The Blonde Diaries

Wedding Planning Update

Ok so I have since calmed down since last night as it seems like me, my fiance (how cool is that), and my mom are all on board and on the same page with what we need to be doing and when. This makes things 100 times easier than I was thinking. Even got the ok for a July wedding in Houston as long as every place had air conditioning!

So yesterday Mike and I’s tasks were to start creating our guest list wish list so that we could start seeing how large of a wedding we will have and how many invitations we will need. I started looking at my magazines a tad harder and visiting some wedding invitation websites but so far they are a tad pricy at $2.00 and up per invitation! I was hoping to save a bit of money on the invitations so I kept looking and remembered a recommendation I found on a message board for other printing needs: Vista Print. Sure enough Vista Print makes party invitations including wedding invites, save the date cards, and thank you notes. The best part is that they look professionally made at a design studio and are all $1 or less per invite. Finally, something that will help me stay within budget on this shindig. So if you are planning a wedding or any type of party try Vista Print for your printing needs. Since the prices are so low ($8 for 10 invites) I think I will create a sample and go ahead and order one to do a quality check. I’m sure I won’t be disappointed and then I can place the larger order once I know our final numbers.

Sex and the City Movie

Is anyone else excited about this movie? I have to admit I never watched the show when it was running real time on HBO but about two years ago I was over at a friend’s house and we watched a few episodes and I really enjoyed it and started watching the dvds in order starting with Season 1. I really got hooked on the story lines and the characters and was happy to hear there is a movie. I hope it closes up all of the lose ends and leaves everyone feeling happy overall with the characters and their lives but it is Hollywood so I’m not so sure that will be the case.

This morning on the radio, the talk show hosts were already saying most of the evening showings here in Houston are sold out. I wonder if that will be the case with all showings once people start finding out and if that is the case all over. Either way I guess I won’t be going this weekend. Maybe I can shoot for next weekend. Just have to find someone willing to go. Any takers?

Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft

Sadly, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States and one that more and more Americans are falling victim to everyday. I have not been a victim yet but Mike has and believe me it was not fun clearing that mess up. Luckily it was just one transaction that was caught fairly quickly but we often wonder what else could they have done before we caught it.

Fortunately for us we found Lifelock which is a company that charges $10 a month to monitor your credit, opt-out of credit card applications, and keeps your fraud alert current with all of the credit bureaus. They also offer a guarantee if we become victims of fraud that they will reasonably do whatever it takes to clear things up for us up to $1M. We are very happy we found lifelock as we have not experienced a recurrence of identity theft in over 2 years. I cannot say the same though as the credit bureaus are starting to file class action lawsuits against lifelock because they make money by selling off our credit information. Yes! Experian made $4B off of selling people’s personal information and credit score to credit card companies and other “pre-approval” agencies. Very scary!! So if you are protective of your identity and want to fight back look into service with lifelock as it is well worth it.

Yankee or Dixie?

The other day I was visiting one of my message boards and came across a post about an online quiz someone had regarding: Are you more Yankee or Dixie? Growing up entirely in the South I figured I’d be a Dixie and I have taken this before but was borderline Yankee-Dixie thanks to my grandparents. Well after living 3 years in Houston, Texas I have apparently become more Dixie than before and my previous ranking of 59% has shot up to 87%!

I think these questions are what got me:
What’s that road along an Interstate highway?
Frontage road
Service road
Access road
Feeder
RESULT: Local use in Houston and eastern Great Lakes

What’s a drive through liquor store called?
I haven’t heard of any such thing, or none of the below
Brew thru
Beverage barn
Party barn
RESULT: Largely a Texas term but also used in the urbanized Northeast. (well in Louisiana it’s a Daiquiri shop but that wasn’t a choice)

Seems like those Texans are rubbing off on me. lol

Wanna see if you are more Yankee or Dixie? Take the quiz and post your results!
http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html

It’s never too early to plan ahead!

I think I have mentioned before how much of a planner I am. I will probably start packing for our trip to Disney in July even though the trip is in September. I just always feel like I need to be doing something. Heck I have been engaged for 4 days now and I am ready to book a church and reception site next week. Most people would still be basking in the “I am engaged feeling”. Nope Mike and I are ready to plan this sucker and get it going. haha

Well today I was surfing around at work (bad I know) and I came across a Black Friday and Cyber Monday website. I found it was pretty helpful with planning your mode of attack - ie. either waking up and getting to the store by 5 am or shopping online and not fighting the crowd which is more my style. I found my new favorite online merchant on there even - Joann Fabrics - and was able to see their Black Friday/Cyber Monday ad from last year so I could get an idea of what was on sale and what was available on line. I am even more excited to see the deals they ran on scrapbook supplies - 40% off of scrapbook albums including the Disney albums they have. 40% off would save me a ton of money and would allow me to pick up a few extra to keep in my scrapbook stash. So start planning early and figure out where you can save money and what places allow you to sleep in this year!