I Notice by all the notes on your account you are not happy with our service....

So to start my little rant today, let me say this.  I have been working for since I was 15 1/2 - mostly in jobs that require some level of customer service.  So I know alittle something about working with customers and treating them like they matter to a company.  I have spent hours and hours in conference rooms learning to communicate and mediate issues.  That being said I've had to deliver news that was not always what the customer wanted to hear.  I also work for a large companies, and they have limitations and sometimes that is not what a customer wants to hear.  That is why I am the perfect customer, okay maybe not perfect, but I am pretty close.  If you give me the truth, regardless of it, I will pretty much deal with it.  You lie to me.  I'm let myself off the chain. 

Let's rewind to about 5 weeks ago when we were in the process of moving to our temporary home, so that ours could be remodeled.  I called the phone company, and asked to have my phone and internet service moved.  No problem I was told by Darin (yes, I write down every name) they will both be moved on the 25th.  So the 25th comes and the service tech comes out and moves the phone.  I ask him about the internet, and he says I don't know anything about the internet, not on my work order (which I guess is a nice way of saying - not my problem lady) 'you should call and make sure they are all set up to come out and take care of that was not the answer I wanted but I did what he said.  So that was the first of probably 10 phone calls that I made about my internet service over the next week and a half.  I figured my totals, on hold for over 6 hours, given 5 different dates that my internet would be turned on, spoke with 22 different customer service reps/managers, was transferred at least 15 times, 4 times without being told I was being transferred (my biggest pet peeve) and once I was transferred to a department that was closed for the night.  Needless to say we are no longer using AT&T for our internet service and soon we will not be using them for our phone service.  I even opened a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and still no action.  We finally had to call the cable man to hook up the internet, that took 2 days. 

So I'm watching the news tonight, and we had alot of flooding last weekend, and appartently people lost their phone service, and they cannot get a straight answer out of AT&T when it will be fixed.  They might as well just find a new phone company now and save themselves all the hassle.

This weekend was awesome, like totally....

Yes, he wore Ohio State stuff all weekend! 

So Jeff and I are back from a long weekend on Lake Michigan with my parents.  We actually got 8 full hours of sleep last night!  It was very relaxing considering we got the news on Thursday that we will be another week in our cave.  Apparently, the remodeling is taking longer than we thought! 

So per the norm, we ended up at the most happening hotel in the area.  Last time we were in Michigan our room was right next to the bar.  It would have been perfect if we still partied like we used to, we would have passed out and not heard a thing.  But considering our current states of sobriety it was a long night.  So this year, the hotel we stayed was on a marina and had a great outdoor bar and they  happened to be having an 80's party on Saturday night.  Now, I was pretty young during the 80's (some of them anyway) - so when my Mom kept asking 'is that how you danced in the 80's?'  I would say 'that's how Rhonda and Denise (my older sisters) danced, I was too young for that.'  It seemed confusing to her when it turned out I knew all the songs and who sang them.  BTW, Jeff owes my $20 bucks because he thought that Sir Mix-a-lot (??) sang 'Funky Cold Medina' ; ever heard of Ton-Loc, dude?  He owes me another $20 because I was a brave girl and jumped in the pool without dipping my foot in first!

It is truly beautiful up there and reminded me of the good old boat and beach days on the lake when I was young.  Then the reality of sand in my suit, and sunburn sunk in and I was back to reality! All and all it was a great weekend filled with too much wonderful food, shopping and hanging out. My husband got to hear alot of Cook family history stories.  I also stocked up on Maple Syrup.  Some lucky husband will be getting homemade french toast this weekend!

Below is picture of my now award winning Brownie Raspberry Trifle.  Yummy....It is jello recipe, the link is below.  I made it for the complex bbq and it was a hit.  Just a tip, it really needs as much time as possible in the frig, I left mine in overnight.  Also, I'm going to try it with strawberries next time.  I don't have a traditional trifle bowl, so instead I just used a vase (it had never been used before) and it turned out great.  Big Thanks to my Mom for that idea!

Recipe Link:  http://tiny.cc/yl0yu

Brownie Trifle

So that's about it for this week. Back to catching up on 30 Rock for me. Have an awesome week!

Two Blissful Weeks??

We finally have internet at our house!  Yeah!  I have missed doing this.  Well, it has been a couple of really long weeks at our house.  We are moved into our temporary home, it is a tight fit for us and all our junk but we are trying to make it.  Hopefully, once all that work is complete it will be worth all this work! 

So another Birthday has come and gone (thank goodness!) and as usual we have spent two weeks celebrating.  I am certainly not complaining about that.  Over the 4th we went to visit my in-laws, Dubuque puts on an awesome fireworks display and air show, so we try to go back every couple of years to catch up with everyone and enjoy!  Below are the super yummy cupcakes I took along.  I wanted to make one of those cakes that looks like a flag with blueberries and strawberries, but I thought that cupcakes would be easier at a party, so I came up with these. They are white jello cupcakes with cool whip frosting and strawberries and blueberries as garnish.  I made half strawberry and have berry berry.  I think that they were a crowd pleaser!  One cake mix will get you 2 dozen cupcakes, and if you go with two flavors of jello you will have leftover.  I used little gladware containers to mold the excess and had those with my lunch the You will more then likely have lots of leftover blueberries (I know I did) with those I made Oatmeal Blueberry muffins, as for the strawberries, those I just left in the frig and we snacked on those.

This weekend was race weekend.  Crazy times, we met some new friends, hung out with some old friends and had a blast the whole weekend.  Big thanks to my parents for letting us use the pop up tent, we would have fried like eggs in the sun without it!  Picked up a pretty good tan and I was reminded of the kindness of strangers and how just be wearing the right shirt you can make a new friend.  So today we are really beat, trying to unpack and get ready for the week.  I should go and finish watching my Lifetime movie.  Hilary Swank is about to beat Joanna Kerns up again...

Have a awesome week!