was visiting my sister in Texas. She loaned me an embroidery hoop. It's big. Big enought to use as a laptop quilt frame. On the side of it she wrote "This belongs to Inez and don't you forget it!"

I haven't forgotten, but I still have it. I'd like to see her get it back from me. Ha, ha, ha, ha. (evil laugh)

Wednesday

We leave for Ireland in 10 days

It's time to begin telling the story. It would be a shame if we left out any of the detail of the fiasco.

A year ago, we decided we wanted to go to Ireland for our annual trip. We have a special account into which all unexpected money is deposited so we could save up and pay for the trip in advance.

Tarzan, who, as many of you know who are regular readers of my blog, collects PPP's (poor pitiful people). He had a couple come into his office who fit the bill and they told him they were trying to start a travel agency. He said, "Hey my wife and I are going to Ireland next year. Would you like to put the trip together for us?"

That was the beginning of my woes. After many annoying conversations where they couldn't just give us choices, rather they flooded us with meaningless information and expected us to decipher their intent and make some kind of choice. We finally got our airplane tickets last year. When the tickets came, they arrived with a bill for the services of the travel agent and a charge they had put on our credit card to Travelocity. Now, you know the troubles I've seen, without my saying any more than that. Right? Oh, my, you don't even have a clue. I tried to put together how much they had charged us for the trip and when the payments had been made and found that not one of the letters from them was dated.

If it were not for my good friend Maria Hoffman, we would have arrived in Ireland with our schedule all wrong, no car rented, no way to get into a Bed and Breakfast, no idea of where to go or what to do. No idea of the best way to handle the exchange rate, etc. etc. etc.

We now have Emily Goldie, she is wonderful. Emily got us prepaid vouchers to use at the Bed and Breakfasts through the part of Ireland where we are staying. Without them, if we had been lucky enough to get a room, we would have paid double or triple the price. She was able to rent us a car (our previous agents told us they had not been agents long enough to get us the car rental and sent our money back to us--2 weeks before we were to leave). We got travel books and maps, oh, it is so nice to have someone who knows what they are doing helping you.

As of today, she is planning our cruise for 2009. We are going to Alaska, want to go? We can get a discount with 16 people in our group.

Tuesday

SPT--Something New

“The spt challenge this week is: may means *wedding month* to me. and, no, this challenge is not going to be about weddings (unless you want it to be...) this month's challenge is simply:
  • tuesday, may 6 something old
  • tuesday, may 13 something new
  • tuesday, may 20 something borrowed
  • tuesday, may 27 something blue”

In order for you to really understand how much I L-O-V-E my something new, you have to know a few interesting facts.

I am, chronologically speaking, a senior citizen which means certain things don’t work like they used to. One of those things is my eyes. They just don’t cooperate like they used to. Sometimes, they see double and I don’t even drink. Sometimes they see blurred objects and I am not on any drugs (legal or illegal). Sometimes I squint too much, but that causes wrinkles so I just wear glasses.

Now, the next thing you should know is that glasses make my eyes tired. I’ve tried them all. Bifocals, trifocals, soft contacts, hard contacts, 3 different pair of glasses one for reading, one for computer and one for distance. I’ve even used drug store glasses and I have several pair of glasses from the dollar store. Nothing makes a difference, my eyes just get tired.

The consequences of these two things is simple—I quit reading. By the end of the day, when reading is my favorite leisure activity, my eyes are too tired to read.

What does this have to do with something new? You ask.

I have a new Kindle. I love my new Kindle. I have started reading again. No trips to the library, no boxes and boxes of stored books. Just my new Kindle. My new Kindle has my scriptures on it (that was the first thing I bought and downloaded). The new Kindle is amazing. You can purchase and download books onto it without a computer in site. It is completely wireless. Here are some pictures and some of my favorites features:


Here is the cover. Notice mine has a little red dot on the corner. That is so that Tarzan can easily pick up his and not get confused. He liked mine so well, that we immediately bought one for him.


This is what it looks like when you open it. In this picture the Kindle is asleep. The images change each time you put it to sleep.

When I open my Kindle I have it set on the largest font so I don’t have to strain my eyes to read. Yes, I am reading again. In fact I have read more in the past 2 months than I have read in the past year.

Here it is with smaller print. You can adjust the print to fit your vision requirements. Did I tell you I L-O-V-E my NEW Kindle?

This is the Kindle store where you can buy books right on the Kindle and they will be downloaded to your Kindle in seconds. You get a license to share your purchased book with 6 Kindles. I have a credit card on file, so all I have to do is click on the book I want and it is charged to my credit card and I am good to go.


Here is my Google Mail. Isn’t that amazing?








And here is the big bonus, you can make notes and create bookmarks, then, Amazon saves all of that in your account so if your Kindle should die, you can simply download them to the new one. Both of our Kindles have access to all books, periodicals and blogs the other one purchases. It is a simple matter of managing the content to put the items you want on your Kindle and take off what you don’t want. For instance, I have no interest in a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Tarzan, can’t live without it, so he has it downloaded to his Kindle and I only get it when I want to read something specific.

Just one problem, I hate to call it “my Kindle.” I need a name for my Kindle, any suggestions?

If you decide to buy a Kindle, click on the link on my page to go to Amazon and buy one. If you do I get money :-).

Wednesday

SPT - Something Old

The spt challenge this week is: may means *wedding month* to me. and, no, this challenge is not going to be about weddings (unless you want it to be...) this month's challenge is simply:

tuesday, may 6 something old
tuesday, may 13 something new
tuesday, may 20 something borrowed
tuesday, may 27 something blue

May 6
Something Old

It is hard for me to believe that the oldest thing in my house is me. LOL. So, I contribute a picture of me as a child after falling out of a car.

We had a car that had doors in the back that opened from front to back(and now you will know why they quit making them). If you were moving and the door came open the wind would catch it and swing it wide open. I was sitting by the window and, obviously, playing with the door handle. We were traveling down the road. The door came open, the wind blew it wide open. I had hold of the handle and was thrown out of the car. My Mom says when she looked back, I was running behind the car as fast as I could, bleeding profusely and screaming, "Don't leave me, don't leave me." She said I was very upset that the car didn't stop immediately. This picture has always cracked me up. Don't I look indignant? I was never allowed to sit by the window again.

Where you ever in a car accident?

Friday

A Big Surprise

I am famous for doing stupid things. It is my great hope this isn't one of them. Tarzan is out of town for 2 days. I had plumbers, dry wallers and electricians all lined up to remodel the bathroom while he is gone.

DAY ONE
Tonight the plumbers showed up, Shad and Rudy.



DAY TWO
Today we had Shad and Rudy, the plumbers, James, the sheetrock man, and Rafael and Rubio, the electricians. I fell asleep at 8:00 p.m. right after they left. I'm exhausted.



DAY THREE
This morning I painted and cleaned and put everything back together. I need a nap. (Click on each picture to see the whole thing.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Whew! Tarzan loves it! I took a picture of him in the new shower, but he made me promise not to put it in the Internet, so you will have to read my private journal to see it.

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