I don’t think I would label myself as truly frugal, but I love alliteration and “Failures in frugality” sort of fits what I’m going to share about, so I went with it. I’m careful with money and I like to save, but I will also not think twice about spending or giving a large amount if I feel the cause is right. So frugal might be a bit too strong a word. Anyway…

Ever since I started using a CPAP machine on April 13th of this year, I’ve apparently been doing damage to the inside of my mouth. Since I have to sleep with my mouth closed now (I have a CPAP with nasal pillows), I’m inadvertently pushing my lower jaw out and chewing on my inside cheeks, to the point where I have discolored lesions that could lead eventually to serious things. Gah! So I went to the dentist and thought I would get a simple mouth guard to keep me from this destructive somnolent nocturnal activity. Here’s what it looks like:

It’s made of very hard plastic, and I was expecting something a little softer. The little turquoise bands are supposed to keep my lower jaw from extending out past my upper jaw while I sleep, and prevent me from chewing on the inside of my mouth. There’s only one problem. One night with this instrument of torture was, well, torture. Every single one of my upper teeth ached as if they’d been hit. My jaw ached for so long the next day I thought I had the start of TMJ, which I’ve never had. According to my dentist, all that’s needed is for me to let them file down the upper tooth sections, a little bit at a time, so that I can try the mouth guard every night until it doesn’t hurt anymore. While going into the dentist repeatedly for these small adjustments until I finally have a better night’s sleep.

So in a nutshell, after Michael died I was having serious sleeping problems, had a sleep study that showed I was getting absolutely no Stage 3 sleep (the kind of deep sleep that enables your brain to catalog and store all your memories from the day before), got a CPAP that I’m tethered to until the Twelfth of Never, started unconsciously chewing on the inside of my mouth, and paid almost $500 for a mouth guard that fits me perfectly but pains me intensely and can never be used or returned. It sits in its little plastic container in my medicine cabinet, but I feel like I should attach some fishing line to it and hang it on the Christmas tree this December. At least I could get some use out of it. Ha. Ha. Ha.

My next money fail came when I ordered a dress from an online company I’d never dealt with before. I buy most of my clothes online because A. I’m overweight, B. I’m pretty tall, C. It’s less traumatic to try things on at home, keep one or two items and send the ones I don’t like back. I am taking my two foster gals on an Alaskan cruise soon, and if any of you have cruised before, you know there are usually one or two “formal nights” for dinner. Men are required to wear tuxes or suits and ties and women are encouraged to wear dressy, “cocktail” outfits. I didn’t have anything that fit the bill and neither did my fosters, so we each bought an appropriate outfit. They look adorable in theirs and are so happy with what we found. I searched and searched online for my dress/pantsuit, and the things I found that I liked were either too short, too brightly colored, or already sold out in my size. Or more than I wanted to spend. So I finally found an online company with many lovely “mother of the bride” type outfits, and I ordered a black, chiffony dress with a beaded black jacket to wear over it. Understated, pretty, and just right. I thought.

Oh my gosh. I have never experienced with any other clothes company what I’ve gone through with them.

My first red flag was when the dress arrived in a box with an unreadable return address from China. I tried the dress on right away and laughed when I looked in the mirror and saw how short it was. The jacket was too short, the dress wasn’t nearly as long as the photos of the tall women in the catalog represented, so I folded it neatly and looked inside for a return slip. No. There was no return slip. No paperwork inside the package of any kind.

So I went to the website and found the customer service email and wrote to them right away. I said that the dress had arrived, was too short for me, and would they please tell me where to return it so I could get a refund? I had to write to them twice before they responded. Two days later I finally heard back from them, and thus began a series of seventeen emails between us, that ended in their refusal to give me an address to return the dress to them, and me contacting my credit card company, who issued me a “provisional” refund while they investigate the company.

