Steal of a Deal

Fresno Groupon has a great deal today!

$40 for $100 worth of Clothing and Accessories from Shabby Apple!

I love Shabby Apple. It's a bit over my budget right now though, so this groupon is perfect!

You can buy 2 of these so you pay $80 and get $200 SA buckaroos! Sweet! PLUS they are having a 20% off sale right now. Not sure if that will work with this deal yet.

To get yours click here

Happy Shopping!

Life is Rough

Dear KION,

I really wish I could have said yes to your offer. You made the decision tough. But ultimately I had to go with my gut. My heart is in PDX. I can't leave this place just yet. I already left it back in 2004 and it was rough then. I didn't want to have to go through another heartbreak. I hope you'll understand. I am so lucky to have been your top choice. Good luck.

Sincerely,

Just another college grad who decided her major isn't really what she wants to do anymore.

Do It Yourself

This is going to be my next project! I stocked up on pocket v necks a few weeks ago for easy summer wear. And now all I need are a few fun skirts to go with them. I have been shopping around for some, but with my non existent funds, it's hard to feel good about buying any of them. So I am going to try this out! I'm off to the fabric store!

For a tutorial, go here.

Oh What Do You Do In The Summertime?

Yesterday in a phone interview for a job I was asked what I do when I'm not working. I'm pretty sure my future employer is not the only one who would like to know. I am frequently asked that question by friends and family. I'm done with school and have no job. What do I do everyday?!?!

1. Traveling. I have all this free time, so I am taking advantage of it. I have gone on a lot of fun trips in the past couple of months. From last minute trips to Utah and California to long awaited trips to Spain and Hawaii. I love to travel! There's nothing better than packing up and leaving for a few days. As long as I don't have a job, I will keep filling my time with fun (yet cheap) trips!

2. Running. Well at least that's what I used to do apparently. With all the above traveling, it is hard to stay on a steady running schedule. I am supposed to be training for a half marathon coming up in a few weeks. But can't seem to get back into my long-run groove. I wouldn't say that I love running yet, but I do love the escape. Hopefully Portland is done with it's monsoon rains so I can get back onto a good schedule.

3. Reading. School killed my love for reading. Textbook after textbook of boring material from boring GE classes made me never want to pick up a book again. But while in Hawaii, my friends and I had a little book club. We'd thought it would be fun to all read the same book and discuss. I wasn't too thrilled with the book choice so I skipped reading for the first few days. But as soon as I was forced, I was hooked. Now I find myself going to the library once a week to return a handful of books for a new handful of books. I love my new library card! Right now I am really into Jodi Picoult books thanks to Lindsay. I love her style of writing!

4. Baseball. It's baseball season. I have nothing to do. So now I can concentrate on it 24/7. I am able to catch a lot of the rare Cardinals games on TV out here. And I have been able to catch 2 A's games in Oakland already. In a few weeks I'll be going to St. Louis to catch a few Cardinals games at Busch Stadium. I. Can't. Wait.

5. Baking. I'm still making lots and lots of cupcakes. My grandma usually calls me about once a week to make an "order." So that gives me the opportunity to make a new kind or test my new decorating skills. I have been given a few fun decorating books recently so I have lots of ideas to try. I usually try and find something that will go along with my Sunbeam lesson every Sunday. Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes I have to really stretch to justify taking cupcakes to them all the time. I just got a few new accessories for my KitchenAid and can't wait to break them in. When I was in San Francisco last week I found myself spending a long time in Sur La Table. I don't know why, since we have one here. But I wanted to get everything in their baking section!

6. I'd never thought I'd say this but the Singles Ward. I thought I would just stick with the home ward and I would be good. But a few months ago I decided to try out the Canyon Road ward and had success. Love the people there. Lots of fun activities. We had an Amazing Race through Portland last week. Guess who's group won? That's right, mine! I've got the blisters to prove it. (I wore new shoes... and we literally ran from point to point) Yesterday we worked on floats for the Rose Parade. I got to cover a Native American's shoe with Walnuts. Now I must go to the parade to see the fruits of my labor. I am enjoying the singles ward and I'll take back almost every negative thing I've said about it in the past. The saying is true, don't knock it till you try it.

7. If I had a pool, that would cover #1-6. That's all I would do. Brings me back to my days at King Henry. When all we cared about was going to the pool and happy hour at Sonic.

Why Do They Hate Your Bags?

