Signs of the Season

Can yall believe that Thanksgiving is a week away?! I know I've said this before, but my goodness, this year has FLOWN by! I'm beyond excited for Christmas, though, as I love EVERYTHING about this season! I can't get enough of Christmas music (I'm listening to it right now...) and I love the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping. To me, there are a few things that mark the arrival of the holiday season, and they have all appeared in full force.

First, my recent major guilty pleasure of the holidays is the Chick-fil-a Peppermint Milkshake! Have yall had one of these? If not, run, don't walk, to your nearest Chick-fil-a and get one. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Starbucks Christmas coffee cups. Love them, and love the fabulous wintery drinks that fill them! Sorry for the quality of this image... I didn't have the patience to deal my digital camera and its pokey uploading! Also, Starbucks has their holiday drinks buy one, get one free from 2-5 pm today through Sunday, November 21! What a perfect excuse to catch up with a friend over coffee!

Lastly, as I've featured earlier... I love it when stores roll out their Christmas displays of wrapping paper, decorations and all sorts of other fun things! Speaking of wrapping paper, I wrapped my first gifts of the season! With the move coming up, I'm trying to get my shopping and wrapping done early to cut down on stress later.

Notice my fabulous pink and green Hobby Lobby paper I told yall about earlier! Also, I got the polka dot black paper for $0.74 (!) on clearance at Target! I was a little skeptical if it would be Christmas-y enough, but I found that wonderfl glitter ribbon at Michael's and it tied it together nicely, don't you think?

Anyway, on a different note... as I mentioned yesterday, I've earned some extra cash and gift cards by doing online surveys! Now, you won't make a killing, but if you have some time to spare you can make at least a little extra cash and also help shape new product designs, etc. In the past year or so, I've made a little over $175 in cash and gift cards by doing surveys at night while watching tv, etc. One of my favorite survey sites just sent out an e-mail that they are accepting new members, so I thought I would pass it along! This site is called Pinecone Research, and they pay $3 for each survey you do. I know it may not sound like a lot, but these surveys only take about 20 minutes and are actually pretty interesting. Also, some of them can lead to product trials where you get free items to try out! Here is the link to sign up!

Well, I'm off to do some more packing and move prep while dancing around my house to Christmas tunes!

(Milkshake image from here!)

I've got the BLUES!

One of my favorite things about Pensacola is that it is home to the Blue Angels, the Navy's flight demonstration team. The Blues, as they're known affectionately around here, had their homecoming show this past weekend to ring in the end of their 2010 season, and it was also the perfect way to celebrate the end of our time here! Not only did the Blues perform their AMAZING show, there were tons of other aircraft both as static displays and also flying demos and performing amazing stunts. If you ever have the chance to attend an air show, I highly recommend it! This was my first, and despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about flying or planes, I found it to be both informative and very entertaining. Without further ado, here are some pictures!

These are two Russian built planes called "Yaks" that do aerobatics and all sorts of tricks! They performed in the evening show, and the sky was absolutely beautiful!

This is one of the planes that the military used to train aviators in the World War II era... isn't it unbelievable that we used to fly these types of plane into battle?!

The Shockwave Jet Truck - a semi-truck with three jet engines that goes over 300 MPH. Completely excessive, but totally cool!

The C-5 Galaxy - The picture doesn't do it justice, but these planes are unbelievably huge in person. As you can see in the picture, the nose of the plane lifts up so tanks and other supplies can easily be loaded and unloaded from both ends.

One of the Blue Angels on the ground.

Fat Albert is the transport plane of the Blue Angels.

The Blues fly with only 18" between their wings! These pilots are the creme de la creme of Naval Aviation!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Tomorrow I'm going to blog about some legitimate websites that pay you for your opinion, so stay tuned :)

Dear Santa, Define Nice!

Sorry about the lack of updates lately! The move is quickly approaching, and with Thanksgiving also just around the corner I've been quite busy and slightly overwhelmed. I broke down and bought several sheets of poster board so I could write mega "to-do" lists that will keep me organized and on task! We tackled our storage room yesterday, and it was a pretty scary task. For the past year, it's been our catch all for any boxes we didn't want to go through, sporting goods that we may or may not use, and out of season clothes and decor. Mr. C discovered the three pink Christmas trees I had stashed in there, and was oh so excited when he realized that although we won't have furniture most of the holiday season this year, our home will be a pink winter wonderland! I'll be sure to post pictures when I get my trees all set up ;)

Also, be sure to go to the Wholly Guacamole website to print out a $4/1 coupon! This will make for some really cheap, and possibly free, guac or queso! The coupon will be up until tomorrow, 11/11 and expires on Sunday, 11/14. I've heard that this is on sale at Publix for $2.99, which means you might even be able to get overage!

Now I'll leave you with some eye candy from the new Kate Spade Holiday Gift Guide!

Candy Darling Rosalie Wristlet - $125 - Isn't this wristlet perfect for any holiday soiree? It's so classic that you could carry it for many holiday seasons to come!

Jingle Bell Headband - $75 - What a fun way to add some holiday cheer to your outfit! They also have jingle bell earrings and jingle bell bobby pins!

Peppermint Earmuffs - $65 - These are such fun! What a great way to brighten up an otherwise dreary winter outfit.

Ice Queen Bib Necklace - $595 - This is the type of necklace that completely steals an outfit. Now, if only I had a spare $600 lying around...

Make sure you're on the Nice List this year and maybe Santa will put one of these fab items in your stocking!

More Hobby Lobby Love

First off, I hope you all had a spooktacular Halloween! Sadly, Mr. C and I had NO trick-or-treaters, so now I'm left with a big old bowl of Snickers, Milky Way and Twix Minis, that may or may not be gluten free! I'm thinking I'll be sending those in with Mr. C to work, since we all know that guys never turn down free food :)

I recently took another trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up that fabulous pink and green Christmas tree paper I posted about earlier, and I found some more fun Christmas finds. EBay informed me this morning that Christmas is 54 days away so I am officially getting into the Christmas spirit. Everywhere I've been that has Christmas items for sale, which seems to be almost every store recently, has tons of bright colored decorations. While I'm a sucker for the classic white, silver and gold Christmas tones, I'm also loving all of these fun pinks, greens and blues. Check out two of the displays I found at Hobby Lobby:

Although it's kind of hard to tell since this picture was taken with my phone, all of these decorations are bright pink and lime green! The monogram balls are my favorite!

How can you not love a whole endcap display that Hobby Lobby has so aptly titled "Pink-a-palooza!" Plus, it's full of adorable little penguins dressed in pink and green. Right up my alley!

Do yall think it's too soon to start listening to Christmas music? Mr. C is very much against it until Thanksgiving, but I'm just so excited for Christmas to come that I almost can't help myself!