Have you heard of these children? Indigo children and Crystal children are very special, very enlightened children. If you have one in your midst you are a very fortunate and blessed person.

INDIGO  OR CRYSTAL CHILDREN- according to Wikipedia are children who are believed to represent a higher state of human evolution. The term itself is a reference to the belief that such children have an indigo–colored aura Beliefs concerning the exact nature of Indigo children vary, with some believing that they have paranormal abilities such as the ability to read minds, and others that they are distinguished from non-Indigo children merely by more conventional traits such as increased empathy and creativity.

These children are highly sensitive with a clear sense of self-definition and a strong feeling that they need to make a significant difference in the world. 

Doreen Virtue, PHD. has wrote a couple of books on these children. You can use this link to go to see the books and to purchase them if interested.

So, I have discovered applications on Facebook! I have never used this type of thing before. Do you use Facebook? I used to use Myspace, but then discovered this. I like it much better.

Facebook is a social community, online.  In the past I have used it to stay in touch with friends and family and maybe for some networking. Now, my daughter has turned me on to  Pet Society and My Farm! LOL

Fun! I go on there and play away my day! I spend way too much time there and fear I will have to let my little pet Roxy and My farm fend for themselves a bit more than I have been.  I think they will survive..but I may not be King of the apps if I am not on there all of the time winning money and more money…..to feed my pet and grow my crops.

Okay, I have gotten way too involved with this stuff.  Save me!!! Save me!!! Ban me from Facebook NOW!

This is a new restaurant at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenewood Indiana.  For starters….I have been to the BJ’s in St. Pete Florida and I loved it.  The one here?well, it was ok.  My husband was entirely NOT impressed with it, I on the other hand thought it was ok, not great but ok. I have been back over in that area a few times and YES for dinner and not felt compelled to do a repeat visit.

The atmosphere was nice, it is a new restaurant and looks it. It also was not crowded at all, I like that but not if the reason why is because the restaurant is not that great.  I would rather wait a few for a great restaurant rather than walk in at a restaurant that stinks. Okay, it did not stink….it just wasn’t great.

I really do not have much more to say about this venuw..it was unimpressionable. Sad but true. I will give it another try, soon.

Well, as I said I have been thinking alot lately.  I have been delving deeply into the recesses of my SOUL….YOU thought I was going to say mind didn’t you? No, SOUL is the appropriate word.

Have you ever heard of a woman by the name of Doreen Virtue? No? Yes? well, she is a PH.D and a counselor of sorts. She is a Angel Therapist. Do you believe in Angels?

I do. I know there are some people out there that do not think Angels exist, I am not one of them and I totally think that you have a right to your opinion. But, here you will hear me or I guess read  me saying that I believe in Angels. I believe they are God’s servants sent here to earth to help us. God loves us and wants us to be safe and happy…he does.

Anyway, I have been thinking alot lately about Angels…my angels specifically and Doreen Virtue, well, she is a Angel Therapist, meaning she works with angels to help people, usually through counseling. She began as a counselor of addictions, her story is much more detailed than that but that is the short of it.  She is a very special lady who is spiritually gifted and very in touch with that gift. I want to be in touch with my gifts.

I am going to start spending time, well, to be honest I have been spending time since about May learning everything I can about angels and intuitiveness…..I have been a Christian for quite a while but have never really looked into spirituality… or to be specific my spirituality!  I have been reading and listening to everything I can regarding the subject and am learning so much and becoming extremely happy along the way!  I am sooooooooooooooo happy! I feel better today mentally, spiritually, than I ever have.  Is it the angels? I do not know but I like to think so.

I am going to share with you over the next few weeks what I have been reading and listening to and just what it is doing for me.

I am still going to be doing my reviews and continue on my never ending search for great customer service!!!!  I will never stop that! But I will be adding this little sidebar to my site!!  Are you excited or do you think I have popped my cork?  LOL…how ever  you want to say it. LOL  I have NOT..I am just HAPPY! And I feel as though I am on the road to something…and it is spiritual..and I can not stop it and neither can YOU!

So hang on and let us see what happens.

Like anybody is reading this anyway!

