Evenflo Recalls Embrace 35 Infant Child Restraints

Evenflo Company is recalling 202,346 Embrace 35 two-piece, rear-facing infant child restraints equipped with an AmSafe QT1 buckle.

The restraints were manufactured at various times from December 2011, through May 2013.

Over time, use of the seat can make the harness buckle difficult to unlatch. A buckle that does not release easily, or possibly at all, may make it difficult to remove the child from the restraint, increasing the risk of injury in the event of a vehicle crash, fire or other emergency in which a prompt exit from the vehicle is required.

Evenflo will notify registered owners and provide a remedy kit, including a replacement buckle and instructions for easy consumer removal of the AmSafe buckle and installation of the newly-designed replacement buckle. The recall is expected to begin on, or about, October 22, 2014.

Owners may contact Evenflo's toll-free number at 1-800-490-7591.

The affected model numbers include:

• 30711365,
• 31511040,
• 31511323,
• 31511400,
• 3151198,
• 3151953,
• 31521138,
• 46811205,
• 46811237,
• 48111200,
• 48111215,
• 48111215A,
• 48111218,
• 48111234,
• 48111235,
• 48111235A,
• 48111462,
• 48411391,
• 48411391D,
• 48411392,
• 48411504,
• 48411504D,
• 52911307A,
• 52921040,
• 55311138,
• 55311238, and
• 55311292.

The Journey to California: Headin’ South Y’all.

So it’s been no secret I have been working my way to get Aubrey and I back to Los Angeles, CA. It’s been quite a difficult journey trying to make it work out the right way to get back. Not to mention moving back with a toddler and all her lovely belongings is so much harder than my first move there. That consisted of me hoping on a plane with some suitcases, crossing my fingers that the room I rented off craigslist was going to work out and just figuring it all out day by day. The “why” I am going back will be a whole other edition of “The Journey to California” since SO many people can’t seem to stop asking that ever so annoying question. So believe me I will give you some answers and I never want to hear it asked again!

Back to present day. What is happening right now? Well I was really hoping to have everything figured out to have been back in CA already but clearly I’ve been stuck in Massachusetts and it’s only getting colder which is a very scary thing to me. (I HATE the cold. HATE.) There was a phenomenal work opportunity that I just slightly missed getting the position after three weeks of interviewing but there is still a potential opportunity with that company once I am physically out there. So that is good, I stick with the positive side of things. Finding somewhere to temporarily stay to solidify housing has proven a difficult feat and that is pretty important. My parents have known for months that they are moving to Georgia. It’s an amazing opportunity for them with my Dad’s job and it is truly for the best! Besides I would SO much rather visit them in the warm Southern weather than cold MA. The house has been on the market, my Dad is already in Georgia and it’s time to move. There is this beautiful new house waiting for my parents in Georgia….so what are Aubrey and I to do?

We’re heading South. Going to get some sweet tea, some peaches and practice our, “Hey y’all !!” BUT this is all temporary. It’s not permanent but it’s just another phase of our journey. It will save me some money too. Cutting out about 700 miles of shipping a pod to LA cuts costs. The Atlanta airport has non-stop, cheaper flights to LAX. Anyone who travels with kids, especially toddlers can totally understand how critical a direct flight is over layovers, even more so when you are a single parent juggling all your items plus your child through an airport and on a plane. EXHAUSTING. Gives me more time to sell my car here because let’s be real, the gosh darn shipping costs are more than my car is worth. So I’ll sell it and use that towards a used vehicle in CA. It all just makes financial sense which is very important to me. 

It gives us a bit more time with Grandma and Abuelo too. I know how hard it is going to be to eventually do our “see ya later” flight back to CA but some time in Georgia will be nice. I can finally have someone to help watch Aubrey so I don’t have to pay for childcare the month I’m there and be able to work. That’s been a huge burden figuring that out. I don’t mind being a single parent household, I’m fine with it, but it just has made things like that really, really freaking hard to get sorted out. 

So that is the update. I’m out of here in two weeks. Literally after trick or treating on Halloween, that is it. I say goodbye to the house I grew up in since I was in fourth grade. If the walls could talk, oh the stories they would tell !!! The forts we made in the woods, the pond we would ice skate on, a pool with tons of memories of laughter, soaking up the sun and wiffle ball games. My mom’s beautiful gardens that all have a meaning or dedication to someone or somewhere. But we’re not really leaving it behind, we are taking it with us. That’s the great thing about memories. You can’t leave them behind, they follow you, they are in your mind and more importantly in your heart. It’s just a house. Just a backyard. Now it’s time for new memories, in a new house with a new yard. It’s literally a clean slate just waiting for the laughter, the grandchildren that will visit, the new family members, husbands, wives that will come along. And the best part…..when everyone up North is complaining how cold they are and how tired they are of the snow….my parents and I will be posting a picture of a nice drink, the sun and the temperature in the 70’s whether it be in Georgia or California…. ;D 

Here we go! 

