Archives for November 2007

Water running or water off?

November 29, 2007 by Jen

Working with people allows me to observe their habits, good and bad. When in the toilet today a woman was standing at the wash basin and had the tap on for nearly the whole time I was in the toilet – perhaps one minute (I don’t waste my time in there). It was really noticeable that the tap was on for this length of time and I wondered what she was doing.

When I came out I realised she’d been cleaning her teeth. If I’d been standing next to her at the time I reckon I would have said something but as I wasn’t, I didn’t say anything.

I grew up on a farm with rainwater plumbed into the house. When we ran out of rainwater – nearly every summer – we had to switch to mains. Therefore we were really conscious of not wasting water.

Not only did she waste all this water she flicked water over me after she washed her hands.

My question to you is, do you leave taps running when you clean your teeth?

It pays to read the fineprint

November 28, 2007 by Jen

As some of you are aware I moved my blog’s host and platform a month or so ago. I also moved my other blog (safarisuit.com) to the same host so I could consolidate everything. One of the reasons I moved the other blog was because I was running out of room to post stuff there and the hosting I’ve got now lets me have more than one website and I’ve got stacks of room.

So my year’s hosting was nearly up for the safari suit website and I’d been sent reminder notices about renewing the hosting and the domain. I pretty much ignored them because I didn’t plan to renew so I was pretty surprised when I received an email telling me that I’d paid for the domain and the hosting for another year.

I emailed them saying I didn’t want to update thank you very much and I would appreciate a refund. I got an email back saying that they don’t do this because of the terms under the automatic renewal policy. I promptly went in and cancelled my subscription but it obviously wasn’t quick enough.

When I first joined this web host I had to pay manually each year and I’d been doing this for three years. The automatic renewal policy came in within the last year and it wasn’t the sort of thing that I’d remembered. Why would I pay for hosting when I had it elsewhere.

This is part of what I wrote back:

“The email received from you notifying me of my renewal did not clearly specify that automatic renewal might be an option

Your subscription safarisuit.com #nnnnnn period expires 30-Oct-2007. To renew your subscription please pay the renewal order. To view this order or subscription (if renewal order has not been generated yet) go to this address: (web address here)

To me ‘please pay the renewal order’ means that I would have to go in and manually pay it, which I have done in the past which is why I didn’t check my account. The words ‘(if renewal order has not been generated yet)’ are ambiguous and did not suggest to me that the process is automatic.”

I didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks and I tried ringing them but got a voicemail box full message. What the f*&$*$? Meanwhile I’d been refunded the domain cost because that didn’t come under the automatic renewal policy.

With no response from the person I’d been dealing with and no way of ringing, I emailed support whose reply clearly showed they had not read the email I wrote to them. I replied to them saying I’d like the person I’d been dealing with to please contact me because the money I’d paid wasn’t a trivial amount to me and I wanted a response.

I finally got a response from them this week saying that upper management had agreed to refund the money. Thank goodness for that. I fired off a quick thank you email but the whole experience has soured me toward them and where I’ve recommended them in the past I won’t be in the future.

Lesson learned. If I want to cancel something I’ll make sure that it’s actually done, not just assume that it’s done because that’s how I think it’s done. Another lesson learned – don’t trust that emails received are clear and concise in spelling out exactly what needs to be done on my part. I wonder if my old web host has now changed its renewal email.

Along a similar vein, just after my move with this blog to different host my Typepad account was due for renewal. I did cancel it but because of the time difference my next montly payment went through. Typepad were really good, and quick, about it and refunded my monthly fee.

Self portrait challenge

November 27, 2007 by Jen

I’ve been a reader of Superhero Journal for a while now and through her blog I discovered the Self portrait challenge website. I spent more time than I meant to there and I’ve signed up to do it. From what I understand there is a different theme every month and each week you can post a link back to your blog of your interpretation of the challenge. This month’s challenge is ‘what you wear’. This challenge might only last for a little while until I get sick of it and it might not be the right challenge for me but I will give it a go nonetheless.

There are a few reasons for this:

I nearly always hate photos of myself. I can always be heard saying that I don’t photograph very well so this in an exercise in desensitisation.
It will force me to use my imagination in thinking of different ways of taking photos of myself.
It will force me to learn how to use my camera a bit better.
One of my weaknesses is buying clothes, especially second-hand clothes and this will be a good way of showing off those clothes while somehow incorporating the challenge.

So here’s the first go at ‘What you wear’.

