All I Want For Christmas

As some of you may recall from a previous post, I described finding a mouse in our house. Well, I need to retract the statement I made that we weren't invested with mice. In truth - we are invested! (Not as bad as Ratatouille - yet!) I think the mice in our neighborhood have been spreading the word that we are now cat-less.

Mice are coming out of the woodwork on a nightly basis. And they are getting into everything. They've been exploring our kitchen and tasting such things as Jaron's plastic bibs and my pastry brush. They even chewed into a package of my chocolate chips. How dare they! Their worst offense yet was taking up residence in my rags. Seriously! I found mouse droppings and little seeds buried away in my rags. Are they trying to tell me something? That I'm not cleaning my house enough? Or it is is subtle scare tatic to keep me from cleaning? These things will keep me awake at night as I ponder what else they may be getting into.

So this leads to the title of my post. What do you think I really want for Christmas? A CAT!! Clark suggested maybe Cooper could come for a visit but I think we need another permanent resident.

And for kicks and giggles I'm going to add a tally of how many mice we've caught. Clark things this is gross. I need to find the humorous side of this somehow.

Outsourcing the recipe box

This Thanksgiving holiday I was in kind of a bind. I had promised the Halverson clan that I would make my family's favorite chocolate cookies, but forgot to bring the recipe. Luckily, the cookie recipe was in Farnsworth Family Favorites (Volume 2) and everyone in my family has at least 2 copies. I quickly phoned my mom and sister, but no one answered.

Having struck out with my usually reliable sources, and under considerable time pressure, I suddenly remembered that some family members might be on Gmail and available for a chat. I quickly logged in but no one from my contact list was on. Within a few minutes, my brother Creed came online: my offshore recipe guru in Indonesia. A quick chat later, I walked into the kitchen with my chocolate chip cookie recipe in hand and made the cookies. Perhaps it is needless to say, but the cookies quickly disappeared.


In case you were wondering, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3/4 cups brown sugar

3 eggs

3 tsp vanilla

3 1/4 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp soda

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (to your liking)

Bake at 325 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes

Pass Your Cold Please

We just got back from our Halverson Family Reunion. It was about a week of games, food, talking, playing, and congestion (as in colds). Maybe it was because we were in Minnesota, but mostly I think it was due to the fact that it's winter and when you cram 28 people (plus 2 on the way - yeah!) you are bound to spread a few germs. I think by the end of the reunion we all had a few colds - although I think there were a few hold outs. We were popping Zicam like crazy. I'm not even sure if it really works.

I am thankful that I had this chance to spend time with my family. They are all crazy, opinionated, and extremely fun to be with. It feels so lonely and quiet now to be at home. I think Jaron misses cousins to fight over toys with. Good thing I've got this lingering cold to remind me of our reunion. (Thankfully it wasn't the Roto virus!) Until next time . . .

A Postive Experience

I am a consumer. Far too often I, as most consumers, have negative experiences with companies and their products. And it seems that seriously loathing a company gets me no where. No matter how many complaint phone calls I make to AT&T they still don't care - but that's a whole other blog. I want to instead, focus on a positive experience I had.

Jaron has this bucket full of plastic cars, planes, boats and trains given to him as a gift a while ago. He's seemed to enjoy playing with it - especially the trains. Unfortunately, his beloved engine broke. The plastic hook area got twisted one to many times and hence, his train cannot function as a real train. Quite a distressing situation for Jaron.

In my naive consumer mind I wondered if there was a way I could get the vehicle replaced. A quick Google search and I found the website for International Playthings which distributes and makes his toys called "Viking Toys".

Amazingly enough, I easily located a 1-800 number and within 30 seconds I was talking to someone. An actual costumer service representative that was friendly and helpful. No waiting on hold, no going through tireless rounds with an automated voice service and no pushing zero until I got a clueless operator. Clark later said to me, "Wow, you actually talked to someone."

This woman not only listened politely to my problem but was also willing to find a replacement vehicle for Jaron. She first searched amidst the products in her office and when that didn't work took my name, phone number and address. She gave me the option of returning everything to a store for an exchange which really wasn't a desirable alternative. She would continue trying to locate a replacement vehicle and get back to me if anything else came up.

Within 10 minutes of hanging up the phone it was ringing and it was the rep again. She had found a train. She would ship me the train and in addition to that, would send me a shipping label to return the broken train. Talk about hassle free.

I can't even begin to describe how pleasant this whole experience has been. It makes me question why I waste my time and money purchasing products from companies that typically treat me, as the consumer, as unimportant, uninformed, and unworthy of their attention. I felt like the only way I could "repay" this company is to share with you (whoever may be reading this) my great experience. So happy consuming!

Sitting . . .

and Falling.

At almost 5 months, Russell is attempting the fine art of sitting. He's pretty proud of himself. And he even enjoys falling over. I think sometimes he falls on purpose just for the thrill of it. It's pretty amusing to watch him take a tumble. As my sister, Kirsten, was saying recently "It's funny to watch babies learning to sit because they fall over without trying to stop themselves." It's a good thing that Russell enjoys it because it provides entertainment for us.

Payback with Paydays

Our little green frog, Jaron, almost missed out on his opportunity to trick-or-treat this year. He was a being a little royal. I told Clark later I wasn't sure if not letting him go would punish him or us more. More likely us, because we would then have to deal with his bad mood and secondly, miss out on all the candy!! So we made him work hard to pay us back for his bad behavior yesterday. He trick-or-treated for over 1 1/2 hours.



Originally we all went out, with Russell batting his baby blue cow eyes to sucker a few extra treats out of people. Eventually Russell and I tired out (around 7:00 pm). Clark and Jaron determined they would hit a few more houses. They didn't come dragging back in until nearly 7:45 pm. Jaron's candy bucket literally "runneth o'er". I'm sure people thought Clark was crazy to have a 2-year-old out that late. I relived my old Halloween days by staying up late, eating too much candy, and feeling sick. What a truly crazy holiday!

The cow says "Moo" the frog says "Trick-or-Treat"