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At 3am, just like Athena had done two nights earlier, Juliet finally passed out asleep from exhaustion. A couple of times I thought she would whine herself awake and back to throwing up but no, it's now 9:20 and she's still sleeping through. I, on the other hand, have been awake since 5 when Homer's alarm went off and woke Athena.

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Two nights ago I spent up awake with Athena as she fought a stomach virus that happened to initially be trigger by a petrified french fry. The constant waves of fuss, followed by throwing up, followed by sips of water was exhausting to keep up with but not nearly as exhausting to Athena.

Tonight Juliet is battling the nasty stomach virus. She started getting sick approximately the same time frame as Athena, and has slowed now to every one to two hours. If she is as fortunate as Athena, then maybe five minutes ago will be the last episode of throwing up. All I know is that we both need sleep something bad.

I bought a small notebook journal on clearance at compass books the other day. I'd like a larger one with a thicker cover eventually, but for now a thin cheap $2 one makes more sense. I don't write entries or anything of any value to others in my journal. It's more like brainstorming notes of things I'm aiming for, things I don't want to forget and random brain dumps. My first page is a list of to do in no particular order of things needing to considered sooner than later.

I like the formality of the journal instead of random crappy pieces of paper clutter that I lose. The downside is that my girls even though they have plenty of their own fancy cheap journal notebooks, they covet using mine. So I now have one page dedicated to scribble scrabble, and expect more bent pages and scribble to soon cover my notes, just as the children do to my brain already... invade and take over all my thoughts with their beloved chaos and mess.

Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

Yesterday ended up being much more complicated than needed. My California IDcard expired on my birthday this last August. Originally my plan was to not renew my id but instead be ready for drivers licence. The trouble was that dmv had conflicting information about required documents needed, and when I called for clarification I kept getting really ridiculous answers. Specifically, I was asking about whether my birth certificate and marraige licence was needed to apply for a learners permit if I had previously verified when I got my ID card. Their answer was that I did need to bring those documents again because... I don't think you are prepared for the stupid here... California ID cards were not acceptable proof of identity for the California DMV who coincidentily are the ones who issue the id cards in the first place.

So I didn't go get my permit because I have to get copies of those documents again and well they cost money. The cost of a learners permit escalated the thirty bucks I had expected to spend, to twice that with the cost of documents. We barely had the money for the permit, the idea of getting the documents was a cost that Homer was reluctant to spend. So I didn't get the permit and I didn't get a new id for want of the permit more. Then August came and my id expired and we were in full on crisis mode with moving. There was no way to justify the cost... and even now I wasn't expecting to take care of it yet but I needed an ID yesterday. The non appointment line was said to be an hour and a half, but it ended up being three hours. It was so freaking crowded. The worst of the wait was when they rushed through calling numbers to where I was next, and then it was fifteen minutes of more waiting for my number.

The id was more important right now, and I'll go back next month for the permit. Pfffft.

Athena Bubbles has still not fallen asleep. Four freaking nights in a row non stop bossy canky shrieky toddler who will not stop climbing all over me. I get two hours of sleep while Homer stays awake until 10:30 or so, then two more hours of sleep when she finally decides to fall asleep at 3:30 until Sera wakes up at 5:30 like clockwork. Plus I still have to wrap the santa presents. GAR.

Edit to add: it's a miracle, I get to go to sleep at 2:30!

My children were just on tv during the commercial for the disney christmas parade! All of us except Juliet (who was in school) sat the day of filming in front of the watch shop on the curb.

Also, governmental SNAFU also resolved this morning after I *finally* got through to a person. Everything is right with our world today!

HE GOT THE JOB!!!!

Internet connection at motel has a mind of it's own, I cannot connect right now. Illsmileforyou has contact info.

Homer's big freaking deal interview went awesome! He was recommended for the top level interview on Friday morning. If it goes well, he's hired. If it doesn't go well, he will be scheduled for other interviews in different departments!

Juliet's new school went well today. There were six new students in her class and the rest of the class were just starting their school year with this teacher today. So no one felt like the new kid which was rather cool.

Juliet's school has a uniform policy, which we didn't have to deal with at her previous school. She really hates that the policy is to tuck in shirts. The school district gave us a voucher to buy uniform pieces for Juliet, and now she has three white polo shirts, a skirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of pants.

