Kristen "yelping again" K.'s Profile

I recently purchased some beautiful handmade fused glass from Kiku Handmade. It's absolutely gorgeous and I love that it was made by someone with their very own hands. It was difficult picking what items I wanted because I'm on a budget, but I finally narrowed it down.

Laurie, who makes all the beautiful glassworks, was a pleasure to work with when I was having trouble with her online shopping cart. She fixed the bugs and helped me get what I wanted. I couldn't have been more excited when it arrived in the mail, sooner than I expected.

She does have a shop, but it's in her basement so sorry people, but you aren't privy to that information. Go buy her stuff at her online store or on her etsy though, it's pretty! And by pretty I mean beautiful and awesome!

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Basically, if you want to have a poorly built home and warranty issues for almost three years, Meritage might be the home builder for you!

We bought our home in 2008 and have had nothing but problems from the very beginning, both with our home and the people who run the company. One person we dealt with wasn't even an on the payroll employee who touted himself as such and had access to all the homes still being built and caused my family personal issues!

Our home was built where a hole used to be, which we were never told and didn't find out until Google Earthing or satellite imaging an old picture of our lot before a house was built. They filled it in, built our home and ever since we've had problems. Cracks all over our house, doors that won't shut, windows that are difficult to open, cracks in the outside brick, a fence that isn't straight. Supposedly, it is all caused by a drainage issue which they could have prevented. We had the grout in our home replaced THREE times because they put in such poor grout. It's still got holes and chips everywhere. I could go on and on. I am TERRIFIED that I will have foundation issues and that I will never be able to get out of this home. I just want them to buy it back so I can move on and move into a home without these major issues.

The thing is, Meritage has fixed or bandaided many of the issues, but the cracks keep reappearing and our house pretty much looks horrible now. You can see where they repainted, you can see what they haven't fixed, you can see all the issues even though they say, we helped you! Problem solved!

The company is horrible about customer service. They all tell you how they are there for you, want to make you happy and kiss your ass. They take forever to call you back about your warranty issue, send people over to fix one thing when there are ten things to fix and then you never hear from them again until you have to call/email/send another warranty request and bitch them out. All while my personal time is being used up babysitting the people fixing it. It's laughable. Sometimes the painters come and ask me for the paint. Um, aren't you the painter?

I will NEVER buy a Meritage Home again. This whole experience has been a nightmare. I don't think anyone wants their home to be worked on for going on 3 years. It was supposed to be brand new and beautiful, my first home purchase. Instead, it's been a horrible experience and pain in my ass. The sad thing is we have a FOLDER of warranty issues, and the company knows it but when they call they are like, "oh, are you still having issues, what can we do to help?" Just fix my house for GOOD please and don't make it look like you patched it up... which is how it looks. Everything is warped.

Meritage Homes are the WORST EVER. Negative 5 stars.

I can't think of any time in your life that is more exciting, beautiful, adventurous, etc. etc. than when you are expecting a child. During this time you'd also expect that going to check out baby furniture would be fun, joyous, thrilling, etc. etc.

Yeah, you won't find this experience at Babies "R" Us. One word: Ghetttttttoooo. Emphasis on the OOOO.

Not only is even maneuvering your way to this place because of ridiculous traffic a huge annoyance (and not necessarily their fault), but it will make any pregnant lady want to pull over and start throwing things at other cars. (Note for those that will attempt anyway? Bring snacks.) Once inside, get ready to do some more maneuvering.

The aisles aren't kept well, there are people everywhere, and the place just makes you feel like you are in another store that rhymes with Ball-Cart, but for only baby stuff.

I gave them two stars simply because you can see a lot of the goods you want to buy put together and all set up. A huge bonus. However, I'm not certain I would ever buy anything from them.

Also, you should keep a bathroom super clean if you know that the place is going to be full of expectant mothers and children. Ick.

I was in a pretty cranky girl type mood, and at that point all I had on my mind was some mashed potatoes and gravy from good old Babe's. Alas, the air show had just gotten out and aside from that, every Sunday type family suddenly showed up from the time I called to the time I arrived and thus, the wait time was now 25-45 minutes. Errrr, no.

Downtown Main Street in Roanoke is really getting a fabulous makeover. So I crossed the street while my beauteous husband looked for parking and I peeked in the doorway of the brand new Cowboy Chow, opened up right next to Twisted Root. I asked if there was a wait, she said no, and I said Hells Yeah!

At that point I was so hungry that I wanted to order everything on the menu and it's cheap enough that you probably could. Still needing my whineypants fix, I ordered the roasted corn cheesy mashed potatoes and it was scrumptious (note that I hate corn in my potatoes, but I gobbled them up at Cowboy Chow).  I also ordered the chicken pot pie which was good too, but it was more like a stew to me. I had hoped for a thicker base and a thicker topping than the puff pastry. The hubs had the Lone Star brisket tacos and they were phenomenal. That lime cream and tender brisket were perfect. He never really raves about food, but he was definitely in love with this meal. His rice was fantastic as well. I wasn't a fan of the BBQ beans though.

