I lost a post. I’m guessing that my host moved my blog to a different server, I know he’s been doing some server migration. I saw the post after I wrote it, so I know it was there. Weirdness. Oh, well, no biggie. Just showing this off:

Coming to Memory Trends, YAY!

Other than that, I have a horrendous cold. When I get a cold, docs always tell me it’s allergies because of the way it presents…horrible runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing like crazy. Grrr, very irritating. No meds seem to help much, so I just keep a roll of toilet paper handy and try to keep at a normal pace through my day.

Boy, have we had furbaby issues in our house. First, last Thursday, we lost our sweet Tiki, seen here in this layout:

He had lost alot of weight over the summer, but he was very overweight and had recently been let out of the pen to run loose, so we attributed it to that. I was thrilled, actually, I just knew he was healthier because of it. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he just started acting weak and I noticed he wasn’t eating. Took him to the vet and, long story short, he had inoperable stomach cancer. I found out while he was literally on the table for exploratory surgery. What could I do? I’ve had to have one dog put to sleep before and I was there, holding him, petting him, talking to him, for the whole thing. But really, how crazy was it to have her wake Tiki back up only so that I could go down to be with him to have him put to sleep? He had obviously been in pain. When I left him, I kissed him on the nose and told him I loved him. The night before, he had slept in the floor beside my bed, which he was not usually allowed to do…all night, I’d wake up, check on him, talk to him, tell him it would be okay. I know he knew he was loved. So, I just told her to let him go. There was no point in waking him up just to put him to sleep. It was hard, though, having to make a decision like that, in a matter of minutes, almost seconds. But he’s with his little brother Zeke at the Rainbow Bridge, I just know it.

So fast forward to Monday. We come home from checking cows to find Sissy, the next oldest dog we have, unable to stand, completely disoriented, having tremors and shaking…it was awful. So so scary. We rushed her to the emergency clinic, where I just knew they’d have to put her to sleep, too. But they didn’t. She apparently ate something she shouldn’t have, but we’re still not sure what it was. They kept her overnight, pushed fluids and I picked her up yesterday and took her to our regular vet. She is doing well, we hope for a complete recovery. But, my gosh, losing one on Thursday and then going through this just a few days later…well, it’s been a tough week.

Okay, sorry for unloading all my troubles here. Let’s see, on a happy note, I have in my possession my stuff for the Arctic Frog MT release, as you saw above. Wish I could give sneak peeks, but I can’t. You have to wait and see, but I have to say I love the collection, it’s alot of fun. It’s giving Sunday Brunch a run for it’s money for the spot as my favorite. Alannah’s new one is great, too, but you have to wait until MT to see them!

In DSD news, we’ve had a few designers leave due to other commitments, but we are not yet bringing anyone else on board. We’re still working on getting our newsletters just the way we want them (thanks, Tara!) and some other promotional opportunities for our designers to help them get their stuff out there. In our world, there are so many new items on a daily basis, it’s hard to get your stuff noticed, but we’re trying to find ways to help them do that. So, we may have a call in the future, but it won’t be immediate.

Okay, I HAVE to work for DH today. They’re doing the dirt work for our new building, I’ll have my own office in just a couple of months and it will be SO much better. But meanwhile, I am trying my best to do better about having regular hours down there. I mean, if it were anyone else I was working for, I’d have to. And to tell the truth, well, it pays better than digi designing does, so I have to give it priority because it’s better for my family and that’s what has to be the most important consideration. So, my designing is taking a back seat. If I’m inspired, I’ll create. I’ll create what I love and hope everyone else does, too…and hope to make enough money to just be able to buy tools and other designers’ kits and stuff, but not worry about trying to supplement our income with it because, well, frankly, it just wasn’t happening.

I’ll close with a layout, this is my sweet boy at 4 months old, I used Ashley Olsen’s Hush Hush kit from her Creative Collection, available at The Digi Shoppe:

Have a great day, everyone!