Target's "Frozen" Heart

So the other night, Saturday October 11th, 2014, I went to my nearest Target in Windsor, CT for a quick run. I was really just going to get the in-store special of the newly released special edition Sleeping Beauty. Because Lord knows Disney doesn’t let much out of their vault and when it’s finally out of there and on sale, you grab it. So while in there I meandered over to the Halloween costume area because their paper had stated Halloween Costumes for kids were Buy One Get One Free. Thought that would be a GREAT deal for Aubrey, she could have two costumes if she wanted and then continue to hold onto them for dress-up!

The Musical/Light Up Version of Elsa

I see a whole bunch of Elsa Musical/Light Up dresses. And one Anna. I press the buttons on both thinking these are pretty flipping’ UH-MAZING. At the same time I’m wondering how many button presses before this singing dress drives me absolutely NUTS. It was $34.99. At buy one, get one, I figured great deal, let me grab them now and show them to Aubrey, she will be PSYCHED. Take note as this is important that there were tons of other Elsa dresses there, especially the musical kind. Anna was practically all gone in all styles.

So I show Aubrey who was walking with my parents across the store. Um, PSYCHED for them was an understatement. She LOVED them! Get to the checkout, and the lady tells me my total is $100 and change…wait…what? Come again? I was buying a $22 DVD and $4.50 clearance toddler water shoes, $1 pink plastic pumpkin, plus two $34.99 dresses, one of which was free. Calculations in my mind don’t add up to $100. I asked if it took off the free costume. She said oh no it didn’t. These aren’t part of the special, they are Disney Licensed, they are dress-up, not the Halloween costumes, these are definitely not included. I was pretty in shock and confused. I told her that didn’t make sense because I specifically got them from the Halloween Costume area where there were a whole bunch of them there…..I didn’t see any exclusions listed. (WHAT THE FLYING FUDGE IS THE DIFFERENCE ANYWAY BETWEEN DRESS-UP AND A HALLOWEEN COSTUME?!?!!) Why would they be there if they weren’t part of the deal. All she could say, was to ask if I was going to get them or not. Wide eyed, I confirmed that there way no way I could afford that, so no. But I was still really confused. 

NO EXCLUSIONS mentioned AT ALL. Notice
it says's ALL KID'S costumes & accessories.

I told my mom there were other Elsa dresses in the back, non-musical that were cheaper that I could grab and another costume to get the deal. So after I paid I said let me go run back there to check. I booked it back there, it was getting late and I wanted to get home and get my daughter to bed. No sooner was I there looking and DOUBLE CHECKING the posted signs for any exclusions, NONE of which were listed, was there suddenly a manger looking Target employee right at my side who clearly ran there too. Guess what he did next, TOOK ALL THE FROZEN DRESSES. ALL OF THEM. I said, yea I was the one who tried to get the musical style, look at all of these. They are all here, it wasn’t just the two I took. Not only did he take the musical ones, he took every single Elsa dress left. I said well that one is part of the deal, can’t I get that one? He sternly told me no and that Elsa is “done”, “gone”, no more left…. Apparently people I must have gone blind of the at least 15 dresses in his hand that “qualified” for the buy one get one free. He then looked away from me, and went about on his work phone or special target price, inventory machine thingy. I was stunned, completely taken aback. I walked away, trying to “Let It Go.” But as I was thinking about it, I was only getting more upset and annoyed by the way Target handled the whole situation.

First of all, when I got to the front, my mom told me as soon as I walked away, the cashier got on her walkie-talkie to tell someone what happened and to go take the dresses. Not only did she say this over the walkie-talkie but she made it clear a “customer” was headed back there now. Oh, so that’s why you seemed in such a rush Target man….trying to race me? Your customer who was willing to spend some money at your store?

Second of all, I have worked in customer service A LOT. I have tons of experience. How you naturally handle a situation like that is simple. Honor the mishap. The customer is right, the store was wrong so you give the deal THEN you go take away any “un-qualifying” dresses that YOU put in the wrong spot. Simple. Happy customer, happy experience, no BS. 

Third, don’t be rude to your customers. To treat me like I was in the wrong is not cool. To take away all these dresses in front of me and say there were none left…totally NOT COOL. Not only that, but they are toddler costumes, not adult, so thanks for crushing my daughter’s Frozen dreams. Way to go, toddler dream crusher. I don’t have $70 for two costumes. Have a heart. Have a soul. Try to be helpful to your customers. 

