Last week was my birthday. I don’t get excited about them anymore. Who wants to be older anyway? (besides my teens that is!) Jon is always sweet and finds a way to do something special for me. This year he gave me a card, inside he listed reasons why he loves me. It is just beautiful and something I will treasure. We went out for dinner too and spoiled ourselves with 3 courses. We don’t do that often, so it was a real treat.

My friend Yvette made my day by having a bouquet of pink roses delivered to me! Wow….somehow flowers just make me feel so loved and appreciated. Maybe because they seem like a decadent gift, something I wouldn’t buy for myself.

My kids, on the other hand, were pretty lame about my birthday this year. I try not to let it bother me, but I wish they could put a bit of effort into it. My son remembered and wished me a happy birthday, and my daughter bought me a generic card. Is it too much to hope for a thoughtful gift? Nothing expensive. Just something that shows they thought about my birthday for more than 15 seconds, you know? They could make me something or clean the house for me, or even bake me a cake— but they just don’t. Some years they do better, but maybe it’s just their ages. They are still so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t think about me much anymore. My daughter spent days on end planning her friend’s birthday party and creating a slideshow video for her…..I got a card (not even a MOM card, just a generic card you could give to someone you work with!) That shows you where I rank on her priority list right now! I’m sure when it’s my son’s girlfriend’s birthday, he’ll be stressing for days about what to get for her. (and asking me to buy it since he has no job!)

I guess that’s why I try to keep myself so busy all the time. I wonder how they would feel if all I did for their birthdays is give them a hug or a card?

Anyway, some of the members got into the discussion and I think I posted one comment in jest that said something like “whoa, I guess you knocked me down a peg. Have a super day” but nothing really nasty at all. Other than that, I’ve just been posting photos of my soaps, commenting on other photos (positively!), asking questions and generally just trying to have fun being part of this community. Well….last night I tried to log on and couldn’t. Long story short- my account was deleted by the admin. Another member sent me a link to my last forum comment which had been replaced by this:

“Juicybath2’s account has been delted. Admin has determined her attitiude and bahavior to be detrimental to our community.”

Ok, what?? I have NO CLUE what they are talking about. Some of the other members have been discussing my banishment on one of my threads, and this is part of what the admin posted tonight:

“No one will ever get banned for just giving their opinion, so don’t be scared of that at all!
Juicybath turned out to be not that kind & sweet towards others, and got personal with some forum members.
She did not get banned for selling (too) early; although the mod team does not encourage that.
When a member gets banned they get informed about it. With a rolling IP you could sign up again; but the admin always deletes these new accounts.
The mod team does understand the impact of banning a member; and we do not enjoy it. But we do take pride in having a friendly forum where everyone feels respected. That’s why sometimes it just has to be done…”

Wow. I would love the admin to show me where I ‘got personal’ with other members! I honestly have no idea what they are talking about. I was never nasty or unkind to ANYONE on that forum. I challenge anyone to find an unkind word I used there. Oh, and as for the part about INFORMING me…..NOPE. No emails, no discussion…they just deleted my account without a word.When I contacted one of the moderators to ask what was wrong, she answered and said she would talk to someone about it and then….nothing.

Real nice way to run a “friendly” forum, right? I guess this is a first for me. I’ve never been banned from anywhere before

Update: I’m sad to find out that other members are leaving the forum after this fiasco.  I guess this is what happens when a moderator decides (for some false reason) they don’t like a member and ban them. They are trying to tell everyone that I was harrassing members via email and PM. NOT true, but of course they don’t have to prove it because they just say they aren’t allowed the post the private comments. The other moderators don’t even understand it. Other members have sent me links to other soaping forums, so I’ll go and have a look at those today. I don’t want to be part of a toxic environment anyway, even if it’s on the web!

I find being sick SO BORING. Glad it only happens once in a while…back to the couch now I guess…

These days I struggle to stay asleep past noon between night shifts. At least working from home has made things much easier. No commute time and the freedom to work in my PJ’s if I want to. (and I do)
If there’s one thing I didn’t know would be so difficult about being a nurse, it’s working nights. Why can’t people just get sick during the day time?
I just LOVE sleeping too much to work nights. I get cranky when I haven’t slept enough. My kids will tell you they can tell when I haven’t slept enough after work. One wrong word and you get your head bitten off.
Well…hopefully this night shift thing will be ending in March. I’m supposed to be starting a full time line with only days and evenings. Oh- to be in bed every night like a normal person…
Bring it on!

What a mess!
(then I got the camera and took a picture of the disaster so I could blog about it of course!)

Looking back on it today, it must have been quite comical to see. Especially when my daughter came upstairs and I was showing it to her and I picked up a piece of the broken porcelain off the back of the toilet tank and cut my finger on it! The day certainly didn’t start out well.
Of course, it could have been alot worse. This could have happened after we’d renovated the bathroom. Luckily it was the old toilet with the giant tank that we want to get rid of anyway. We just weren’t planning on replacing it NOW.

