Black Friday ready

Can you believe that the holidays are upon us??! Thanksgiving is just eight days away, which make Black Friday just nine days away!!! Of course, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving food and whatnot, but I'm WAY more excited about Black Friday!! 

However, I'm not one of those insane people that stand outside of electronic stores at midnight in the cold or hit the malls before the crack of dawn. I tried that once or twice and it just wasn't my thing. (I give major props to those who do this religiously each year). It didn't seem worth it for me to wake up so early, fight the crowds, the lines, and fight the traffic getting out of the mall just for those deals. The year I actually went to the mall at 5AM, the deals were ok, and I ended up purchasing a few items, but it wasn't something to-die-for. 

I've gotten smarter since... Now I just do Black Friday shopping online or shop during Cyber Monday. I've learned that most retailers will offer a lot of the same discounts online as well. Sure, the selection may not be as great as actually hitting the stores, but it's beats waking up early and dealing with the crowds. Also, a lot of the retailers are offering free shipping as they are competing for your money. Hmmm... Waking up early to fight crowds to buy merchandise or have the merchandise be delivered to your doorstep free. I choose the latter.

This year, I've already did my homework thanks to online sites such as http://bfads.net/ and http://www.2011blackfridayads.com/ that post retailers' Black Friday ads and promos. I've pinpointed what stores and products I'll be purchasing online. Now, all there is to do is wait to eat turkey and spend money. :) 

Randomness: Post Its

Have you ever wondered why Post Its are so damn expensive?!! The random thought popped into my head recently as I had to reorder supplies for the company. If you think about it, Post Its are just colored pieces of paper with sticky adhesive, cut into different shapes and sizes. However, those things can get ridiculously expensive. A stack of them is more than a ream of paper!! (Darn 3M making lots of dough off of these things!)


Also, have you ever noticed the variety that these things come in?!! I feel like it sure is a lot of choices for a piece of paper you write notes on, then later might toss away. I walk into Office Max and there is a whole shelf dedicated to just Post It Notes.


There is so much variety....


Different sizes: 1.5x2, 3x3, 8x6, etc
Different types: lined, unlined, pop-up notes, post-it flags
Different shapes: your typical square and rectangle, to round, star, heart-shaped
Tons of colors: canary yellow, electric glow colors, tropical breeze colors, pastels, jewel pop colors, etc


When my coworkers ask me to buy "Post Its", they have to be very specific because some people are very particular with their Post Its only wanting a certain size, colors, etc.

Sewing away....

So, the recent lack of blog activity has been due somewhat to laziness and the rest because of trying to put together a costume last minute for Halloween. I thought what I was going to dress up as a while ago, but like always, I procrastinate. My friend was going as Snow White, so I had decided I'd go as the Evil Queen from Snow White to match her. I actually started looking for the costume three weeks prior to Halloween, but had no luck at Party City, Price Busters, Savers, or Walmart. I later decided that the picture of the costume I saw online was easy enough for me to make and I had ample time to do so. 


Materials:  Went and purchased the basics for the costume and accessories
-Black tank top
-Petticoat (couldn't find purple, so had to settle for black)
-Purple ribbon
-Grommets
-Purple fabric 


Then, during the week of Halloween, I finally worked on putting everything together. 


Process:  
-Put grommets on the black tank top and looped the purple ribbon through
-Sewed on ruffles on the sleeve using organza
-Attached a layer of purple tulle to the petticoat
-Sewed a collar using boning and bonding fabric to make it stiff. 
-Made a small crown using card stock, acryllic paint, glue, jewels, and lots of gold glitter. (Was originally thinking of using the Burger King crown, but didn't feel like it matched the outfit)


I was pretty satisfied of the end result with my last minute sewing... 

 Lessons learned:
-Grommets do not stay well on stretchy knit cotton.
-Organza and stretchy knit cotton do not make a good combination
-I haven't totally forgotten all my sewing techniques.

Work - You're like a lingering bad cough

Dear Work,


I don't hate you, but I don't love you either. I'm pretty indifferent about you, but I feel like I can only handle so much of work or work-related stuff. However, you have been following me everywhere I go lately.


Luckily, I am no longer working the crazy 50-55 hours work weeks anymore with you. Since my coworker has come back from maternity leave, things have calmed down a bit. I've made a goal recently to leave you on time. 5:30PM on and weekends should be MY time, not yours. 


When I am away from you though, you somehow constantly find a way to remind me of you:
-I am home watching TV while I workout and see your gold commercial. 
-As I am flipping through a magazine, I land on a spread that has your vendor's advertisement.
-When I am doing errands on the weekend, I hear our radio ad in the car from least three times on different stations. 


