I had some great experiences shopping this year before and after the holidays. Now, I am still not sure where there is a local TJ Maxx by me. However, I did some shopping at the one in Wisconsin by my family after Christmas. It is was just liked I remembered — great items for low prices. With the economy the way it is, we all need to start shopping at places like this. You get the same quality items — just at a way better price!
Now, the one of the best shopping experiences I had this holiday season was at Marshalls. We had a holiday party to go to on December 20th. Now, I personally hate shopping in the month of December, because well, it sucks. However, my wonderful little girl outgrew her Christmas dress! It fit at Thansgiving, and it looked like she grew 2 inches from then! Instead of panicking, Madison and I headed over to Marshalls. Now, this was high holiday shopping time, and I was impressed. They had a great selection of kids clothes that were marked, so it was super easy to find what we needed. The fitting rooms were clean and large enough for me to go in the room with Madison. On the way to the fitting room, I found shoes. I was able to try on about 20 different pairs that I liked. I loved that they had the little foot stockings at the end of each aisle for you to use when you forgot to bring socks. Being the weekend before Christmas, I was seriously concerned about checkout. However, they had a great system going and every register was open. (Nothing irritates me more when you go to a store that is really busy and they only have one or two registers open, and they don’t open any more). We had a great experience on Marshalls, and I will definitely be going there for more presents and items for my kids.
Yes, I said it. We are thinking of maybe going to Disney. I am in the process of trying to talk Bill into it. They have a great deal going on, so if we don’t set this up soon, we will lose the deal. However, if you have any advice I’d love to hear it. We are leaning towards staying at Disney’s Port Orleans: French Quarter Resort. I have an 18 month old and Madison will be 5 when we go. I am trying to research everything I can like how we can avoid Plantar Fasciitis and how to save money while we are there. I already found super cheap airfare through Southwest. We also are leaning heavily towards getting the dining plan. Things we still have to figure out is how long to go for, what disney parks we should see, etc. If you have been there with small children, I would defintely love to hear from you.
Spc. Jonnie L Stiles
38 years old from Highlands Ranch, Colorado
769th Engineer Battalion, Louisiana Army National Guard
November 13, 2008
Louisiana National Guard spokesman Maj. Michael Kazmierzak said Spc. Jonnie L. Stiles had been serving as a gunner on a Humvee doing route clearance when and IED detonated near his vehicle in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He said the job typically involves checking roads for bombs and insurgents.
Stiles’ wife, Launa, said that he was nearly killed last month when a suicide bomber blew up a military vehicle in front of his. She said he was still able to rescue three other soldiers and returned to duty before his 30-day recovery period was finished.
“He was strong and really cared for his men,” she said.
Stiles was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and graduated from Littleton High School in Colorado. He served in the military for 17 years, first joining the Marines and then switching to the Army in 1999. He served three years at Fort Carson, left the Army and then returned as a member of the Colorado Air National Guard in the Summer of 2007.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
I have found my new favorite place to shop online. Why do you ask? I just found the best deal ever on a Leapster 2 by using Shop.com. Now, Leapster 2s on their own run around $79.99, so when I saw this one, I got super excited. See, this one with a game is $79.99! This gets even better too! If you look closely at the Leapster, it is Star Wars! Now, Madison is a Star Wars freak, so I can only imagine how excited she would be to see this under the Christmas tree from Santa! I am excited, and this isn’t even for me. Also, because it black, this can easily be passed down from Madison to Will. I don’t have to worry about hearing that it’s a girl color! (Yes, I am thinking that far ahead).
Now, Shop.com has over 2,000 stores, so you can definitely find something for everyone there. You can type just about anything in the search engine on there, and it’ll pull it up. You will see all the stores that carry that item plus how much each one wants for it. I also love that purchases can be made using one universal “shopping cart” to buy everything at one time or by clicking over to participating merchants’ sites. You can easily get all your Christmas shopping done at one site and know you are getting the best price! I love that this takes some of the time and stress off me. I love that I found her present, and I was just browsing through the toys! Shop.com also has expert advice, shopping tips, and articles. My only complaint is that you can’t search through the toys by age (which is important when you have an 18 month old, since he still sticks everything in his mouth).
If you want a one stop shop for your Christmas shopping this year, Shop.com should be it. See you there, because I am going to do some more shopping!
Did you November is National Novel Writing Month (hence, NaNoWrimo). NaNoWrimo is an interesting approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1 and end November 30. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word). This requires you to write a minimum of 1,667 words a day which can be very daunting. This is why using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for NaNoWrimo would take some of the pressure off. I know my sister would love to write a novel one day. It is honestly her lifelong dream. She went to college and majored in English, so she could do it. However, she is super busy (and this is before she even has kids!). When I learned about Dragon Naturally Speaking, I knew this would be a perfect fit for her. This can definitely help her blogging (of course, she is a blogger too!). However, I personally don’t think she thinks she has the time for something of this magnitude.
If you want to see how this would help you, you have to take the Dragon’s typing speed test! I tried it with Will (my 16 month old) hanging on me (so I really do type faster, but this is what my life is like normally. That is why blogging usually takes me all day. LOL Here’s my test results:
Let me tell you, I couldn’t believe how fast the speaker was compared to my typing. Granted, I could have typed faster without Will, but I still couldn’t have kept up with the speaker. There is no way. I think I know what I am buying my sister for Christmas. She has some big changes coming her way and this would allow her to both continue blogging and to write her novel.
I may not be writing a novel, but man, I can see so many uses for myself with this software. Since I have five blogs and two little kids, I could definitely get more work done with this versus me typing out my blog posts (see score up above – lol). This would make it much easier to write posts for my travel blog when we are on the road, and I could write my posts for my cooking blog while I am cooking the recipe I am going to write about. I could take the time I save and spend it with my family instead of working. It would be nice to be able to go to bed before midnight. Do you want to see how easy this is to use?
As you can see, anyone can use this software. It is that easy. Don’t believe me? Read some of these Dragon Reviews. I actually know people who have this and they absolutely love it. I am still working on getting my hands on one of these, so I can save some of my precious time.
Spc. Jonnie L Stiles
