What the Power of Words Can Do!

Join us on Thursday, March 19th for an in-depth interview with Simon Rose, science fiction and fantasy children's author nominated for the Silver Birch, Diamond Willow and Golden Eagle

Book Awards. Simon also gives workshops, visits schools and teaches classes to authors. Please come and learn more about this author of five outstanding books for children. He will be here to answer your questions after the interview.

If you want to learn more about him visit his blog and check out his video on Youtube.

The Mattress Saga

I wonder sometimes if anyone is reading my words and of course, I love the comments all of you leave when you stop by. For a writer comments are like applause and we need that very much.:) That's why I always try to answer your comments, because my answers are like a performer's bows.:) But I never could have anticipated what would happen when I talked about mattress shopping on Friday in my blog.

So I opened my email box to check on email on Saturday and found an email addressed to me from the Vice President of Customer Satisfaction of Sleepy's! :) Somehow, and this kind of scares me, he had found my email address after finding my post about the mattress shopping experience on my last blog. I was very happy to know that my post had received attention. Probably they have an automatic service that checks constantly for their name or mention of their products. But how did he get my email address? I sent this person an email back to find out how they got my email and also to thank him for what he offered to us. Here is an excerpt of the email:

We thank you for taking the time to share your experience about the Miralux mattress and our showroom.

At Sleepy’s we work continuously to accommodate our customers with quality in both service and merchandise. We are sorry that you had to experience anything less.

He then went on to give some background of Sleepy's. Started in 1957 in Brooklyn, NY, by the Acker family, Sleepy's now has almost 700 stores in 12 states. He also mentioned how they deliver over 2000 Miralux mattresses a week and that one dissatisfied customer will tell ten more people and that is a problem in the age of the Internet. He also said that the percentage of negative comments was far less than the 2000 mattresses they had delivered.

But there is more:

I would like to extend my personal assistance in helping your daughter find the mattress that is right for her, no obligation to select a Miralux and will see to it that a Regional Manager gives you personalized attention at a day and time of your/her convenience.

Again, I apologize for the behavior of our salesperson and assure you it will be addressed with the Regional VP. We regret the outcome, but unfortunately it becomes our greatest learning tool. We hope to hear from you.

Because of this email we went back to a Sleepy's store today and my daughter finally found a mattress she liked and she bought it. It's a Kingsdown with a soft pillow top. She needs the very soft. Sleepy's has this test for anyone who needs a mattress. They lay you down on a computerized mattressand it finds the exact level of comfort you need. Then they show you all the mattresses that fit your profile. The salesman we had today knew what he was doing. He treated us with respect and gave us information so we were able to decide with facts.

My daughter originally decided on an IBC Mattress, but when she checked on the website she found....Miralux. They are the same manufacturers of the Miralux mattress. She was all set to buy it because it was the only one in her price range that felt comfortable. But after she went back to the mattress one more time she decided to lay down on the Kingsdown. In a few minutes she had changed her mind and though the salesman had written up the order for the first mattress, he switched it and it only ended up costing her a little more than the first one for much better quality.:)

He threw in the delivery for free and they're taking away the old mattress for $14.95. So they're delive

ring the mattress on Tuesday and I hope that this will be the end of the mattress saga.:)

And we didn't even need the help of the Regional Manager. This shows a queen size bed. Imagine it as a twin.:)

What Have They Done to Facebook?

Now one more thought before I end my ravings.:) What have they done to Facebook? They've pared it down so much and put things in different places and restructured the group pages. I don't like it. It's confusing and I wonder why they are always changing things when people get comfortable with using something. I just wish once that things wouldn't change on websites. In this crazy changing world of ours we need places that don't change and where we can find our friends. We need the comfort of the familiar to keep us sane. It's kind of like the "Cheers" song:

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name

And they're always glad you came....

Click the link to see all the lyrics.

One last thing and then I promise it's finished! We did see a movie this weekend! But it wasn't the one I would have chosen myself. We saw "Taken" with Liam Neeson. I have mixed feelings about this movie, because it is about the horrific practice of kidnapping and selling young girls as sex slaves. Liam Neeson is a retired CIA agent who when he hears his daughter being kidnapped over the phone rushes off to save her. It incorporates a great deal of violence and some torture with a little bit of blood and the minimal amount of gore. There are horrible scenes of debauched girls at a construction site giving favors to men while drugged in some cases todeath! I was really disgusted by a lot of this movie, but at the same time there are edge of your seat chase scenes. It's very much like a larger version of "24" if Jack had been in this situation. It didn't get a great set of reviews as you can see, but for people who like adventure movies you might like it a little more.

Until the next time, welcome to my new readers and please leave a comment. Thank you to my readers who have been here before. Remember we have the pleasure of an interview with children's book author Simon Rose on Thursday.