The day did eventually get better. We went downtown to the Taboo Naughty But Nice Sex Show which was lots of fun. We made a few excellent purchases and saw some crazy stuff. It’s a 4-day event, so next year we’ll make sure to go during the day and not on a Saturday night. It was so crowded it was hard to see the shows and no chance at all of getting a seat for any of the seminars. I was thinking that the vendors must have done incredible sales though. There was a woman there who was selling handmade corsets and period clothing. Jon asked her if she’d spent the whole year sewing to get ready for this show and she said yes. Her work was pretty amazing. Her shop is called Felix & Kitty She tied me up into a corset and WOW– I can see now why women used to wear them. They give you a defined waist and it actually feels really comfortable. My sore back stopped hurting too! I’m not sure I could wear one all day long though.

1) They think you are old, no matter how young you are.

2) They despise helping out around the house. It almost seems like you’re causing them physical pain when you try to ask them to do anything.

3) They like to eat crappy food and they criticize your cooking. They view vegetables as if they were raw sewage (ok, maybe that’s just my son. My daughter likes most veggies)

4) You cannot force them to do ANYTHING. Homework, studying, sleeping, eating well….yes, you can encourage but if they really don’t want to they will find a way around it and thwart all your efforts.

5) They don’t respect anyone else’s property. They figure if it’s in the house, it’s fair game to be taken out and left at friends’ houses– never to return.

6) They think laws that they don’t like are “dumb” They have no concept of the risks of things like driving without seatbelts or having 5 friends in the car with you when you’re a brand new driver.

7) They lie….alot.

They don’t crawl up your lap anymore and give you hugs ‘just because’ (not that you’d want them on your lap, but you know what I mean)

9) They stay in the shower too long and don’t hang up their towels. Let’s also throw in using too much shower gel and shampoo and never re-filling the dispensers. I don’t think they know how to put the toilet roll onto the dispenser, never mind taking the empty one off.

10) Because looking at them reminds you that your sweet, cuddly babies are gone forever:-(

So, last night we get to the downtown store and line up in the (long) line at the Customer Service counter. I show the printed copy of my “your order has been filled” email, and the worker bee goes off to the little room around the corner to find our camera. We see an empty box for the same camera behind the counter and the other CS guy says ‘this is what it looks like’ and puts the box on the counter. We discuss how we are going to carry that around all evening (ridiculously large box for a tiny pocket camera) Our CS girl comes back out of the room empty-handed, smiles at us slightly as she walks by and out into the store “I’ll be right back” she says. I realize she’s going out to the camera dept to try to find one on the shelf and I KNOW she isn’t going to find one. The website showed low stock and very few stores with any left.

She’s gone for a while. (we are now late for the event we were attending) The other CS guy says “I know we have one of those locked up” and goes off after CS girl. We stand there for many more long minutes. We see CS girl across the store animatedly chatting to another worker bee. Obviously not work related. We imagine “yeah, I’m going out after work tonight, what are you doing? That’s sweet dude, where did you get your nose-ring?” Blah blah blah. We shift from foot to foot.
Eventually, she saunters back over to the CS dept (empty-handed as we expected) and lays our paper on the counter. “It seems to be gone” she says flatly. Other customer service guy steps in as I say incredulously “Are you kidding me?” He starts tapping on his keyboard and brings up a list of stock. Negative 2. I say “someone sold my camera to another customer?” CS girl says “you have 3 days to pick it up” I say “this is day TWO— here we are” CS guy says, “hmmm, it says there is one at Metrotown store, shall I call them?” I rant and rave a bit about “how could they sell an item that was clearly already sold to another customer?”, etc etc. Jon says something about how they get commission for sales made in the store (unlike online sales) CS guy makes the call….”are you sure? No, Charles-listen- the PINK one. The one with case included….not on the shelf? not in the back? It says you have one left (we are now seriously late for the event we were heading to)….can’t find it? Oh, ok”
He turns to us with a fake, sympathetic look and shrugs. I say “this is the worst customer service I have ever seen” He looks like he wants to shrug again, but restrains himself. He says “the best I can do is sell you a silver one for 10% off” I say “No. I wanted that camera” He mumbles something about throwing in a $25 gift card as well. I think he was scared that I was going to start shouting soon.

We take our USELESS order confirmation paper and walk out.

Today, we’re off to our local PHOTOEXPERT to find the perfect camera. You know what? I really don’t care if I have to pay more. I KNOW they will give me excellent customer service and will probably teach my daughter how to use it if she goes in after her birthday with it.

DOWN with the BIG BOX. Shop the little guy stores….they actually care!

Bonus– Just checked their site and they have the SAME CAMERA there. SAME price as evil big box empire….yeay! Today is a happy day.

Update: Got an email from Future Shop online asking me to fill out a survey about my online purchasing and store pick-up experience. I can’t say I’ve had more fun filling out a survey in a very long time. I’m sure I will not hear back from them, but it was a nice way to vent my frustrations!