“I went to the zoo and I saw a “wino”.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

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Turn up your volume for this one… Apparently, I drive Addie Bonkers.

…the HIGH SCORE on my final in Cost Accounting!!!

Current GPA?

3.92

Yeah!

For reasons I don’t feel I need to explain, I am not tagging this post or putting anything in the title that could make it “searchable” or “findable” via google.

Lets just say this… This was Addie’s first time doing this all by herself. We have done this together.. but she has never been alone while doing it. She had SOOOOO much fun. Now, we can’t get her out of there! We take her in and she pushes the button by herself to turn it on! Confused?? Just watch the video, it will all make sense…

for anyone who has visited my blog in the last few days, and gotten any number error messages, my apologies. I thought my troubles were over, but as it appears, they might be just beginning.

I switched my hosting service from siteground.com to justhost.com. The primary reason for the change was monetary. My account was up for renewal and siteground wanted $8.95/mo with a 12 month contract, Justhost was only 2.95/mo with a 3 year (prorated refundable contract). When I contacted siteground they said new domain names could get hosting for $3.95/mo, but renewal did not have the option.

So, I decided to swap over to justhost.com. They make it sound easy, pay us, tell us your domain name and we will take care of the rest! They did, sorta.

I paid them, and my account was golen for about 2 days. Then I tried to restore my old blog… that is when the problems started. The username I had with siteground was already taken by another person at justhost, so I had to be assigned a new username to which my old blog didn’t like… you following me here??

So my old blog was looking for one user name and my new blog was looking for another. No communication between the two. Justhost tried to change my username to match my old blog.. but that caused billing issues so my account was flagged and DELETED!

Oh crap. Now what, I pay $8.95/mo for service where I know my blog lives happly or give justhost.com another chance. I have to admit submitting support “tickets” is ridiculous! They never get answered by the same person and you just end up running in circles.

I got a bit frustrated with this, checked the Better Business Bureau and found a phone number for sales. I figured they could either get me with someone to help, or cancel and refund my account. Either way I would be happy.

Now, let me start by saying I usually don’t like getting support from people with accents, and it’s not meant to be racial, but simply the language barrier is difficult to break through at times… Justhost.com the people have accents… but they are BRITISH!! Oh joy! Talk to me all day! I love british accents. (think: the rain in spain, falls mainly on the plain — tha rayyn in spayyn faaauulls maayyynly oon the plaayyyn.) LOVE IT.

On top of that, they are RIDICULOUSLY helpful. Now if I have an issue, I submit a ticket, give them 1 chance to fix it, or at least start fixing it and if that doesn’t happen I call. I can only assume the same group that answers the phone is the same group that answers the support tickets.. but you would never know, as phone support is fast, effective and gets it done.

As it sits right now (5:26 pm on 1/14/09) My blog is up and running. I can read it, access my archives, comments and admin portion.

Michelleandjess.com and michelleandjess.com/abb (my two other works in progress) are down and I cannot log into the admin panels to fix it. I will keep you posted as to how it goes.

In the mean time if you need to talk to a real person at justhost.com, finding a phone number that actually worked was a bit of a task for me. So here ya go. 888-755-7585, press 1 for sales (even though you want technical support they will help). They are super friendly and actually WANT to keep you as a customer. Major points in my book. It is still undetermined what will happen as I am waiting to hear back on my other two pages… I’ll keep you posted!!!

As a final note, the customer service at justhost.com is better than that of siteground.

As it turns out, systems fail. Like the one hosting my account. I have since changed my hosting company and hope to have fewer issues now. But, my latest posts and drafts have been lost. As was my super cute background for this month.

So…. with a few more hours time I should be back up and things will be back to normal. When it rains it pours. C’est la vie.

These are some things we think Addie might enjoy this year for Christmas: (Click the picture to be taken to a link)

A new Chair for downstairs

A fun tunnel to climb through

Any Toy Box will do (I just liked this one)

She LOVES to push things around and go “shopping” in the cupboards

She loves to put money in a piggy bank, so that or a cash register would be great!

And of course, we love having the ability to spend time together. This year should be especially fun as Addie improves her verbal skills. Passes to Discover Gateway, the Hogle Zoo, Tracy Aviary, the Aquarium or just a play date with you! keep in mind we LOVE hand me downs! So if your kids have old toys they are not playing with anymore, or you find something used on Amazon, snatch it up!! Books and family time items are always welcome. You could write Addie a story and draw some pictures for her to color in the book. Arts and crafts such a s playdough, glitter, feathers and dress up are starting to be come a real hit, so bring on over your old craft box and lets have some fun!!

Am I a bad mom for posting this? I often wonder what our childrens high school lives will be like with all the video floating around everywhere…

This reminds me a bit of the Blair Witch Project, so I figured it was appropriate for Halloween.