Some of you know that I recently started bargain shopping hard core, focusing on getting the most out of my grocery budget and my Christmas gift budget. You cannot imagine how stoked I was when I ran across this deal. I just got $75 in Restaurants.com certificates as gifts and actually MADE 40 cents in the process!

Here's how to do it:

1) sign up for a new account at Cashbaq and get the $5 signup bonus (Cashbaq is an online rebate site, like Ebates.com and MrRebates.com; I've earned $60 in rebates from these sites just for doing my normal Christmas shopping!);
2) use their link to go to Restaurants.com to earn 30% cash back on your purchase;
3) select at least $25 worth of gift certificates (you can order certificates for a specific restaurant if you know where the giftee likes to eat, but be sure to read all of the restrictions);
4) during checkout, use the coupon code SANTA to get $25 worth of certificates for $2.

If you only purchase one $25 certificate, for $2 up front you get $25 in gift certificates, a $5 sign-up bonus, and 30% cash back on your $2 (60 cents), for a net of $3.40 EARNED. I bought $75 worth of gift certificates (one for $25 to a specific restaurant and one for $50 to the site so my friend can choose which restaurants she wants to use them at) and still made 40 cents. Even if you don't want to give them as gifts, you can still take advantage of the deal: my friend Liz bought the gift certificates for her family to their favorite pizza place, so they'll be enjoying some free pizza for a while!

Hope this helps your budgets as much as it just helped mine!

This year I'm trying to not only buy gifts that friends and family actually want, but stretch my gift dollars as far as possible. To that end, I wanted to alert y'all to the following sites:

Ebates.com
MrRebates.com
BigCrumbs.com

Here's the scoop: sign up at all of these sites and take advantage of whatever the current sign up bonus is (cash back, gift cards, whatever), then when you're ready to shop online, go to each one, find the store you want to shop at, and check to see what their rebate percentage is, then click the link with the highest percentage.

For example, today I bought some maternity jeans for SIL at JCPenney.com by first going to Ebates.com and signing in, then clicking on the JCPenney.com link, then finding the jeans I wanted to purchase. I used a $50 gift card I got for signing up for health insurance at work (thanks, work!), a coupon code for free shipping I saw on Ebates.com, and ended up with 2 pairs of nice jeans for my SIL for less than $4. Add in the 4% rebate and they were less than $2, including shipping. (Don't worry, SIL already knows I'm getting these for her; I had to call and get her size.) Score!

Earlier this week I bought some clothes for the nieces & nephews at OldNavy.com going through MrRebates.com, so I got 6% back while also taking advantage of their children's clothing sale AND the 20% off Stuff 'n' Save sale if you used your Old Navy card. I ended up getting gifts for 3 kiddos for about $80 including shipping.

Oh, and I purchased a renewal sub for Stepdad's National Geographic magazine (again, not a surprise since I get it for him every year) from Magazines.com via MrRebates.com for a whopping 30% cash back!

Just thought I'd pass that along to the flist in case you're looking for ways to stretch your shopping budget, too. :)

God bless Cleolinda for taking the fall for us. Except...now I kind of want to see it.

For the first time in my life, I voted blue. My state went red, but it didn't matter. I'm crying from the significance of this moment. Congratulations President-Elect Barack Obama.

The annual SidCity.net fundraiser, benefiting The Lost Boys College Fund, begins November 5, 2008, on eBay.com. Items up for bid include a 10-minute phone call with actor Alexander Siddig, signed items from Doomsday, Syriana, 24, Star Trek and more.

SidCity.net, the official fansite for Alexander Siddig, hosts an annual fundraiser to raise money for one of Siddig’s chosen charities. The 2008 recipient is The Lost Boys College Fund, an organization that sponsors Sudanese refugees who come to the United States to attend college. The money raised from this fundraiser will make a significant impact in the lives of these refugees by helping with tuition and living expenses as they pursue a college degree.

If you don't already have an account at eBay, now is the time to sign up! Keep watching our About Me page for the items, going live November 5th!

I just watched a movie that I had to get online and post about - Penelope. It's the story of a girl cursed with a pig snout for a nose and her quest for love. I know, it doesn't sound great but it's adorable and sweet and the costumes are fantastic and the sets are stunning (think Pushing Daisies) and it stars Cristina Ricci, James MacAvoy, Reese Witherspoon, Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant. It's a new favorite. Must add it to my collection as I rebuild.

So if you don't want to spend the time wading through Breaking Dawn, may I humbly suggest cleolinda's recaps? Seriously, all of the awesome, none of the poke-my-eyes-out-with-a-spoon.

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3

Bill Self > Roy Williams

That is all. :D

Hello, flist. Long time, no see! February is always a challenging month for me, and somehow I've managed to ignore LJ for most of it. Oops. In short, during that short month, I was focused on school, work, webby-type projects, and fighting a losing battle to stay healthy (strep, tendinitis, fell and bruised my knees and hip, and now a cold). I did book airfare to Los Angeles for a quick trip towards the end of April, which I'm very much looking forward to. Also working out plans for Colorado in June for LilBro and Scarlett's wedding, San Diego/L.A. in July, and Boston in September. I think I need new luggage...

While I wait for my shows to return post-writers strike, I've been watching an Australian series, McLeod's Daughters. I'm about 1/3 of the way through season 2 now and anxiously awaiting my next two discs from Netflix. I know, in general, what happens this season, thanks to running across the general season descriptions at Amazon. Can't wait!

