The Blonde Diaries

That is what Phil the groundhog predicted yesterday on Groundhog’s Day. It makes me sad. I am a wuss when it comes to cold weather and I am feeling like I have had enough for this year and am anxiously awaiting Spring to come. I love the tradition of the groundhog predicting whether we will have an early Spring or a long winter but I have to wonder how often he is right.

Statistics already point to the idea that he only predicts 1 early Spring per decade. So 90% of the time he is going to predict a longer winter. Depressing. I went on to look further and I found that he is only right 50% of the time. That makes sense because you only have 2 choices to make. It is either right or wrong. I’m hoping this year he is wrong. He’s very cute but I’m tired of the coldness and am ready to warm up!

Wow!  I was not expecting to start my holidays sick.  As you can see from my sporadic posting here, on Twitter, and on Facebook, I have been pretty MIA since Tuesday.  Well Tuesday is when it all started. I started having terrible hunger pains so I ate and ate.  Well that led to a stomach ache (imagine that). Next thing I knew, I was in bed reading all night because I just felt off.  Wednesday came and I went to work and quickly came home and slept all day long.  I enjoyed the rest but not the feeling.  Thursday came and I felt better, same for Friday.  Then Saturday hit and I felt like I was going to die. Headaches, stomach issues, and just pure tiredness.  So more sleeping and medicine and I’m finally starting to feel better today. I still have a headache but at least that is all that is still lingering.  I am hoping it goes away by morning so I can run my errands – I have a sunroof to fix, eyebrows to be threaded, and returns galore to make.  Wish me luck and if you don’t already, follow me on Twitter (shameless plug)!  Click the box to the left.

I have a love-hate relationship with christmas photo cards. I love to get them but I hate making and mailing my own. It just takes so long to write out personalized messages and then money to mail them. I know I am reeking of laziness in that last sentence.

This year though I am going to try to do cards. I am super excited because I made a photo reservation for Mike, myself, and Methai the Elephant over at the Houston Zoo next Saturday morning. I am not quite sure what we are going to wear but I think it is going to be a lot of fun and really unique. We should get our photos right away so I just need to figure out how to scan them into a jpg file so I can upload to a photo website and then create Christmas/Holiday cards with the photo. It will also be my first Christmas married with Mike so I’m also excited about that. I can’t wait to share the photos with all of you. Maybe they will be the Wordless Wednesday photo next week.

Why wait for Black Friday when there are Daily Deals?!  About a month ago, I discovered that there is a growing trend with retailers to offer a product or multiple products at a discount each day.  The products change each day but the deals have remained pretty good.  To top it all off most sites are offering free or really cheap shipping and no sales tax.  I find it is worth checking these sites each morning and afternoon at lunch to see if there is a bargain I can pick up now to help keep my holiday budget in check and to help me make one less trip to the mall or general merchandise store in the next month.

I’m hoping to make reporting on Daily Deals a regular thing – probably not daily but at least a few times a week when I spot something really great.  I plan to update this post again around lunch when more deals have been released. If you are looking for something in particular let me know and I’ll keep my eyes open for you.  All links open to a new window so make sure to check them out!

Geeks.com – new item added daily at 6am PST with $1.99 shipping!

Buy.com - Buy.com has daily, weekly, and weekend deals under the menu heading “deals”. They offer everything from books to electronics to jewelry. Today it is a 4GB Zune MP3 player with a free car accessory pack and free headphones for $79 with no tax and free shipping.

Newegg.com – Three pages of electronics ranging from wireless mice to 40inch HDTVs all with special “deal” prices. Today, there is a Toshiba 40″ HDTV 1080p for $610, an 8GB USB flash drive for $22, a DVD burner ready to be installed in your computer for $27, and an Acer netbook for under $400. Those are just the ones to catch my eyes immediately.

Bestbuy.com – scroll to the bottom right of the page for the Daily Deal. Today it is a LG Blue-ray DVD player (1080p) for $120. Not bad!

Target.com – enter daily deal in the search box. A new deal is offered each day at 12 midnight CST. Yesterday was the BeerTender for $65. Today is an electronic chess board that teaches you the game for $65

Walmart.com – Scroll down to the Save Big Now heading on the left menu and click on Value of the Day. Today is a prepaid phone from Virgin Wireless for $20

ebay.com - Daily Deals are released every morning at 8am PST. On Wednesdays there is a mystery deal released at 11am PST (yesterday it was the 2 disc set of Twilight on DVD for $9.99) and on Mondays every deal is under $10. Today’s sneak peak is showing a laptop. Previous items have included Garmins, dvd players, and toys. No tax and free shipping. Most items come from reputable companies or websites like Buy.com or Disneyshopping.com. Click on the Daily Deal menu option.

Amazon.com – Amazon releases 7 daily deals each day – 6am PST, 10am PST, 12pm PST, 2pm PST, 6pm PST, and 8pm PST so you just have to check back often to see what they are offering. They typically give you the category as a hint before the item is released but that is it. To find the deal click on the gold box or the link that says “Today’s Deals”

Take that tidbit of advice from someone who ventured out to the mall yesterday. The sales are better online and you don’t have to fight the crowds and stand in long checkout lines. My mom and I thought the crowds would not be all that bad around 1pm so we headed to the mall. Boy were we wrong once we got inside the mall as parking was not really a problem. Long lines everywhere we went and understaffed checkout counters met us at Banana Republic and Forever 21 (though when does the checkout ever go quickly at Forever21). The longer we stood in line the more items we put back on the shelves and thoughts of walking out crept into our minds.

We made it to a grand total of 3 stores in 2 hours and called it a day and headed for lunch. From what I could see in the other store windows, the stores seem a bit cleared out and the sales are the same as the pre-Christmas sales. I would recommend shopping online for the better sales or waiting another week after the return period and when Spring clothes start coming in as that is when the real in-store sales will begin.