Here are exact samples of some of the emails I received from this company:

Dear customer,

We are sorry to hear that. We made the dress according to your order information. Would you please check with our size chart to see whether you chose a wrong size? If the size is correct, could you please send us some picture to show your measurements of your bust, waist and hip size so we can confirm the size problem? Thanks.

Best Regards,
Ada

I wrote back and kindly told them that I had ordered the correct size, but the dress and jacket were too short. They wrote again asking me to send them detailed photos of myself wearing the dress, centering in on my “bust, waist and hip,” so they could determine if they had made a mistake.

Dear customer,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. We made the dress in the size  you chose. If you think we made wrong size for you, please offer us clear pictures of your own measurements with tape (bust, waist, hip). And send us pictures to show the dress on you (or pictures showing that you can not put the dress on). Then we will confirm with our factory if we have made you wrong dress. We will try our best to help you before you return it, we will need to check the problem first. Or we will not accept the return. Thanks for your cooperation in advance. Please check the attached picture to see how to take measurements pictures.

Ann

I wrote back and told them I bought most of my clothes online, and that every single company always takes the clothing back if they don’t fit or if I don’t care for them, and I told them I was not going to take pictures of my bust, waist and hip with the dress on and send them to them, and that I wanted them to please send me the necessary information on how to return the dress, and that it fit okay, but was just much too short. I told them (all very respectfully but more firmly now) that I needed return information from them within 24 hours or I would be contacting my credit card company.

Dear customer,

Please note that we made the dress in the standard size you chose according to our size chart on the website. Before we sent the dress out, we will put it on the model to check the size. Only passed the quality-check can the dress be sent out. So there is no problem about the size. Hope you can understand that. If you chose a incorrect size, you can go to a local tailor’s shop to make adjustments. Because we always leave a little space on our dresses in case there a change to make. Because we made the dress for you after you placed the order. It can not be sold again. Hope you will not let credit card company to involve in this. Because once they step in this, it will take several months to get a result. Thanks for your cooperation in advance.

Ann

Many emails exchanged. Finally, I sent back a short note: “The dress is the right size, it is just too short. I am contacting my credit card company. Sincerely, Julie B.”

Dear customer,

Please note that you chose standard size. Then the dress’s length is also made in the standard size. If your height is same as the model’s. When you wear the dress, it will get same effect. If you were taller than her, the dress will be a little short for you. The dress is so beautiful. If you really do not like it, you can resell it or give it to your friends as a gift. Then we will offer you $10 compensation.

Ann

The dress cost $171, more than I have ever paid for any garment in my life. And they’re offering me $10 and thinking I might like to give it to my friends as a gift.

I did not respond to that email but instead contacted Visa.

A couple days later:

Dear customer,

Here we heard that you not satisfied your this order and we want to help you out, but you not reply us.

So if you have any question or also need help, please contact us back, then we will help you out timely,

Your understand will appreciate

Thanks
Best Regards

And after sixteen emails, here was my final one to them:

“I don’t like it when people minimize their gifts. There is a difference between humility and insecurity, and self-effacement does no one any favors.

We teach our watching children to doubt and excuse and diminish themselves. Do we want our kids to reflect on their mothers and have absolutely no idea what we loved? What we were good at? What got our pulses racing and minds spinning? Don’t we want them to see us doing what we do best?”

~~Jen Hatmaker, in “For the Love”

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I’ve been thinking on these words lately. I’m pretty sure if I got a do-over I would more confidently embrace my gifts instead of minimize them, especially to my daughters.

Friends, what are your thoughts on this?

My daughter Sharon texted this video to me this morning and told me to watch all the way to the end. Maybe you’ve seen it already, but if you haven’t, here’s your smile for the day:

My new baby parakeet Phoebe (who’s about three months old now and is settling in and trying out a few cute vocalizations) doesn’t have the “expressive” head feathers this cockatoo does, but I’m wondering… if I worked with her every day, could she learn to respond to music in this way?

