Everyday Randomness

Today absolutely sucks.  Then again, I’ve only been about of bed for about oh, 30 minutes now.  That would be because I feel like I’ve been ran over by a Mack truck.  I just can’t get myself moving.  I woke up with a horrible headache, so hopefully the pills I just took will start to clear my head up so I can feel normal again.

I took Hubby out for his birthday dinner last night, although that didn’t go as well as planned.  We went to Applebees, and it just sucked.  We used to eat there all the time, but it’s totally gone downhill.

I ordered the Shrimp ‘N Parmesan Sirloin that was very good, but Hubby’s 12oz Ribeye was disgusting.  It’s marbled for a flavorful, juicy cut.  I understand that, but when his steak came out it was a solid chunk of fat.  He began cutting the fat away, and he was left with exactly 2 bites of actual meat.  I personally can’t stand the fat.  Hubby loves it, but it was even too much for him.  I sent it back because I wasn’t paying $15.99 for 10 oz of fat.

The second  steak was much better and looked like a marbled ribeye should, but we had to wait almost an hour for his second plate to arrive.  We’d been sitting there waiting on his food for about 45 minutes when we saw the manager walking from table to table, so I flagged him down.  I explained what had happened, how long we had been waiting, and how disgusted I was.  His only response was “would you like me to have the meal prepared to go?”.  Horrible!  We will never eat at that particular Applebees again.

After we left there we stopped by our friend’s house and picked up the buckeye balls she made for Hubby.  That took his mind completely off dinner, and he was happy again.  Men are so easy to please!

Now, I have to jump in the shower before my sister shows up.  She’s coming over at 2 to get help with her website.  She can’t get anything other than dial-up at my Mom’s house, so now that I’ve got her laptop fixed I told her I’d set her up a little spot in the guest room to use as her temporary office (it’s too distracting to have someone else in my office).

Now she’ll have a chance to get back to the blog she started right before she became internet-less.

I was proud of myself that I actually made it in bed last night before 3am.  Actually I haven’t been feeling well at all, so I was passed out with a box of tissues in one hand and the remote in the other by 1am.

My sore throat erupted into something seriously nasty overnight.  I woke up at 7am with a dry, scratchy throat that hurt so bad I would have screamed if I could have.  Even though my throat felt like crap I’m surprised I sprang up out of bed so easily.  I normally have a really hard time waking up in the mornings especially when it’s cold and after such little sleep.  I was up and wide awake though.

I put on my tea kettle while I built the fire back up.  I’m surprised to see the big log I threw on there last night still left me with a nice bed of coals this morning.  Normally it’s completely burned down by morning, but I had a fire going again in about 30 seconds.  Then I headed back into the kitchen and made myself the most soothing cup of Blueberry Cream Rooibos from SBS Teas, and my throat already feels better.

I love this tea because it’s so soothing.  After I received my first sample bag I was hooked on this.  Most of the time a 1oz sample bag of loose tea will last me a few weeks in the freezer because I switch up my tea flavors everyday.  This sample was gone in a day…as soon as Hubby discovered it.  He’s never been a big hot tea drinker, but when I gave him a cup of the Blueberry Cream he asked me to make a whole pot.

Now it’s one of the few things we drink when we’ve got a sore throat.  It has no caffeine, and the yogurt seems to coat the throat taking away every little hint of pain.  After I drank a cup my throat felt so much better I was able to reheat my spicy sausage gravy biscuit I got at Waffle House last night.  Now I’m working on my second cup of tea, and I’m ready to get some work done.

There aren’t many people I meet in my daily life that know much about my blogging.  When I go out to eat or go shopping I don’t tend to announce that I’m going to review a product or service.  I just do it, and I love to share my thoughts and experiences on everything from the bag of potato chips I ate last night to the contact lenses Hubby tried, and even the horrible service I get at certain places.

Last night we went to Spanky’s Backyard BBQ for dinner, and the owners totally made my day.  We had called in an order, and when we went to pick it up the owner’s wife asked me if I had a blog, and if my name is Jenn.  We’re regular every weekend customers up there, but they don’t know us by name, just as the “Walhalla couple” that drives out of our way to eat there every weekend.

The owner came out and they explained they had Googled their new restaurant to see what they could find.  There are a couple of the normal local restaurant listings, but I had uploaded a photo of the restaurant, photos of the food we’ve ordered, etc.

I didn’t give them a full review, but they were so happy to see that I had even uploaded photos.  They told me it really made their day, and that made mine.

