Hopping Around My New Store

 Tell Us Something Good

I'm  linking up with some great hops, including Tell Us Something Good Thursday where you share what's making you happy right now. And what's making me happy today is that I just launched a store front on Facebook using Payvment. Payvment is a free app that let's you have your own store front with shopping cart and everything right on your Facebook page.

I'm excited because this is the first step in my dream of owning my own Rockin' Edgy Boutique. I'm just starting so, there are only a few purses in there, but I'll soon have a whole selection of wicked lovely things. I'd love if you'd check it out here

So, in between finishing up end of year stuff at work and trying to get more items in the store, I'll be playing in the Thursday hops. Won't you come out and play?! ♪Hey ey come out and play♪ (The Offspring)

Twitter Friend Thursday


giveaways
 

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The Two Savvy Sisters

Falling Skies Trailer

I'm excited to share with you the new trailer for Falling Skies the exciting new series from TNT, produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Noah Wylie. The show starts in June 2011 and looks to be full of edge of your seat thrills, and plenty of views of the hot leading man. Yum! The timing of the start of the show should be perfect to fill the void left behind by other shows being in reruns at that time. This one definitely looks like it will be worth watching, and I can't wait to hear the music score!

The official description below was provided by TNT. Enjoy!


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FALLING SKIES opens in the chaotic aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign called 2nd Mass against the occupying alien force.


To keep up with the 2nd Mass, visit 2ndMass.com
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Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post. The information is provided for the benefit of my readers and the opinions are my own.

Tuesdays Gone A Blog Hop

Wow! Can you believe Christmas has come and gone?! It seems like so much planning goes into it, and then it's gone in a flash! Did you get everything you wanted? did you eat your fill? If you're like my household, and you got plenty of gift cards, you should check out Swagg, the mobile app that helps you organize all those cards (including your loyalty cards,) on your phone.

With the New Year starting, I thought it would be cool to reflect on where I was last year. I'm linking up with my first post of 2010. What old post will you link up with?

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So, here's the rules:
Just link up an old post, and help spread the word, so more people will link up. Then come back, every Tuesday, and do it again! Happy Hopping!


The Best Gift Ever


SWAGG is a free mobile app (download here) that lets you shop smarter using your mobile phone. Buy, send or swap SWAGG GIFTS and organize your old school plastic gift cards.
For every download of the app between now and Dec. 31, 2010, SWAGG will donate $1 to Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) , up to $125,000.
Clever Girls Collective and SWAGG are sending a pair of movie fans to the Sundance Film Festival! Download the SWAGG app and then visit the Ultimate SWAGG Getaway Sweepstakes site to enter to win a trip for two to the Sundance Film Festival. Entry deadline is January 3, 2011, 11:59pm, PST.


I love shopping. There is just something exciting about finding that perfect item at the perfect price. I especially love shopping for gifts. Well, that is I love shopping for gifts when I haven't put it off to the last minute which, unfortunately happens more often than not. Then, rather than moving in stealth mode quietly stalking my prey, I’m more like a herd of rhinos in a stampede racing to be the first one in the pack to trample it’s prey. It’s not a pretty site!

I have been able to catch some pretty cool deals and have given some really awesome gifts. Like the year I got my mother a mother’s ring. She had gone on and on about how she had bought her mother a ring at 17, so I figured I’d finally give in and get one. With panther like moves, I was on the hunt. I planned it out for months and finally found the perfect one. When mom opened it, she declared it to be the best gift ever.

Then I noticed that she never wears it, so I asked her why. She says doesn’t wear it because she’s afraid she’ll lose it. Yup, that’s how awesome that gift was! She had to have it, but she won’t wear it! So what’s the point?!

Yeah, it’s the thought that counts in gift giving, but I want it to be something useful. What good is a ring, if it’s never, and I mean never, worn?! From now on, I’m giving gift cards because gift cards really are the best gift ever! 

Just ask my kids; this year they got cameras and Ipods, and clothes, and what were they most excited about?! Yup the gift cards! I can't blame them really, because they, too, want the thrill of the hunt for that perfect gift.

Now with the SWAGG App on my phone I can easily buy and send gift cards and cut down on all the last minute hysteria of finding a gift. I can organize all the gift cards I received. And, because I downloaded SWAGG prior to 12/31, their going to give $1 to SU2C, and let's face it, when it come down to it, the gift of life really is the best gift ever!


