doodles on my door

So my Harry Potter book DID arrive yesterday. The Canada Post guy said that the late arrival was due to the fact they had too much mail to deliver, so not all the packages got sent on time. So it turns out the fellow I talked to yesterday wasn't kidding when he said there weren't enough trucks to deliver all those Harry Potter books!

My frustration yesterday, by the way, wasn't so much to do with not getting the book on time (though I was disappointed, of course) but more to do with the overall decline of customer service these days. Mistakes happen, but many companies don't seem to realize that how they handle damage control is just as important as trying to prevent those mistakes.

As soon as they knew some deliveries were going to be late, Amazon should have sent out a notice letting customers know and apologizing for the inconvenience. Throwing some extra shopping credit would have been nice, but just the acknowledgement that something had screwed up would have made a world of difference to me.

Canada Post should have warned its employees what had happened and coached them on how to handle calls like mine. Tip #1 should have been: "DON'T gloat over the fact that you've read the book already."

But moving on...FOUR DAYS until we spend our first night in our new house! Jeff and I were at the house until nearly 1 am last night. I'm going there again today, and I also need to check my P.O. box. Here are some pics...

I painted the outside of my office door:



And inside:



It was the first time I had used acrylics. I was surprised at how goopy and thick the paint was, but perhaps the texture was because I was using cheap acrylics; I had to thin out the paint with the Retarder liquid which was recommended by a store clerk in Curry's. I'm also using super-cheap brushes (8 for $10) but since I lack experience with expensive brushes, I don't really know how much of a difference this is making in the process.

Tough at first to overcome my childhood-trained instinct NOT TO DRAW ON THE WALL, but once I overcame that inhibition, I started having way too much fun.

:-)

I'm going to turn one part of my office into a magnetic wall:



Jeff cleaning the kitchen:



Black-eyed Susans are starting to bloom:



And our daylilies are in full bloom:



New tub and tiles:



Jeff chose the sink below. I thought it looked too shallow to be practical, but it actually does work (i.e. water doesn't splash out). The bathroom vanity was custom-made by Sean Robson, our wonderful contractor guy. The counter is poured concrete!

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