Here's the mail it never fails it makes me wanna wag my tail, when it comes I want to wail out- MAIL!

I have been fortunate to win a few giveaways lately and have gotten some really great fun stuff from bloggers that I just had to share.

A while back, I won Seersucker Scrapper's Lilly push pin giveaway, and being the bad blogger that I am, I never got a chance to post a picture of it or thank her. They came out looking fantastic, and knowing the soft spot that I have in my heart for the Vineyard Vines whale, she was sweet enough to throw in a whale bumper sticker.

I won Loving Life's surprise giveaway and she did an all pink theme in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Everything was beautifully wrapped in gorgeous pink and white striped tissue paper, but of course, I was too excited to photograph it and immediately ripped open the packaging.


Inside was a hot pink mini market tote, a pink and white travel mug, a set of two Softlips in Coconut and Cherry flavors, and a high heel cake server. I love everything that she sent me and the cake server is something that I had actually wanted to register for, so this was perfect!

Headbands and Handbags was my partner from the beverage swap and here are pictures of the goodies that she sent me. (I was actually able to restrain myself long enough to take a picture of the wrapped gifts.)


The bottom picture is blurry, but inside was an adorable polka-dot thermos, a box of Chai tea, a bathtime teabag, and bag of hazelnut coffee that smells absolutely delicious!

I also won Preppy Straight Up's giveaway and received the following goodies in the mail.

(please excuse the messy bed- I have been sick for about two weeks now and have not been getting out of bed long enough to make it)
Sadly, my Lilly fish luggage tug has gone MIA so this will be its replacement, and I am so excited to try more British tea!

And lastly, I wanted to thank one of my favorite twitter followers who surprised me wtih the sweetest Halloween card ever (it has a trick or treating duckie on the front- my heart melted when I saw it) and a Starbucks gift card. That brought the hugest smile to my face!

where my Yankees fans at?

It seems that no matter what team you root for, the one thing that all baseball fans have in common is their hatred of the Yankees. Who hasn't heard the saying "I only root for two teams- the insert team name here, and whoever's playing against the Yankees." I have seen the Phillies receive a lot of blog love this week, but have yet to see anything for the Yankees. So Yankees fans, out yourselves and show our boys some love!

weekend recap

I am back and today I actually have time to read blogger, so I am catching up on my reader slowly and am catching up on all of your happenings.

After being sick all last week, I decided I needed some major girlfriend time. Preppy Coastee and I attended Shecky's Girls Night Out. If you've never heard of Shecky's Girls Night Out, it is a semi-annual event held in major major cities. There are tons of vendors, and more importantly, an open bar with beer and specialty drinks. (I could never say no to a pink drink.)It is always a fun time and if there is an event in your city, I highly recommend checking it out. Preppy Coastee and I had a wonderful time bonding over adult beverages, and I ended up walking away with this dress from VFish.

It's a retailer that I had not heard of prior to Shecky's, but I loved all of their dresses. I think it will look adorable with a black cami underneath it, some black patterned tights, and these Tory flats that I scooped up at the Saks sale.


Saturday, I spent most of the day veggig and relaxing, although I did crawl out of my bed long enough to go to Target where I was able to pick up life's necessities- a slinky for TLS and some argyle socks for me. Can't live without them.

Sunday, my best friend GNB and I met up for brunch at Max Brenner. Max Brenner is a bit of a tourist trap, but we love it any way. When more of the menu is chocolate rather than real food, how can you not? After lunch we went up to Saks and Sephora for some shopping and I did a very un-MRM thing- I went into Forever 21. It is a store that I have generally looked down upon to be perfectly honest, but after reading so many blogs that praised their accessory collection, I had to see for myself. I was still not impressed by any of their clothes, but the hair accessories are a whole other story. They have some great items at fabulous prices. I ended up taking this beauty home with me for only $7.80!

Hmmm, it can even work with my dress!

Since sometimes all it takes is a little thing to go right to bring a huge smile to your face- here are some little things that made me smile this weekend. I am a chronic list maker, so obviously it's in list form.
-finding THE perfect cards to send to TLS and KMH
-the street vendors are finally selling chestnuts again!
-$1 argyle socks at Target
-TLS telling me that he surprised me and got me the fuzzy bunny slippers I've been coveting for ages
-finding a Crate & Barrel gift card that I had forgotten about with $2 on it
-Once again proving my theory that you can never underestimate the power of an 11:11 wish, the Yankees won the ALCS and are going to the World Series! I will be carrying my Vineyard Vines Yankees tote all week in solidarity.