Learn more about the coolest new app that revolutionizes the whole shopping, gifting, and gift card-organizing experience and Download the SWAGG app to your iPhone or Droid. I was selected for this sponsorship by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity.

It's Over, When Will Your Tree Come Down?

Can you believe all the craziness of the Christmas season is behind us?! All the shopping, and planning and baking and decorating; it's all done. 

Except, now you have to undecorate! Ugh! Packing, cleaning up! I don't look forward to it at all! I won't take anything down until after the New Year, because my mother always told me it was bad luck, and I certainly don't want to start the year off with bad luck! Plus, being the procrastinator that I am, it gives me good  reason to put it off.  that's the way uh huh uh huh I like it

So, what will you do? will you take your decorations down right away, or leave them up until the new year?


On the Naughty List

This is my all time favorite holiday pic. I told the girls to make a mad face, and #1 did a good job, (although you can see her little smirk peaking through, ) but #2's mad face, looks the same as her fish face! Now, of course, 13 years later, it's all I can do to get them to not look mad in pictures!


I'm getting nothing for Christmas. Mommy and Daddy are mad. I'm getting nothing for Christmas, cause aint been nothing but bad






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Tuesdays Gone A Blog Hop

Yuletide Greetings on the Winter Solstice! Can you believe we only have a few days left of singing Christmas songs until next year?! Well, you know you can sing them all year, but people may look at you strange. :)

Before you link up with one of your great old posts, enjoy one of my favorite holiday songs from your favorite little chubby kid. Enjoy!





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So, here's the rules:
Just link up an old post, and help spread the word, so more people will link up. Then come back, every Tuesday, and do it again! Happy Hopping!
















Manic Monday Minute

♪Just another manic Monday♪  (Bangles)


Seriously, I am so off this morning! The day is flying by and I can't catch up with it. Now, normally I wouldn't complain about a Monday moving right along, but I actually have way too much to do, and I can't get my desk up to 88MPH to break through the space time continuum, so, looks like I'm pretty screwed.
♪I got to get back in time♪(Huey Lewis)

Usually I link up with Cristy at Happily a Law Mama for Monday Minute first thing in the morning, but when I had a minute to do it this morning, she didn't have questions up because someone else is hosting. This would have been fine except, she didn't have a link to him this morning, and when I wandered around asking if anybody knew the "Powdered Toast Man," they asked "does he live on Drury Lane?"  To which I promptly responded "No, you idiot, that's the muffin man." Geesh, some people!

So, I didn't post a Monday Minute this morning, but now, Cristy woke up from her long winter nap,  and now she has a link to this mysterious Powdered Toast Man, so I checked him out, (his blog, that is, not him, I'm sure he's great, but it's his blog I'm interested in, so don't go sicking the marriage police on me.) And, she's right, he's pretty dang funny!

So without further ado, the Monday Minute (feel free to jump and cheer.)

1) If you could invent a new animal, what two animals would you combine to create a new one? And what would be it's name? what?! who has time to think of this kind of stuff?!


2) What is your least favorite sexual position? the one where I'm not getting any. For real? it's sex don't analyze, just enjoy it.

3) If you could ask Abraham Lincoln one question, what would it be? When did you first decide to become a vampire hunter?

4) Would you rather be allergic to bacon or not be able to bathe for 6 months? You do realize that Bear doesn't let me in bed with him if I haven't showered, right?! so, imagine 6 months without bathing! He'd have me sleeping in the car! and that would mean...well, you did read answer #2, right?! Yeah, love me some bacon, but...Move Over Bacon now there's something meatier!

5) Which would you rather have as a pet; penguin or giraffe? and why? A giraffe! I could use it for transportation, it could clean my gutters, trim my trees, etc... what the hell could a Penguin do?! Just run my electric bill up to keep the house cold!  ♪What's cooler than being cool? Ice Cold! ♪(Outkast)



What do you mean I only have a Week Left?!

Wow! Can you believe there is only a week left to shop for Christmas?! Bear and I will be getting up early tomorrow to head to the mall. He told me I have him for one day only. I have to feed him breakfast and lunch and he must be home by dinner. That's the rules! I'm a slow shopper. I enjoy just looking around. He's a get what you want and get out kind of shopper. So, we'll see how it goes.

