After the Creative Industries Summit, I came home feeling totally exhausted.

I know I have been handling more things than my norm, and I haven’t gotten the down time from the Art Festival that usually happens in the winter months, so I guess it should have been anticipated that I would wear out one of these days.

On Saturday I basically took the day off.

I went down to the Local Grocery Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at 1pm. It was delayed, so enjoyed some samples and talked with some friends, but was barely standing. Then got in line to buy some expensive organic berries. Their system wasn’t working properly. My Greek walking friend was a few people behind me in line, and was looking more peaked than me. She needed to go eat, so I told her to give me the cash to purchase her berries and I would pay for them if the line ever moved towards the cash register. And it did.

After I paid for the berries, I found her at Good Karma just a few doors away. I decided I would have some lunch and visit with her. She came to the counter and paid for my lunch. She does get to park in my driveway rather than pay for parking, but that’s not something I expect to be compensated for, but she insisted. So I graciously said thank you and enjoyed a bowl of French Onion Soup.

I went home and mostly rested and napped on Saturday. I haven’t felt this tired in years! And My neck was hurting, it felt like it was off its axis, so that didn’t help. The bad pillow situation on my trip probably caused the neck pain. I had thought I fixed that before causing myself any health challenge, but guess not.

I took a hot bath that evening, felt a little better, but awoke feeling in pain and tired on Sunday morning. I did give in and on Monday I walked to the local chiropractor who charges just $15 for a short visit. That did help quite a bit.

I did check my emails and looked at the tracking of the FantaFaces masks I had shipped and it said they had reached Portland on Thursday. It didn’t dawn on me that it “arrived at destination” only meant the Portland distribution space, not the home of the person who ordered the masks.

I emailed her saying I hoped she had had fun at the event and would she send the extra shipping payment to my PayPal account associated with the email address I was sending that email from.

What I saw in an email from her on Sunday was quite a surprise. The masks had not arrived!

The same message that they had reached their Portland destination on Thursday was the last bit of information on the tracking site.

And of course all UPS offices were closed on Sunday, so I had to wait until Monday to figure out what had happened.

On Sunday I worked in the garden a little with my roommate. She planted the “birthday” Delphiniums and Raspberry bush she had given me. She also planted a few other plants and moved some out of the food beds and pathway. I wasn’t much help.

We also got the hoses out of the basement and placed in the garden to water the beds. Unfortunatley we discovered the long one that connected to the other ones in the garden had holes in it and didn’t have enough pressure to get water to the raised beds. Switched it out with the other long hose. Then brought the one my ex-tenant had left in the back to the front to use for watering until I can buy a new long hose.

I checked in with my regular hiking partner, but couldn’t set a date for a hike until I felt better.

On Monday I called UPS and they told me the package had been mis-sorted and sent to Tualatin, Oregon and my client would receive it on Wednesday. I said that it wouldn’t do her any good, as the Gala she needed it for was last Friday. They had no explanation for how a guaranteed delivery in two days package could get mis-sorted.

They told me I had to contact the UPS store that I shipped the masks from to get a possible refund. I was not a happy camper on the phone. So called the store and told him the story. He told me I needed to come in to get a refund. So I got in my car and drove there to get the refund.

I had no idea if the client would want to keep or return the masks and was thinking I had spent some money I shouldn’t have if she did want to return the masks. An unnecessary addition to my stress and exhaustion factor that I could really have done without.

I may never use UPS again to ship. The Post Office has always delivered my packages on time, or even faster than predicted.

I got my refund and emailed her again with an explanation of what had happened and the UPS tracking info showing where the masks had gone. And asked if she wanted to keep the masks or return them. I also said I would refund the shipping cost.

She did say she would let me know when the masks arrived, but had some sick kiddos, so was a bit slow in responding.

On Wednesday she emailed me that the masks had arrived, she loved them and would figure out somewhere to wear them.