Do you Swag?

Have you heard about swagbucks? If you haven't, then you're missing out. Swagbucks is the web's digital dollar. It is a search engine that awards you points (or rather, Swagbucks) for searches. You can also earn swagbucks for trading in old cell phones and ipods. Swagbucks will also offer "Swagcodes" periodically that are good for 1-3 Swagbucks. The swagbucks that you earn can be redeemed for prizes. My personal favorite is the Amazon.com e-certificate for just 45 swagbucks! To date, TLS and I have earned over $40 in Amazon e-gift certificates thanks to Swagbucks! There are plenty of other cool prizes available as well, so if you are not a member yet, I suggest you check it out.

Finally back and favorite things

I am finally back to the world of blogging after a brief hiatus. In the true spirit of "if it's not one thing, it's the other," I got a virus last week. When my mother came home from Morocco, she was sick, and I managed to pick up what she had, so I have been out of work since Friday.

I am now commencing with this month's much-neglected Favorite Things to showcase some more products that go towards promoting breast cancer research.

First up is this adorable pink straightener from Chi. $149 at drugstore.com. I have a different model of this baby and I have to say that it is amazing and there is truly nothing like it out there. If you straighten your hair religiously, you owe it to yourself to invest in one.


From Red Envelope, a beautiful pink leather jewelry box. It is now on sale for $199.99. I love the color and everything about this including the fact that one of the drawers pulls out to convert into a travel jewelry case. I have been wanting this baby for quite some time.


A great necessity in a fun color- adorable pink eyelash curler from Sephora, $16.


From Ralph Lauren, the Pink Pony Polo, $125.


Are you a fan of the sweet stuff? Check out this cookie bouquet from Corsos Cookies, $29.95+. 20% of the sale of each bouquet will be donated to the Vera Bradley Foundation. (Thanks to my friend TLD for telling me about this one.)

More coupon codes

A. Tierney Friends and Family Sale: Take 30% off your order with code FFF09 through 10/27/09.

Sephora Friends and Family Sale: Get 20% off your purchase (online only) with code FF2009. Expires 11/02/09.

Saks Fifth Avenue Friends & Family Sale

From Thursday, October 15th through Sunday, October 18th, enter code FRIENDS2 at checkout to receive 25% off your total purchase (20% off on jewelry, and 10% off on cosmetics and fragrances). If you are an Ebates member, you get an additional 5% cash back on your purchases.

grey skies are going to clear up

TLS is getting stationed in Turkey for 2 months and is going to be there by himself for the entire holiday season. The time difference between the U.S. and Turkey is 7 hours which we're not exactly thrilled about. We had been talking about seeing each other again before he leaves but it did not seem to work out thanks to his limited amount of leave. Fortunately, I work for a company that gives me 4.5 weeks of paid vacation a year. We realized that I could leave after work, take a redeye flight, and it would be less time that TLS had to take. Our original plan was for me to fly out on a Wednesday night and stay for a long weekend, but then when we realized that a Wednesday-Wednesday flight would be cheaper, I said that I could stay until Wednesday and to minimize the time that TLS has to take, he can go to work and during the day I can just play Wii, blog, and cook dinner and use it as good practice for our life in Germany. TLS said that he would have to see if he could take leave so close to him leaving. This morning, I woke up to discover a plane ticket from the Evil Empire also known as Delta in my inbox. Between the two of us, we had enough e-credits to make the cost of the ticket cheaper than a flight within the United States! And the best part? Because I'm flying out of England on Veteran's Day and TLS doesn't have to go to work that day, that's only one day of leave that he has to take! I am so happy and excited right now. A trip is exactly what I needed after the week that I've had. November 4th cannot come quickly enough!

