@AnAsmom, REI has had Patagonia on sale recently.
I considered buying one of their nice sweaters, but I decided I didn’t need it.
Sounds like she has received lots of good advice.
I got a packable puffer coat on a whim this year. It’s not down but polyester fill. Although it feels lighter than air to wear it’s surprisingly warm. I’m in the Midwest (where it’s supposed to be about 6 degrees tomorrow.)
I have never ever found the polyester fill coats to be warm at all. I’m glad yours is, but I’ll stick with down.
Thought I’d give an update on my random question. The plane tickets finally appeared on my credit card today. The date is the original ticketing date. I had checked in with both the credit card and the airline who told me there was no problem but I’m glad the charges finally came through.
Down always makes me happiest, but a few years back I bought a North Face Thermoball, and for a lightweight jacket, it is surprisingly windproof and warm. It is good as a fall jacket and for travel and camping shoulder seasons. The upper Midwest has severe enough winters that I need my heavy coats.
@“great lakes mom” I love my Thermoball!
We have been getting our mail delivered by USPS truck really late at 8 PM or later. I have gone to an empty mailbox before I go to bed only to wake up the next morning with mail. Also about once a week I get our neighbors one piece of mail, another neighbor get ours, and today I got 3 magazines for a neighbor 5 doors down. This has been getting worse. I think delivering in the dark is not helping. Has anyone else been dealing with this?
Not the late deliveries. Over a year ago, our mail would come around 4-5PM but then they change the routes and now we get it between 11-12 in the morning.
As far as mail mix-ups, that has been happening for around 15 years. We’ve complained to the postmaster several times but nothing has gotten better.
I just had something for someone in another state delivered to our house…twice! (Yes, it was incorrectly delivered to us again, even after writing on the envelope that it was delivered to the wrong STATE.) The USPS is inept. Postal workers steal money and gift cards, throw away mail they can’t deliver, etc. Both have happened recently in my area.
Re: USPS, I strongly recommend signing up for Informed Delivery. Every morning we get an email with images of pieces of mail that will be delivered that day. There’s an option to report instances where you didn’t receive a piece.
^^I have to look into that. My area of Chicago has actually been on the news frequently about this. We have not had a regular carrier for years. New people all the time. Get mail for people miles away. The address not even close. Talk to the post office all the time. Make complaints etc. I literally have to go downtown today to pick up a city sticker that I ordered for my car that got sent back to the automotive department. I could have it resent but I would rather just get it today and be done… They do pay these workers to do a job right? I have asked the supervisor to go on the route with the new workers and they never do. BTW - the manager told me it’s not just me in my area. They get hundreds of complaints. I try to do Amazon to a pick up box to avoid this but just ordered some toner and it was handed off from UPS to USPS. Result. Was supposed to get it on the 13th. After filling out the form online and talking to the manager I got it last night around 7:00. My area they deliver late. Some days we don’t get mail delivery… Crazy
Our longtime postal worker retired last July and things haven’t been the same since then. I think it just depends on the person.
The USPS, like seemingly every other company these days, is trying hard to avoid hiring permanent employees. So when the old carriers who know their route retire, they are replaced by a succession of temps and contractors who don’t know the routes and don’t really care.
Informed Delivery is great, I recommend that everyone get it. In addition, you can register your address so that you get text alerts for packages that will tell you things like when they are expected to be delivered, that they are out for delivery, the exact time they were delivered, etc.
That last is great, because (at my house) they don’t ring the bell any more when they drop off a package, and at my current apartment all packages go to a mail room, so it’s the only way to know when something was delivered.
UPS and FedEx have similar text-based services, it’s worth signing up for them too.
We have a horrible time with our mail too. Never the same carrier and we always get other people’s mail. I put it back in the box with a sticky note with the incorrect address circled. They’ll take it the next day but who knows if it’s really getting to the right person. Anything important goes UPS or FedEx with tracking. I don’t trust the postal service at all.
So I did sign up for the delivery notification for the package yesterday. I got no notification it was sitting on my porch… Just can’t win… Lol…
Just curious - how does Informed Delivery work at the post office? Are they taking these photos anyway or is it requiring more manpower for addresses to somehow be flagged for these photos???
It is an automated process. Couldn’t even imagine if it was done by hand… Lol… Not all mail can go through this https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action?iom=B807-82ID-USRS-PS-USP-GO-XXX-AW-XX-X-INF&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_content=b807_82id&utm_campaign=informeddelivery2018&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=CjwKCAiA1rPyBRAREiwA1UIy8KjNbufj0w3kZrHxEsV_r7Dd2Omf2FkYW9SuEJ8GCOQYpVzW9BlKVRoCM9gQAvD_BwE
I have informed delivery and it is helpful, I guess. One letter went to our neighbor and he brought it over. Otherwise they would not have been able to find it. One letter was for my mother’s estate but never got delivered. Filled out a form on line for missing mail in December, never got it. The late deliveries are weird. I think that they just don’t have enough employees.
We’re in a rural part of a small city in the northeast. Our mailbox is 1/4 mile away from the house, downhill on a rutted shared dirt driveway. We’ve lived here for over fifteen years and have had universally good luck with carriers. They’ll bring packages up the hill even in crap weather when we’ve told them to not worry about it and leave the slip for us to pick up next day. After reading about what some of you are going through, I’m buying ours an Easter basket.
For anything other than local mail to the same zip code (and maybe even those), your mail goes to giant processing centers where it is sorted by machines. As part of that sorting process, they photograph every single piece of mail so they can OCR the zip code and sort it properly.
Since they already have the pictures, they decided to make them accessible.
My biggest complaint is that you can only have one physical mail address per account. Lots of people own two houses, so you have to use multiple email addresses which is a pain. Although maybe they’ve fixed that, I haven’t checked in a few years.