Man, talk about your nail-biters! I was on my feet for the last 35 seconds of the Super Bowl, waiting to see if the Giants could pull off the upset. Sure, it would've been cool for the Pats to go undefeated, but I thought it would be cooler for Eli to win the year after big brother Peyton won. What, you don't pick your teams based on similar criteria?

Just finished watching series 2 of Robin Hood

Stupid BBC. Stupid Robin Hood. Stupid Internet. Stupid downloading.

One more episode tonight and that's it.

So last week I finally got to see the last of the Vicar of Dibley specials in which ...
In conclusion, my copy of the DVD should be here from Amazon by the end of the week. :}

I didn't post anything yesterday because 1) I knew LJ would be going nuts so it wouldn't exactly be news and 2) it hit me harder than I expected. I wasn't a Heath fangirl, but I saw a lot of his movies and thought he was a talented guy. He will be missed.

Classes are starting...well, they started yesterday. So far I've printed off the syllabus and week 1 assignments for one class. Haven't actually read them, beyond knowing that assignments are due on Wednesdays, so... meh.

Came down with a cold on Tuesday. Sinus pressure is just what I needed right now. At least the neck/back/shoulder injury is still improving (almost) daily. The relapses are fewer and farther between; the chiropractor says I have tendonitis in my right shoulder which is most of what's prolonging full recovery.

Am cat-sitting/possibly adopting a new kitteh. Ex-roomie found her wandering around the apartment complex ex-roomie lives in now (in another city, where she's doing her student teaching) and couldn't find her owner. So she brought her home to me this weekend. She's a sweet kitteh, about 7 or 8 months old, yellow with white stripes, obviously an indoor cat, litter trained, clean, healthy. I'm calling her Saffron.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Here's a rundown of my Thanksgiving:

Wednesday: wake up with "crick" in neck; progressively more pain; go to chiropractor; find out I've sprained a neck muscle in large part because my muscles are tense from being stressed (no, really?); get through another hour at the office then home to sit on the couch where I must remain carefully propped and not move my head or I start crying.

Thursday: better but still on the couch; over to Mom's for about 30 minutes to eat Thanksgiving dinner; back to the couch.

Friday: feeling much better; over to Mom's to alternate between sitting on her couch watching TV (better cable) and sitting at the computer working on a final project for class.

Saturday: relapse; back on the couch full-time.

Sunday: feeling much better but have learned my lesson and stay on the couch.

Monday: back at work with ice pack and ibprofun; so far so good (it's been a whole 45 minutes).

And now I'm addicted to online Settlers of Catan. Thanks, marble.

Thank goodness that's over! Taught my mini-lesson tonight. I thought it went pretty well, but the professor blasted me on a couple of things. Granted, I goofed on one thing - I brought in an item that I thought would be easily recognized by the class, and it wasn't. If I'd had a second to think about it (as opposed to that blasted lesson plan), it would have occurred to me to choose a different item. Oh well. C'est le vie.

So that's one major project down for this semester. Now I have to turn my attention to my final projects for both classes; I'd like to have drafts of them done by November 1. Think I can stay on task for that?

Now I have a headache from worrying about this frelling lesson - seriously, the teaching itself was fun; the prep work under the eyes of a perfectionist were what I didn't like - and I'm hungry, so I'm going to go home and eat some supper and watch whatever happens to be on TV.

Hmmm....must be time for the weekly update. I'm still alive, but also still swamped. Monday and Tuesday were spent shuttling Mom to/from the dentist in W-town where she had some major surgery and taking care of her during the aftermath. She's recovering nicely; the dentist was impressed when we went for her follow-up appointment on Tuesday. Still, major ouchies. And we get to do this again in November for the final part of her surgery.

We did get some shopping done on Tuesday, though, since she wasn't sedated for a change. ;) I picked up fabric to make Gideon a quilt/blanket/thing for his birthday (November 14) and some uber-cute buttons for Zeke's quilt/blanket/thing that I'm going to make for his birthday (November 27), provided I can find the fabric I bought last year for his and Aurora's (December 27) blankets. I remember putting the fabric "away", but I cannot figure out where "away" is. Anyway, bought fabric for Gideon and a couple of other things for Christmas pressies, making a bit of a dent in my November/December gift needs.

School is going OK. Midterm grades should be out this week; I think I have an A in Methods and a B in Linguistics. This weekend I'm trying to write a lesson plan for the mini-lesson I have to teach on the 16th. The teaching part isn't as scary as it was at the beginning of the semester, but writing a lesson plan? Pain in the rear.

Work is going well; nothing terribly interesting going on there right now. I did get a new computer a couple of weeks ago which is smokin' fast, and I got to write up a P.O. for new Photoshop and Dreamweaver software. Yay for geek toys!

Rounding out the week, I watched the premiere of Pushing Daisies and LOVED it. Lee Pace is absolutely adorable; the set and costumes and dialog and supporting characters...oh, I just love the whole thing. Definitely a show to keep watching. Also caught the second episodes of Chuck, Dirty Sexy Money, and Moonlight, all of which were good. Ugly Betty - with more Justin! - was fun this week, but Grey's is right on the borderline of being relegated to tape while we watch The Office (instead of vice versa). Although, speaking of The Office, we're ready for that to go back to 30-minute eps. The hour-long format isn't working. Still, it's better than a lot of what's on TV.

Now I need to get back to work on that stupid lesson plan.