Max's New Baby

All weekend we heard a whining outside and we didn't know where it was coming from. Yesterday, the hubby went outside to check and see where the whining was coming from and discovered a baby squirrel in the back yard. Max had been wanting to go outside a lot and would not come in the house for hours at a time. He was laying in the grass in the same spot.  He was watching his baby. The only time we heard whining was when he was inside. The baby squirrel was calling for him. Max, our dog loves any kind of baby. He will watch it and protect it. He loves just about any animal smaller than him. He will take it on as his baby if they let him. He does the same thing anytime my parents bring their little Maltese over or our friends bring their little rat terrier over. He will share his food and water and the little dogs can do anything to him and he will just lay there and let them walk or climb on him or even pull his hair trying to get him up to play. When ever they make a sound, he will run to them to check on them.  

We called someone from the local wildlife rescue and found someone to come and pick up the squirrel. Max went crazy when he saw the woman holding his baby. He was jumping and whining, trying to get outside to his baby. She said, he could come out and say goodbye to his baby. He went straight to the baby squirrel to sniff it and he tried licking his baby. She said we could name the baby since we found it. We decided to call him Max after his adoptive daddy. He sat on the living room couch looking out the window watching her pull away with his new baby. Poor Max, he lost another baby. 

ABC's of Relationships

After my most resent question from a reader regarding relationships, he inspired me to create my own blog talking about the basics of relationships. I thought, why not? I have plenty of life experience of bad past relationships and I have a BA in Family Life Education, so naturally I am curious about what does make relationships work? Read more..

Sanity is essential.

Everyone has their own way of escaping from reality for a few minutes and just breathe. As a mother if you don't do this you will lose your sanity and your ability to be rational. Yes, this is true, it has been scientifically proven that you must take a break to just be alone to breathe or you will lose all common sense before your job is completed as parents.

I have a couple of ways I do this. First, one of my favorite ways to lock out the world for a few minutes is to lock the bathroom door, open the door to my room, turn on some blues music loud, turn off all the lights and lay in the bathtub soaking in Epsom salts with the candles lit to fill the air. But, not before letting the tweenies know, that it would be in their best interest not to disrupt me while I take a bath. Yes, i am guilty of trying to escape from my family at times. I admit, I have a tendency to take too many baths.

One of my other favorite things to do other than sit on the ocean and watch the sun come down is sitting outside own my swing, just relaxing in front of the fire drinking a cup of hot tea. It is so relaxing and I don't have to be alone for this one. I even enjoy my quiet time I spend in front of the fire with my children.

One thing I love to watch in the dark is a fire. No, not a burning house, I am not that demented. I like tiki torches, fire pits and soft lighting. Here are some pics of my sanctuary.

My patio, with my antique umbrella that actually shields the sun
and rain.  This was made in the U.S.A.!!!  This has been used as my work space a lot through
 out the week. I surrender the house and seek shelter outside.

The perfect fire to stare into as my thoughts drift off and I am able to sanely
return to my family. 

My favorite swing. I have done a lot of thinking on this swing.

Don't be ashamed if you have a secret hide out to regain your sanity in. It is essential to your mental health and your child's opportunity to grow up to be a healthy productive member of society. 

McDonald's, your next.

But, that doesn't mean I will be awake when I cook your order. 

Has anyone else noticed when you go through the McDonald's drive through, no matter which McDonald's you go to in the same state or a different state about 50% of the time they get the order wrong? It's on the receipt right, but they still get it wrong in one way or another.

I have been to McDonald's in different states and different ones in the same state. Every time we pick up an order through the drive through window, something is wrong with the order.

Over the weekend, the adults got Chinese and we picked up McDonald's for the kids. Yes, we had a lot of take out over the weekend. It was just one of those weekends where I did not feel like doing a lot of cooking. Well, back to the story. My daughter's sandwich was supposed to be a fish sandwich plain with no cheese or sauce. The fish sandwich had everything on it that we asked not be on the sandwich. My son's chicken sandwich was also supposed to be plain. They gave us the his sandwich with mayo, lettuce and tomato. So, back to McDonald's we went to get the right sandwiches.

Then yesterday, we picked up McDonald's for dinner, because I was sick and couldn't drag myself to the kitchen to cook for everyone. So, McDonald's it was again.Once again the order was incorrect, they were missing a french fry. Considering we just went through this whole ordeal, I checked the order before leaving the parking lot. There is nothing more annoying than having to run back and exchange food, because the order is wrong. That's right up there with the wrong food being delivered. It is called fast food for a reason.

