the long awaited welcome to iowa post!

Goodness - this inaugural post has taken quite some time!! I've been beyond busy since the move in August and feel like I haven't truly had a moment to sit and do a proper welcome to Iowa post! Between packing, driving, unpacking, cleaning, organizing, dance season starting, competition team choreography, solo choreography, and classes taking off I've literally felt like I've not had a day off in 2 and a half months!

Iowa is wonderful...cold a little to early in the season...but wonderful. We miss our family we left behind in Texas, and we miss our friends and wonderful old neighbors from Texas, too. Iowa brings new opportunities and a new chapter in all of our lives. I'm hoping this is just the beginning of an exciting new story for all of us -

The studio, Encore Dance Academy, is more than I could have ever dreamt it would be. Owning a business with my sister is easier than I thought - you hear horror stories of family businesses, but this seems almost effortless. This year I am Directing the Encore Competition Dance Team as well as about half of the recreational dance classes at the studio. It's hard to believe we've already been dancing for 2 months! I feel like we just moved and were unpacking everything yesterday - and my house organization doesn't lead you to believe that we've been here 2 and a half months by the chaos everywhere!

I've found when Jackson works from the house, Liam is home all day/night, and I'm home all day and gone in the evenings, the house gets dirty FAST. I feel like I'm cleaning daily and laundry piles up before I am able to dry the previous load. Liam will be starting preschool part time in two weeks - cross your fingers for no drama drop offs when he starts! He seemed to really like our visit to school and the toys especially!

Flu season is in full swing at the studio - dozens of girls are out sick. Evie got the bug earlier this week and now I seem to either be getting the bug, a virus, or my body is confused with the cold weather change since I haven't had winter in almost 10 years!!

So there you have it - the quick inaugural update Iowa post! I've told myself I'm going to get organized and blog more regularly so let's see how that works out :)

Love from the cold midwest
C

where's the "service" in customer service anymore

I'm shocked, and stressed now. I've been on the phone ALL day with various customer service agents at various companies changing our address, service info, phone numbers etc... These are fairly simple requests that I'm making. I have currently been holding on and off now for 44 minutes and counting just to change our billing address on our auto loan. Wow. This is like phone call number 6 today and I'm going to lose my mind.

Half of the agents just have bad attitudes, the other one that I about lost my cool with didn't know there was a state named Iowa in the USA and I had to repeat the spelling of Iowa 4 times to her. Really? Who was your 6th grade geography teacher - I'd like to chat with them briefly. Now I'm trying to cancel a gym membership here and they need basically the promise of my first born or a DNA strain in order to cancel it and will conveniently continue billing me monthly until they get just that. Finally, this agent won't let me change my billing address on my auto loan because they had my birthdate in the system wrong. I wasn't verifying all the security information with them correctly in order for them to talk to me about the account. Which part of me appreciates except I haven't stolen my own identity. I am now being punished because some other customer service agent keyed my birthday into the system wrong by ONE digit. I promise, I know my own birthday - it comes on the same day every single year.

Where is the service? Mostly, I love how at the end of every call they thank you in some way for being a loyal customer and ask if they can help with anything else today - I'm scared to ask them to do anything else since these simple requests have taken me six hours to complete? What if I had a major request??? I might die with my phone glued to my ear?!

So, there you have it. My soap box rant today - my brain hurts. I remember my mother's famous words as I grew up: "You don't have to be perfect, you just have to try a little bit harder and you will be miles above the rest of the world" Obviously I tried a little too hard...

Just for fun - I googled customer service hall of shame. I found that three of the companies I had to deal with today were on the top ten list of WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Sigh...next phone call

conversations with liam

he just cracks me up - i was putting liam to bed last night when this conversation happened. he has a habit of playing with my ears while he's trying to go to sleep:

L: mommy! i have none of those earring things?
C: what do you mean?
L: i need some of those earring things like you
C: earrings?
L: ya, i don't' have those in my ears, i need them.
C: no, those are only for girls buddy
L: no, i can have them too
C: well, you ask your dad but I'm pretty sure you can't have them
L: i just need you to put some of them in my ears mommy
C: okay buddy, maybe tomorrow :)

11 rules for being human

Found this article on one of my favorite blogs... very cool, deep, but cool if you really think about it-


11 RULES FOR BEING A HUMAN BEING

Rule 1: You will receive a body:

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period


Rule 2: You will learn lessons:

You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.


Rule 3: There are no mistakes, only lessons:

Growth is a process of trial and error: experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.


Rule 4: A lesson is repeated until learned:

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.


Rule 5: Learning lessons does not end:

There is no part of Life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.


Rule 6: “There” is no better than “here”

When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here”.


Rule 7: Others are merely mirrors of you:

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.


Rule 8: What you make of your life is up to you:

You have the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours - no one elses.


Rule 9: Your answers lie inside you:

The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.


Rule 10: You will forget all this:


Rule 11: You can remember whenever you want.

welcome welcome one and all

so it's official - i butchered my old blog trying to make it fancy... i'm now taking this opportunity to invite some more friends to view my blog as well as some "oldie but goodies" along for the ride. feel free to share the blog with whomever...i hope it's worth the re-do :) i know there is a way to follow the blog if you don't get the update emails. i'll work on that - i think you just click somewhere :) me and my fantastic techie knowledge - watch out!

here's the new blog address!

http://adayatthedawsons.blogspot.com/

hopefully i will be posting more regularly :) i started to slack a bit there for a while! my apologies!


C