11/13-11/19, a Quiet Week

Looking back over last week, it doesn't seem like anything hugely exciting happened.  Dode and I finished up 15 years of marriage and are a few days in to our 16th year together.  We'd celebrated by going away overnight a few weeks ago so the actual anniversary was pretty low key.  (In fact, we babysat for Sheri!)  Dode hung the big heart in the tree so that everyone driving up the Hwy could see that for some reason, a giant heart was floating in the sky.  We'd like to celebrate by having dinner at the space needle and use the gift card Dode won at his work Christmas party almost two years ago but the month seems to be slipping away from us. 

Elizabeth had her yearly IEP (Individualized Education Plan for special ed services) meeting for speech therapy where I learned that she qualifies for another year.  And, the speech pathologist told me she'd assessed "Mini Elizabeth" (Miriam) and that we'll soon be meeting to create an IEP for Miriam as well.  She'd done an assessment on Elizabeth at Miram's age and said it was like traveling back in time.  At the time, Elizabeth didn't qualify for services and she told me to bring her back in a few years.  Well, those few years turned into four and when we went back, Elizabeth easily qualified.  As a funny side note, I had speech therapy when I was going to college to finally be able to use the "s" sound (kind of important when your name is Stephanie!)  The college had a program where people going to school to become speech therapists could practice their skills on patients.  The person giving the girls speech therapy is the very same person who practiced on me 16 years ago.  Wow!  With Miriam beginning to receive services, that will bring us up to three IEPs in our family (William has the other). 

The most exciting thing to happen this week is for Elizabeth to choose a book from the library and finish it in two days. We're a family of late readers.  But, once they get the hang of it, they don't want to put books down.  Elizabeth is pleased that she's fallen in love with a series that contains over 30 books.  She can't wait to get the next book from the library.  I feel like a light has finally been turned on for Elizabeth.  She's had a struggle to become a proficient reader, and she's still got a ways to go.  She's been able to feed her imagination by listening to audio books.  To see her finally get wrapped up in a book was wonderful! 

Notice anything different about Elizabeth in the photo above?

11/10/11

11/19/11

Elizabeth's hair was finally long enough to donate to Locks of Love.  We got it cut on Wednesday.  Morning hair care has gotten MUCH easier!

We had a co-op distribution on Saturday.  It was a lot more work for me than normal.  I use google checkout for the orders.  At the end of October, something went wrong with the merchant part of google checkout.  I was no longer able to download from google what people had ordered.  Google doesn't give you any way to contact them.  The only recourse you have is filling out an automated email with pre-selected issues.  Then, you get an automated reply that doesn't address your problem.

I'd experienced google checkout problems last month when they wanted me to change some tax information on my account but didn't give me a way to do it. If I didn't somehow make the changes, they were going to suspend my account.  The merchant help forum was full of people with the same problem.   I spent hours trying to find contact information.  I finally used every automated "contact us" email I could and was able to get a real and living person to write me back and help me through the process.  I was ready to tell google to take a hike by the time we were done. 

Now, a month later they messed up again.  I ended up having to go to google check out and browse though every order placed in the last three weeks, opening each of the more than 60 orders up individually and manually typing into a spread sheet what each person had ordered.  Then I had to go through the spread sheet line by line compiling all the orders to see how many of each of the items had been ordered (we offered 15 items for purchase) so I could make the bulk order.  Then to make the check out sheets, I had to go through the spread sheet again looking at each of the 15 items to compile a list of who had ordered from that item and how many they had wanted.   It took a lot of time and I had a huge concern that I'd mess up some one's order.  The night before the co-op, I couldn't sleep for worrying about the train wreck that could be happening the next morning.  When the truck showed up at 5:00 am, it was 25 degrees outside.  I spent three hours in the cold and it was only at the end of the pick up time that I could breathe a sigh of relief that I'd only messed up once and forgotten to order a box of apples for someone.  There was a side benefit of the stress.  My worry about mistakes kept me warm out there in the freezing cold!  Am I frustrated with google?  You bet!  They charge a fee for each transaction they process.  Would it be so difficult to offer some customer service for when things go wrong?  I'm tempted to try another company but two things hold me back.  1.  The program Dode built me was created to use information I can (normally) download from google.  2.  If I went with paypal, I'd be getting the same customer service.  If I go with someone else, I'd have to purchase expensive software to provide transaction security.