This was taken out in my backyard after work one day. The sunglasses are 1970s originals that I don’t wear that often and I didn’t wear to work today but they were by the front door where I keep my sunnies because I wore them the other day and I’m not someone who puts things away as soon as I get home. It was 32 degrees celsius here today so it was sleeveless top weather.

I also did a close-up of the pendant I’m wearing. I think I bought it from Diva.

If I ignore Christmas will it go away?

November 26, 2007 by Jen

Christmas Day is just over four weeks away and I have not bought one Christmas present. Usually I’ve made some start with at least thinking about what to get people, but apart from what I might get my son I’ve done nothing.

My problem is I just don’t know what to get people. I’ve told one of my sister’s I don’t want bric-a-brac because I don’t want any more clutter. I hate the thought of just buying something for the sake of being Christmas Day. Somehow I don’t mind birthdays but at least that’s one person at a time and not so hard to deal with.

I sat down with JJ last week and we started writing out a Christmas list. He told me that he did not want a scooter. This was what I had been considering buying him. I swear he’s psychic. He conceded to let me put it on the list at least and that’s probably what I’ll get him as he does enjoy riding scooters.

Work has a random acts of kindness thing where you get a person and you perform three random acts of kindness. I’ve done this a couple of times but chose not to do it this year because I can’t even think what to do for my family, let alone someone I work with and might not even know that well.

I know I can’t ignore Christmas in the hope that it will go away and I think half of it is the expectation of what will happen on the actual day. I’m also sure just writing this stuff down will be the impetus for me to get off my bum and start doing something about the 25th of December. Once it’s all done I actually enjoy the gift giving thing, it’s just the lead-up that paralyses me.

So if anyone’s got any good gift ideas for parents and sisters please let me know.

Chocolate – mmm mmmm

November 22, 2007 by Jen

I’ve become a bit of a chocolate snob. In years gone by I would have been satisfied with any old thing, good or otherwise, but then I started appreciating that decent chocolate was just so much better than the cheap stuff. In the cheap chocolate you can really taste the sugar and not much else. But good chocolate is creamier and more delicious.

Nowadays I’d rather spend the same amount of money on something I like and get a smaller amount than get more cheap chocolate.

A couple of years ago I discovered Green & Blacks organic creamy vanilla white chocolate but it’s not stocked in many places so it wasn’t something I indulged in very often. We are spoiled here with Haigh’s though, so if I want something yummy I’ll go there.

Imagine my joy when I went shopping in my local supermarket and found the 35g pack of the Green & Blacks vanilla chocolate. It’s become a weekly purchase and I’d thoroughly recommend it. Mmmm, mmmm….

No yelling please

November 21, 2007 by Jen

When your child complains that their school bag is smelling don’t dismiss it because when you do have a look at their bag for another reason and find a half eaten roast beef sandwich in there from a day or two ago, you’ll realise that is why the bag smells.

After you’ve tipped the bag upside down on the floor and realised that doing that was quite stupid because you have to leave the house in one minute, you get even more cross and start yelling at your child to get a move on and clean the mess up that you created anyway. Your child dawdles, you look at your watch and don’t want to miss the bus to work, so the volume of the yelling goes up even more. This is on top of yelling at the dog for digging yet another hole an hour or so earlier.

You finally get everything organised. The offending leftover sandwich is in the dogs stomach to hopefully take its mind off digging any more holes, the mess has been swept up, reminders have been issued to put any leftover food in the lunchbox, your throat is sore and you’re finally out the door.

When you finally sit at the bus stop, you breathe a sigh of relief and go over ways of how the morning could have been handled so much better.

It’s that purple time of year

November 19, 2007 by Jen

I love this time of year when it’s late spring and summer is poking it’s head around the corner trying to push spring out the door. There’s lots of these purple avenues with the Jacaranda trees around Adelaide this time of year, and the vivid purple against the blue sky is just gorgeous.

We’re currently enduring our first heat wave of the year – see I told you that impatient summer was trying to push spring out. This time of year also means that the mosquitoes are out in full force and sunscreen and hats have to be dusted off for use again. JJ has had his first swim of the season but I like the sea water to be warmed up by a few hot days before I venture in. I like that the evenings are lighter for longer and I like the smell of the beach in the air that heralds summer, even though I don’t live that close to the beach.

I don’t like the hot car that takes a little while to cool down, or being housebound because it’s too hot to go outside. I don’t like having to water my plants every day just to try and keep them alive, especially now as I can’t use my hose to do it except for one day of the week. I lug water from the bucket in the shower that collects water until I get the shower temperature right, I put it into the watering can and use it for my plants. I suppose it’s making me exercise more.

What’s your summer like or dislike?