We went over to Downtown Disney this afternoon and sat outside of the pool area at the Disneyland Hotel. In this one spot, the characters come out of Goofy's Kitchen for their break area. We can wait and wave at a character or two when we sit there. Today we got real lucky though. Mulan was at Goofy's Kitchen and we waited a while for her to attend each table and finally leave for her break. I don't know if I mentioned or not, but Mulan is Serafina's absolute favorite and we spent I don't know how much of a wild goose chase attempting to hunt Mulan down last February. She typically hangs out on Princess Skid Row, and there isn't an exact time to guess when she will be there, it's one of those if you are lucky type things.

Mulan was fabulous and kind to the girls, letting us prattle on about she is Sera's favorite. Serafina was the happy dance girl for the rest of the evening!

It took a lot of work and effort, but we managed to get our belongings into storage. Major furniture that was broken and needing to be replaced was given the proper furniture funeral.

On the 31st, we were finishing removing our belongings and hit the road. The funny thing is when I was packing clothes for this move, not all of them fit into suitcases or a box. My pants in particular were the items I was really concerned with not making it into the van. "This stack has to go in the van." "Don't forget my pants." "I won't have anything but undies to wear if you forget MY PANTS."

As the van was packed up tight with stuff, one box didn't make the trip and went into storage. The following morning as we were getting dressed for the day, Homer asks where *his* pants were. Um... well... let me look. Eeep. Sorry Homer, your pants were in that box you didn't want to take in the van. You have nothing but undies and suit pants to wear. HAHA! I was such a harpy about my pants.

The nice part of this move is the general mood of our family has changed for the better. While each thing we are doing down here would have been done up there, each step is sort of energy and emotionally draining. If we were still up there, I'm sure our rebound back into action each day would be much more difficult. Here our funk lasts maybe an hour or two and then we are back to enjoying the move and different scenary.

Homer is invited to interview at his preferred location to work, and is going to go attempt to do that today. Cross your fingers!

I took the weekend off from the moving drama and just enjoyed time with family. Saturday, I spent with my Dad at the Japanese Bazaar eating some good food and playing games with the girls. Sunday was Serafina's fourth birthday and she is happily a four year old, no more three. We also went back to the bazaar for more food, and Homer was excited because he won a bottle of Sake from the food wheel for a quarter.

I think it's easy to get mucked down in the drama llama of moving, but I think our time of being happy here is done. The homeowner association, the foreclosure people taking pictures of our home when they think no one is looking is uncomfortable and exposing. I don't know how celebrities do it when it comes to paparazzi; just the few photos I've caught people taking feels so unnerving.

Anyway my point is, is that for too long we have been white knuckling our circumstances attempting to hold on to what we have here hoping for some change in circumstances to bring it all under control. But what if we pack everything up, stick it in storage and look at where we want to be. I'd rather be moving on our own actions towards the place we want to be, instead of holding on hoping we get there eventually but no real actions towards that place.

So for that I'm rather grateful for the recent drama llama scare.

I left off with my drama llama with Tiger Direct. They ended up canceling the order through google cart, and it took almost a week for the credit card hold to release the funds to reorder. I did reorder the part, but not through the google cart option. Three days later the part arrived and our beloved desktop computer has new life! Basically everyone in the house is battling it out over who gets a turn at the "monitor" which Juliet has nicknamed this computer.

In other news, I have been super quiet because we have had some serious stress with our living arrangements. It turned very ugly, and thankfully we have been shown some mercy so we have until the end of the month to move.

This weekend is the Japanese Bazaar, which our family loves to go to.

Sunday is Serafina's fourth birthday. Our desktop computer has a photo slideshow screensaver, and pictures of Juliet at the same age are so close in look that Serafina is getting confused.

Athena is a walking machine now! She also has some serious shopping tendencies, demanding to be put down to try on shoes whenever she sees that section. Homer fears for his wallet in the future.

Read this link about how crappy Google Checkout was when she ordered a pan.
http://plainjanemom.com/2007/04/06/why-google-checkout-really-really-sucks-heed-my-warning-learn-from-my-bad-experience/

I ordered a video card from Tigerdirect.com on Sunday approximately at noon, using their google checkout cart. Immediately after submitting payment, google checkout issued an email stating that the order had been placed and that tigerdirect had been contacted with the order; it was pending shipment. My visa gift card had that amount taken off the available balance.

