Just Another Week in January Review

We visited a friend on Friday and played and created.  The Princess’s resulting latest art-we’ve decided it’s a molecule.

Here it is Sunday again.  We have freezing rain, isn’t that lovely?  Fortunately, everything here is pretty much iced in, so we have a good excuse for NOT going anywhere today.  That means my husband is hiding in the bedroom playing Skyrim, and I am tortured with kids’ television while I try to catch up on some REALLY important work.  Wait a minute, I stay home every day…

Many of my blogger friends are participating in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms 2013.  I got as far as staring at the registration form, but can’t bring myself to do it.  I’m not a big self promoter, but I am curious how far I could go in it.  Included in the running is Menopausal Mother, the blog I guest posted on this week, as well as many other blogs.  Guess what? I found out you can vote for as many people as you want!  If I change my mind  about doing it, I guess you’ll see my blog up there with the rest of them.  UPDATE:  Oh hell, I did it, as you can see by the sidebar… so I’m “pending” if you would like to cast your vote.

Here’s all the fun stuff I did this week:

Monday  Mr Coffee/Superhero/Robot Make Me Some Coffee!  The perils of owning an automatic coffeemaker, in that its not as automatic as we would like it to be…

Tuesday  How Mr Ed Could Interview for a Retail Job  The group interview where I think they would have taken anyone.  ANYONE!

Wednesday  I took a mental health day.  It didn’t help, I’m still insane.

Thursday  Theme Thursday: Breastfeeding Gave Me Super Powers Really, I wouldn’t lie to you about that.

Friday The Sadder But Wiser Girl Visits the Menopausal Mother  My first guest post-Twitter in Biblical times, with horrible reenactments by Barbies.  Go check it out, and read her hilarious blog while you’re there.

Saturday  REBLOG:  Where Have All the Humans Gone?  I voice my disdain for automated menus, and fantasize about having an automated mom menu.  It could totally happen.

I was also one of the featured blogs on Bloggers.com on Friday, I thought that was pretty cool!  If I can ever find an icon bigger than an eyelash, I’ll add it to my sidebar.  Why are they so teeny?  I don’t get it!

Posts By Others That I Loved This Week:
First, a confession.  I am terribly behind on my reading all of my beloved blogs, due to my pain in my neck.  Yes, it’s still there, not as bad as it was but it’s still somewhat bothersome.  I vacillate between thinking it’s just muscle strain and thinking that I’m dying of one of seven different dread diseases.  But enough about that, I’m hoping to get caught up for the week today, perhaps while sitting on the exercise ball or doing stretches.

However, there were a few great posts I DID read this week:

Chewed Gum and Other Treasures–Ninja Mom  Because it’s happening at my house, right now.

The Dangers of Watching TV With Kids–Funny is Family  Watching grown up TV with kids can be scary.  I find it disturbing that my kids hear the word “trans vaginal mesh” and want to know what “mesothelioma” is…

Cats are Aliens and Bed Real Estate–Parenting, Illustrated With Crappy Pictures  This explained so much to me…
(By the way, if you ever want to buy me a present she has her own “Crappy Shop” now!)

Best Search Engine Terms of the Week:

Troll farting glitter-No, I distinctly said unicorns fart glitter, not trolls.

Toilet girl tube-Hmmmm… I know how they found my blog but what the heck were they looking for?

Homemade fart-I thought all farts were homemade.

Fast cheese puns-Sorry, we only have slow cheese puns here.

Cats in cars-All I can think of is “All cats in cars, ALL THE TIME!”

Herpes must suck-No idea.

That’s all I’ve got.  Have a great rest of your weekend, and let’s be careful out there!  I mean that literally…

Maybe I just need to use the cat as a pillow?

REBLOG: Where Have All The Humans Gone?

Trimmed a little bit and now being reblogged. Another one of my personal favorites-I really would like to have that “Automated Mom Menu!”

The Sadder But Wiser Girl

All I really wanted to do was talk to a real live human being.  I just had questions.

Does anyone actually like the automated menus that most companies have gone to that supposedly help improve the customer experience?  I find that whenever I call one of these places, I never need any of the choices they have on their menu.  We have our mortgage through a major lender, and I have only had to call for things that the menu lady doesn’t recognize, so called “normal stuff”.  For example, I never need to check my balance when I call, because I have the internet to do that.  The last couple of times I have called, it has been about an overpayment.

The menu lady doesn’t understand that word, and there really wasn’t anything on the menu that really matched what I needed.  Anything about payments just was her reciting my…

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Where Have All the Humans Gone?

I’d take Ernestine any time over these dang automated menus I have to deal with. I want to talk to real people!

All I really wanted to do was talk to a real live human being.  I just had questions.

Does anyone actually like the automated menus that most companies have gone to that supposedly help improve the customer experience?  I find that whenever I call one of these places, I never need any of the choices they have on their menu.  We have our mortgage through a major lender, and I have only had to call for things that the menu lady doesn’t recognize, so called “normal stuff”.  For example, I never need to check my balance when I call, because I have the internet to do that.  The last couple of times I have called, it has been about an overpayment.

The menu lady doesn’t understand that word, and there really wasn’t anything on the menu that really matched what I needed.  Anything about payments just was her reciting my balance and last payment received.  She kept telling me they needed more information to help me.  Like most calls with automated menus, I found my voice rising and almost yelling at the robotic lady voice.  “OVERPAYMENT!  CUSTOMER SERVICE (she didn’t understand that either)! NO!  YES!  SPEAK TO REPRESENTATIVE (nor did she understand that)!  I forget how I finally got to talk to a human, but it took a really long time to reach her.  I’m not really convinced the person I spoke to was a real human, because after all of that they still messed it up.  I waited almost a month for a check to arrive.  It didn’t.  So I had to call back AGAIN and go through the same thing to find out that all they did was apply my overpayment to my principle.  If I wanted anything else done, like making a smaller payment the next time, I  would have to call back yet again!  This was already messing with the little bit of sanity that I have that’s on shaky terms.

I have to deal with this pretty much any time I call, well, anywhere.  The student loan company is the worst.  I’m sorry, I don’t want to use your website.  I want people to help me, not a calculator.  My cell phone company website doesn’t work half the time.  For some reason I end up viewing a blank page more often than not.  If there’s a problem, I’d almost rather drive to town and ask at their store.

Adding to my frustration is the current state of my cell phone.  The phone still works, except the part you talk into.  I can hear the person on the other end, but they can’t hear me.  After some careful research, I did discover that it was usable on speakerphone.  Not exactly convenient when you are a Mom, and the kids are programmed to start making terrible noise/scream/talk to you/run out the door into the cornfield when you are on the phone (all of those things have actually happened to me, except that she didn’t make it into the cornfield).  I can’t use the landline phone because the only one we still have is a dinosaur phone that roars when it rings and is terribly uncomfortable to use, and every town is long distance from where we live.  I hope to some day be able to afford to get the phone fixed.

What would they think if Moms had an automated menu?  “Thank you for having me as your Mom.  If this is a life threatening emergency, please press 1.  For all other situations, please press 2.”  “Welcome to the Mom menu.  Please listen closely as my options have changed.  For food situations, press 1.  For sibling altercations, press 2.  For general complaints, press 3.  For tattling and all other situations, please remain on the line and your request will be processed in the order received.”  For those “other situations”, there will be the same elevator music over and over with “Your request is important to me.  Thank you for being a valuable child.  I am currently experiencing an unusually high volume of requests.  You can also visit my website at http://www.mom.com.”

If nothing else, it might buy me some time in the shower or the bathroom.  I’ll definitely have to look into it…