A Gift From Italy

When Cal was in Italy wine tasting, he found a winery that he and Maggie adored.  It was smaller than the others, had great wines that were made without sugar, and had a gorgeous view.  The pictures that he sent were beautiful.  Because they loved it so much, Cal decided to ship six bottles of wine to our home as our Christmas gift.  He couldn't wait to try them with all of us over the holidays.

Over the past two months, Cal had forwarded me several emails from the winery about the shipment.  The first one confirmed my address.  The second one let me know that they were processing the order and the final one gave us the tracking information for the shipment.  When I received the last one, I was very happy to see that it would arrive this past Monday.  Staying at home worked perfectly in my schedule as I had nothing planned and could easily be there to sign for the wine.  

Unfortunately, the wine got delayed a day.  That was when I got worried.  I knew that UPS only tried three days in a row before sending the shipment back.  Since I would be gone on Wednesday and Thursday for our stay at the Riveria, I couldn't miss the Tuesday date.  Normally that would be no problem as most shipping companies provide very reliable information about the time that they will be at our home.  This was not the case with our local UPS.  I had waited for packages from them several times before to have them show up a day or two late. They also never gave a timeframe, so if it was something that I had to sign for like the wine, I had to be ready from first thing in the morning until the end of the day hoping they arrived and that I heard the doorbell.  

Since receiving the wine was very important to me, I completely cleared my schedule for the day.  I could see from the tracking number that the wine had been loaded on the truck at 5:33 a.m., so from that moment on, I waited, even cancelling on going to Bible Study.  The nice part about staying at home unexpectedly was that I got a lot done around the house.  I never strayed far from the living room so that I could see the door, but with my new Ring camera, I was positive that I wouldn't miss the driver, if he showed up.  

Doug called at 5 p.m. on his way home from work.  The wine had still not arrived.  We cancelled our plans to go out to dinner and order something for him to pick up when he got back to Ocala.  It was a good night to stay in any way since Dancing with the Stars was on this evening.  Shortly after he called, the doorbell rang.  I was super excited until I opened it and saw a man trying to sell me fiber optic cable.  I returned to my computer frustrated with the process and started working on my blog.  I had actually forgot all about the wine when the doorbell rang again.  I couldn't believe it.  The UPS man was standing at the door with a box of wine addressed to me.  Doug pulled in shortly after he left and said what I had been thinking all day.  "I never thought that it would work out."  I didn't either but was so glad that it did and couldn't wait to try the wine over the holidays.