When I got home, I hopped online to see if maybe I could get the deal on Target online. The musical dresses were showing they were not part of the deal. Ok, no problem. So I choose one Anna dress and one Elsa dress that were part of the sale. Put them in my cart, chose the “pick up from store” option to get the deal and they were listed “IN STOCK” at what surprising location? Windsor, CT.  Ironic, I just was and was told there were no more available. Hmm, how crazy is that? So I put my order in, everything confirmed. 

8:50 a.m. the next morning, Sunday, I receive an email from the Windsor Target saying that these dresses are suddenly unavailable at that location and I need to update my order or cancel it. Who wants to call BULLS**TTTTTT???!!?? I can pretty much guarantee whoever is running that store decided to try to screw me over AGAIN. Guess my order was “Frozen.” Because when I went to attempt to “update” it, the Elsa costumes were now sold out online. So it wouldn’t allow me to get that sale. It wouldn’t go through. Once again I’m left with nothing. Costumes are now 40% off this week making it close to that deal. But that is still not the point, this has come down to principle for me. I can’t seem to “Let It Go” because of the way everything was handled.

I’m fully aware that right now I am the crazy Mom getting all worked up over a silly costume. I keep telling myself this whole thing is silly. But I don’t like poor customer service. It really bothers me when people just don’t do the right thing. Not to mention I’ve had a few problems with Target this year. They actually cancelled my pre-order of a movie which was none other than…Frozen…yup, because they said the charge didn’t go through. I have a big credit line with them and my bill was paid off like it is every month….I think because I used a gift card on part of the transaction that it messed up that way. But all they did was blame Red Card, no Target, no call this department, etc. Just pointed the finger at everyone else and didn’t do anything to resolve the problem. I went and bought my copy at Wal-Mart. They also owe me two $20 gift cards from diaper purchases where a cashier and an online transaction for pick-up did not give me the gift card I was owed. So needless to say, Target and I are NOT on good terms. Not at all. For a company that had terrible press due to a serious security breech this year, you would think they would keep up with their customer service. All I can say is this…disappointed. Very, very disappointed. For goodness sakes, I wrote a blog on 12 Reason's Why We Love Target and one of my only "Mommy" times away all I wanted to do was go shopping at Target and I posted about that. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll be going back to the Windsor, CT location. You know what they say in “Frozen" Target? “An act of true love can cure a frozen heart.” Maybe your team can act a little warmer in the future….

*Update* - I ran an errand Sunday in Enfield, CT. So I ran into a store there to check out their stock of Elsa dresses. I bought the Elsa dress not from the Halloween costume section but the doll area with the “dress-up” costumes. Guess what? The regular dress-up options that are there everyday are cheaper than all the other options set out in the Halloween section. The dress is also much nicer! I also found an Elsa tiara on serious clearance. Aubrey had to try it on as soon as she got home and was so happy! She was smiling from ear to ear and twirling around! She kept saying she was, “Queen Elsa of Arendale!” <3 Ugh my heart. See now how a Mom can get upset over the tiniest thing because you know how what seems so small puts such a big smile on your little one’s face. :D

*Sidenote: The funny thing about all this is I had a costume for Aubrey I got almost two months ago! But due to moving literally right after trick-or-treating I can’t go all out with a group costume like I wanted to. So I decided to table that costume idea until next year. Figured she loves Frozen so much, might as well get that costume out of our system. Us and the 4 million other Elsa’s I’m sure will be out there! 

#momproblems #targetfail

Don't Be Pregnant On Craigslist & Other Online Sales Tips

I am going to blame a silly mistake I made a few years ago trying to make a sale on Craigslist on pregnancy brain. I had purchased a scooter earlier that fall and then bam found out I was pregnant and no longer had any use for it. There was no way I was risking my safety on such a thing. Since I was moving back east, it only made sense to sell it and get my money back. 

So where do you go when you need to sell something? Craigslist. Seemed like a no brainer to me. So I had made a listing to advertise my scooter and here’s where I made a silly mistake….I mentioned I was pregnant in the listing. In hindsight now, trust me I know what a ridiculous, “too much information”, dumb move that was. At that time I think I worded it that I was moving back east to have my first child or something like that, but basically I was insinuating that there was nothing wrong with the scooter but that it was just an inconvenience and wasn’t working with my new life. I didn’t want people to think I was trying to get rid of a scooter because there was something wrong with it, I was selling a solid item. 

I got normal responses to it, asking questions about the scooter, setting up times to see it and then the usual lowball offers. Then I got a few responses that made my jaw drop, eyes wide, “WHAT THE…?!?!!” type of reaction. Someone wanted to rub my pregnant tummy. Yup. Did I just read that? 