I'm sure if I let him out of my site tomorrow he'll be like Clark Griswold cozying up to some young sales girl talking about how nipply it is, so I better keep my eye on him.  Lol!  Hip hip hooray for Christmas Vacation

I think every year at the start of the holiday season I say how I'm going to do better this year. I'm going to actually send out cards get my cards out early. I'm going to get all my shopping done so there's no last minute worries, (yeah, I'll still be shopping on Christmas Eve.) I'll make sure the house is perfect for the whole month, (who am I kidding?! with 2 kids, 2 dogs and a cat, my house is a disaster!)

It's National Free shipping day, so I'm off to try to squeeze in some online shopping while pretending to work. It's an art form, and I'm a professional, so don't try this at home. :)

Happy shopping! Have a great Friday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go

Mommy's Idea

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Winners!

I'm excited to announce the winners of my 2 latest giveaways. Thanks to all those that entered. Special thanks go to 1-800-Baskets.com and Cheryl's Cookies for providing these giveaways.

I'm sure the winners are doing their happy dance!

The winners are:


ranya112 has won the holiday basket

ruslady  has won the cookie sampler

The winners have been e-mailed and they have 48 hours to respond to accept their prize.

A Jar of Pickles, For Christmas?!

My father thinks he's funny. He is easily amused by his own twisted sense of humor, and yes, at times, so are others around him, but mostly, he's just laughing on his own.

I wasn't raised by my father. He had the luxury of only seeing me a couple times of year. Because of this, he never had to discipline me, and that made him the coolest Dad ever! Well, right up until I was 17 and he did this: just 17, and you know what I mean

Dad had just moved to Florida and was now about a 2 hour drive from me. I was spending my first Christmas with him at his new home. Spending his first Christmas with me was Bear, my then, boyfriend. (and after this little family display, I'm lucky he stuck around)

Dad, with his twisted sense of humor, and step mom, who always goes right along gave me these 3 presents:

A giant jar of pickles. Why?! I have no idea. Must have been a great idea to them, but I just didn't get it. I don't even like pickles that much! "Seriously, you got me pickles?!" I laugh nervously and go along with it. Thinking "Oh my God, my boyfriend is here, how embarrassing!"

Then I move on to the next gift, figuring the gag gift is out of the way, so this next one has to be good.

A case of beef Stew. Beef Stew?! I play this one off as okay because I really like beef stew. "Cool, thanks."

For sure, the next one will be really nice. I grab the next gift and start to tear into it. I feel the wave of terror rise from my feet up to my now very red face as I realize what I'm about to open in front of my BOYFRIEND! How could they do this to me?! I know they didn't have to live with me, but doesn't everybody know that no teen girl wants her boyfriend to see her:

TAMPONS!

Yes, you heard me right; my Dad had just given me tampons! And not just a small box of tampons, oh, no, he gave me a super jumbo elephant in the room box of tampons! My Dad was laughing hysterically, and all I wanted to do was run and hide. My life was over! I just knew Bear would leave me and tell the whole world about my crazy family! it's the end of the world as we know it (REM)

 That's when Dad announces that my real gift is inside the tampon box. I had to pull all the dang things out to find that he had wrapped money around the tampons!

Money! Woohoo! I love money!  Thanks Dad, but next time...seriously...please just put it in an envelope!


Today's prompt at Mama Kat's was: A Christmas Gift that was not well received.
Mama's Losin' It

Tuesdays Gone, a Blog Hop #8

It's Tuesday, so pull out those great old posts, and let's get 'em dancing around and breathing again!

But first, make sure you enter my giveaways: Cheryl's Cookies ends today 12/14 and that great gift basket from 1-800-Baskets will be given away tomorrow 12/15.




So, here's the rules:
Just link up an old post, and help spread the word, so more people will link up. Then come back, every Tuesday, and do it again! 


This time last year, I was heading to New Orleans for the weekend, and the saints hadn't won a Super Bowl, yet.  My Tuesdays Gone link up is a post about that weekend from last year. Enjoy and happy hopping!












Tuesday Blog Hops

Hey, this place is really hopping!!

Everybody hop, oh baby (Danny and the Juniors)








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Monday Minute

Before we get into Monday Minute:
Tomorrow is the last day to enter to win Cheryl's cookies. Make sure your entry is in!




1) Who is your favorite actor? I can't possibly pick just 1!  Jason Statham is really nice to look at, has a beautiful accent and makes great action movies. The other is a really good actor, has a great sense of humor, and, he also happens to be really nice to look at: Robert Downey Jr.  Look at 'em! Don't ask me to choose between the two. I just can't do it!