I have had the most horrific experience with our cart vendor and I am at the end of my rope.  Here’s a summary of events:

The problems I have had with this company are too numerous to list.  I ordered an installation which I had to call back and ask for as even after the order was placed and I was assured it would be installed, I somehow wasn’t even on the list.  I guess that should have been a sign for me, but it wasn’t.  I ordered a custom modification written for the cart I purchased.  I’m told it did work, but it was never fully tested as on day 31 after my purchase, they came out with an upgrade.  When I called about this, I was told that their policy was free upgrades if the release came out within 30 days of purchase.  I complained, it didn’t seem very fair that I had not only bought a now obsolete release of the product, but had paid for a modification, effectively locking me in to that previous release.  Finally, after several phone calls, I was told that the mod I had paid for was included in the new release and if I would purchase the upgrade to the new release,the function that I needed would be included.  So I did.  Asked for an install date, was promised a call back.  Didn’t get one, called back the next day, again promised a call back…didn’t get one.  Finally was told that it would be installed on Tuesday, which it was, but the function which I was told was included was not.  Several unreturned phone calls later, I was told that they would write my mod again at no charge to me.  I called several times for status updates on the mod, my phone calls went mostly unreturned.  Then, finally, the Grand Opening Day arrived.  I opened my shop with great anticipation, and had to close it just minutes later when a bug in a basic payment module was found and effectively disabled my ability to accept Paypal, my primary form of payment.  A couple of hours later that was fixed, then I discovered that the mod they had written for me also had a bug.  When I called them, I was told that they were actually aware of the bug, but hadn’t let me know, had let me have a big grand opening and suffer the embarrassment of the cart not working right.  So now, here we are 7 days after the grand opening and the mod still doesn’t work.  I have requested a full refund and wanted to move to another cart, but they refuse stating it is outside of their 30 day guarantee so they can’t do anything.  They have offered me a credit towards more custom programming…why would I want more custom programming when the mod they wrote for me still doesn’t work?  They will not let me talk to anyone that is empowered to make the decision to refund my money so I am stuck with a cart that I am VERY dissatisfied with, and a vendor with poor service.

So what do I do?  Keep this cart written by people who I don’t want to support, don’t like, don’t ever want to talk to again?  We have formed a completely adversarial relationship at this point, they won’t even talk to me.  They think I’m being difficult.  The last phone call, I was literally in tears trying to at least get them to validate the fact that they have caused me so much grief.  “I can’t respond to that” “We’ve made the only offer we can” “You are making the refund request after the 30 day trial period” “Our terms clearly state that there is a 30 day money back guarantee”.  This is all I get from them.  No acknowledgement of the difficulty and embarrassment they have caused me.  No admission that they have botched this from day one.  Only canned responses about what they can’t do for me.  I am beyond disappointed, beyond angry, just beyond anything I can describe.  I have left negative reviews at every shopping cart review site I can find, well, basically the same thing I posted above, it’s just the truth.  I am currently reading a book which applies so well to this situation.  Their cost for additional copies of their product is 0 so each sale they make is straight profit.  I’ve asked for a refund of $390 + $349 + $199, a total of $928.  Now, let’s do the math…if my negative reviews cost them three sales at $349 per sale, they’re in the hole.  Not a very smart business decision according to the Harvard professors who wrote the book.  So now, I make it my mission in life to tell everyone what junk their cart is, continue to hate the company who wrote the cart I use and either keep it or start over with something else, which won’t cost more money because I’ll use ZenCart which is what I should have done all along and at least they provide support via forums.  Just my time, which apparently according to the Digishop people, isn’t worth much anyway.

Okay, vent over…tell all your friends, DON’T BUY DIGISHOP!