And $2 for some pearl beer? Ridiculous! Over all with our meals and two cheap drinks, it was like $24 for the two of us to eat. My pot pie was so filling I couldn't finish it all, so guess what is for lunch at work tomorrow? With a side of taters!

As a secret side note, and I certainly hope I get some sort of credit for possibly making them do this, but they bring you a bottle of water for your meal. Well, whoever filled them this time around, forgot to clean out the filter after the watermelon tea was made so there was an ever so slight hint of watermelony goodness in the water! It was amazing. So amazing that I told the waitress, a manager, and even emailed the dudes about this 'mistake' and told them they should do it regularly. It was that good!

5 times better than their sister Twisted Root. And they have a FULL BAR... in Roanoke! YES!  Oh oh oh, also, the decor is so fun and great!  I loved it!  I especially loved all the pictures of cowgirls of the night, if you will, along the wall on the way to the bathroom.  I think I even got a little peek of well, you know, in some of them.  Haha!  Great fun.  

Love this place!

I don't have to say it over and over again, but I guess I'm going to because I completely believe in full disclosure: I am not a lover of the Tex-Mex.

As usual, however, the company took us out for lunch, chose another Mexican restaurant and since they were footing the bill, who am I to complain? I'm not! I love free food almost as much as I love free alcohol and free samples at Costco.

The ambiance is, um, interesting? It's like a cross between staying at a log cabin, visiting a hunter's house, and a bunch of really, ugly, cheesy interior design. Or wait, are those all the same things?

In any case, the margaritas are delicious, and surprisingly so was the food! I had the brisket tacos and they really hit the spot. I normally don't eat the rice that comes on the platters (more of a fan of the beans) but I gobbled the rice up too.

All in all, everyone seemed satisfied with their meals and I quite enjoyed my experience. Especially since I didn't have to pay for it! I would definitely take my husband here for a nice, cheesy decor event, and a yummy meal.

Tucked neatly across the street from TCU you will find Dutch's and upon entry, you will be confused like me as the ordering room was on the opposite side of the doorway. So the hubs and I stood there for a minute wondering if we were supposed to seat ourselves or what. Once we took a seat at the half empty bar, we turned around and realized that you're supposed to get in line, order, and then sit down. Ohhhhhh! Dur.

I have the hubs go place our order and sit patiently for what seems like forever and really was quite a bit of a wait. The place was busy, but not too busy, however, serving only hamburgers I guess they only have one objective in the kitchen that could keep them very occupied.

When our burgers finally arrived, I was surprised at how big my cheeseburger really was. I knew immediately that there was no way I was going to finish this thing. And it was a good burger, although there was nothing spectacular about it. When I think about it, I just think yeah, it was good!

The bun, however, the bun it a whole different story. It was soft and chewy with a little bit of sweet. It was the one thing that set aside Dutch's from every other place I've had a burger in town. It really was quite lovely.

If I'm ever in the area again I'm going to try out one of their other options as far as burgers go, but let me tell you now, nothing beats their buns!

Do you know what I love more than beer and soft pretzels?  FREE beer and soft pretzels served to me by my boyfriend JT.

Aside from the perks of the Elite event and Sweet Ass, the Ginger Man is a real cool place to be.  I didn't get much mingling with the 'common' folk downstairs since we had our own reserved upstairs... but the place was pretty busy for a Thursday night and that Reserve No. 8 was absolutely delicious.  My #1 reason for going back soon, before they run out!

I stole all your souls as best I could and I hope you'll like what you see.  Nikki is one helluva CM and Kevin is pretty awesome too.  Together, the two really know how to make a party pop!

Thanks to the Ginger Man for quickly realizing that we are experienced drinkers and providing the pitchers of beer and bottles of wine that were quickly consumed.

Yay Oktober and the Ginger Man!

Huggins really deserves one star from me, but I'm going to give them two for a small shred of a benefit of the doubt.

Here's the thing, I think all car dealerships, their salesmen and their managers are basically thieves and liars. They will do anything to get a deal and while I can somewhat understand, the moral and ethical side of me refuses to accept it.

Everyone was nice at Huggins and it was busy as all heck due to the CARS program. Understandable, especially since we were taking advantage of it ourselves. Our salesman was nice, brought us water and even pizza because I told him I was hungry and kind of just wanted to hurry up and go.

The reason I am pissed off is because we asked them if they were part of the Costco program, because you get a sweet deal if you are a Costco member, and our sales dude, Sergio, said let me check. Of course he came back with a yes, and of course he was lying.

While I admit that it is my fault for not going to the dealer that was suggested on the Costco website (I didn't know there was only one in all of DFW for Honda) I assumed that perhaps there were others and maybe it was just basing it on some random information we put in. But the bottom line here is that Huggins Honda lied and is in no way shape or form affiliated with the Costco program, which would have led to us saving several more hundred dollars than we actually did.

My other problem is their financing. That's where they make their money. And that's where the guy was a liar as well, telling us that because of the 'deal' we got on the car, we couldn't get the sweet 3.9% financing deal that was offered on the Honda website itself. I know this to be untrue as well, but wasn't into arguing after he made a case for it, because how am I to know? As much as I wanted to get up and walk out at that point, I did not because I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and the $4500 we got from the CARS deal was well worth our purchase anyway.

