I Love American Express

American Express is a great company. Not only have I been able to decorate my entire dining room using AMEX points, but I have had two recent experiences with AMEX that makes me love them even more.

A few weeks ago, Steph's car broke down at our house. I called the AMEX roadside assistance service, and they dispatched someone to come tow the car. I was still waiting after an hour and a half, so I called AMEX again to follow up. The woman I spoke with was so great-- she said that it was unacceptable that I had waited over an hour for the tow truck and that she would send another tow truck to our house as well as follow up with the first guy. I truly felt like a valued customer and loved it!

If that weren't enough, I got a call on Friday from AMEX about a suspicious charge on my card. They had been monitoring my account and noticed that someone bought $488 worth of vitamins from an online vitamin distributor out of New Jersy. They had already suspended payment, and they closed my account in about 30 seconds over the phone. To top it off, I had a new card delivered to my door on Monday. Amazing!

I know, I sound like a cheesy add, but AMEX, you really are the best. I love you!

Black Snake

I was reminded yesterday that I haven't posted about my recent encounter with our resident black snake who was the subject of one of our first blog posts in 2006. About a month ago, I walked out the side door of the house to go somewhere and boom, ran smack dab into Mr. Snake, eye to eye. Shocking is an understatement.

I tried to help him down, but I guess I startled him and he wriggled, hissed, and fell down. It sounded painful, but he kept moving vigorously so I figured he was fine. The first time in my life parseltongue would have come in handy.

Point being, I caught him again and tried to remove him to the natural area where he's done such a good job clearing the moles and voles. Unfortunately, I dropped him again on the way and he actually crawled through a vent hole into our crawl space. I guess that's good, but it's taken a couple of weeks to get over being creeped out by the thought of his proximity.

Inspiring

I hadn't heard of Randy Pausch until today when I read he passed away. If you can get passed the tragedy part, it's really cool that he had a few months to get things in order, cherish his family, and deliver this lecture.

http://www.charlotte.com/112/story/729049.html

I would prefer immortality, but this is a nice 2nd best.

A Good Prayer

Last week I picked up my Phyllis Tickle summer prayer book and have been using it for a short, quiet moment in the evenings. The prayer of the week this week is really sweet (and so right on!), so I thought I'd share it:

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know my necessities before I ask and my ignorance in asking: Have compassion on my weakness, and mercifully give me those things which for my unworthiness I dare not ask, and for my blindess I cannnot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Off to the Races

Vivy started crawling last weekend - what a hard worker!

Don't worry, we haven't left the blogosphere!

It's not really out of slackness that we haven't blogged. Well, maybe initially. Then I sat down to blog almost two weeks ago after returning from a great trip to Hilton Head with Steph, Marty, Chris, Josh and Molly, and our hard drive crashed. Then we had to order another one, and then Randy had to spend a few days installing it (or whatever you call it). But now we are up and running!

I'm not going to post anything newsy, but our beach trip slide show is here on the right for you Vivy addicts. We'll be back with more news soon.