Read this:

http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/05/13/aol-mystery-flyer-southwest-airlines-report-card/

I travel a lot. I love going places. And my preferred way to get there is and has always been Southwest Airlines. Actually, when I was really young I did like TWA. But they're not around anymore and I probably only liked them because that's really all I ever knew.

I had an experience while traveling on Southwest Airlines that I will never forget. I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was traveling with at least 2 of my older brothers to go visit my dad in St. Louis. Being the youngest and a sister I was teased all the time. And this didn't stop in the air either. So after awhile one of the flight attendants noticed me traveling with my brothers and asked me to come to the front of the plane with him. His name was Buddy. He was really nice. I am not good with names at all. So remembering his name tells you how great this experience was. He had me sit down on the flight attendant's seat and he began fixing a bowl of ice cream for me! It even had chocolate syrup on it. Not only did he give me ice cream, but I am pretty sure one of my brother's came up to the front with me. So he had to sit there while I enjoyed a treat. :) I have always been a little uneasy about flying. It used to be 8 times out of 10 I would get queasy during the flight. So I would dread flying. (Now it has gotten a lot better) I swear for the next year after this experience I looked forward to flying! And I always looked for Buddy after that. Still do.

What company hires genuine, nice people like Buddy? I am convinced Southwest Airlines does not hire anyone that has ever been in a bad mood. Because it's rare to find an employee that isn't smiling, helpful and genuinely interested in making your flying experience magical! As I sit down in my seat on a flight I look forward to seeing what fun things are in store. Have you met a Southwest flight attendant that does not sing and dance? And who doesn't love their bags fly free commercials right now?

Why do they hate your bags?

As I read this article, I kept getting goosebumps thinking that I may have a chance to work for this company. May 27th can't come soon enough.

Don't Leave Without Me

Do you ever find yourselves making the best purchases on items that caught your eye on your way out of the store? It's almost as if they are calling after you to say, "Wait, don't leave without me!"

I went to Nordstrom Rack today to do a return. I told myself I would only return, not buy today. But as I was walking out of the store I passed through the home accessories and saw this:

$22 is a little steep for me right now, so I almost walked away from it. Then I remembered I had american Express gift cards from graduation and my birthday still. Oddly enough while running my errands today I thought about what I would use them for. I had to stop and get a bunch of essentials at Target and thought of using one then. But I thought that was way lame to use a gift card for boring stuff. But I still hadn't decided what items I would allow myself to purchase with these cards. As I was walking away from this stand it hit me that this would be the perfect way to spend one! Because I would have loved to get this for my birthday! So thank you to my mom or grandma or the others that gave me an Amex/Visa card. Whoever wants to claim this gift to me, THANK YOU!

I already have visions of cupcakes and cookies to place on this all the time. I am just going to leave it out on my counter in my kitchen and always have it filled for visitors ;)

p.s. This Rack only had one available. If anyone sees one in another rack let me know. I kinda want two for entertaining purposes maybe? Online they are $35, but at the Rack they are only $22. What a steal.

Also I went online to look up more stuff from this company. I want all three of these! But mostly the cake stand. Or mostly all of them.

{photos courtesy of Rosanna}

Catastrophic Failure

I am a big fan of Gmail. I love discovering new and exciting (to me) things about it. When I realized you could actually move emails into a folder instead of just labeling them. Loved that. Love the color-coding. It helps a lot in folders with too many emails. I love the chat function. It is the simplest way to video chat with someone. Today I found something new with Gmail that will really save my life...

A common mistake I make while sending emails is I forget to add the attachment. I have done it multiple these past few months when I have sent my resume to an employer. I tell them in the email my resume is attached and then once I hit send I realize I forgot to attach it. Then I contemplate which would be worse: sending the email again with the attachment and an apology, or just forgetting about that job because they probably think I am incompetent now anyway.

Well just a few minutes ago I almost made the mistake again, expect when I clicked to send I got a popup (like the ones that say you are sending an email without a subject line...) that said, did you forget the attachment?

Genius!

Then while checking my local library for some good books I came across this funny page.

I was trying to put a hold on a book and something went wrong. But instead of it just being a failure and telling me to try again, it was a "catastrophic failure" sounds scary. I x'd out of the page immediately before my computer blew up. (after stopping to press function F8 to take a screen shot first, of course) I am excited to encounter another problem on that website to see the different levels of failures. Unless they just consider everything that goes wrong to be catastrophic.

I love the laughs technology brings me on a daily basis. It's the simple things in life...