So he tells us we can't get that financing, and proceeds to go through all the loan crap with us, and I looked at my husband and said, why don't we just get our loan through XXX who has our mortgage and homeowners and car insurance and already has us pre-approved for an excellent car loan. Can you call them? The look on finance guy's face was a look of sheer desperation and "OMG they are about to take my only shred of hope of closing a deal for myself today" kind of look. So he explains how we will be on the phone forever, and these things take so much time and blah blah blah. How about we just go with their loan, and since its a Saturday and he can't do anything really, that if we go with XXXX's loan we just let him know ASAP on Monday. Still hesitant, I agreed. We signed the papers, and walked out.

Went home and you know all that time he said it would take us to get a loan with XXXX? Yeah, click click boom, we have a loan via the Internet, auto payment set up and it's a done mofoing deal within a matter of minutes.

But now, now that I am even madder, I am dropping it down to one star. Because you know what? Now I got a freaking letter from Capital One stating that an auto dealer tried to finance our loan and how we were denied and I'm freaking out. What is Huggins doing when we told them we didn't want their loan and this was a month and a half ago. The lady at CapOne told me it was denied because the application expired, but it was filed on Aug 1st, a Saturday. The SAME Saturday finance guy, Thomas, told us that he couldn't do anything because it was a Saturday. But apparently he did and I don't like people checking and doing things to my credit unnecessarily.

And finally... it took 3 un-returned phone calls and multiple emails just for Thomas to even tell us that he received all of our paperwork for the loan with XXXX and not them. Also, it's been over a month and a half and we still have not received our new license plates which is the dealer's responsibility. And and and... they never gave us a copy of the invoice price of the car when they said they would, not once, but TWICE. Because that's how the Costco program works. They show you everything and only charge you a small percentage over the invoice price of the car.

So in the end, you suck royally Huggins Honda and you will definitely be hearing from me via letter and I'm also going to let Costco know that you lied about being affiliated with them. And I'm also about to call and chew you out for not getting me my license plates yet.

I will never, never buy a car from you again because you are liars.

EDIT: Just called and asked about my plates.  The girl said she had them and we could come pick them up.  Um, where was the phone call telling us this?  Furthermore, I said, can't you mail them out?  She said they have a 20 mile radius policy, which thankfully, we are in.  Otherwise that poor girl would have gotten an ear full from me.

Yay! I win!

I scoured the Internets looking for the correct address for Cocoberry in Richardson and couldn't seem to find anything, the place is that new. Okay, maybe it's not that new... but since I've been to Richardson twice, and all of Kirin Court had signs up saying it's new, then it's got to be pretty dang new.

That said, my address may not be correct. It's definitely downstairs from Kirin Court though, so you will be able to find it.

On to the frozen yogurt! There's not a lot you can say about paying for frozen yogurt by the ounce (35 cents per ounce, to be exact) other than it is MAGNIFICENT! I asked for a taster, of course, and proceeded to get a little taste of every flavor they had. Even the tart was such goodness that Tricia S. had to get some. It was like sour cream, but in a really good, sweet, frozen treat kind of way. Trust me, you need to try it if you go.

I made myself a gourmet Napoleon with Extraordinary Chocolate, New York Cheesecake and Strawberry. The strawberry flavor was super fresh and delicious and only enhanced by the fresh strawberry bits I piled on at the toppings station. I also cover my fro-yo with mini M&M's and mini-chocolate chips. They did have an abundance of very fresh fruits like kiwi, mango, and lychee as well as chocolate sauce and other typical chocolate & coconut like toppings.

This place was so yummy and good, that even the hubs had to get some after he said that he didn't want any because he was full (as were the rest of us) from our UYE at Kirin Court.

This little place is clean, I believe they have Wifi, and also have a giant flat screen television if you want to just hang out and eat frozen yogurt and watch television all day. Sounds like a plan. They also make tapioca teas and coffees and other 'Asian' type desserts.

It's a must try if you are in the area. So good so good so good!

Now, usually when I go eat something buffet style, I like a lot of options.  My salad, my soups, my potatoes fifteen different ways, etc.  At North Main BBQ I found out that simplicity can be finer than any Las Vegas buffet.

They do one thing, and they do it well which equals success.  BBQ.  Brisket, ribs, shredded pork, sausage.  All of it mouthwatering delicious.  And for $12, tax and tea (sweet or unsweet) included, how can you ever go wrong?  If you're not full when you leave, it's your fault.

The staff are super friendly, funny, and told me don't worry about the horse, just worry about the wagon... or something like that because I didn't want to take too much of what was left in one of the dishes.  You take a plate full, you sit down, you eat.

As an added bonus, the decor is super 1970's and 1980's beer girl posters and the like.  Awesome.  The ice machine and most of their decor is old, but why buy new fancy stuff if it all still works?  That's just part of the ambiance.

Lip smacking good.  And the ribs really are that wonderful!  It's also BYOB and the guy working the counter prefers Shiner, if you're buying.