Black Friday

Did anyone get trampled go shopping this morning?
We hosted Thanksgiving this year so I am taking today off to nurse my sinus headache.
My MIL has the children. Good thing because they were about to get on my last nerve w/ their arguing!

I have hoarded gathered a few Christmas gifts throughout the year , but my shopping is no where near done.
We are supposed to buy for the kids in the family this year but we will probably make something for the adults too. Last year the kids and I made cookies and homemade ornaments.

Bee-Mused Holiday Gift Guide

Stuck in a giving rut? Try the Bee-Mused Holiday Gift Guide!
Gifts for your favorite Twilight fan, gourmet, home accessories, apparel, and more.
Check back often for new additions!

Sponsored Tweets

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. All opinions are 100% mine.

You may have noticed the Sponsored Tweets ad on the right hand side of my blog. I am a member of this program. What is Sponsored Tweets? It is a program from the parent company IZEA that allows you to "rent" out your Twitter tweets. You set your bid price and advertisers PAY YOU to tweet about their product. Think of it like ebay for tweets.

This is an example of the form you will fill out. I would not suggest setting your bid that high!

Fill it in with your information: email, price you are setting, keywords, etc.
Keywords will help advertisers find you.

The good part about this program is that an advertiser cannot tweet what they want and say it came from you. Each tweet must be manually reviewed and approved by you before it is posted. No bait and switch tweets! Disclosure is also a must on the part of the tweeter (this means you!). Don't worry, this should be clearly marked on your tweet. Once you approve the message, it will be posted on your twitter account.

To sign up for sponsored tweets you must be a member of Twitter. Once you are signed up on Twitter you can fill out the form and join Sponsored Tweets. You will be in good company with regular tweeters and high profile celebrity tweeters such as Kim Kardashian, Bob Vila, Sister Hazel and Leann Rimes!

Dirt Devil Holiday Buying Guide

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hoover and Dirt Devil. All opinions are 100% mine.

It sounds strange, but I would love a new vac and carpet cleaner for Christmas! My robot vac was acting up so my husband "fixed it". Unfortunately it is now in small pieces in my cabinet of doom appliance graveyard. I have a regular vacuum cleaner, but it too is on it's last leg.

Dirt Devil carries everything from upright vacs to carpet cleaners *hint* *hint*. The Dirt Devil Holiday Gift Guide can help you with more than just cleaning supplies! It has categories for who you are shopping for. Gifts for her, gifts for him, family favorites, etc., but even better, it lists over 300 websites, tricks, and clever ways to shop online and is available as a free download.

I like all the Black Friday links and coupon sites listed. I use a few of the coupon sites already but there are several I didn't know about! You can save a lot with online coupon codes. I hardly ever pay full price for anything I buy online.

The guide also lists cash back sites which are sites you can shop through and earn a percentage of the money back from your purchases. When you have enough to cash out (which varies from site to site) you are rewarded with a check or paypal.

December 17 is the 2nd annual Free Shipping Day. Hundreds of websites will offer free shipping that day. There are free shipping links included in the Dirt Devil Holiday Gift Guide.
Another nice feature is the section of free gift ideas which lists coloring sites and places to find free graphics for blogs, desktops and backgrounds.

I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg. To see more go download your own Dirt Devil Holiday Gift Guide!

Who wants $5,000?

I wore glasses in 3rd grade. Very briefly. I don't know if I really needed them though. I must have wanted some because friends wore them, or more likely, wasn't paying attention in class. Whatever the reason I ended up w/ a small pair of pink rimmed glasses and my vision "corrected itself" in time.

Some people don't have as much of a choice. Several people in my family wear glasses or contacts and would probably have eye surgery if they could justify the expense. If you empathize with them then this is the contest for you!