if it's not one thing, it is most certainly the other

Do you remember when I posted last week saying that I may be going MIA due to some unpleasantness at work? Well, Thursday while I was preparing for a meeting regarding said unpleasantness, I got a hysterical phone call from my Nana's home health aide. My Nana is 79 years old and she has Alzheimer's and Dementia. Wednesday night, she decided she wanted to make some tea and turned the stove on. Halfway through this, she forgot what she was doing, and did not actually light the stove. She went to bed with the gas from the stove running! Fortunately, a neighbor smelled the gas, called security who came upstairs to unlock her door and turn the gas off. This was something that we had been scared of would happen for a while. Clearly my Nana is not capable of living by herself and needs some serious help. My mother is out of the country, so I am stuck dealing with the situation. I took her to the ER on Thursday to see if they could admit her to the hospital to buy us some time while I can get her 24-hour help. Unfortunately, since there was nothing medically wrong with her they sent her home. My Nana has a home health aide, but her hours are limited during the week, and even more limited on weekends. I am working with her social worker to find a live in aide for her ASAP. Unfortunately, this is going to take at least a week to get someone, do a home visit to see if her house is conducive to having someone living with her, get the medical clearance, etc. Until the agency can place someone with her, I have moved in with her to keep an eye on things. This is not a wonderful arrangement for me. I love my Nana dearly and she is my only remaining grandparent, but more than half the time she does not know who I am. She has woken me up several times in the course of a night thinking that I am a random stranger who broke into her house and rob her. She also does not have cable or internet. I have been spending plenty of time at Barnes & Noble reading wedding magazines to occupy myself and have inadvertently managed to plan out TLS's and my whole wedding. (I do not want to know the cost of this wedding.) Fortunately, my Nana lives walking distance to two of my favorite places- Crumbs and Alice's Tea Cup. I am slightly embarassed to say how many cupcakes I have had within these past four days. Because I will not be going home until at least a week from today, if you have sent me anything and it goes unrecognized, please don't be alarmed. My massive meeting that I was dreading more than an anesthesia-less root canal got moved to Wednesday, and needless to say, I am so not looking forward to it.

TLS decided to partner with the Preppy Princess to send me a much-needed care package at work, and this was waiting for me when I got to work this morning:






Thank you so much to both TLS and the Preppy Princes!!!

If you can please continue to keep my family in your prayers that we are able to find my Nana the help that she needs soon and that I can go on living another week at her house without going completely insane I would greatly appreciate it.

going MIA

Sadly, due to an unfortunate situation at my job, I may be MIA from blogging for the rest of this week. I can't go into details on a public forum, but I am asking for everyone to please send me good vibes to get through this week. If you are a regular reader and would like to know more, please feel free to email me.

Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to #60 aka The Preppy Princess for winning this giveaway!!! You already have my email so just send me a message with the address you'd like it to go to and I will send it out this week. :)

Favorite Things Friday

It's October, which means one thing to MRM- Breast Cancer Awareness Month and consequently, lots of fun, pink shopping to be done. This week's favorite things post is devoted to products that give back.

From my favorite bakery, Crumbs, a special limited-edition cupcake with pink ribbon sprinkles, $4.50. $1 from the sale of each cupcake is donated to the Breast Cancer Foundation. Since it is my goal to try each flavor at Crumbs before I move, I will have to stop by there this month. Oh darn. All you non-NYC readers, don't worry. Crumbs ships within the Continental United States.


The item I have been lusting over all year- the KitchenAid stand mixer, now available in pink for their Cook for the Cure Collection. I am still flip flopping between the Pink and Empire Red models. TLS would prefer red, but how often is he really going to be using it? $299.99 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.


Also from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, another favorite item of mine, the pink Brita pitcher. Brita will donate $50,000 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation from the sale of these pitchers. I had one and sadly it met an untimely death, and have been waiting for about 5 months to replace it. $31.99.


Moving away from kitchen accessories and onto fashion ones. Most of my readers know of my love of A. Tierney's colorful bangles. Thankfully, Alyssa has jumped on the Pink bandwagon and has released several bangles to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation. My personal favorite is this one, $50.


From Bloomingdales' Pink Shop, a lovely cardigan from DKNY, $125. This would be perfect for nights out in the chilly weather. To be quite honest, I'm not sure how much from the sale of it goes to breast cancer research, but it is from the collection.


Since I can't do a favorite things post without mentioning one of my favorite stores- the Preppy Princess, here is an adorable Scout tote at a great price, $32. I love gingham and love that 30% of the sale of this tote is donated to breast cancer research as well.


That's all for this week. Stay tuned next Friday when I will be talking about more pink things. Shocking. If you have not yet entered my giveaway, you have until Sunday at midnight to do so. Hope each one of you has a fabulous weekend!