Update to the story below - Paypal is saying the seller is at fault! Yay! So don't back down, guys, no matter how the seller is trying to bully you! Now I just need to see if I get my $10 back. Oh, after he sent me the email about cancelling the claim in order to receive my product, I emailed paypal. I offered to send them the email that he sent me with that statement in the email and told them about the bullying. I don't know if that helped, but I got an email back from a real person at paypal and was told the email was forwarded to the investigation team. Maybe it did help! Now I just hope he hasn't closed his account to keep me from getting my money back.

I haven't sent the letter yet but I believe I'm going to fax it tomorrow. If the fax doesn't go through I have the mailing address of the business and the home address of the president of the corporation. I believe if these guys are related in some way then isn't there something that can be done about filing complaints about corporations?

Thanks for the comments, guys :)

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For anyone out there who has bought or sold on ebay for a while here's a problem for you. I'm wondering whether or not to contact a company owner to find out if they are affiliated with an ebay seller. Here is the story.

My son wanted a product in order to do a science experiment. We searched and I found a site that sold plans for this product. They wanted $30 for said plans, so, cheapskate that I am, we searched on ebay.

We found the exact same picture of finished product with plans offered on ebay for a lot less than $30. I always read descriptions and TOS. This guy was very short and sweet and not descriptive enough for me, but with son's urging and pleading I bought the plans offered on ebay for $10.

The plans didn't arrive during the time frame given in the auction. My son checked mail daily and they finally arrived after two weeks. He opened the package and was disappointed to find a book on various experiments, not the plans we'd believed we'd purchased.

I contacted the seller and asked to send the book back for a refund or to have the plans sent to us. He responded by asking to verify my address. Then there was no word for over a week.

By now over 3 weeks had passed since end of auction and I only had 30 days to file a claim with paypal. So after the third week had passed, along with a follow-up email asking about the plans, I filed a claim. I had no response until today when he emailed me saying he would not mail the plans until after I'd cancelled the claim.

I'm not a push over, guys. No one can bully me anymore. I sent him an email back stating that how could I trust him to send the plans if I did cancel the claim? The claim stands. I've since read more of his feedback, and things that should be negatives were positives, like "poor communication, took over four weeks to receive" and things like that. He also likes to put people down in his feedback and call them names.

I also emailed paypal and let them know of the email he sent me. Then I went searching on the original site I'd found before to see if these were the same people. Let's call the owner of the site A and the ebay person B.

The business name on the site said it was a corporation, so I found their address listed and searched their state records to see if they were actually a corporation. Yes, they were! So I found out person A's name and address. They were far away from person B but since person B was using the photos and sold similar products I wondered if they could be related somehow or did person B copy the photos from this site to use on ebay? I thought about writing person A a letter to ask if they were affiliated with person B who sold on ebay.

I then went back to person B's ebay records and checked feedback. There is a screenname similar to person A's real name on the feedback (like if a person's name is Christina they may use a screename of chris31830). They bought about 4 things from person B over the past month. These were not items that had just been listed, they'd been listed in his ebay store for months. This buyer (let's say person C) left person B feeback but it hasn't been reciprocated. As far as I can tell person C never bought from person B before last month. Nothing looks like shill bidding, but who knows.

So, if person A, who owns the company and the site that I found the photo and the plans is the same as person C, then they may be affiliated with person B. But there is always a chance that persons A & C are different and person A has no idea that person B is copying his photos and selling products on ebay with those photos.

I have a letter written to person A asking him if there is a relationship. Should I send it or should I let it go? I have a bad feeling that they will be connected and I'll be the idiot who complained about person A's relative then sent him the money for what I wanted in the first place. But William is very upset and still wants to build this item as a science project, so I will probably end up buying from the website anyway.

Would you send the letter or not?

Apply for Texas Ranch House, the new "reality" show coming soon to PBS.

Yes, we've applied :) We still need to sent in our video. If we're chosen we'd be gone from June - October. Anyone who loves pets and can clean my house be willing to housesit? For free, of course. But you'd have computer access and a TiVo with cable and the opportunity to live for 5-6 months in a very pretty part of Georgia :)

On another note, my settlement for my car accident from last April has finally come through! We're going shopping on Friday for a Playstation 2 for William and on Saturday I'm ordering 2 new computers from Walmart. William and I will also be switching rooms. He'll have the current computer room and his bedroom will become my office. We're looking forward to the switch. I'm also looking forward to having our Emergency Fund back at $1000.