Abbott Medical Optics Inc. wants to know how better vision could improve , or has improved, people’s lives. AMO is a global leader in laser vision correction. They recently launched an iLASIK Video Contest called “You Gotta See This” and the Grand Prize is $5,000!
People have already submitted videos showing how vision correction could help them. Some ideas are: Music videos, videos on boxing and swimming, and videos that show how their daily life could improve.

All Prizes
!$5,000 Grand Prize!

First Prize (one winner in each video category):
HDTV package — a $2,500 value

Second Prize (one winner in each video category):
The Flip UltraHD™ camcorder ($199.99 value)

iLASIK Video Contest

The Details
1. Submit A Video
Users make and submit a video in one of the following categories:
• “My contacts are getting in the way of my good time”
• “My favorite sport or activity would be so much cooler with better vision”
• “You should see life after the iLASIK® Procedure”

2. Tell Friends To Vote
Once users submit a video, their friends can vote on it. And votes are one of the key factors in determining which videos win a prize.

3. Have A Chance To Win
• One Grand Prize winner will win $5,000 selected from all submitted videos
• Three First Prize winners will win an HDTV package (a $2,500 value) one per video category
• Three Second Prize winners will win the Flip UltraHD camcorder (a $199.99 value) one per video category

Users can submit videos and view and vote on all entries at www.GottaSeeThisNow.com.

Unwanted Visitor

The stomach virus fairy has been visiting our house this week. My 9 yr old has been out all week and FINALLY went back to school! She actually went for a little while yesterday but came home early because she had stomach pain. Most of the days she just had stomach pain and a fever but Monday night until 10am Tuesday was spent vomiting almost non stop (I would have been concerned but my niece had already gone through it last weekend). I sympathized a little with her when she wailed "I haaate MEEEEEEEE!" early Tuesday morning as another bout hit.


She has already missed several days for summer vacation. Her school starts in July and our family reunion was in August. Nobody else had it as severe *knock on wood*, just tummy discomfort.

I won a $45 off $100 Old Navy coupon at Seeryrus Mama and couldn't pass up that deal. I had visions of me puking in the landscaping out front and scuttling across the parking lot to my car, hunched over like Igor, but shopping passed w/o incident. My daughter is now the proud owner of a brand new school coat (in school uniform colors of course), pajamas, 2 pairs of slippers, and more. Plus I managed to pick up an extra pair of uniform pants for my middle schooler. My youngest gets a lot of hand me downs so she was happy to have some new things just for her.

Advanced Style

This woman reminds me of my great grandmother, though she didn't look exactly like that. It may be the lipstick. My grandma often wore lipstick and penciled in her brows.
She said she felt like a bald egg without faux brows.


This fashion blog reminds me of my great grandmother and the people in her apartment building. Sometimes we would help deliver the Meals on Wheels meals to the elderly ladies and gents in the building. I met quite a few interesting characters. My grandmother would get her hair done at one lady's apartment. I can't guess how old she was. It seems to me that she was older than my grandmother but I was a teen and everyone seemed ancient.

She would put a "wave" in my grandmother's hair and chat about this and that. She believed in past lives and painted portraits of her past life lovers. That always made me giggle, this old woman and her paintings of young virile, usually famous, lovers.

ROKU Digital Video Player

We don't have cable...my poor deprived children. We do have a subscription to Netflix and also use their online service to watch movies. It is a pain on my laptop because it has screen issues. This looks like a great option. With the ROKU Digital Video Player, you can stream Netflix or Amazon Video on Demand videos directly to your tv. Over 50,000 videos are available!

Check it out!

Whose great idea was it...

Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween.
Some people just can't handle it. Like certain small people.

What do you mean I've had too much candy?

Halloween candy and numerous sleepovers just don't mix.
My children turned into hysterical sugar driven beasts.
That pic above is much too cute. It was more like this:


Much drama ensued. I had to take a little breather and drive around the neighborhood ALONE last night. Didn't have enough gas to make it to Mexico ;).

Children and goats

My children don't just get my goat. They try for the whole damned herd.