I am beginning to wonder if this is a McDonald's trade mark. Is it a secret joke among all the McDonald's employees? Do they teach this technique during training? If you are a former McDonald's employee, please answer these questions for me. I am puzzled how so many McDonald's nationwide do the same thing.

Maybe know they have us addicted to the fries and the secret sauce on the Big Mac. So, they sit around laughing saying those fools will come back anyway. 

Bad food combined with bad service cont.

Sorry it took me so long to get back. The kids just returned and I have been working on getting the little munchkins ready for school and get settled in after returning from Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Just a mental note, this is my first bad review. But, with all the mistakes made and the order totaling over $57.00, I think this one was well deserved. 

So, now back to Bad food combined with bad service. A little refresher, the order was placed at the Cottage Inn in Westland was:

Order

One large pizza with pepperoni.

One medium pizza with just cheese.

Order of bread sticks that came with the special.

One large order of chicken wings with BBQ sauce on the side.

One 6" Italian combo sub with olive oil on the side.

One 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms, minus the onions and peppers with olive oil on the side.

The last item on the list was, one 6" ham and cheese sub. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, you think it would be. But, not quite so easy for the Cottage in. What we got was one 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms with no lettuce and tomato, very little ham and a side of mustard sauce on the side.

When I called to place the order, I told them I would be paying with a $100.00 bill and if they could not make change for it, I could use my bank card over the phone. The person taking the order said, that is fine, I will make sure the driver has the exact change for you. When the driver comes, He had no idea I would be paying with a $100 bill and did not have the correct change.  Between my parents, us and our son , we managed to come up with enough money to pay for the order. Do not put me in that position when I am doing delivery. You never know, I may not have been able to come up with the money. Then what?!

Now onto the other mistakes. They said the order would arrive in 35 minutes. However, we received the order wrong and the subs were just too skimpy and wrong to let this one slide. 

When I called back to let them know the order was wrong, I spoke with a girl and she took my complaint, put me on hold and disconnected the call when placing me on hold for the second time. I called back to talk to someone and when I noted the was disconnected, she got very mouthy and told me the call was not disconnected, I must have hung up. Which I did not do. Rudeness, another strike against them.. 

Finally, I get to a person to talk to about the order and they said they would make new subs and have them there in 15 minutes. Then he would give me a $5 credit. Did he not get that I told him we paid cash and the driver did not have the correct change?  

Problems

It took almost two hours to receive the complete order after two attempts and four phone calls, we finally got the order. But, of course they still did not get it completely right. They were missing the side of olive oil, they sent another container of mustard sauce. They gave me a $5 credit towards my next order. I told him "You actually think I will place another order with the Cottage Inn? Not a chance in hell, the $5.00 credit is not worth the aggravation. 

Bad food combined with bad service.

There is never anything good that comes out of bad food and bad service. That's exactly what I got when I ordered food tonight, August 11, 2012 from the Cottage Inn in Westland. It was a big disappoint to find out that one of my favorite pizza places to order from near me was terrible and most definitely my worst pizza delivery I have ever experienced.

For years while working, I used to order Cottage Inn Pizza in Dearborn. The food was always very good and I never had a problem with any of the orders I had ordered from there before. I ordered Cottage Inn in Westland and it was horrible. I am not one to hand out bad reviews, but this one was welled earned. 

To begin with, when I called and the girl who answered the phone put me on hold and we got disconnected. I should have just took my money somewhere else. Then I called back, it several tries to get the order right. Finally, we get the order right and he say's cash or credit. I told him all I have is a hundred dollar bill, but could use credit if the driver could not give me change for it. He says, yes I can have him be prepared to give you your exact change. Great response, but it's such a shame he couldn't follow through with that promise. 

Order

One large pizza with pepperoni.

One medium pizza with just cheese.

Order of bread sticks that came with the special.

One large order of chicken wings with BBQ sauce on the side.

One 6" Italian combo sub with olive oil on the side.

One 6" ham and cheese sub with mushrooms, minus the onions and peppers with olive oil on the side.  

By the way, I am enjoying a absolutely mouth watering checkerboard ganache cake from Kroger. 

