Post Office Terrors

I have to go to the post office today to mail a couple pieces...and it's tax day!  I am terrified...if I don't make a post in the next three days...send help!

Two Mail Announcements

First off, I want to tell you that I have changed my e-mail address for my blog.  I have had AOL ever since I got my first computer.  Now I know people hate AOL but I have honestly never had much for problems with it.  Lately though, I have been having some mail issues off and on.  Sometimes it's delayed and this week my responses don't seem to be going out.  I always respond to e-mails, so if you didn't get a reply...first check your spam folder, and if it's not there then it must have gotten lost.  Of course the Internet has had more people on it than usual this week and that can have an effect.

The second announcement is that I will be heading for the post office with all the packages to go out tomorrow.  They will all be going USPS, so you should be getting your bears in a few days if you are in the US and a little longer for my International customers!

And now...I am off to work on a new bear!

Just One Good Day Please!

Isn't it amazing how some days you can be so strong that you could survive any natural disaster or crisis that is thrown at you...and other days a series of small stupid things can make you crumble like a three year old fruit cake.

Unfortunately yesterday was one of the latter type of days.  I was awakened by another weird dream.  I dreamt that there was a tornado, but it wasn't made of wind, it was made of chunks of something black like graphite or coal.  I have no idea what that was about.  Probably something to do with feeling like things are spiraling out of my control.

I let the dogs out and staggered down the stairs squinting out of one eye, with a death grip on my coffee cup.  I was already in a stressed mood from the day before because one of my stitches fell out of my gum graft allowing me to see under it...as I had suspected a month ago the gum graft itself had pulled out.  So I have been enduring the torture of not eating properly and having four stitches for nothing.  It also means that I have to start over...as if I haven't had enough mouth trauma for the past two months. 

I called the periodontist and I have an appointment on Thursday.  They yelled at me for not calling sooner.  The irony is that I DID call sooner.  I called a month ago and they assured me there is no way it could have pulled out.  They were wrong.  I think I can tell if there is gum tissue over my tooth or not.  I can't believe that after two months I have to start all over again.

Between that and being paranoid that my new crown is going to fall out for a third time, I haven't slept well and my stress cup runneth over.

But then the doorbell rang.  My mail carrier was standing there with the package I had mailed last Wednesday to my Step Dad for Fathers Day.  It had some sort of a big ugly orange sticker on it.  The postman handed it to me and announced that you can't mail alcohol through the post office.  I still wasn't fully awake and couldn't process what he was telling me.

I said it's not alcohol, it's a shower head and faucet set.  (It was a really nice Victorian one that he had wanted because he liked the one R put in for me.)  Then it dawned on me what the problem was. 

I had grabbed a box off of the pile in the garage that it would fit in.  It just happened to be a Corona box that I had put stuff in from Costco.  But it seems to me that any postal employee worth their salt who handles boxes all day should have been able to discern just by handling the box that...
A.  It wasn't heavy enough to actually be a case of beer.
B. There was no glass or liquid sound coming from it.
C. No one in their right mind would spend $18.20 to mail a case of beer which costs what, $25-30.

He said if I took it to the post office I could get a refund on my shipping.  He was wrong.  I stood in line for 20 minutes, then had to wait for a supervisor to come and talk to me.  Apparently the supervisor was in no rush because 45 frustrated minutes later they told me there was no way they were refunding my $18.20, and that it was the fault of the FAA since I mailed it priority.  Way to pass the buck, and doesn't the FAA have an x-ray machine for stuff since they obviously can't tell just by lifting the box.

They did tell me that if I covered up all the Corona logos on the box (it was covered with them) that I could mail it again without paying.  So what I learned is apparently you can get away with sending alcohol in a box as long as it doesn't say it ON the box.  But you can't get away with sending anything else in a box that says anything about alcohol on it.  I left feeling as if the postal customers had more right to go postal than the employees and that I should start shipping stuff UPS.

Then I had to go return the present because in the interim my Step Dad informed my Mom that he would have to cut a hole in the wall in order to put the shower set in, and he didn't want to do that.

Somewhere in there I had a giant coughing fit because I have been sick for two weeks.  I think that I have a low level infection from all this gum graft and temporary crown that was cutting into the other side of my gum and it has caused me to develop flu like symptoms.  By the time I got into Lowes, which always makes me have a reaction from all the wood they cut in there, I couldn't even see my eyes were watering and running so bad.

When I got in my car I broke down out of frustration from lack of sleep for days, losing the shipping money for no good reason and the fact that I am finally convinced that my mouth will forever have something wrong.  Poor R, I called him on the phone and he couldn't make out what I was saying between the allergy attack the the sobbing.

When I got home I had an e-mail from the magazine and realized I made a mistake on my ad, so I had to sit down and immediately fix it.

I also realized I signed up to do a blog party in five days and I haven't even started on it.

My purse broke, and the vacuum cleaner caught the fringe trim on the end of my big wool rug and pulled half of it off. (That can wait until later today for me to repair!)

Plus I have one additional point of stress from my new neighbors, but I am not even going into that right now.

I know eventually this too shall pass, and I know that in the whole scheme of things I could have far worse problems.  I know I shouldn't be so stressed or frustrated or upset by these little things.  But I can't help it.  I am tired.  Losing the money for something so stupid and out of my control right now was hard because I have had so many bills with the gum and the crown and everything else going on.  But the main thing is that I have zero contol over any of this stuff at this point and I am not good at feeling helpless.  I have tried to remain positive despite everything going on.  I keep telling myself that this will pass and that each little issue is the last thing and it will get better...but so far it just keeps piling on.  I would give anything for just one good day right now.  One simple day where nothing goes wrong, falls apart or creates stress.  Is that really so much to ask?