I saw a young man yesterday who inspired me to do some thinking. I worked with him for a short time and always thought he was just the greatest kid. I ran into him at WalMart and he had his adorable little daughter with him, she’s almost two. He was there alone with her, looking at toys. Makes me a bit envious because I don’t have the kind of husband who takes the kids to WalMart by himself. Anyway, I always knew, just from the way he treated people at work, that he’d be a great catch for some lucky gal someday. Why? Well, I do have a theory. His parents are still, after way more than 20 years, I’m sure, crazy in love. His Dad worked with us, too, and it was just obvious. They still liked each other, which is more than I can say for alot of us these days, still had spunk and even passion in their relationship, from what I heard. And to look at Kody, you have to believe that that attitude towards marriage was passed down to him. This is how I want my son to be when he grows up. How do I accomplish that? Well, I have to be more positive about everything in general. I can remember, not that many years ago, when I would have called myself a happy person. Not just happy with life circumstances, but just happy overall. Positive, outgoing, fun to have around, happy almost all the time. Now I’m not. I know there are several factors in play here. My constant battles with my DH about housework/computer stuff are a big factor. My weight gain in the last few years is another. My kids…maybe. I mean, I love them more than life itself, but they are a challenge. I can remember 3 years ago, when other twin moms would tell stories about their kids fighting and driving them crazy in general, I never believed that would happen to me. It has. I hope it is just their age. I question it. I question whether I pay them enough attention. Do I let them watch too much TV? What has gone wrong. At age 2, I absolutely LOVED to take them places and show them off. Now I shudder at the thought of having to take them to WalMart. I also have to at least partially attribute it to losing both parents in such a short time. I lost both parents in six months. My Daddy was very unexpected, but the blessing in that was that we didn’t have to see him suffer. My Mom was a completely different story. We literally had to watch her die. She was in hospice for over a month, after the doctors said there was nothing else they could do for her. She was in pain if she wasn’t completely medicated and for the last couple of weeks, was medicated to the fullest extent they could to help relieve that. Her nurses were truly angels on earth, even to the point of setting the machine that gave her pain meds to a setting where we could literally give her a dose every minute if we felt she needed it, even though that wasn’t really what the orders said. They all knew it was a matter of time. When your body is literally wasting away (she died of complications of diabetes including open sores that wouldn’t heal, regardless of the treatment), how can it hurt to be on a constant high dosage of pain meds? Anyway, I know that having to go through that took a toll. How I wish I’d had a blog then, there were so many feelings I wished I could have gotten out, but I had nowhere to go with them. I can distinctly remember one night when I slept in a chair beside her bed because her eyes were open just the slightest bit. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t communicate at all, but still, she looked at me when I sat next to her. Whether it was conscious or not, I couldn’t move from that chair. I sat and held her hand and talked to her, knowing that there was a very good chance that she wasn’t aware of any of it. I was the baby, almost eight years younger than my sister, I guess things just hit me differently than they did my sister. I mean, she was there, too. We traded shifts at the hospital. I don’t know, hard to explain, but just different. I suppose I have digressed completely from what I started this post with, but maybe I really need to examine why I feel this way in order to get past it. I have completely stopped taking the meds I was on, and I truly don’t feel any different now. I’m taking a couple of supplements from GNC, a really good vitamin and triple ginseng, which they said might help. We’ll see.

Boy, did I digress. Well, the bottom line is, I need to examine what it is that is keeping me from being the happy person that I know I am deep down inside. When I saw Kody, it reminded me that if I want my children to grow up and provide a happy environment for their family, that’s what they need to live every day. So that is my quest. I know I will fail many days…but if I succeed more than I fail and if the failures become further apart over time, I suppose I’ll consider that success.

So, let’s close with a bit of instant karma, we could all use that:

*Eliminate any negative tone from your speech.

That’s my goal today…I’ll tell ya later how it goes. Thanks for reading!

cause I’m going to bed early tonight.  The shop is mostly fixed, one little bug that causes the links in your account for multiple downloads to be all funky, but the ones you get in your order confirmation e-mail work fine.  So, without further adieu, here’s a peek at my new items in the store:

All 20% off through Monday at midnight!  Go shop, please !

After all the fuss, we’re having technical issues with our cart and it isn’t working correctly.  I can’t even say how sorry I am, but I hope that you’ll continue to check for an update.  Meanwhile, if you did happen to make a purchase and your download links are not working correctly, do let us know.  We will get those fixed by the end of the day if we have to create them manually.

Thanks for your support!