Today I attempted to check the status of the order through tigerdirect's website and none of the options made sense. I had a google order number, but not one from tigerdirect. Tigerdirect also had no record of my email address. So I called them, and that's when I find out they have no record of my order. No record of it being declined. No record of it at all. I was told that I had to contact google.

I followed up with tigerdirect by using the contact seller email link through google checkout's status page, attempting to see if that record could trigger something on tigerdirect's end of seeing that it was an actual transaction.
*************
Hello TigerDirect.com,

Laurel E. has sent you the following message:

Status request for order #noneofyourbusiness:
Where is this order for part number Z700-5202
***************
I call tigerdirect back up to see if they received the email and was informed it was a different department that takes up to 78 hours to reply. They also didn't see how this could be of any help, continuing to blame google.

If you go to google's help pages it makes it clear that all of the transaction processes lay squarely on the fault of the seller. The seller can cancel it, the seller can access it. So I asked, why they couldn't log into their google account and search for this transaction number. The guy for tiger direct tried to tell me they have no such feature and no such account, that I'm the only one with a google account. I asked if other purchases by other customers using google checkout have been processed lately or has it dropped off. The guy said he didn't see how that was relevant. =oP Again I was told to contact google so they could cancel the transaction.

I contact google checkout using their one and only contact form which requests mediation.
********************
to google checkout mediation form:

Tiger Direct claims that this order never was processed through their system and they have no record of this order. They claim they cannot look it up to see if it exists, despite the fact that it exists on my end. They claim I need to cancel the transaction through the portal despite the fact that I am not allowed such actions.

I want my part that I ordered, and I do not wish to continue with such nonsense.
**************************

I also contacted tigerdirect through the google checkout contact form again:
****************
Hello TigerDirect.com,

Laurel E has sent you the following message:

Question regarding order #noneofyourbusiness:
I have just gotten off the phone with your company. I do not understand how there is no possible way for you to check on your end through google checkout what transactions and orders have processed through. I understand that stuff happens and notification to you as a vendor doesn't happen, but there has to be some sort of list like I have on this end of transactions and order history for you as a vendor.
*****************

Tigerdirect replies to the first email:
Thank you for contacting us concerning your order.

However, at this time we have no record of the order you placed through Google's CheckOut portal. We do recommend logging into your Google account and canceling the order, and re-ordering the items once again.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
***********************

THERE IS NO CANCEL THIS ORDER FEATURE.

So I reply to tigerdirect:
Hello TigerDirect.com,

Laurel E has sent you the following message:

Cancellation request for order #noneofyourbusiness:
Unfortunately because you don't have my order to cancel it, it cannot be canceled. This google checkout order has become a nightmare. There is no option from my end to cancel this order and google checkout help suggests that this is something that only you can do.
***********************

Tigerdirect replies to the email before suggesting that there should be a way to look up through google checkout on their end:

Thank you for your e-mail.

We appreciate you making us aware of this issue. Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate department for review.

We do apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
*************************

Tigerdirect replies to the cancellation request:

We apologize for the inconvenience.

This order does not exist in our system. It may have been rejected in our system due to a glitch that may have caused it not to generate in our database. Please feel free to replace the order or call 1-800-800-8300 for further assistance.
****************************

I reply to tigerdirect about replacing the order:

Laurel E has sent you the following message:

Question regarding order #noneofyourbusiness:
All I wanted to do was replace the video card for our non-working desktop computer so that my husband could resume job hunting properly. I bought a pre-paid visa card for the amount needed, and google has charged that amount to the card. IF I could just simply reorder the part, I would. But now because of your suggestions of having to cancel the order, or to have google refund the money to the card, what should have taken a week or two tops to receive this part is now going to take what seems like forever. Who knows when google is going to review the request I placed for clarification and mediation? And even if they do cancel the request and put the money back, that takes time too. What looks like a simple 40 dollar order was supposed to be a miracle for our computer status in this household. I am so disappointed, you all have no idea. Calling your phone number didn't help the last three attempts, why would it help now?
***********************************

This is when I googled to see if anyone else has suffered a similar glitch and found the above blog. All I could do was wait and see what google was going to reply. If you clicked the link above, I presume you remember the automated response google gave?

Google checkout mediation replies to my cry for help:

Hello Laurel,

Thank you for your email. Your inquiry about Google Order #noneofyourbusiness
has been escalated to us for mediation. I've verified your order details
and can see that your order was sent to seller for processing on July 19.
Please note that seller is the one who charges, processes and ships the
order.