Not too complicated. Right? this is what we got from our worst pizza delivery order ever. 

One larger pizza with pepperoni, barely warm and nothing makes it any different than your below average $5 hot and ready. That is not a good thing when mass production pizzas that you really don't know how long it has been sitting in the warmer pizza. 

One medium pizza with just cheese-same as above. Strike two.

One order of bread sticks-cold. Strike three, it's not looking good. 

One large order of wings with BBQ sauce on the side- Nothing to write home about.

One 6" Italian combo sub  with olive oil on the side. This one is funny. We got a 6" sub of some kind with two very small pieces of salami that looked like eye balls staring up at you from the skimpy bed of ham it is laying on, cheese you would have to use a microscope to see, onion, peppers with a side of mustard sauce. missing ingredients- lettuce and tomato. I think that one is worth two strikes. 

Well, it's 1249a.m. and my I am very exhausted. I will have to finish up this review in tomorrow. I never thought it would take me this long to write a review. 

Hast la vista baby!

Batman The Dark Night Rises Massacre

It is really pathetic that the United States has come to a point they can't even take their children to the new Batman movie. My 12 year old son wants to go see the movie, but I think that will be the one he will see at home because of the fear of a copycat. I really don't understand how this man could do something as hideous as he has done.

I would hate to say it, but parents are failing their children. James Holmes has parents, somebody raised him. It is something a lot parents don't want face the truth about. Too many children are being raised without compassion and morals. We have to admit, this generation is being raised different than when we grew up. Children raise themselves with the internet, most parents try to raise their children with compassion and morals, it's just seems that too many parents do not put compassion and morals on the top of their list.  Take the computers out of the bedroom. Children from this generation feel they have the same rights as adults. However, their mind is not as mature as an adult. This generation is a generation with very little fear of authority, which is very dangerous.

James Holmes is not a child or even a teenager, but he is part of the computer generation. The internet can be a great tool to use for knowledge. But!!! It is also a very danger world that is NOT appropriate for children. There is so much going on in the internet world. Children need to monitored on the internet. If  your child is developing an obsession, nip it at the bud. I am sure Holmes parents thought his obsession with Batman was innocent, but it grew into an obsession that drove him to massacre all those people at the movie theater. His mental instability combined with the obsession drove him to do something as crazy as going to a movie theater and kill all those innocent people. Someone had to have known about his plans. He had his apartment set up as a trap. Tell me, nobody in his circle of family and friends had no idea what he was planning on doing.

Anytime my children get an obsession with something, I pull them away from it. Then before you know it the obsession fades.

I try so hard to teach my son compassion, but it is such a difficult thing to do because of the interference with school and friends teaching him he has complete freedom and to tell on your parents if they do something you are uncomfortable with something your parents are doing, tell on them and they will be punished. Things are just taken too far. Parents have of fear of punishing our children, because if a child becomes angry with you, they can go to school and tell them you punished them in inappropriate ways even if you didn't and the parents can land themselves in jail even if they haven't done anything wrong. I know people who have been arrested, spent a night in jail and on probation because their child had went to school and made up stories about them because they were angry with their parents. They almost always believe the child.

For example, look at the father who shot his daughters laptop and placed the video on YouTube. There was an outcry of people who said he violated his daughter's rights. He didn't spank her or do anything physical to her for not doing her chores. Thirty years ago, it wouldn't have been a problem. Shooting his daughters laptop landed him under investigation with children services. She should be doing her chores. You have to teach your children, they have to work for the things they want. Children now a days have a sense of entitlement, feeling their parents owe them to give them everything they want without working for it. Children need to learn to work for what they want and learn how to be responsible. If they don't learn how to work for things as children, responsibility does not grow over night when they graduate from high school. They have to learn compassion to teach them understand and hopefully it will help prevent future crimes or self destruction. If they have no compassion as a child, they will never have it as an adult. They have to understand their actions affect others.

How are children going to grow up and have sufficient life skills to care for themselves and to become a productive member of society if they are not taught to work for the things they want. Doing chores is how they learn to take care of themselves. When they get their own place, they need to know how to cook, clean and how to support themselves. If they are not taught compassion as a child, how are they going to have compassion as adults.

It is too late for James Holmes, he is looking at the death penalty. Now it is too late for all the people he killed. But, it is not too late for your children. Their lives and the lives on others rely on us doing our jobs as parents.