I’ve had a lot of local people who read my blog try new local restaurants after reading what I had to say about them, so word of mouth people.  That’s what we do, and it really does work.  I know personally I’m more likely to visit a place someone told me about over a place I see commercials for. I’ve always been the type of person who goes off everybody else’s experiences before trying something new.

Seeing how happy they were reassured me that even though I don’t get paid beaucoups of money to write about things I love or hate, it really does make a little bit of a difference to share my opinion…even if it just puts a smile on someone’s face!

Verizon is evil. I could list a few people right now who I know agree with me! I’ve finally made up my mind about the evilness, but I don’t think it’s just Verizon. It’s all large corporations. Verizon’s just the one on my shit list right now.

Hubby’s been having issues with his cell phone for awhile. A month after he got the thing we had to take it back because he was having problems with the front screen…black lines across it, and they replaced under our insurance. They gave him a refurb phone because that’s how Verizon works. You only get a brand new one if there are no refurb versions to give you. Normally refurb is fine with me, but I’m leery of refurb cell phones.

Monday the screen went out completely. It wasn’t dead. It was like something busted on the inside of it because light was shining through this black liquid. I guess I’ve gotten lucky with my last two cell phones. Neither have given me any trouble. *knock on wood*

I finally got around to taking it to Verizon Tuesday, and they didn’t give me a hassle this time like they normally do. I think that’s mostly because I was waiting in this long line at the tech desk, but there was no one in the front of the store so the associates started walking down the line seeing if there was anything they could assist with. My problem was simple, so a guy checked to see if they had another phone in stock while I got to wait at the front of the store. He came back to tell me they don’t even keep the enV in stock anymore because it’s so outdated (ya know touchscreen is taking over), but he’d order one if we could wait for it to come in Thursday or Friday. No big deal. Dude said he’d call me when it came in so I could pick it up, and the internal screen on Hubby’s phone still worked.

Friday morning FedEx showed up at my front door with a package from Verizon. They’d shipped a brand new phone and just removed the battery and charger from the box. When I opened the box I was pissed because the phone was just laying in the shipping box under a couple pieces of bubble wrap, and the Verizon cell phone box was laying open inside the big box. Their packaging department sucks! When they removed the battery and charger they just threw everything in the big box. If they replace your broken phone they don’t replace the battery unless it won’t charge at all. So now Hubby has this pretty new phone and this ugly scratched up paint chipped off battery.

I couldn’t activate the phone until Hubby got home from work because he needs his phone at work, so I sat it to the side to worry about later. About 4pm I got a call from the Verizon store telling me my phone had come in and I could pick it up before 7pm. What? I told them about Verizon sending me a phone, and that resulted in a ton of confusion on both parts. It would make sense if I went online and requested a replacement phone or if the store had asked that the phone be shipped to me, but it didn’t make sense that they sent one to me and one to the store in my name.

The guy said he’d check into it and call me back. When he called back he said it was a mix up and they would send the one back that was sent to the store. I said OK well I’ll come down there and have it activated and turn the old phone in. He’s like no you can’t do that anymore. Now you have to FedEx the old phone back to Verizon. There’s instructions and a shipping label in the box.

I hunted the box inside and out and never found instructions. I did find the shipping label stuck underneath one of the flaps in the very bottom of the box. There is only one store in our area that accepts FedEx shipments, and they don’t accept the express packages, so I’m glad I was able to schedule a pickup online for free. Otherwise I would have had to drive to Greenville, over an hour away, and that wasn’t happening.

I’m still not sure if I packaged everything up right. The guys at the store weren’t very helpful at all. They told me to stick the label on the box, put the old phone in the Verizon box, and package everything up. Well duh! I know that part, but what about the fact that Verizon needs to know that that phone was connected to my account so I don’t get charged for not returning my phone. The store absolutely refused to accept the old phone at all or even package it up for me.

No where on the shipping label does it have any information about my account or even my name. It shows as shipping from Verizon to Verizon! The guy at the store said they’d probably pull the MEID# on the phone, but I wanted to make sure there was some form of information in the box anyway. I called the 1-800 # and they weren’t very helpful either. I made a copy of the customer receipt they sent me and included that in the box. At least that has my info on it.

They just really need to get their act together. I don’t mind shipping my own phone back, but it would have been nice to avoid all the confusion in the first place. I’m still not happy at all about the way the phone was packaged when I received it, and it seriously would have been nice to know exactly what information needed to be in it.