The worst though, was that you ask someone to call me during the weekend to go into work because the sales floor is busy. Work, give me a break. Are you kidding me that you want me to go in on my time, not get any additional pay, and just take some comp time off later?! (Which sucker fell for that one?)


I just want to do my work and go home on time. Please stop haunting me like that. I want my non-work hours to be my time. I don't appreciate me being constantly reminded of you. Thank you.


Sincerely, 
-AW 

McDonald's Monopoly

I'm usually not one that cares too much about eating fast food. I don't dislike it, but just that I rarely go get fast food because it's never one of those places I think about getting food at when I'm hungry. However, when McDonald's has their Monopoly game, that's a different story. I'm a TOTAL sucker for that game! I know that the chances of winning anything (besides food) is near slim to none, but for some reason, I still like playing and collecting the pieces. It's a good feeling to know you won something, even if it's just the 1 in 4 chances of winning food. My usual self that doesn't care for fast food would intentionally think about going to McDonald's for food just to get play pieces.


This year, I didn't realize that their Monopoly promotion had started earlier than last year, so I've only gotten McDonald's twice for their promo. I got some Chicken McNuggets yesterday, but was quite disappointed to find out that they put the darn nuggets in a regular box and not a Monopoly one with the game pieces to peel!!!! (I did, however, find out that McDonald's now has a spicy buffalo sauce for their McNuggets and it's oh-so-good!! It tastes exactly as the real buffalo wing sauce--and it's actually spicy unlike other foods that claim "spicy" but isn't at all)


Since I'm trying to stick to my budget though, I guess that's it for now, McDonald's Monopoly. Until next year!!~~~

Self-Challenge: $10/day

So, it's only halfway through the month, but I'm close to blowing this month's spending budget already. It doesn't even seem like I did a whole lot so far this month. I was gone five days on a work trip with most of the food being provided. It's so surprising how quickly a few dinners/lunches, Walmart runs, a trip to Trader Joe's (when I was in the mainland), and an unexpected $300 expense can quickly add up. Then again, I'm not surprised about Walmart. They ALWAYS get me. I go in having a list of a few things to buy, but end up buying more than I intended. 


Now as a challenge to my self, I'm going to try to spend $10/day for the rest of the month so I won't be going over-budget. I'm not sure if that's actually doable, but we'll see. The weekdays aren't too hard, however, weekends could be dangerous.  I usually bring home lunch and don't usually go out during the weekdays. I don't really "need" anything from Walmart at the moment, except possibly some sewing notions for my Halloween costume. 


Silver lining: A $100 gift card from my work trip for food that I hadn't used. 


However, Day 1 has been a major fail.... 


-Office Depot: $50 - Totally ran out of black ink for my printer. Also bought a SD card for my camera I've been wanting--(Forgot $20 rewards certificate at home.) :(  
-Lunch: $0 - Friend treated
-Starbucks: $0 - Used my Starbucks gift card
-Ross: $41, but used the gift card, so technically $0 - Went in looking for a black tank top, but unnecessarily bought two pairs of shoes. How do I justify this purchase? I really can't..... (unless saying that they were "nice" or that I got a great deal counts)
-Target: $11, but used the gift card, so $0 - Found a plain black tank top for my costume.


Currently down $50 and only about $48 on gift card remaining.  :(

Don Quijote love

I think Don Quijote tops my list as favorite Asian (grocery) store to go to. (Walmart: I heart you too, but you just don't offer the variety of Asian food that DQ does). Don Quijote has a lot of variety and the price is reasonable for most things. I would say that Chinatown is THE place to go to get Asian groceries and veggies for cheap, however, I dislike going to Chinatown for groceries. It less convenient for me in terms of hours and parking, it's crowded, smells, and the worse is there's a lot of homeless people around there. 

I knew they had a lot of different noodles (dry and fresh), sake, snacks, Asian beverages, etc. However, today I see some new interesting finds as I was browsing through the aisles. In the Asian dessert aisle, I find a big section dedicated to just jelly, puddings, etc..... All different types of jelly flavors including the usual almond tofu and mango pudding to coffee and green tea jelly!!! It was my first time seeing coffee jelly mix in a store, and I just couldn't resist buying it. They even had packages of crepe and shortcake mix there, which I found interesting. Usually people just mix the batter themselves, so it's neat to see that someone already conveniently packaged it for you. 

Upon walking by the frozen food aisles, I had to check out what stuff they had available for shabu shabu. Some of the interesting finds in that section was that I saw they had frozen custard buns, lobster balls, and  miscellaneous Japanese variety packs for shabu shabu. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any shabu shabu/spicy hot pot base at DQ. Guess it's back to Chinatown for that one when I do shabu shabu.