September Morning

My not-so hectic week in pictures

It is the month of September. It is getting cooler. We have two months left in the year when the weather is still tame and every morning is still good for a nice stroll in the park. I have some things to be thankful for. I will try to list ten.

1. Sweet cookies from the Donation Alliance for the nurses.
2. A cute pose by Velvet in the morning. Isn't she cute, up-side-down or right-side-up?
3. Twin Lakes Open Space walking trails. This trail has lots of shades!
4. Paul walking with me.
5. We are still shedding some unwanted pounds.
6. Healthy food to help us lose weight. Paul does it with reducing fat intake mostly and walking alone.
7. An exercise coach to motivate me to do my home workouts. Paul and I are hoping to shrink one size smaller to look good in swimsuits for a future trip to . . . 
8. My daughter and I doing well so far in college. 
9. Installment plans to pay for college.
10. Sprouts grocery store for refunding me my money for a bad service one day.

Time Together

          Do you have those moments when you just don't feel like getting out of bed? I had that day today. I kept thinking I should get up and start my day since 7 a.m. but just could not imagine that energy until 10. I was in bed for ten hours. My body felt heavy. My muscles were not sore or achy. 

          I got up, ate brunch and looked at social media for a long time. This is a lazy habit that kills time. It does not necessarily make me feel good but it is a habit that is hard to break. I ended watching the short videos and ads with a purchase of an e-book on my personality after answering a long questionnaire. I am a mediator, an introvert, an artist, a like-to-write, and a like-to-help kinda person. I bought it in hopes that I will learn how to improve based on my behavior. I am just so lazy lately that I disappoint mostly myself.

          I had a good week, actually. Many little good things happen. Last Saturday was my birthday. The following weekdays, I got to celebrate with my son with a lunch date and had a gym time with my daughter. With them being young adults, it is not easy to find a common schedule to do little things together. They also do not enjoy picture-taking when it is me taking their picture. But with selfies, they don't have a problem. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the time with them. The gym we frequent gave me free bottled water for my late birthday gift. What a surprise. 

          I do have apps on my phone, inspiring Podcasts to listen to, and that book that I purchased for self-improvement. FlyLady sometimes inspires me to be like a fairy, flying around the house making cleaning magic. Many days, I wish I can just buy the fairy to do the tasks for me. Why do I have to be the fairy? Or can I just buy the wand? I know, I should not be complaining. At least I have a house to clean. This reminds me of the incident last Wednesday night. when a toxic fume, headache, and nausea woke me up at 11 pm. I found my daughter spray painting the furnace room wall on a winter night! I screamed and she stopped immediately. We then aired out our house with fans and opened windows on a 20-degree winter night. We are lucky our house did not explode before I woke up. 

          Anyway, should I be thankful we have intact bodies, a house, heat, and each other? I think I should be.

Happy Birthday Week

Sushi and Cake for Monday
Day 1 of my birthday week
Just for me

It’s my happy birth week!

Is there such a thing? 

Oh yeah, I say, to you

Nothing wrong with celebrating

Celebrating my survival

Despite the challenges of parenting

Sometimes, I wonder

Should I help, should I not?

With their adulting, that is

That may be quite a lot?

They are able to work

And weak, they are not

They can earn like their mom

Pay their bills (most of them)

Not delay and what not

Things like reminding them to get up

To make it to work

Not be tardy or miss 

Their ride and miss work

Or make sure to make

College education a priority

So, they don’t end up on the mercy

To live on charity

Or be a burden to me

Or to our society

Not Grateful for Bad Furnace Services

       
 This kind of post does not usually belong to my gratitude site, but I owe it to my neighbors not be fooled by furnace service owner, Jon, from Champion Heating Cooling and Plumbing in Westminister, Colorado. Do not trust his 90-day no breakdown warranty.

          Here it is.

          Lousy service, unprofessional, fiery furnace service owner/sole serviceman for his business who refused to honor the 90-day warranty of his own work and could not handle customer questioning and complaint. Jon from Champion Heating Cooling and Plumbing LLC in Colorado charged me twice for the same service 87-days apart. This owner of Champion Heating and Plumbing and sole technician first came out to fix my furnace in November 2015 to address a no heat service call. He charged me for furnace inspection, no heat service call, and evap coil cleaning. He recommended monthly filter change with 20x25x1 filter. I trusted him being the pro and had been replacing with that size ever since. I did not like his attitude being arrogant at that time. But he did get my furnace working.

        In October 2018, the same problem arose, "system tipping on high limit." I called the furnace business with magnet ad attached to my furnace mistakenly thinking that was the business I used prior to 2015 because I did not want to use the same service as 2015. That was my fault. I later found out that he was the same person/serviceman. I was desperate with a cold house at that time, so I used his service. Again he serviced the furnace with a 15-minute service call and evac cleaning with a 90-day no breakdown guarantee. Surprisingly, 87 days later, my heater broke down. He refused to honor his own handwritten warranty on top of the printed warranty on the service order invoice. I insisted on the guarantee. He got upset, was shaking, and called me a Pitbull. This is witnessed by my boyfriend, and my boyfriend told him to leave.

        This angry Champion Heating Cooling Plumbing technician and the owner still charged me for the repeat (same) services. My furnace is still not working, and I had to hire somebody else, so I do not have to use portable heaters. I was nervous writing this review but other consumers have to be aware. The serviceman insisted my furnace still works. My house is cold without the use of portable heaters as the heat keeps turning off by itself before it reaches 71 degrees where I have the thermostat set at. Also, the size of the filter he told me to get is wrong. It fell down because it was too small so it was his fault that I had the wrong size. My furnace was running without a filter. And then he changed what he wrote on the invoice about the size 20x25x1. He now said I need to order a customized size of 22x25x1 that is not available premade. He again placed the wrong size in my filter too small which I paid for and taped it to place which he did not do before so it will not drop out of place.

      There is good news. My furnace is working now after hiring another technician from a company that has been around in my area since 1956. After three an a half hours of coil cleaning (again), the right size/grade filter and other work like turning the high-limit switch right side up (it was backward),  my house is 71-73 degrees warm again, not 59. I paid $100 less with no fake "discounts" compared to what Champion Heating charged me for two visits of 1 hour combined. I should have checked Better Business Bureau (BBB) first to check for furnace business standing, reviews, and complaints last October 2018. Both businesses are mentioned there. One good, one bad. Guess which is which?