Did you ever hear the one about the snake and the toad?

I let the puppies outside a little earlier, and noticed that they were quiet interested in something. The something turned out to be a giant toad with a red streak on it’s side.

I went to get my shoes so I could look at the toad, and realized that the red streak was blood. I got the dogs back inside, and about ten minutes later, we went out again, since the only thing they’d done the first time is look at the toad.

I was standing on the porch, making sure the dogs didn’t mess with the toad, and all of a sudden I realized that their was a long, thin, green tail behind the potting soil.

The potting soil just happens to be on the patio, right beside the back door - right beside where I was standing. I’m not afraid of snakes…usually, but I definitely thing 1 person, 2 dogs, 1 toad, and 1 snake are a little too much for my backyard to handle, so I called the dogs, and they went inside.

Then standing in the doorway, I kicked the outside of the house, to see if I could get the snake to come out. The snake “rattled” it’s tail. There definitely wasn’t a rattler on there, or I would still be hysterical! Then it slithered away from me, so I walked around to the other side of the potting bag.

The poor toad was in the corner where the house and the patio meet. And right beside the toad was the snake. The poor thing had dragged himself right back to the enemy which had probably bloodied him up in the first place.

Is it wrong to feel sorry for the toad?

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Scrappy Vs. The Memory Foam Pillow

I decided to get a memory foam pillow yesterday, to see if it would help my TMJ. Although TMJ can be caused by grinding your teeth, it can also be caused by poor posture from doing things such as sitting at a computer all day. I also think the way I sleep has something to do with mine.

I took the pillow out yesterday, aired it out like the box says, and slept with it. The dogs didn’t want anything to do with it at all, so I was happy. I’d been a little nervous that they’d want to play with it, but they hadn’t.

A few minutes ago, I started hearing strange noises from the bedroom. I thought Scrappy was choking, so I went to see what was going on. He had that pillow up in the air and was grabbing it and biting it and jumping around on the bed. I laughed so hard, it was the funniest thing! Poor Scrappy isn’t much bigger than the pillow is.

The great thing about it is, he didn’t mess up that pillow at all! I guess the memory foam works

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Welcome to Mystical Beauty’s Musings

Welcome to the new blog! I hope you enjoy it. I’m really excited.

I’m sorry I’ve been hiding so long. I had a wicked case of TMJ all week. It was terrible, but I’m feeling almost normal. I hope I don’t get worse again!

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Wow, they just called a press conference for Ophelia

I’m a little nervous. They are saying it won’t get above a catagory 1 hurricane, and right now aren’t calling for anything more than us to be prepared but it’s still scary.

They are saying to gather all your important papers together, and taking pictures of your house and belongings, fueling up the car, oops I knew I should have got gas the last time I was out, but I have 3/4 of a tank.

They are saying that this is going to be nothing like Katrina, and they will probably not call for a full evacuation, I do not want to leave, but I will.

I am praying, as always, that this doesn’t hit us, or anyone else. I do not want to live through a hurricane.

They did advise us to watch the forecast the next few days, to get our stuff together, and have a plan in my place.

I’m taking my dogs and my stuff and going to Atlanta! The bad thing is, they usually get hit worse than we do.

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Where did customer service go?

I just got off the phone with the people at Brylane Home Catalog Outlet. I’d ordered some stuff from them a month ago, and received it in 3 separate shipments. One of the boxes had the invoice, with 5 things highlighted on it, and out of stock handwritten beside those 5 things. There was also a piece of paper in the box that said it was out of stock and they didn’t have time to reprint the invoice, which makes me think that these are their standard operating procedures. .

I emailed Brylane Home Catalog Outlet about the merchandise after I checked the credit card I paid with, and made sure that they hadn’t credited the price for those items back to my account of course, they hadn’t. The email that I got back from them was just a form letter, pretending to look like a real letter from a person, and it did not even come close to answering my questions. I wrote to ask if I would receive the items, or if the money I paid for them would be credited back to my credit card and I got an email saying “Thank you for your e-mail. We’re very sorry that the item(s) you wanted were no longer in stock. As a catalog outlet, our quantities are
extremely limited. We recommend that you visit our website frequently,
as new merchandise is added daily to our “Just In” department….”