I can't believe it will be a week tomorrow since I posted. I thought I had more to say than that :)

Well, let's see what we've been up to. Just the usual school things, and we're trying to finish a few books we've been reading forever, it seems. We're still working on multiplication. I need to find something to play on cassette or CD, I think, and I need to be sure we practice it daily. In science we're finishing up a chapter on cells. So far this has been one of the most interesting chapters we've done. I love the Cells Alive! website where we've been able to look at various cells and bacteria. I'm planning to buy a microscrope within the next 2 weeks so we can look at our own cells as well. I remember in 4th grade when my science teacher, Mrs. Adkins, killed a wasp in the room and we were able to look at the compound eyes under the microscope. She was a great teacher that knew how to take advantage of the situation :)

One day last week we got lunch at Subway then went to the walking track at one of the duck ponds to eat and read. We read more of Age of Fable sitting near the water and watching the ducks swim. We should have saved them some bread and fed them, too. It was such a nice day with lots of sunshine. It was chilly, though, sitting in the wind.

Tomorrow is Founder's Day at Callaway Gardens, so we'll be visiting there in the morning - they're offering free admission, then spending the afternoon in Columbus at the dollar theater. There are a few movies we'd like to see and with Scott and I both taking off work tomorrow we plan to have a nice family day together.

I do plan to have our field trip page on our family website updated sometime today. It will have more pictures of our visit to the Capitol building in Atlanta and World of Coca-Cola.

We are still planning to go to Washington, DC in May and I'm doing research on a WWII and Washington, DC unit study to begin next month and conclude with our trip in May. We'll be attending my grandfather's Navy reunion during the time we visit Washington and I want William to be able to understand why this is so important to PawPaw.

I hope everyone is able to say "I love you" to friends and family today.

Dh and I celebrated on Saturday / Sunday because he is working today. When we were off work on Saturday evening we drove to Columbus for dinner / movie and to stay overnight. We had a wonderful supper - they even accidently gave us 2 extra bowls of soup and only billed us for the original 2 we'd ordered. We had to the other 2 for supper last night :) Then we headed for the theater. We wanted to see "The Wedding Date" but we were too late, so we saw "White Noise" instead. Very spooky movie. It has lots of close-ups and intense music. You know that "bonk" sound you hear in Windows when you make an error? That was how the music was at some points in the movie. The ending was surprising.

We spent the night at Hampton Inn where dh gets a discount for being a county employee. We enjoyed their deluxe breakfast then headed over to Barnes and Noble to wait for the theater to open. We didn't buy anything there, but we're happy they allow you to sit and read in the store and coffee shop. We spent an hour browsing books and reading magazines - getting caught up on the hollywood gossip :) - then headed to the movies to see "The Wedding Date" matinee at 1pm.

The movie was okay, not fabulous. Think of it as a reverse "Pretty Woman". It was very funny in many parts but I didn't really like the leading man. He looked fabulous but every time he talked I was reminded of Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky". The voice just didn't match what I expected to hear. The movie is set in England so I was happy to see one of my favorite British actors, Jack Davenport, from the BBC show "Coupling". I would not take kids to this movie, though. I don't even know if teenagers should see this movie as a "date" movie due to some of the language and innuendo in the movie.

We got home last night where I worked for about 3 hours then watched "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" on TiVo.

But Valentine's didn't end there :) William checked mail this morning and dh had mailed me a card :) He does this every now and again so I'll be surprised. It was very sweet of him.

Enjoy your Valentine's Day. Hug your loved ones, tell your sweetheart you love them, and watch a romantic comedy.

Here's a history lesson for those out there :) This is from the educator packets I received at the capitol building.

The State of Georgia was founded by James Ogelthorpe in 1733. The motive for King George to give permission for a 13th colony was to aid the poor in England, to increase trade and navigation and to help protect the Carolinas from Spanish Florida. Georgia was named for King George II of England. Georgia has had many capital cities. Savannah was the first capital, followed by Augusta, then Louisville (named for King Louis XVI of France for aid during the American Revolution), then Milledgeville and finally Atlanta.

