November giveaway

My love affair with stuffed animals started at an early age when I got my Teddy as a gift the day I was born. From the tender age of too young to comprehend things, he became my best friend. He has been with me through two surgeries, several hospitalizations, and too many breakups to count. He never talks back, is always there to listen and give a bear hug, and is the best friend a girl could possibly ask for. I believe that you are never too old to cuddle with your teddy bear.

Since Harrods is reknown for its teddy bear collection, I knew that there was no way that I could go in there and not come out with a bear. On my first trip to England in 2000, I walked out with this one,

and in September, Harrod the teddy bear was added to my collection.


The website doesn't have an exact picture of mine, but he is a beautiful caramel color instead of the white.

Since I would like to share the love, this month's giveaway will be a stuffed animal from Harrods' collection. After spending more time than I would like to admit on the site looking at all of the bears, I could not decide on which one to use for the giveaway, so it will be a surprise. Whichever one looks at me with its big brown bear eyes and says "MRM buy me" will be the one that goes home with me.

To enter this giveaway, leave a comment telling me if you have a favorite stuffed animal that has stood the test of time for one entry. Become a follower for a second entry. For a third entry, blog about this giveaway. For a fourth entry, follow me on twitter and post about this on twitter (@whaleflipflops). You can also get one entry for every person who enters that you referred. This giveaway will run until midnight EST on Monday, November 9th. TLS will draw the winner and I will post it on Tuesday or after I get back.

Hannukah Card Fail

As many of my readers know, there are few things that I love more than sending and receiving nice hand-written cards and letters. I spend quite possibly more time and money at Papyrus and Kate's Paperie than I should and am always finding great cards to send to friends. The only area where this does not seem to apply is Hannukah cards. I have seen some gorgeous, funny, unique, nicely decorated, etc. cards for Christmas/the generic holiday season, yet I have yet to find a nice box of Hannukah cards. While there may not be anything wrong with them, they all just seem to be very generic and lacking that certain je ne sais quoi. For instance, I saw some lovely Christmas cards in Papyrus that had miniature cotton balls on them to look like giant snowflakes, yet no matter where I look, the Hannukah cards all look exactly the same- blue with a menorah on the front. These are the cards that I will be sending out this year:

Sadly, they do look much nicer and festive than they do in person.

Lots of times, I just stick with buying the generic holiday/winter cards, but there are certain people for whom I would like to send a Hannukah specific card. While I realize that Jews are in the world's minority, would it be so much to ask for a little creativity? Le sigh. Do I need to go into the Hannukah card making business?

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.)