They had a link in that email that said, if we didn’t answer your questions, email us again, through this link. I did, and I got the exact same email back…Thanks a lot for all of that help .

After waiting over a week for a response from the emails, I finally found their phone number and called them. I explained my situation to Stevie at least 5 times, and she just couldn’t understand why I didn’t get the stuff since it was showing that it had been sent on her end. I told her that when I checked my orders online, it was showing it had been sent as well, but the products were highlighted, and there was a note that said “out of stock” written beside each of the 5 items I didn’t get. She kept asking if I’d gotten the other stuff, and if it was sent to the same address. Of course it was sent to the same address, it was on one order-and if I hadn’t gotten any of the other stuff that I’d ordered, trust me, I’d be telling her about that too. Stevie didn’t know what to do, so she transferred me over to someone else.

I explained the situation again-and she seemed surprised that I’d actually expected them to respond to my email! Hello - if you aren’t going to have people answering the emails, why ask people to email you?

When I told her that I didn’t think it was right that I had to call to ask them to give me my money back, the lady said there was nothing they could to to automatically credit the price for stuff that was out of stock back to the purchaser, because everything in the warehouse is automatic! I asked her what about the person who had highlighted and written “out of stock on my invoice?” Couldn’t that person have made a note somewhere saying, “Hey this was out of stock, and we’ve already charged her, can you fix that?” She just said “uhh” and that’s it. Of course if they did set up a notification system to advise the company of when people were charged for things that they did not receive, it would mean that they would all the money they are getting from people who are too busy to notice that they didn’t get the products that they ordered, who think that the products will be shipped to them at a later date, or who are receiving items as a gift, and don’t know what was ordered.

I still can’t believe that she said they couldn’t do anything about products being out of stock because everything in the warehouse was automatic. I don’t believe that for one second, and I probably wouldn’t even if I didn’t have a handwritten note saying “product is out of stock” on my invoice.

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The Spiders! They just keep getting bigger!

You might remember my previous spider post.

To set the scene, I’m antisocial. I don’t know anyone in my neighborhood. So I was kind of worried when of the kids that lives in the neighborhood came over today and asked to use the phone. (I was worried about him going up to strangers houses, I know one of the guys that lives down the street is wierd!) The boy looked about 7 or 8, and I’ve seen him before, so I figured it was ok. He couldn’t get ahold of anyone, so I asked him who he was trying to call, and if everything was ok.

He said he couldn’t get in the back yard, because there was a spiderweb, and he couldn’t get ahold of his grandma. I offered to get my broom and knock the spiderweb down so he could go home. He looked really relieved when I offered to do that.

Now, he just said there was a spiderweb-and I know a lot of people who are scared of spiders so I didn’t think anything about it. Until I realized that the spiderweb was less than 10 feet from the monster spider that was in my backyard.

I looked up and that spiderweb must have been about 5 feet wide, and there was a gigantic spider with a huge yellow belly (yeah, it was a belly!) sitting in the middle of that web. I was really, really, really, glad I had that broom.

While the boy stayed a safe distance away, I took the broom, swiped it down one side of the web, then down the other, and started twirling the web up on the broom. Of course the spider got stuck to the broom. When I realized that I just wanted to turn and run away, it took every ounce of strength I had not to run. And the only thing that kept me from doing it is knowing I would have ran into the little boy.

I looked back, asked the kid if he could go through there now, thenstill holding the broom out as far away from me as possible, spider, web, and all, I speedwalked towards the street, and knocked the spider off into the rain water.

I almost freaked out when I thought the spider wouldn’t come off. I was so glad it did.

I don’t think I’ll be using that broom anytime soon.

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The Salvation Army Had Kettles Up Today

The Salvation Army had kettles up in front of Belks at the mall. I was suprised, and impressed. They were full, and that made me happy. It is wierd seeing them when it’s so hot outside I’m not sure if this was a special thing just because it’s Labor Day, or if they will be doing it for a while.

I’ve also heard that The Salvation Army is opening it’s camps up to some of the victims. That’s pretty cool

It’s nice to see how everybody is coming together to help

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