Blog Archives - May 2008

So last March (2007) we ordered a rocking chair from Overstock.com. When it arrived it was broken. So we sent it back and got another. That was broken also. We tried a third time and, of course, the third chair we received was broken, too. At this point we just canceled the order and purchased a chair from a local store.

Aside from poor packaging we have no problems with Overstock.com. The customer service was very good to deal with and they ended up losing a ton of money on shipping charges by sending three chairs six times (three to us and three back). At standard UPS rates that amounts to about the same as the price of the chair, which we ended up getting our money back anyway.

But, the story doesn't end there. Today we woke up to find... A rocking chair on our front porch. One of the chairs that I had opened, discovered was broken, repackaged, and sent back to Overstock.com somehow ended up back on our porch nearly 14 months later. It looks like someone cut off my return shipping label, exposing the original shipping label and somehow the chair found its way back to us.

Strange. Anyway, the customer service rep at Overstock was amazed and is arranging to have UPS pick up the chair again. So that makes 8 trips for the chair. Unbelievable...

I know... It's been over a month since my last real update. Things have been pretty hectic for the last 6 weeks though, specifically with work. We got hired to do a major development project in only six weeks so I've been really wrapped up in that. The good news is that it got finished on time and has been a great success so far. So we're all very happy about it.

So now it's back to catching up with the rest of our projects and lives. So I'm posting once again.

In the last six weeks Mike has continued to grow and learn. The weather has been generally nice so he's spent a lot of time outside. We've done some planting in the garden and a lot of yard work and Mike is actually helping out a bit, or at least trying to.

I put together a big compost bin that I got in the fall off of Freecycle and Mike helped out by putting bolts in all the holes. And I built a stand for it and Mike tried to tighten the bolts. He's also been helping Julie plant stuff and helping me mow the lawn. I got him his own plastic lawn mower that he pushes around while I'm mowing the grass. He can even say "lawn mower" now (although it sounds more like "no-nower").

He's picked up several other words, too. He finally says Mama, which has made Julie very happy (although he doesn't say it as often as she'd like). And last week he learned to say "messes" after painting a birdhouse for Busia for Mother's Day.

He spends a lot of time in the fenced in part of our yard with Moxie, too. He likes to sit in the corner with Moxie, throw her balls out of the yard, and chase her around. But he won't have to stay in her area for very long. We're getting a fence put in around the rest of the yard this week. So we'll be able to work in the yard without worrying about Mike running off into the street. We're really looking forward to it.

And he got his first two freckles over the last few weeks. His first appeared on April 5th on his back right between his neck and right shoulder. And two weeks ago he got his second one on his left temple. They're very cute, just little dots the size of a period.

He's also learned to peel an orange. We just start the orange and then hand it to him and off he goes. One orange will keep him busy for nearly 10 minutes before he wants another. And he's been dancing to stuff on TV, too. He danced along with Dancing with the Stars tonight and he claps for American Idol. He'll dance and spin around until he makes himself dizzy. Then he plops down until he gets his bearings and then gets up and does it all over again.

And over the weekend we brought Mike to the zoo (the first time since last August). He liked the animals, but was more interested in just exploring. Except for when he found the geese. The poor birds got chased all over the grass, but Michael had a blast.

So anyway, things have been good, Mike keeps us cracking up every day, we're enjoying the nice weather, and we're looking forward to the summer. I've finally updated the photo album with pictures from April and May and the zoo, so check them out.