(2) Do you collect anything? Bills, I collect bills. They come in the mail and I shove them in a drawer. I have quite an impressive collection. Can you pay my telephone bills, can you pay my automo'bills (Destiny's Child)

(3) What's the biggest turn off in someone of the opposite sex? No sense of humor! You have to be able to laugh at yourself and the world around you.

(4) If you HAD to change your first name, what would you change it to and why? Hmmm, I think I already did. :)

(5) What virtue is better: forgiveness or justice? Forgiveness. Everyone deserves a second chance. Never free, never me, so I dub thee unforgiven (Metallica)

FREE Friday Fragments

Mommy's Idea

Yippee!! It's Friday! I'm totally doing my Friday dance right now!  I got Friday on my mind (whatever)

If you haven't entered my giveaways for Cheryl's Cookies or 1-800-Baskets, What are you waiting for?! You could win something for FREE!

I was lucky this week and won an Epson Stylus wireless printer. WIRELESS! That means no more "Mom, hurry up, I need to print my project. whine whine." Now, we'll be able to print from any laptop in the house! Woohoo! Can't wait til it gets here! Thanks, Bragging Mommy    my printer in the middle of my house (to the tune of my house in the middle of the street by Talking Heads) Silly, I know, what can I say? that's my radio brain :)

Tonight, hubby and I are going out the Historic Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City courtesy of his employer. If you visit Tampa, the Columbia is a must do restaurant for authentic latin food. I will be eating their amazingly delicious cuban roast pork with yellow rice. Yum! And, what makes it even better is it's FREEEEEE tonight!!

Speaking of free, does anyone know where I can win free dental work?! I broke a tooth yesterday. Totally sucks! Between food and dental work, I pour more money in my mouth...  So, if you're a company looking for the ultimate sweepstakes; offer a FREE total mouth makeover! I'd enter 10 times daily! Gotta be gotta be free (Diana Ross)

#1 is taking the ACT tomorrow morning. She gets severe test anxiety, but hopefully the ACT will be better than the SAT for her. This is her last attempt to increase her Bright Futures Scholarship from the State of Florida. So keep your fingers crossed for her that she'll get more FREE money.

#2 has been at sectionals for Drama yesterday and today. Fingers crossed for them that they'll get an award and move on to States. Oh, and she got a FREE bracelet for participating. (sticking with the theme here)

And one final mention of FREE: Please someone FREE me from the insanity!
Freedom, you got to give for what you take (George Michael)

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Smart and Trendy Moms

K is for Kim, It's Simple

I have a friend, Kimberly. Years ago, we talked a lot, but then life took over, and we only pass each other in the hall at work with a quick wave and a smile.

Kim is the frugal girl I wish I could be. She uses a spreadsheet to budget her money. She uses coupons religiously, and doesn't worry about the latest fashion unless she can get it for free. She "gasp!" only has a couple pairs of shoes! Which I think is absolutely insane, but, whatever, it works for her. She lives a simple life. (okay, simple in terms of money, she has 2 boys and a job outside the home, so there is nothing simple about managing that insanity!)

So yesterday, in passing, Kim randomly asked me if I use coupons, and of course, I tell her "I do!" She then tells me she's blogging now and doing coupon classes.

"OMG!" I say when realizing that this is someone in real life that blogs. Someone that won't look at me like I have 5 heads and a horn when I say "I blog." If you blog, you know the look; the one where you're waiting any minute for someone in white jackets to come around the corner to take you away! they're coming to take me away haha

Kim just started her blog about 2 months ago. Kim is awesome at saving, (not like the kind of saving I do where I save on one thing with a deal so that I have more to buy something else.) She is awesome at the real kind of saving.


So we talked for a few minutes about blogging, and Facebook, and then I asked about Twitter. *screeching brakes* "Kim, you're not on Twitter?!" "Well, we'll just have to change that!"

So, today I'll be teaching Kim to tweet so she can really get to know all of you fabulous tweeters and you can get to know this fabulously simple frugal girl:  Kimberly!  Maybe you can stop by and give her some comment love and welcome her to the blogosphere. I bet you'll find something to make your life a little more simple.  Life should be that simple, I wish it were that simple (Katy Perry)

This post was brought to you by the word "simple" and the letter "K"
Mama's Losin' ItJenny Matlock