The Blonde Diaries

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

Do you ever have those days where you struggle with something at school or work and all the sudden your brain hurts? Metaphorically speaking that is. I think the higher temperature and my perfume is aiding the brain hurting right now as well. I just keep looking up at my dry erase calendar and am super excited about next month. I am heading first to Pittsburgh to visit my extended family and show Mike around and then I’m heading to NYC for a girls weekend with my best friend Mikki. It is a much needed mini-vacation.

I know with the stock market tanking this week and foreclosure reports up that vacations are not a luxury that everyone can afford. But a vacation doesn’t have to be super expensive. A vacation could be heading to your local downtown area and touring around or going to the next city over and staying the night over there. A vacation is what you want to make out of it with no price minimums or maximums. The Hampton Hotel chain has locations nationwide and offer cheaper room rental rates than other well known chains. Being able to stay at Hampton Hotels in the past allowed my family to make many vacations affordable so we could do other things like tour Churchill Downs in Louisville, or stop by Dollywood in Pigeon Forge.

Right now, Hampton Hotel is running a contest called the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes. Everyday, someone is winning a free weekend stay at any Hampton Hotel. All you have to do is sign up for the sweepstakes on the Hampton website. Then it could be you heading off and having a minivacation filled with fun and no stress. I know I am very much looking forward to my minivacations and hope other tired, stressed out people can do the same soon.

My Kindle order has had the same message since yesterday morning when I go to check on the order status: Shipping Soon. I am such an impatient girl and I think I’ve done really well considering that I ordered it 1 month ago. I just want my pretty eBook reader tomorrow so I can enjoy it all weekend long. I have about 15 books (free and not-so-free) already loaded up and ready for me to start on. So excitement is running high in my veins right now. I just want to have it so I’ll know it is mine and available whenever and whereever I want to have it. Is anyone else anxiously awaiting shipment too?

Today was one of those crappy days. My doctor recently put me on a new drug that is heavily advertised on tv (I didn’t request it) and let’s just say I haven’t gotten a good nights sleep yet! I’m going to give it until this weekend before I give up on it. So since I wasn’t sleeping very deeply I was up bright and early with Murphf and took him out around 6:30. I was having a burst of energy and Mike was still sleeping so I threw on workout clothes (shocker I know!) and went to the gym. I managed to get a good 45 minutes in on the treadmill before cleaning up to go to work.

That is when the day started to go downhill. Grr. I have been a happy AMEX customer since 2005. I mostly redeem my points for flights on Southwest Airlines. With an upcoming trip to Pittsburgh in my near future, I decided to go ahead and book my flights using points. And that is when I learned AMEX and Southwest are no longer point partners. Thanks for the heads up AMEX. So my options are to book travel through AMEX and use points to pay – a really high premium – or to try and figure out who has the best “rewards” program on their own webpage and transfer points. I finally settle on AirTran and transfer my points only to find out that for my travel dates it is double points. WTF?! Strike 2 AMEX, Strike 1 AirTran.

Whatever, I have enough points to cover myself for a round trip flight and one way for Mike. Luckily, Mike has enough AMEX points to cover the other one way flight. Or so we thought. He has AMEX Blue not AMEX Green Rewards. Both have rewards/points so no biggie right? Not so much. Blue points can’t be transferred to airline websites. They can only be used to book the premium travel on AMEX and there is no option on fare class. So on one set of flights I’ll be in business class and Mike will be in coach. So Strike 3 AMEX and Strike 2 AirTran. I’m not a happy camper.

I’ll be applying for the Southwest card tomorrow. It just doesn’t seem worth it to carry the AMEX card anymore.

It is no secret that I love watching Jersey Shore. It is just one huge train wreck that I can’t get enough of watching each week on MTV. I am just waiting until J-WOWW pulls a knife out on someone this season. She just looks like she could stab someone in a fight. Not exactly “classy” like Angelina but it would get the job done I think.

In any case, last night we went over to have dinner with some friends of ours to watch Jersey Shore and to allow our pets to have a play date. Wine would probably be the “classy” choice to serve with baked ziti and garlic bread but Dara and I couldn’t pass up Ron Ron Juice. We weren’t really sure what we thought about it just reading the recipe but figured we’d try it once.

The recipe we found online was:
~Vodka (cherry vodka is nice)
~Cherries
~Watermelon
~Ice
~Cranberry Juice

As you can see there were no measurements so we started out really basic. 1 part vodka to 2 parts cranberry juice. Then 1/2 cup cherries, 1 1/2 cup watermelon, 1 cup of ice and blend. Talk about a really nice and refreshing drink. The usage of watermelon over watermelon juice is that you stay hydrated thanks to the water in the watermelon. The watermelon causes a fizz and foam to form so make sure not to fill the blender too high. This was one drink the kids on Jersey Shore know how to make and I’m definitely adding it to my recipe book.

OMG! I just can’t get over how many department stores that sell designer, European shoes and get the US size conversion wrong! If you are going to sell the shoes, you would think that they could properly convert the size for their customers but apparently it must be too hard.

So I’m sure you are wondering what has started this rant. Well, I’ll tell you all about it. I ordered a pair of Ivory Marc by Marc Jacobs pumps 2 weeks ago and opened the beauties today after work and noticed that their conversion of a 6.5 US to a European size was 36.5. A 36.5 while it looks like it would be a 6.5 US is actually a size 6 US! So the shoes are too small and I have to pay return shipping to DSW to send them back. Talk about frustrating. But DSW is not the only culprit. I’ve seen this on a ton of other online websites including some of the big names – Neiman Marcus is one that comes to mind. I ended up sending an email to DSW customer service about their incorrect sizing and I am hoping that they will comp the return shipping.

If anyone needs help converting their size here are a few websites that I found with correct sizing:
International Shoe Conversion
European to USA Shoe Conversion
Zappos Measure Your Shoe Size