So, you may be asking at this point “why did she name this post as she did”?  Well, because it is true! I was listening to Joel Osteen and he said it and it applied to my life these days. God is in control of it all and there are no coincidences and if you think there are then that is SAD! It is so much more exciting to believe there are NOT!

I have been thinking alot lately. Thinking about our world and the people in it and just exactly where I fit into this world.

At 46 years old I have yet to find my true purpose in life.  Do not get me wrong here, I have had moments where I have felt that I really knew my purpose and I do not think I have been entirely off base each time! I just think I have been winding my way to the actual truth of what my purpose really is.  Each and everytime that I made a new decision on which way to take my life I think that it was just me seeing the tip of the ice berg that is my PURPOSE.  

What about you? Have you all found your true purpose? Your divine purpose. The one that brings you closest to your creator?

So what does this all mean? I am not sure! I will be blogging about this very subject right here. I am still doing my reviews and am still on my never ending search for the BEST customer service in AMERICA! I do not think I will ever stop that! I do not think I have been placed in the very interesting jobs that I have been in over the last 13 years for nothing! I think the fact that I have worked for companies that pride themselves as having some of the BEST, if not THE BEST, customer service anywhere… well, I think that maybe that means that I know a little something about customer service. So, I will keep reviewing and searching for those great companies.  BUT, I am going to broaden my blogging to include some maybe spiritual musings…..maybe some deeper thoughts.  I read alot these days and will start doing book reviews as well as movie reviews.  I am looking forward to doing this and hope that you find it as interesting as I do!

Stay tuned………..

You want to follow a construction job from start to finish? Okay here is your chance.

We interviewed a couple of companies for the finish of our basement. The interviews are over and we have picked our company! Now, you know that we have had a terrible experience with a previous contractor so we have been rather shy about hiring someone else.  I am going to let you know what we think from the start and then let  you know how it turns out. Pics and all!

 I will post a pic soon of the way the basement currently looks.

The company we picked is Twin Builders. Not wanting to name names…..as per my policy!!! I will just say that a very nice man came to our house on 2 different occassion and each time said the same things. We met him once and then about 2 months later we met again and asked to go over everything and he was dead on in everything he said the first and second times. One thing that happened with our last experience is that the contractor said things when we met and then they were not in the contract and of course we did not think of them until we were actually NOT getting them. We are being much more careful this time around. We have alos let this company know that we had a bad experience and will be watching them carefully. They had no problem with that at all.

End result is that they won our business and we are very excited to get started. We probably will not start for a few weeks but I will keep you updated as things progress. The entire job will only take approx. 17 days!! We will have it done before Christmas! YAY!  OH and I forgot to mention the price they gave us was 50% LESS then the company that did our previous work estimated for us on the same project. You would think since the last people were doing many, many jobs in our house they would have charged alot less…ya know for bulk work or something! But no, these people offered more work at less cost.

Stay tuned…………………

Oh my goodness, where do I start? Please keep in mind that this is my personal experience with this company and my opinion. If you are the company and would like to reply OR if you are a customer with a similar or different experience and would like  to post a review, I would be happy to post it. Just send me an email at christine@lostartofcustomerservice.com

Let me start by saying that I have avoided writing this review because it is the worst customer service that I have received to date ( the hospital fiasco not included) and I wanted so badly to be very, very fair. I have to write things that are not all positive and I want to make sure that I am not biased. I know no matter how I write this some people are going to feel that I am not being honest or I am exaggerating things. I guess that is why I am avoiding this. Let me assure you, if you believe me, that I will not be exaggerating and I will do my best to be very fair. I am actually afraid that I will not be as hard as I should be so as to save others from making a mistake. But we will see how I do!

I also am going to make this as brief as possible. YES..this is brief! LOL

We interviewed a few different contractors to do a big remodel at our house. Subsequently we hired a company ( if you can call 2 people a company) named Westwood Homes and Remodeling. They are out of Greenwood Indiana. As usual, I will not name names here, if you do some research you will be able to get any answers you want.