The first use of Eli Whitney's cotton gin was near Washington, GA. Georgia was the first state to grant full property rights to married women in 1866. Dr. John Gorrie of Columbus, GA invented the first machine for making ice in 1844. Coca-Cola began in Atlanta in 1886. In 1945 Georgia was the first state to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. In 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first Georgian to recieve the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1980 CNN, based in Atlanta, gave its first broadcast. In 1996 Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympic Games.

The capitol building in Atlanta was patterned after the U.S. Capitol. Legislators directed that it be constructed from Georgia material as much as possible. The exterior of the capitol is covered in Indiana limestone, but the white and pink marble inside are from Tate, Georgia. The oakwood doors, steel columns and iron banisters are also from Georgia and the gold dome - first applied in 1958 - is from Lumpkin County, Georgia. The statue on top of the dome is Miss Freedom. She holds a torch in her right hand and a sword in her left. She was placed on the dome in 1889. A few years ago her torch was hit by lightning and a helicopter was used to repair the torch.

The state bird is the Brown Thrasher. The state song is Georgia on My Mind. The state fruit is a peach. The state flower is the Cherokee Rose and the state tree is the Live Oak.

I hope you enjoyed the little history lesson :)

William and I headed up to Atlanta on Thursday towards the capitol. Traffic to College Park was light at 10am and we found the Marta station with no problems. It took a while to find a parking space. We had to drive around to the back of the station in order to find one. Then we couldn't find the entrance, but a police officer stopped and told us where to go.

Riding the train was a different experience. I was glad not to have to deal with traffic and stop lights and looking for parking near the capitol building. We rode the trains without incident and arrived at the capitol building. I was glad that I had found my driver's license because they were checking ID.

We walked around the crowded building trying to find the main entrance. There was a protest going on outside so William and I were able to have a small discussion about our rights in this country, how we could protest and speak out against what we felt was unfair. I've checked the Atlanta Journal Constitution and WSB Channel 2 news but didn't find a link about the protest. There were TV cameras there, though.



We explored the capitol building amid the crowd of homeschoolers. We stood on the 2nd floor and listened to the homeschool orchestra and then a choir sing. One of the girls in the choir is a member of our Adventure Club co-op. Two other girls from co-op had found us there and walked around with William and I for a while.

We enjoyed exploring the third floor of the capitol and seeing the displays of the animals and the interior of the dome, as well as finding out about Miss Freedom, the statue that stands on the top of the dome. I'll post some information about the history of the capitol building next.



By then it was after 1pm and William was hungry and begging to go to World of Coca-Cola. I told him today was an educational day as well and we'd be going soon. We met up with the Adventure Club co-op leader and some other members and they invited us to go to their vehicles to eat lunch. We picked up some educator packets then headed out.

It was windy and very cold. We walked up 4 blocks and down 2 to the pay parking lot. Amid all the one way streets and the traffic I was again glad we'd taken the Marta into town.

We took about 45 minutes at the cars to eat then headed back out to walk to World of Coca-Cola. It was only about 2 blocks up from the Capitol building, but since we were walking from the parking lot we had to walk a few extra blocks.





We passed the entrance to Underground Atlanta then entered World of Coca-Cola. The tour began on the 3rd floor with pictures of Coke memorabilia, a bottle packing fantasy scuplture, and some computers with information about the Coke formula, history of Coca-Cola and how people collect Coke merchandise. One of the co-op girls and I liked seeing the bottles that Coke used to use and how other companies tried to copy them by using a similar name in similar script in the same bottle. That's why Coca-Cola came out with their contour glass bottle. We also visited a mock-up of a soda fountain complete with a soda jerk explaining how to mix Coca-Cola syrup with soda water.

Next we headed down to the 2nd floor where they kids posed on the Coca-Cola Polar Bear, we watched some commercials (yes, I sang along to "I Want to Teach the World to Sing" :) and looked at more commercial memorabilia. Then we headed over to the tasting areas.





We had to do the large machine that squirts the water out at you (I'll post a picture), then we tried various types of Coke products from various states. I drank a Tab there and William tried some as well. Now we know why they went with Diet Coke :)

Then we headed over to Taste of the World. We tried various products from around the globe. The apple flavored Coke was actually pretty good. Some products didn't smell wonderful but tasted fine. William tried the Beverly drink from Italy. It's made from Quinine and is very bitter. I wasn't brave enough to try it out.




