It’s a start……

Yesterday little boy tells his Daddy he has to pee pee so husband slowly takes him into the bathroom and lets him sit on the potty.  He’s done this before after already having used his diaper so husband didn’t get in to a hurry….mistake.

Little boy had used his diaper but still put a couple of drops into the potty…..If husband had taken him seriously we might have actually had a true potty moment.

I guess when it comes to potty training you should take every “I have to pee pee” seriously!

King of the Cotton

Little boy is getting braver as he gets older.  I love this picture where he decided to venture on up into the big trailer of cotton at the Pumpkin Patch.  Shortly after this is when he also climbed up the big slide as well.  He’s almost getting too brave!

Will it ever end!?

I feel like my life has turned into one of those shows where every time you turn around there is more drama.  Friday was my day off and with 100% chance of rain…a good day to lay around, watch a movie then try and watch the Lost season finale that I missed last May….I did not get a thing done that I really needed to.  I get a call in the morning from my pal Lou who was the chairperson for the reunion.  She had contacted the lawyer I had been emailing.  She had called me the night before asking for the number because she wanted to set up a consultation with her.  We’d received another email from the gal who was demanding a full refund.  She had stated that she had received her refund and it was unacceptable.  She didn’t care if anyone else got a full refund that she just wanted her money. She stated that “Don’t think I won’t take you to court over $25 and maybe more”.  She also stated that her lawyer was free etc etc.  I forwarded this email to the lawyer and then left for the day.

Anyways Lou contacted the lawyer and the lawyer was so appalled by the fact that this lady was STILL pursuing this she told Lou that she would send this woman an email stating that the emails would stop immediately and that if we received anymore emails we would charge her with something to do with harrassing someone with emails or calls which is fine-able up to $500 and 3 months jail/probation.  She may also say something about it being pointless to take to court…not sure.  Lou was mostly upset about this lady sending emails to everyone stating that we were being dishonest about keeping their money etc.  She didn’t want her rep being compromised even though we did nothing wrong.

I personally wanted to wait to see if the lady pursued.  I read on-line how much it costs to file a claim and it would cost her almost $80 with or without a free lawyer.  I kinda thought her free lawyer threats were bogus too because if she planned on using her “company” lawyer….if her company is what I think it is..it would be illegal not to mention those harassing emails were also coming from her work email….naughty naughty…

I’m a little concerned that this will make her madder but I guess we’ll wait and see.  But of course the drama doesn’t stop there for me personally.  When the mail comes friday I have a letter from my bank with a copy of the check that was issued to me from the reunion to reimburse my upfront expenses….came back “irregular signature”. In other words I didn’t sign it exactly how they had on the signature card.  I quickly emailed everyone who got a refund to say if theirs comes back just let me know.  Now I have to go to the bank and see which checks have cleared and which ones came back then get the rest of my money.  What else can go wrong?!  Will this drama ever end!?

I didn’t let it spoil my weekend too much though.  I still never got anything done this weekend, my laundry didn’t get finished, the house is a mess and I’m feeling fat again…..Can’t wait till Monday!

Something Fally

Here is a picture from the Pumpkin Farm.  I love fall colors and pumpkins etc.  We had a really good time that day.

Lessons Learned

Unfortunately, the Big 25 year reunion drama is STILL not over.  This lady is still sending emails filled with HER assumptions about what we did or didn’t do and sending them to everyone in the class with an email.  After stressing over it all weekend, Sunday night I wrote her a reply since she mentioned my name several times in her email to the world.  She of course responded to that in a hateful manner and sent to everyone (I just sent my comments to her).  Of course she didn’t use my email in her email so the world didn’t see what I said.  I pretty much clarified what she said (all assumptions) and pointed out to her that “while you are seeking guidance from your company lawyer, you might want to ask him/her about defamation of character because that is what you are doing with your assumptions….using your company email address no less”.  Naturally she had a smart-ass reply but she must have consulted the lawyer because she threw back in my face the definition of defamation and that she was told defamation is hard to prove due to the 1st Amendment….She doesn’t think telling everyone that I knew we would cancel when I deposited her check on 9/4/08 and pretty much we probably collected more money than we let on (in other words we are stealing according to her).  She claimed she had 5 other classmates who agreed with her.  I knew of 3 of them, one of which was the one whom the nasty email gal paid her registration.  She was including herself in that count as well.  I didn’t realize she had been in contact with another lady but I didn’t know this lady so doesn’t surprise me.  Yeah I’m sure they want their money back but they are not understanding why we can’t and no one else is acting the way the email lady is.  Everyone else is being understanding even though they would prefer a full refund.  All those people who claimed they would donate money….never did so we were forced to go ahead and refund what we had left.  We only kept $12.50 per person that ended up covering all  non-refundable admin costs (DJ deposit and postage)

