Sunday, June 15, 2014

College 59 and Blogger of the Month

I know it has been a few weeks. It has been a busy, crazy couple of weeks (I seem to be saying that a lot lately). More on that later. For now, here's my progress. There's not a huge amount of it, but there's some!

Before:

After:


It's only 62% done, but I feel like I'm in the home stretch. I'll probably be saying that for a few years. But that's okay.

So what has been going on. First, Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I have decided to pick up and move back to California. There's a variety of reasons for this, but ultimately it's for the best and we're happy with our decision. This, of course, means that I now have to organize a cross country move. There's was a flurry of getting estimates from movers, figuring out a timeline, final dress fitting (in Dallas) etc. etc. My mom will be flying out, going to my final dress fitting with me, coming back and helping us pack, and then helping us drive out to California. So that will be happening at the end of August.

Then, wedding planning. The invitations are going out next week so I HAD to finish the registries. Since one of our registries is a honeymoon registry I had to finish booking cars, hotels, etc. I find the perfect hotel that has everything we wanted for the right price and decide to book it. It was also the last room available. So I book it and a few minutes later get a call from my credit card company. They decide that the transaction is too suspicious and they cancel it. Now, I'm all for credit card security, etc., but I feel that if I book plane tickets to a foreign country and then use the same card to book a hotel room in said country, that shouldn't be suspicious. But they decided it was and canceled the whole transaction, telling me to rebook the hotel. However, it's the last room and is now showing up as booked so I can't. The guy on the phone doesn't seem to understand that and seems to be stuck in a loop just telling me I "simply have to rebook" over and over. Not very helpful.

Now, I never pull out the "I'm a bride" card because that's just not me. I believe a wedding is a time to be happy and share in friends and family. But when you cancel my honeymoon hotel and then don't listen to me, I'm going to be unhappy. Soon, I had the poor guy making phone calls to the hotel, trying to sort it out, but he kept claiming that he couldn't get through. I voiced my unhappiness with the credit card and hung up. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not an unreasonable person. But I have had many problems with this credit card. It keeps cancelling my transactions, flagging them as suspicious. Especially the kinds of transactions they flagged as suspicious including my bridal alterations and my honeymoon hotel. The good news is that I was able to Skype-call the hotel, they ran the card again with me on the phone, and we got the room. Yay!

This made me want to check the status of my other hotels, just because I got a bad feeling. There was one hotel I had to book over the phone instead of online, without receiving a confirmation. They had charged my credit card so I wasn't too worried but I figured that while I'm at it, I might as well confirm. So I call the hotel. Apparently, the hotel had been sold. The new owners cancelled all previous reservations but didn't inform anyone because they decided it "wasn't their problem." No refunds were issued because it "wasn't their problem." No contact information for the previous owners was given when I asked for it because it "wasn't their problem." I had booked this one with a different credit card, with FANTASTIC customer service, so I called them quickly to dispute the charge. Why should I have to pay for a hotel that cancelled my reservation without notifying me?

But that's not the end of my story. The next day, Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I are sitting down to watch a show. I was in the kitchen getting some snacks together and when I sat down I had a voice mail waiting for me. It was a guy from a U-Haul company in Arizona stating that they believe my card had been used fraudulently to purchase some items from them online and they wanted to let me know. This is the same credit card that had cancelled my honeymoon hotel. So I quickly call the card and suspend it. Whoever stole the number managed to rack up $500 in charges in a few hours. I won't be responsible for those charges. I called the man in Arizona back to thank him. There are still good people in this world.

So I was having a bit of a rotten week. As I'm getting ready for work Friday, I get an email from Jo (of Serendipitous Stitching) with the subject line, "Blogger of the month." Intrigued, I opened it immediately. Turns out that WOCS magazine has named me Blogger of the Month in issue 218! I have no idea how this happened but I'm honored and flattered. So to the fine folks at WOCS, thanks so much! I hope everyone enjoys reading my ramblings as much as I enjoy writing them. Handsome Helpful Fiancé insists that it is his presence in my blog that has helped me become "an award winning blogger" (as he puts it).

When I told my friends about it in a group text, their reactions were hilarious. They have decided that since WOCS is from the UK, I am now English and will receive free meals and entry into restricted areas with obligatory luncheons with British celebrities in Buckingham Palace, and the Orangery in Kensington Palace Gardens and they will ride my coattails. My friends are, by the way, crazy anglophiles (as am I). There was also something about birthday parties, ponies, and champagne fountains.

So now that I've written a novel and likely bored you all to tears, here are the stats for the week:
Days until wedding: 111 (holy crap!)
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 4/12/2016
Anticipated completion date for College:  10/28/2016

Happy stitching, everyone!

12 comments:

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

I am so pleased that I was able to lighten up what really was an appalling week for you!

I do believe that as Blogger of the Month you become an honorary English person for the month. You do have to learn to speak with an English accent and replace all the "u"s in words that American insist removing (colour, favourite, honour, etc).
And end every blog post with God Save the Queen!

cucki said...

Beautiful stitching
Sending you sweet hugs x

Unknown said...

Welcome to England, God save the Queen mum! Haha, but well done honestly. Sounds like it was the perfect little tidbit of news to brighten up what has been a really stressful time for you! Gosh, you deserve some decent luck now.

Sending love and thoughts from a real Brit ;-) xxx

Rachel said...

Planning weddings is bad enough if things go smoothly but what a stressful time that must have been. I'm glad everything worked out well. And congratulations on your Blogger of the Month! Welcome to England! :)

Keebles said...

As a fellow Anglophile, congrats on your Blogger of the Month! How exciting!

demeter83 said...

Wow, that was quite a week.

Firstly, your progress is beautiful, love how much you've achieved.

Can't believe how ridiculously difficult booking your hotel's have been. I work for a hotel and wouldn't dream to treating guests like you have been!

Unknown said...

dear ewa...

I have read all your blogs from day One till now in the past three days and I just one to say I was plezant suprised with the way you walk into the world, your seems to me like a sweet young woman with a lot of joy in the world with her dear future husband and her stitching... I wanted to say ´a great day on your wedding to come` enjoy it en have a lot of love for each other!! I goning to married over a month { 2-7-2014} iieekkss!!I was engaged for more than a year...

And then I just one say ´what a great life do you have stitching way,because you do have a beautiful and amazing wip and stash...

I`m really going to follow you around...

have a nice day oh and congratz with your school, you do a great job!!

love from belgium

The Crafty Princess said...

Oh man Ewa you've had such a rollercoaster ride with all your wedding, honeymoon and moving plans!!!! Good on you for getting through it and still managing a bit of stitching. College is amazing just like the stitcher.

Good luck with your move it sounds a little hellish but the drive across the country should be cool. I love love long drives, they're such adventures.
Take care gorgeous and keep kicking those life obstacles down like you do in your unique style!
xo Alicia

The Crafty Princess said...

Sorry forgot to add congrats on being named Blogger of the month by WOCS! Great and well deserved achievement!
xo Alicia

Mii Stitch said...

Congratulations on being blogger of the month in the TWOCS magazine!!! It is a wonderful feeling, I had it too a few months ago :) I'm now a happy follower!

Mii Stitch said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Og dear, I am so sad to read about all the trouble you had with the credit card and I really hope that things will improve (Well, that was enough ill luck for at least one year). I hope you were able to sort out that hotel-chaos and everything is back to normal by now =)

Moving back to California sounds great, I hope all will go well and you will be happy there =)

And oh yes, great progress on College ;-) You're getting there!