Good Mail

Now tell me, who doesn't love a "good" mail day? I know I sure do! It's always such a bummer when you open your mailbox and all you find are the weekly junk mail circulars, or worse, bills. No one wants to see that! However, toss in a couple of magazines, a catalog or two, and maybe a card from a friend, and now we're talking! The best mail of all, however? Definitely packages. Even if they don't come via they USPS, I still count them as good mail.

Today was a good mail day!

I know a lot of women, when they think of something in a bright orange box that's going to make them giddy with excitement, are thinking Hermes. Not this girl. I'm thinking, Le Creuset.

Ooooohhhh yeah. After waiting nearly a month and a half, my birthday present FINALLY arrived. Oh, we went through such a pain to get this! We ordered it on Amazon, through a third party seller who had it for $50 cheaper than anywhere else. It said it was in stock. First red flag - all of a sudden we're being told it won't ship until the middle of September. Then, when I went to check on it in the middle of September, the date had been changed to September 30th. I wasn't terribly worried though, because it also said that I could no longer cancel my order as it was being prepared for shipment. That meant it was coming soon, right?

WRONG! I got an email from the seller saying they didn't have the pot in stock, and didn't know when they would get it. They blamed Le Creuset and said they were a terrible company who didn't follow through and wouldn't get them their shipment. They said that Amazon would cancel any order that was not processed within thirty days, so they needed me to authorize them to process the payment and then they'd send me the pot when they got it. They just didn't know when that would be.

That's right - they wanted me to give them $300 for a someday...maybe.

Since I'm not an idiot, I told them to go to hell and cancel my order. I mean, I get that they didn't have the product, and I get that sometimes you have trouble getting your stock from a manufacturer. However, what I don't get, and what they could not explain, was how something that they didn't even have could be being prepared for shipment! What exactly were they preparing that made it so I couldn't cancel my order? Shady, shady dealings if you ask me. Before you order kitchen stuff on Amazon, um... send me an email to find out the name of the seller so you don't have to deal with that too.

Anyway, once they canceled my order (which, to their credit they did very promptly) I placed it again, this time directly from Amazon. Screw this third party business!

Here I am, a week later, with my pot happy on my stove. Sure, I had to fork out another $30 to get it, but that's pretty much what retail was anyway. Sometimes, a deal is just not worth the pain it gives you in the behind. It's the prettiest bright green, which didn't really come through in this dark iPhone photo. Bad blogger.

The other package I got today (yes, TWO!) contained this:

My Blurb book! I'm so excited about this, and it came out so nice. I had some issues with installing the software, and the customer service guy I talked to was no help at all. I ended up having to install it on the desktop instead of the laptop, but after that was done it was a piece of cake to put together. I took all of my blog posts from when I was pregnant and had them put together in this book.

I won a gift certificate on Blue Eyed Bride from Erin for $39.95 toward this, so it only ended up costing me $8 out of pocket. Not too shabby for a hardcover keepsake! It totally looks professional too, like I bought it at a bookstore.

Off to make dinner!