Not sure this lady will pursue anything against us.  I truly think we did nothing wrong.  The application said the registration fee was non-fundable and we never dreamed of doing that or that the reunion would be cancelled so we did refund all we had left.  Our class officer’s are in agreement with what we did and support us.  It has really ruined any chance of future reunions because after this I’m sure no one will want to organize one.  Email lady did point out she would not attend any future reunions with mine or the chairman’s name attached….that’s fine….we don’t want her nor will either of probably help again.

We did learn several lessons from this reunion and I hope if we do have a future reunion they take these to heart.

1.  Make sure you don’t pick a date during Spring or Fall Break.  My child isn’t old enough for school and the other lady homes schools hers so we had no true idea we picked a date at the end of Fall Break and lots of folks had planned family trips during that time

2.  Ask the classmates what kind of reunion they would prefer (fancy, picnic, casual).  If you don’t have money for postage you can at least email those you have addresses for)  You can do this for the date too.  You may not get everyone but a good enough percentage to get a better idea.

3.  Don’t rely on RSVPs.  We had over 40 RSVPs on Classmates.com and only one actually registered.  We also got several emails and calls from people who said they were coming.  We relied on those official and nonofficial RSVP’d which is why we still thought we could hold the reunion 2-3 weeks before the event

4.  Make sure you have a clause on your registration application regarding the fee.  We had the terms “non-refundable”.  I think it would have been more clear to state something about when it is non-refundable…like if you don’t attend and maybe state stipulations if the event is cancelled.  If you need 15-25% for admin costs and everything else is refundable if the event is cancelled then say that.  That would cover everything.  We never had this problem before but we’d never had to cancel before.  I don’t know if there are truly laws regarding the statement “refundable” if that’s all the application said.  But to me, if the thing says non-refundable…it’s non-refundable.  I do know that in another couple of days we would have had to pay the venue a non-refundable deposit…..and if we had….we would not have even had enough to give back to the classmates.  It wouldn’t be fair for the committee to eat that cost either.  There were no winners in this drama.  We all lost money.

5.  Use email as much as possible to save on postage.

6.  Don’t bother including other classes in your reunion unless you have people from that class working on the committee.  Sure our class wanted to include the other classes but the other classes didn’t truly seem to be that interested.  Our committee was too small to start from stratch searching for other class classmates.

7.  Don’t try and hold an event if you only have 3-4 people working on the committee and if you do try…be sure and evenly divide up any upfront admin costs.  Also make sure everyone does their fair share of work.

8.  Put a comment in the registration form regarding the deadlines and stipulate “NO PAYMENT AT THE DOOR”.  Our committee chairman said she had 25 people call her the day of the reunion to see what time it started because they wanted to pay at the door.  Okay these people should know you can’t plan an event like we did and NOT know who all was coming.  I know I got a call a couple of days before the reunion would have been held from someone who wanted to bring me money.

9.  Set a deadline and make sure you annotate it on the registration.  If by the deadline you don’t have enough…cancel then.  Our deadline was not on the original application but was on the last reminder postcards.  We set the deadline too close to the event because we were optimistic.  Reunions in the past have shown us that people WAIT TILL THE LAST MINUTE.

10.  You will not please everyone.  Whether it’s the venue, the food, the entertainment or the registration fee (and/or registration fee policy).

There are probably more lessons I would like to pass on and if I think of more I’ll add them.

Overall this reunion planning has been a nightmare.  All we wanted to do is have a great reunion.  My husband has already told me not to get involved again and after those emails I might be embarrassed to even come to one if we even have another one.  I guess now I’ll just wait and see what happens next.  Everyone should have gotten their refund yesterday or today.  If the disgruntled lady pursues this she’ll be out more money taking this to small claims than she even lost with the registration.

