Last week with the snow and ice storm, schools were canceled. It was a serious ice storm. It rained, sleeted, snowed, sleeted, and froze solid. Our small ranch became a large hockey rink. There was no walking on it - just sliding. My little art student, Alayna posted a video of herself ice skating down the paved road in front of her house. Her sister put on the skates and skated between the trees in their front yard. It stayed that way for several days. It was crazy.
Me, well, I stayed home and curled up with a good book. Actually, I stayed home long enough to read two books. I finished the Louise Penny series that I had started last summer. I really enjoyed the series and hated to see them end. Now I have to wait until she writes a new one, which she seems to do about every year. Yay!
On Monday when it became safe to venture out from the house, I had lots of errands to run. Toby and I did make it to the grocery store on Saturday before Walmart got too crazy. The Monday errands had more to do with me running around putting out fires. Some of the fires were my fault, but some I will blame on Toby.
My fault: You know my never-ending diet problem? Well, I talked Toby into doing NutriSystem on a partner plan. I had read an article that said NS was very good these days. Then I saw a sale on their programs, and I signed us up for two weeks of meals. My theory on this diet was that if we could do the diet for two weeks, we would lose a few pounds and get us going in the right direction. From day one of the diet Toby tried to die. You would have thought his throat was cut and he was not able to get food to his stomach. He whined and carried on. It was like dragging a dead pig while on this diet. So, I let him eat more than he was suppose to. And you know what? He lost 6 pounds in the first week to my 3 pounds. Then the fire happened when Toby realized that NS was set to automatically take money out of paypal and keep us going for another two weeks. Hmm, I must have messed that part when I signed us up. Toby freaked a bit - giving me the "you better get this fixed. Of course, when you go to the website, it is very difficult to cancel your order and stop the diet. I ended up canceling through paypal first and then calling NS, staying on hold forever, finally getting someone who called me back, and they took care of shutting down the diet. I threw Toby under the bus and said it was his decision.The lady at NS totally understood.
His fault: Toby takes care of most of the bills - especially the online ones. But he doesn't open mail nor does he look at what I open. I make piles of it for him to look at to no avail. I put the bills in a specific place and important things in specific piles. Yes, I do nag him about it. So, now and then he looks through the bill basket. It turns out that the tags on our car were about to expire. OMG, Lou, you better get down there and pay that tomorrow! No problema. I got it. Then he went out and looked at his car and realized that the tags on it expired back in September. Apolexy! Good grief! How did we miss that? You know of course, that it was my job to find out what happened, pay the fine, look stupid, etc. But I got that fire put out, too. The lady at the tag agency was very nice. I guess when you are humble and throw yourself on their mercy and pay a hefty fine, those ladies are very nice.
The rest of the week was the usual CTAC meetings and hanging about 300 pieces of youth art. Tomorrow is the reception. Then on Saturday is GBN1's 18th birthday! Wow! 18!
7 comments:
Don’t you just love ice storms? Not!!! It was cold here but we didn’t get the ice. I feel for ya.
The bill paying etc., we know too well. We were billed on one of those deals $15 a month for a year. When we did the checkbook Gene thought it was mine, I thought it was his so we just paid it. Finally I decided to check and it was something through a payment company that couldn’t even tell me what it was for so they couldn’t cancel it. I had to stop cancel that credit card to get it stopped. It was some bum deal because I didn’t get a notice to renew! Then Gene was late on the property tax…hefty fine like you say, they were so nice about it. Then I watched baseball on ESPN+ and cancelled. I just didn’t know I signed up with 2 email addresses so we were billed on the other. Thankfully they forgave me 3 months but couldn’t do 5. And so it goes. I have a huge pile of stuff on my desk. I signed up for dental insurance this year and haven’t started on getting my teeth fixed, maybe I will just have them pulled out and save $10 or 12,000. So sad.
Hope GBN#1 has a super birthday today!!! Wow…. 18! Yikes! We have known you a long time. She was about 5 when we went to OKC right??
Jo,
Back in our younger days when we were poor and starving, we would wait until the last minute before paying a bill. I'm not sure why we still do that, but we need to break that habit and pay asap or pay before we forget, which is usually asap.
I have an old 1932 Ford, and I went to get my tag renewed and the lady says I'm not in the system. I went home and got the plate and the Title, and she said they were worthless. So anyway, Titles in Oklahoma mean nothing, just a piece of paper.
Turns out someone in Dallas registered their 32 Ford with my VIN number. VIN numbers were real short back then. I asked the DMV if we could steal it back. She said technically, but it will happen again.
Anyway, I went to the court house and they have a form you fill out for the judge to give you a new VIN number. One that can't be stolen in Texas!
$250 court fees, plus tag and registration. Now I have to keep a form in my car at all times because the police need to see it if I'm stopped. I'm actually kind of happy about this, as the original junk yard Title always seemed a bit sketchy. Turns out it was real sketchy! Don't know how many duplicates they sold.
I forgot to mention that 18 years old was quite a shock for me. I tried to join Union apprenticeship programs, as I had taken shop classes in high school. They all laughed. I finally got a job welding aluminum trailers for the big rigs, but after 2 weeks they let me go to give a veteran the job. Later they automated it, and humans were obsolete.
Back then the drinking age was 18, so there's that.
Banfield did the same thing to us. Our dog was on their yearly plan. They put her down for us and then renewed her plan without notice. We did not notice the monthly charges for a year. I called and they said I should have called to stop it even though they euthanized her. If I ever get another dog, I won't use them again.
FF
Etienne,
The DMV in New Mexico was notoriously difficult to deal with - women empowered. Yet, my husband could get them to do anything - like register a trash truck built from pieces of other trucks.
FF
"The small print" these days is very dangerous since they can just take money out of your account. There was no place on the NS website to cancel. It was frustrating.
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