Would I have to buy a guitar, take guitar lessons, and learn an Elvis song before Phoebe would start cutting her parakeet rug, so to speak?

I also thought Mr. Cockatoo’s wife was hilarious in her own way. Notice the warning foot Mrs. Cockatoo lifts when she thinks he’s getting a little too carried away?

And what better words to sign off with?

Don’t be cruel,

May God bless your day today….

^“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

~~Jesus, the book of Luke, chapter 12.

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Our family had several pet birds during the years our girls were growing up. First we had Rosie the yellow cockatiel. Her last name was Shackadorum and she was hand-fed, so was quite tame and loved to sit on our hands and shoulders. She breeped when we came in the back door and each time the toilet was flushed.

We thought Rosie would like a boyfriend so we bought another hand-fed cockatiel, a grey guy we named Chester Pondaleeky. Chester was mean and domineering to easy-going, cheerful Rosie, and one morning we came downstairs and found her cowering in the bottom of their cage, her wing bloodied. We gave Chester the Molester to a couple right away, who promised to never put him in a cage with another bird.

Then we tried again with a meeker male, another grey cockatiel we named Walter Whomperwhacker. Walter and Rosie liked each other enough to need a clutch box, and over the next couple of years she laid several eggs, three of which had baby cockatiels in them. Rosie and Walter were very intrigued by their newly hatched and helpless offspring, but didn’t know how to feed them, so the poor little ones never survived. Then Walter turned into an angry bird and took his frustrations out on Rosie, and we gave him away too. Rosie lived in cockatiel peace for a good long time, and we were truly sad when we found her dead at the bottom of her cage one winter morning.

Next we acquired a canary with a bad toupee. I think these kinds of canaries are called Gloster Canaries, and you can see what I mean by a toupee here. She first belonged to our friend Carl, but she didn’t thrive in his house because he had over a dozen cats who paced the floor beneath her cage and plotted her feather-exploding death. It was perhaps no puzzle why Carl’s canary began to lose her little yellow feathers, one by one, until she looked like the most pathetic miniature plucked chicken, all pink flesh with an occasional pin feather here and there. Except for her head, where she had retained an odd cap of dark brown feathers I always said looked like a tiny fountain. Carl gave his canary to us and we named her Harriet the Canary with the Bad Toupee. As soon as Harriet came to our cat-less home, her yellow feathers grew back and she was a sweet, trilling pet for a few years.

Here are a couple of drawings my talented son-in-law Jeremy drew of Carl and some of his cats, considering what to do about Harriet, and one of Carolyn and our old Schnauzer Winnie, peering at Harriet once she came to our house.

Then life happened. And dogs were what we could handle. I didn’t want to clean cages and vacuum bird dander anymore, so when Harriet flew to canary heaven I decided to take a bird break.

But now that break is over, and we have a new little parakeet. I’ve never had a parakeet before. She’s quite young, and the way you can tell is that the rows of stripes (or bars) in her head feathers come almost all the way down to her beak. As she grows, these stripes will fade. Here’s a photo of a young parakeet with the stripes, and a mature parakeet who has lost his stripes.

Here’s Phoebe in her cage in our dining room. She is being very quiet, but will squawk once in a while when she hears me turn on the kitchen faucet.

I’ve been relieved to see her eating her seed, and I hope she’ll take a bit of the apple slice I’ve affixed to the side of her cage. I haven’t seen her drinking from her water container yet and that concerns me a little. I hope she’s sipping when I’m not around.

I hope to hand tame her a bit so she’ll enjoy sitting on my shoulder and having her head stroked. But I’ll have to shut Edith and Mildred the Schnauzers away in another room when I try. One doggy chomp could bring about a very sad ending. I’m feeling stirrings of affection for little Phoebe already so don’t think I could bear that.

Michael taught me to love birds. He had a way with animals, and birds were always sidling up to him and were never afraid of him.

How about you? Have you ever had a pet bird? If so, what kind, and what was its name?