Yikes. Okay guys, so I feel a little stupid for posting now. I was so sure that I was within the 45-day limit for filing a claim. Turns out... I was just a few days short.
Without much hope, I decided to just accept the half refund as there was nothing more I could do at that point. I was rather angry with both myself and the seller, so I sent her a message letting her know I would accept the half that she refunded me. I don't know if any of this sounded rude, but I *tried* to keep my message civil and polite:
"Dear poniesandpetals,
You know what, fine. There's nothing I can do either way, as I'm sure you know that this case is past the 45 day maximum that I have to file a claim with eBay. It's unfortunate that I had a tragic death in the family in the month of December, so I was off of eBay for a long time, and the time limit quickly escaped.
I would, however, like to remind you that eBay's Buyer Protection guarantees that if a case is opened within the 45-day time limit for an item not received, eBay always sides with the buyer and grants a FULL refund. So I don't think it's right for you to believe it's not within your responsibility to pay for an item that did not reach its destination. If I had opened a case, there is no question that I would have received all of my money back. It's just the unfortunate truth of online auctions, regardless if it was your fault or not.
Now, I am still in the time limit to leave feedback. If I were a vengeful person, there's no doubt in my mind that I'd leave you negative feedback. Especially since your messages quickly went from, "I'll have to do what you want because of feedback," to, "Here is more than half of your money back, this is more than I owe." However, I've made the decision to just not leave any feedback at all. Last fall, I spent literally hundreds of dollars buying ponies from you (I possibly even spent more than $1000, I'm afraid to go look.) As such, you were always courteous and kind and my items were always shipped out promptly. Despite all of this and the partial refund I was given, I feel like I was treated negatively. I am not going to hold any hostility towards you because I intend on buying more ponies from you as time goes on. Your ponies are generally as described and arrive packaged safely. I hope this doesn't happen again, and I also hope we can continue on with business despite all of this. I'd just like to let you know that this left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Thanks for your time."
Anyway, there is light at the end of this tunnel.
I got a response today, followed by a message from PayPal.
This is what it said: "If you would check your paypal you will see that I did refund more than half of your money. I am not going to read all of this condeming me anymore"
She refunded me the rest of my money! I had just about given up on this transaction and wanted to just put my last two cents in. I guess she just decided to give me a full refund to get me to shut up? I don't know if I'm happy with how this ended, considering her message was still quite bitter towards me (which I wanted to avoid), but I am satisfied now that I got my money back. Lesson learned.