William said his favorite part of the Capitol building was learning about the gold dome. His favorite part of World of Coca-Cola was tasting all the different sodas. I enjoyed learning about the gold dome as well and I liked seeing all the old Coke commercials at World of Coca-Cola.

We ended the trip with a visit to the gift shop then headed back to College Park on Marta. We took the wrong exit so had to walk all the way around the station to get to our car. Plus it was 5pm when we left so traffic was heavy for a while, but we got home fine.

We got to dh's workplace just as he was getting off work and gave him his gift for the day, then attended a spelling bee that my neice took part in. She did very well, then misspelled the word "volcano". I took her picture with some flowers her mom gave her and she was very happy that she'd been able to take part. William told me on the way home that his head hurt from all the learning we did that day :)

It's Saturday now and I'm still sore from all the walking we did on Thursday! I'll have more pictures posted on the family website under "field trips" soon.

Tomorrow we're off for homeschool day at the capitol building in Atlanta. I found this site about the history of the building. I DO NOT drive in Atlanta, so we'll be driving to College Park and taking 2 Marta trains into town. If time - and money - permit we'll stop off at World of Coca-Cola. I need to get batteries for the camera so we can come home with lots of pictures. I'll be sure to post about it when we get back.

Girls Fined for Leaving Cookies

Can you believe this? I did this when I was little. I also did a Secret Santa one year for a friend and left lots of little packages on her porch. You never know what's going to happen nowadays. IMO, the judge should have thrown the case right out and the woman should apologize. Now those girls are going to second guess any other thoughts they may have about doing something nice for a neighbor.

On another note, my dh came home from work tonight and told me a bit about his day. He works as a jailer at the county jail. The police did a search around the high school today with the dogs (yet another reason I homeschool) and apparently they got a hit off a car in student parking. They searched the car and came up with small amounts of marijuana and alcohol, misdemeanor charges on these things. Then they found a gun - a small derringer. They took the driver of the car - a male student - to the department where my husband booked him but was told not to put him downstairs into population. He was told later that this was the son of a school board member. She was at the jail and the courthouse talking to the Sheriff and the judge and trying to get everything hushed up. While at the school board meetings they all preach "Zero tolerance", but when it's her child I guess the rules change. Schools will never be safe if the people that are supposed to make the laws and enforce them keep breaking them.

Dh said that the boy left with his parents that afternoon. Dh did book the boy on the charges, but by tomorrow who knows if the information will still be there?

We're watching a show about Australia and while it's showing the Great Barrier Reef it shows many little fish swimming about.

William: Mom, that's a joke fish.
Me: A joke fish? You mean a clown fish.
William: Yeah, the joke fish like Nemo.

This morning William asked me if we could get the shrimp basket from Dairy Queen for lunch. After I told him yes, I think we could, he says:

William: I think my icky factor is changing. Did you know that kids have an icky factor? Something they think is icky when they are little changes as they grow up and they want to try things they didn't like before.

This week has been slow going. We've basically been just reading and practicing multiplication tables. We're going over 2s, 5s, and 10s right now. We'll start on doubles tomorrow.

William's next report for adventure club is due soon. This month the topic is Australia. William has chosen to speak on the animals of Australia. I searched the Tivo for Australia and found a few shows to watch to add to the report. We'll continue the research tomorrow.

William completed his first chapter science test and we're about to start on chapter 2. We haven't started the book yet because we've found some great things on TV. We watched 100 Greatest Discoveries with Bill Nye on Discovery Channel. TLC Elementary School discussed cells and cell structure, and it was exactly what we needed as chapter 2 is about cells. We also visited the Cells Alive! website and watched the cells split. The next purchase for our homeschool will be a microscope so we can see cells for ourselves. William also watched Magic School Bus daily and sometimes when we go over things he knows the correct answer. I ask him where he learned that and he says "Miss Frizzle" :)

We're preparing as well for a trip to Washington D.C. in May. My grandfather has an annual reunion with his shipmates from WWII. He was a crewman on the USS Nelson. As it gets closer to the trip I'll add some discussion about WWII, the Navy, and Washington D.C. into our lessons. We've contacted our representative about a White House and Capitol tour and we're also planning to visit the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. After the reunion starts we'll be visiting Mt. Vernon and the WWII Memorial.

I'll update again at the end of the week. Last weekend our power was out due to an ice storm that swept through Georgia. I have some pictures that I'll post soon.