2009 so far - being green, shams, phone lines......

I've been moving along with things around here. Making changes around the house is very refreshing. A little out of sorts with odds and ends but managing alright.

Last week as I was doing the laundry, I noticed that the pillow shams, that matched a comforter that is long gone, had seen better days and decided to get new ones. After checking out a few stores, I came to realize that pillow shams are nothing but a sham (easy one, couldn't pass that up!). I do not understand why they are sold in singles, while pillow cases are sold in sets, the single sham is priced more than a pair of pillow cases!! Seeing that they are pretty much decorative, I opted for pillow cases in a contrasting color (burgundy) - they look good with the new red lamp shades.

I am finally getting to changing the name on the utilities around here. I couldn't do that until the XH (ex husband) contacted the companies and notified them first. XH had been kind enough to call them, then call me, and give me a couple of days to make the changes. For the most part it was easy enough with most of the companies, except the big bad phone company! OMG!!!!! 50% of all marriages end in divorce - you would think that the phone company would have a better way to deal with the change. XH had called, so they had his approval on file. The only change that needed to be made was the first name and okay, they need to verify my credit. So I call them, and they say this requires a "super-cedure", and put me through to the correct agent, who reads me my privacy rights (I don't want to buy anything, why are you telling me about privacy??). It seems that they cannot talk about the DSL service on the phone line without letting you know of your rights (to what? have DSL?). In order to change the name (first name only - 5 characters), they had to disconnect the DSL, make the change and then reconnect the DSL - total outage of internet: 8 days. What?? 8 days? Course, I wanted to keep my current number. There is a way around it, he says.... you disconnect your current number, get a new line/number for a day with internet and change the number on that line to the new number - total outage - 1 day. What will either option cost, can't tell you ma'am until you decide which you want. Yea right! I go for option 2, $40 to change my name..... service gets disconnected on Thursday and reconnected on Friday - sounds like a plan. Come wednesday evening, when I got home from work, I had no phone or internet - great! No service Thursday. Get home Friday and still no service. I call Saturday morning (thanks to the trustly cell phone) and the agent on the phone told me that the last person did it all wrong blah blah blah and I couldn't get my old number back! WHAT!! Oh and since they completed the order, the fact that nothing was working was now a repair and I got transferred to the repair department. I was told that someone would get to it today but no word on when. A couple of hours later, I got a call from the tech working on the phone and he got it working in no time - the new number was set as a secondary line and it knocked the dsl out - yea, okay. Once that was done, it took another hour to get the dsl working with the modem. I wasn't ready to give up on my phone number yet, so I called the phone company back and went over the details, lady says okay, should be done by Monday - huh? the other lady said it couldn't be done.... okay, not complaining here.... so after hours on the phone and 3 days of no service, I now have the same phone number and dsl service with the first name changed on my account. Should it really take that long to change?

One of my resolutions for the year was to be more green. I seem to have run into some hiccups with this goal...... I do have 2 bags now that I can use, if only I can remember to bring them with me. Last week, I had the paper recycling bin loaded up to put out and it occurred to me that perhaps there should be something weighing the papers down..... hmmmm what? So back in the garage until I figure out what I can use. I don't seem to have a plastic recycling bin. XH seemed to collect a lot of the plastics - containers, buckets (soap and litter). It seems that the buckets need to be taken down to the yard for recycling, what? How do other people dispose of these buckets? I will have to find litter and laudry detergent sold in cardboard containers to avoid future trips to the yard.

What's with the weather - is it really January?