When this place was hired they knew we were under certain circumstances that caused this job to need to be done as fast as possible. We had 2 babies being born and without being able to know this would happen one of the babies and mom got very sick and we had a crisis during the end of this construction period. We were really upfront from the start that we needed this done before the first baby was born in April. He promised,per the contract, to be done about 2 weeks after she was due and we accepted that.

I think rather than go over each point and beat it to death, I will just hit the highlights of what happened.

We hired them for work to commence in Feb and end approx April 25th. According to the contract they were to start work approx. 8 am every day  and end no later then 5pm. We were to keep our cars out of the way so that thy could get in the driveway. They would minimize our inconvenience as much as possible while they were there.

Reality-They started the job on time per the contract. The bulk of the job ended in June, but come the 4th of July we were still not able to use our deck and all of the “problems” were not fixed. This was almost 3 months after the date that was on the contract. There was not an extraordinary amount of rainfall this last season to which we could blame this nor were there  major job changes or problems that would cause this delay, we had a bathtub added that was not in the contract but then we canceled portions of the contract, we did not have him put in the retaining wall or finish the stone on the bottom of the house or finish the stairs on the deck. I can not imagine how long they would have been at our house if they had to do the entire job!. They took many days off, they took a week vacation, which they did not tell us about prior to our hiring them. We would not have hired them because of the time issues that we had. They arrived at work between 8:30-9:30am the first few days. After that they arrived no earlier than 10am ( usually closer to 11am) and most days left at 3pm. As it turns out the owner needed to be at home when the kids left in the AM and apparently soon after they got home. They stayed a few days after 4pm and they made a pretty big deal out of it when it happened.  When the owner could not be on the job his assistant was not there either, so the work stopped. During the job his sons school wanted him to do some volunteer work and he went there instead of to our house on a couple of days.

We had a few issues that occurred because the contractor had not measured things correctly. Example: we bought special order mirrors ( yes..they were expensive) when we bought them we called him to verify the measurements and then we bought them. When he went to put them in they would not fit. He did not feel badly or take responsibility for this, it was just the way it was. We still have those mirrors. They were special order and if we returned them we would have taken a hit on the restock because they were special order.  We kept them and decided that we will find a place to use them.

In the end I had to hold onto the last check to get him to come to our house and make things right. We had serious blemishes, actually they were much more then blemishes, on the casements throughout the entire house and he was going to leave them there, saying that that is just the way they are. I had to push him and after much pushing he brought the supplier to look and they agreed it was a problem and had to be replaced or fixed. WHY did I have to push so hard? That should never happen. I can not even begin to explain how poorly they hung drywall in our addition. They were to hang it and my son in law, who is a drywall finisher, was to finish it. My poor son in law had to work so hard to make it work because of the terrible job they did hanging the drywall. He actually had to fabricate parts of the ceiling because when they hung it they tore the drywall up and it didn’t come together in many areas. We talked to the contractor about this but he pretty much ignored us and would not comment. Then the paint throughout the house was wiping off each time we had to clean it. He never fixed that. After much debate he took like $300 off of the $100,000 PLUS bill.  Did I say thank you? That was money off so that WE could repaint the house ourselves.  Can you even imagine paying someone over $100,000 and having to repaint the house yourself? I couldn’t.

I could nit pick this to death but am not going to. I think this is sufficient to show that I should not have hired this contractor. OF course this is my experience and my opinion.   I am in no way telling anyone else what to do. Can I endorse this company? No, but it is as always your decision.  I can say that the assistant made the comment to my husband that this was the largest job they had ever undertaken and that they will never be doing so again. So, maybe they do great work if the job is small? Who knows! Maybe they do. 

As I have said I will not name names but stay tuned and I will have a review on a new company we have hired and how they do. They will be finishing our basement and hopefully I will be hiring them to finish our deck, put an in ground pool in and build a new garage. They have said when the job will start and when it should finish. The job will take 17days!!!!!!  This is to finish a basement. YES, I said SEVENTEEN! OMG!! What a difference a company makes.  Stay tuned.

  We have a Justice for girls in Plainfield. I have visited the store a few times, the customer service is OK..I would not say it is great. These girls need a little supervision. There is something to be said for managers that hire young people, train them and leave them alone to run the store. Maybe they are assistant managers at this point but come on people! Do you really think these young people, these young inexperienced people are going to represent you and your good name the way you expect them to?