Pumpkin Patch

Today we spent the afternoon at the pumpkin farm.  I could tell little boy had a good time by the smile on his face.  He spend most of his time on the wooden John Deere tractor although he loved the hayride to the pumpkin patch and the bin of dried corn you could roll around in.  We thought he would go to bed early after all the running around he did but nope……

My week

Things have been kinda hectic at the house of Scrappy Cat.  Things have been pretty busy at work so I’ve been so tired when I get home I almost fall asleep before little boy goes to bed.  I’ve had no time for crafting.  I did get my closet cleaned out this past weekend and did a “seasons” transfer with my clothes.  We’ve had a couple of days in the 80’s but I think the weather is truly about to change.  My high school reunion planning committee had our final meeting last night.  We met to write out the refund checks and get those in the mail.  We were able to refund 75% of the registration fee.  The chairman forwarded me an email from one of the ladies who is threatening us.  Supposedly she is talking to her company lawyer and is demanding copies of our receipts etc.  So the chairman asked me for copies of my receipts and was talking about having her brother (a lawyer) send this lady a letter. I told her to ignore the hussy because she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. She’s being refunded 75% of a fee that on the application clearing said “non-refundable”.  It didn’t give any stipulations on when the fee was refundable it just said “non-refundable”.  When we deposited HER check we were still hopefully we’d get enough people and had not discussed cancellation at all.  She would be stupid to pursue this.  Heck it would cost more for her to file a suit than the cost of money she lost.  I can’t believe she even put in the email that she is prepared to challenge this….are you?  What do I say to that? “Bring it!”

Today I took the day off to go to the dentist and to run some errands.  They also came and put the new roof on our house.  We were pretty lucky since today there was a 50% chance of rain.  Thankfully they got the roof done before the heavier rain came in.  When I arrived home at 3:30, the roofers were about to leave.  The first thing I did was go into the back yard to let the cats out and check on the dogs.  I walked out and heard the rustling of the Pampas Grass and out pops Rusty.  I immediately check the gate to make sure it is secure.  See we had to leave the gate unlocked for the roofers and I had been worried about the dogs.  Rusty and chewed his way out from under the deck and destroyed a piece of latice work that surrounds the bottom of the deck  and made his way out of their enclosed area.  I think him getting out was why the roofers did not remove the solar panels that were removed from the roof and placed in the back yard.  Hopefully we can move them ourselves but they are pretty darn heavy.

We’ll round out our week tomorrow by visiting a local pumpkin farm and petting zoo.  It’s my day off and husband took the day off as well.  I’m really looking forward to it.

I want my Money!

Just when I thought the whole “Cancelled Reunion” stress was over…I’m sitting at my desk at work and my cell phone rings.  I don’t recognize the number but was afraid it might be daycare so I answer….MISTAKE.  It was a gal from my graduating class who had registered for the reunion and was not satisfied with the email conversations she’d been having with the Reunion Chair so she calls me.  She was very irate and hateful and frankly…I ended up hanging up on her before I became irate..  She was demanding a full refund.  I explained to her that the registration was suppose to be non-refundable but since we had to cancel the reunion we didn’t feel right keeping the money but we still had expenses. We would be refunding most of their money though.  That was not good enough for her and she told me how unfair it was and I explained again that would it be fair for the reunion committee to be out hundreds of dollars for things we had to pay for before registration money started coming in?  She questioned why we had to use our own personal money and frankly that was our problem and how at her place of business they’ve refunded monies before when events were cancelled etc etc…then she started on me about how her check cleared the back on Sept 4th and we must have already known we’d cancel the reunion so she didn’t think that was right either. (which is untrue and a different story from what she told the reunion chair).  Finally when she let it be known that she had another lady on the phone in a conference call by asking her something (who she registered with that was from another class)….and her voice became louder at me…..I hung up.  I was so mad and upset I could hardly sit.  One of my co-workers who sits in the workstation on the other side of me brought me a candy bar because she thought I might need it.  I immediately got on my phone and called the reunion chair to leave a message.  “We’ve got to make a decision and get those checks mailed out ASAP!” I said.  “before I get beat up!”…..LOL

Laurie called me last night and we discussed what we were going to do.  We are still waiting for donations from the classmates who volunteered a donation and we’ll see what we can come up with.  I requested she send another email and let everyone know when to expect a refund and I told her if anymore grumpy classmates call me I’m going to refer them to her!

Thankfully there was no one parked outside my house waiting for me when I arrived home….LOL

This drama over $50……………..Feels like high school again…..LOL