We have contacted Tigerdirect.com on your behalf to request that they
respond to your inquiry. You should hear from Tigerdirect.com or from us
within five business days.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate
your patience while we work with the seller. As you may know, you can
check the status of your order any time at
https://checkout.google.com/view/receipt?t=noneofyourbusiness

Sincerely,

Taylor
The Google Checkout Team
******************************

I'm becoming the lady ordering the pan!!! ACK!

Tigerdirect just replied to my last email concerning reordering the part:

Dear Valued Customer:

Thank you for contacting us.

We do apologize for the inconvenience, but we did not fully understand your concern. Moreover, we have no record of the order you placed through Google's CheckOut portal. We do recommend logging into your Google account and canceling the order. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

We at TigerDirect appreciate your business. If you have further inquiries and reply to this email, please make sure to include your entire message, so we can address it appropriately.
*********************************

Seriously? "Dear Valued Customer?" when the email you are replying to plainly states my name and what I've tried to order? WTFBBQ!

Also, tiger direct attempted to suggest that if I wait long enough the hold charge would be lifted or expire and I could just reorder then. But oh no, I've learned enough from that blog post above, the likelyhood of that is nil.

edit to add
http://www.resellerratings.com/forum/merchant-discussion-shopping-advice/135307-warning-shoping-online-tigerdirect-com.html

********************

Edit to add again:

I contacted TigerDirect's corporate office and asked to speak with whomever deals with correcting orders that have gone terribly terribly wrong. That person took my information and placed me on hold. When she came back on the line, she informed me she was contacting their person who is responsible for the google application on their site, and would contact me again once she receives an answer of what could be done. I know feel like I have been acknowledged by tiger direct.

but they can all suck my nose at this point. =oP

I attempted yesterday to order a replacement video card for our desktop computer in attempt to resurrect it back to life. The website had google as a payment option, and I did it and received a receipt of the order. Google even authorized the card for the amount of the charge.

And the company who is supposed to ship the card has no record from google of the transaction. The order number that google gives for this purpose is useless to this company. Their suggestion is to cancel the order, except I have no option to do so.

Wankage.

The movie Up! was fabulous. Doug the dog is our Yoda, well except Yoda isn't trained very well and has the energy of a constant tornado. But everything else about the dog is our dog. The girls now want a talking collar for Yoda.

The bird was inspired by a bird from our local zoo. It was cool seeing the little mention of the Sacramento Zoo in the credits.

Also, my mom will be pleased to know that as much fun of her as I made when I when I was Juliet's age about her crying like a sap at movies or television, I've now become that lady. I think that the lovely moments are even more heart jerking than Jessie getting left in Toy Story 2.

I'd love to go back and watch it in 3D, but I probably won't get the opportunity. (Serafina was freaked out by the idea of glasses, and the movie started way later past bedtime.)

In a completely unrelated subject, Juliet wants to know why Dora the Explorer is oblivious to the fact that she shouldn't be so nosy looking in other people's Christmas presents. In fact, the more Juliet thinks back to the other episodes, she thinks Dora sort of tramples over her friends and expects to be loved as awesome and that's just rude.

My pink eye is mostly gone, but the feverish, wiped out, chills followed by hot sweats that Serafina had is now invaded me. She didn't need to share!

Health status of the family since Saturday:

Homer - has an infected tooth, is on penicillin and vicodin now

MagicPointeShoe - pink eye

Juliet - healthy but suffering from a severe case of stir crazy from boredom

Serafina - has had a blocked sinus cavity since late Friday night, but it finally cleared today. watching her face swell up on one side, plus puking, plus a constant fever was overwhelming considering the above.

Athena - healthy

In non health related news, we have been blessed by kind friends with some new to us furniture. Homer's friend delivered to us a nice dining room table with four chairs. Combined with our two thrift store dining room chairs, we actually have a dining set to have dinner around. Our dining room is also finally free of moving boxes!

Also, Homer's mom's friend's friend was getting rid of her leatherette couch and chair. So in our family room we now have a more comfy arrangement. I especially like the chair for nursing the baby in.

And in non-health related news and non-furniture related news, our baby is almost ONE YEARS OLD! Egads, when did that happen?

Freedom! Homer is stuck under two sleeping little sisters while I Walk in peace and quiet to go get Juliet.