Well, let me be the one to break the sad, sad news to you, they are not!!! These young people like to talk…talk..and talk…and guess what? They are not usually talking to your customers, NO, they are talking to each other! And guess what they are talking about? YOUR business! Yup, we customers sometimes get a earful of what you are saying to your employees behind the scenes. I am going to go out on a limb  here and assume ( I KNOW) that the reason you had that meeting with your employees after hours was so that we, the customers, are not privvy to the conversation.  If I am wrong, then I apologize!

Oh and then there are the young power drunk employees that decide in your absence that it is OK to be rude to your customers. I mean, YOU did make them the person in charge while you were gone, didn’t you?

Okay, I have gotten off on a tangent here and will get myself back on track.

Justice…Justice IS a great store, customer service aside. They have some cute,cute clothes for girls. They also have shoes and accessories AND Webkinz! OH and if you want a good price for Webkinz then go to Justice now, they are on sale and you can get them for as little as $7.00!!! YAY..my granddaughter is going to be so happy!

To sum this up, go for the clothes and deals but do not expect great customer service. But what do you expect from a business that lets young inexperienced kids run their stores?

 Logan’s Roadhouse is awesome! LOL….I have avoided visiting this restaurant because my parents told me that they did not have a good experience here. THAT should havecaused me to visit them and I am addressing that line of reasoning within myself at the moment!   A person who lives to sniff out GOOD or BAD customer service should not be avoiding a restaurant due to someone else’s BAD experience!!! DOH!

Ok, now that I am done with THAT..let me move on.

 I will start with the bathrooms, you know me, I love to check out those bathrooms and see if they are usable for all of us girls who like a CLEAN bathroom! The bathrooms at Logan’s are not anything special, BUT they have doors that swing both ways! At least at the one I frequent they do. I LOVE doors that swing out and these doors swing both ways! WHOOHO….I love them! The bathrooms are clean and as I said nothing special but cool doors.

You want to know just how good the customer service is at this restaurant? Our first visit was last Wed Oct 29th and we have been back 2 more times since then! We must really think they are great. And they are. 

Our first visit was, as I said, Wed around 5pm. They were moderately busy. We were seated immediately and our server was at our table within a minute. She was very efficient and very personable. She kept our glasses full and the food on the table. She talked to us about the menu and just enough about other t hings to be interesting but not intrusive. Midway through our meal a manager approached our table and said he heard we were first time visitors, we said we were and he welcomed us and gave us a “come back” card for a free appetizer when we return ( YES, we used it on Sunday) he was very nice. When we finished our meal another manager approached our table and welcomed us and offered us another card, we enlightened her to the fact that the other manager had already gave us a card. She applauded our honesty and welcomed us to come back and visit them again.

Our 2 subsequent visits have been just as good and the servers have been just as good as the first. We had different servers each time.

Would you like a recommendation? I am not a big steak person, my husband is, but I had the Onion Brewsky Sirloin and it is THE BOMB! WOW…..if you like onions with your steak this is your piece of cow! The Buffalo wings are very good too.

Go visit them, they are great! Customer service at its  best!

Tell them Christine sent you!

I have been on vacation, while gone I have been  gathering up some new reviews to share with you.  Because of being out of town and well…busy with those wonderful grandchildren!!! I am a bit behind on writing!  

Reviews to look forward too……..  Westwood Homes and Remodeling ( YES..I am finally ready to write THAT review!) Logan’s Steakhouse, Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World, Grand Floridian Cafe at WDW,The Hampton Inn in Cordele, Georgia, Comfort Suites in Chattanooga, Tn., BOMA at The Animal Kingdom Lodge in WDW  Just to name a few.

I also want to mention that the week of Oct 10th was Customer Service appreciation week! I had wrote something on my website about this but forgot to update the blog! I apologize for that. I really hope that some of you remembered it and showed someone in the CS industry how much you appreciate what they do!!  I just hope you have someone in the CS industry that you feel deserves such appreciation!!  I know I do!

Until we meet again!