Last thing I expected when trying to sell my scooter was an offer from someone willing to step in and I suppose be a father to my child if I was single and take care of me the rest of my life. Well I’ll be darned….I miss where exactly I said I needed that in my ad….

While this happened online. This actually happened in real life too. Pretty similar to this guy's statement above, a man approached me at the bus stop with the same type of offer. I was waiting for the bus to go back home after a routine doctor checkup at the hospital and he hit on me like I was the hottest girl in the club. While I was rocking my huge belly. He even invited me to a Hookah lounge he worked out...just what every pregnant women wants to do. Go out at night, surrounded by smoke. Um, no thanks, I have a date with me and my sweats and Bravo. Guess there is a weird pregnancy fetish out there! MEN....

Never the less, lesson learned. I edited my posting right away and the additional items I was putting up for sale, I made sure not to drop any hints of pregnancy or any hints of anything personal!! This leads me to some basic online selling tips:

1. Keep it simple. State the information you need to. Item, price, condition, location, environment is helpful (smoke/pet free) and quality pictures. Is your price “firm” or are you willing to accept “OBO” (or best offer). Make it clear. 

   

   
   

2. Know your low. Everyone has the lowest offer they are willing to accept. Make sure YOU know what that is. I always post knowing that I will get less than what I put something up for. So I allow that wiggle room. Although on occasion you just get your asking price!

   

   
   

3. Avoid drama. I have seen way too many postings on public forms that get out of hand from crazy comments, people looking to stir up trouble and the usual ridiculously low ball offers. Stay out of it. If one of those really low ball offers pops up, I like to respond with a simple, “Sorry I can’t do that.” 

   

   
   

4. Exchanging information. When it comes to Craigslist, they use an automated, anonymous reply email which is great. I personally prefer email over anything else to communicate. Most, not all, people have smartphones nowadays so it’s almost as quick as a text, it goes right to your phone without having to dish out your private phone number. You never know what crazies are out there. If you are going to post in groups on Facebook, please go to your settings and double check all of your privacy settings. You can use the “view as” tab to see if you have protected yourself enough. ALL of my information is only visible to my friends. Anyone else can only see my cover photo and profile picture. Random people WILL click on your name if you post in these big groups to try to look into your background. You really don’t want that personal info out in the open.

   

   
   

5. The meet-up. So you’ve made it to this part. Don’t meet at your house or go to a stranger’s house. It sucks to have to think the worst, but in this type of selling format it is best to be as safe as possible. I meet at my local police department. If someone has a problem with that, then I probably don’t want to be selling or buying an item from them. There you have full surveillance cameras, emergency help if something goes wrong and you will weed out any people that could only be looking to cause harm to you or steal from you. There are too many stories of people showing up with cash to buy something and they get mugged, or someone comes to “buy” an item and they just take off with it. Homes have been burglarized shortly after a sale from thieves checking out potential targets. These people will most likely NOT want to meet you at a police station, in broad daylight, in public. You can even get there a bit early, poke your head into the police station and let them know what you are in the parking lot for if you want to feel safer. Make sure you let someone close to you know where you are going and when your transaction is done.

   

   
   

6. Payment. Just do cash, in person. Honestly it’s the best way to go. Checks can bounce. Not worth taking the chance. If they can write a check, they can get cash. If you are selling, write them a receipt. If you are buying, request a receipt. If you have email exchanges about price, any guarantee from a seller, etc that in essence counts as a contract in regards to the transaction. Another reason why I like communicating via email, you have everything in writing. Know the terms of your sale. 

   

   
   

I hope everyone has smooth, non-creepy, safe transactions from online sales and maybe learned a thing or two from this. The internet and the people in our world will never cease to amaze me!


Do you have any crazy, creepy or down right outrageous online sales experience like this? Please comment below! Would love to hear about it! 

FREE Jason Aldean's "Night Train" Album

Head over to Google Play to download Jason Aldean's Night Train album for free in MP3 format. From that page where the music is downloaded in your Google Play music, you can easily download the entire album to your computer which will put it into your iTunes. This offer could end at anytime so take advantage of the deal while it's still free!!

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE!!!

Praying Mantis VS Stink Bug

Nature is awesome. Living in the country, I’ve seen some interesting animals, bugs and other creatures I have no idea what the heck they are. This specific Saturday afternoon I saw a Praying Mantis on our back porch. I’ve always thought they are a pretty cool bug. So I kept my eye on him throughout the morning as I was out there. I noticed him climbing up the back of our grill and there was a stink bug on top. Knowing they eat other bugs, I was wondering if he was headed for some lunch! So naturally I pulled out my phone and I captured the attack! He ate the whole thing! I wonder if he had “stinky” breathe after eating a stink bug….