November 28, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

My Black Friday 2014 Scores

Hi! I hope everyone who celebrated had a marvelous Thanksgiving. I think this one was the best one yet. The food was wonderful. Seeing all of my family was great. My sister and I took a set of outfit pictures together (sneak peak posted on Instagram today). And now I am recuperating after shopping this morning. I used to go at midnight with my girlfriends (missed you Bridge!) but have not in the last two years. Instead I slept in for a bit and then hit a few stores. I usually like to go to Target the best. Honestly, the last two years I have gotten there after nine in the morning to find the store less insanely busy and the items that I want still in stock. I really only want the DVD deals and the gift card deal they ran this morning so it was not worth the hassle of staying up all night. Here is what I picked up today, in stores and online, these codes and prices are good for today, November 28, 2014, only:

At Anthropologie, I bought a Buttered Rum Candle and their Fanned Feather Necklace with their extra 25% off today using code HOLIDAY25. I know, that is boring. But there is nothing there that I have to have right now, especially since I decided to keep:

This Tartan Sweatercoat. Love of my life. I just adore this piece. I was going to have my husband give it to me for Christmas, but I obviously could not wait. The outfit post for this will be going up next week, but I wanted to show a bit of it now in case you wanted to see it while the sale was still going on.

At Target I picked up all of these movies for around $60. Whoot! And yes, my emotional state and movie choices are obviously that of a thirteen year old. I have no excuse… Or shame.

Restoration Hardware has their duvet slippers which are my favorite slippers to wear and to give for $16 today.

I went to my favorite local boutique, because they were doing 50% off the entire store and bought a few goodies.

Finally, I wanted to write that I have been stalking the Millie Dress at Anthropologie in black and the same dress in blue at Modcloth for the last few days after I saw someone on Instagram wearing it. It reminded me of my favorite swing dress that I have ever seen that Atlantic Pacific wore awhile back. I was hoping that Black Friday would bring about a sale on the dress at one of those stores. It did not. However, I found out that the dress is by Dear Creatures and so I looked for it on their website. I found it and got it in both colors with their Black Friday discount code DCBLACKFRIDAY for 40% off. I just wanted to share that this shop is doing a Black Friday sale of 40% off their new arrivals and free shipping over $100. My dress was an amazing price going directly through the designer. They have a lot of pieces being sold at other retails for much more at a better price on their direct website today.

Did you shop this Black Friday? I ended up getting much more for my kids and relatives online that I cannot write about here. I tackled a lot of my Christmas list. Did you score anything? Thank you for the sweet comments on my post earlier today. I will be responding to all of your comments tonight. You filled my heart with happiness. Thank you. How was your Thanksgiving? Are you drained the next day like I am? I can never figure out if it is the turkey or the bottle of wine I consumed the previous day that leaves me with dark circles and bleary eyes.

*This post is going up in leu of tomorrow’s Littlest Things post. I must clean this house! I will have a new post up on Sunday. Have a beautiful Saturday!

November 16, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

I Hate Pigeons

The blasted rats with wings.

“Coo. Coo. Coo.

“I hate you.”

It all started back when my daughter was three months old.

Rewind.

It all started when I was pregnant with my daughter and we moved into a rental home.

There was a rustling in the eves. I looked up. And a thousand pigeons stared down at me.

“Oh. Aren’t they cute?” I ignorantly thought.

I assumed anything would have been better than the apartment where we had been living. A girl I went to high school with lived in the same apartment complex. She had woken up the week before when a bullet went through the pillow next to her head. The neighbors upstairs had gotten into a little spat. No biggie.

It happens.

We moved the next week.

Into a different kind of nightmare.

A nightmare occupied and governed by a new beast.

A beast innocently called, “pigeon.”

There is nothing innocent about a pigeon.

Don’t let those children’s books, “Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus!” fool you. There should be a book entitled, “Don’t let the pigeons near us!” or something similar. Maybe a little darker. Maybe involving a certain pigeon and a bus with the kind of happy ending I could get behind. Anyway, I digress…

They were everywhere.

We could not clean up the droppings fast enough.

I gave birth to my daughter and rarely left the house for three months. This led me to conveniently ignore the pigeons. I thought they were an annoying nuissance. Nothing more. Certainly not a death trap.

Okay. Let’s fast forward. My daughter is three months old. It was raining. I went to lay her down in her crib for her nap and I felt a drop of water hit my hand. I looked up and the entire ceiling above her crib was swollen with water. It drooped low and menacingly above our heads.

I quickly ran and placed my daughter safely in her bassinet in our bedroom. Then I moved the crib towards the doorway, away from the bowing ceiling.

I then called my landlord.

“Hello. Yes, this is your tenants. The ceiling in our daughter’s room is completely filled with wa-.”

CRASH!

I ran into the room. The ceiling had caved in. The area where my daughter’s crib had been mere minutes before was now littered with broken plaster and jagged beams.

To say it was scary was an understatement.

It turns out that the ~~delightful pigeons~~ fiends that had roosted there had feces that could melt a roof. And they did. And it was.

And then the roof was fixed.

Here is the kicker: Apparently this was the third time this had happened! And they let me put my baby’s room there. And they never exterminated the house! And we moved two months later.

They do exist!

Now that I am aware of the detriments that these creatures can create, I am always watchful of a single pigeon. I will not let these tenants move in. Not for one day. Not for an hour.

The other day, I heard it. It was the sound from my nightmares.

“Coo!”

“Mom, is that an owl?”

“No, son. That’s a demon.”

I went outside. There it was, resting on my chimney. Taunting me.

Seriously, look at it looking at me.

Why? Why do I spend all of my efforts on my thighs? If the pigeon was closer, I could have used my thigh’s awesome power and clapped it to smitherines. But no such luck. It was not getting near my trap.

Then I thought of it.

I scrambled to the pool area. I grabbed one of my kid’s high power water guns. I filled it with pool water.

And I took aim.

I fired.

It hit the side of the roof.

The pigeon was not phased.

I refilled my gun.

Missed again!

At this point, I was covered in water. I was wearing rain boots (photo shoot for a story). It was eighty degrees and sunny outside. I was screaming at the bird. I was giving the bird the bird. And I am sure my neighbors were cooing in their pants.

Refill. Shoot. Miss. Scream.

Repeat.

Finally the pigeon took pity on me. Or I had turned into a bigger monster than it.

It left.

I hope it did not leave to get back-up.

Oh well. I have a whole pool full of water and many more refills in me.

This war ain’t over.

“Coo! Coo! Coo!

I’ll get you.”

Has a war ever been won with water guns? I am afraid I am about to find out.

*I recognize the pictures are of a Dove and not a Pigeon. In my flurry of uncharacteristically fast movement I forgot to get a picture of THE Pigeon. If you squint, you can just pretend like I do. Of course, I don’t squint. I just drink wine. Cheers.

August 23, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

It’s The Little Things: Sporcle

Because it is Saturday. Because we all have laundry to do. Things to do. Let’s play a game instead! There is nothing like procrastination.

I started playing on the website, Sporcle, two years ago. Actually, two years ago, I exclusively played only one of their games. It was “Name The Countries Of The World.” I performed pitifully the first time, but ~~after dedicating every last brain cell to the task~~ eventually I was able to name them all in the time frame (I have been slacking and the last time I played I failed miserably). It is a great teaching tool, too. The site has many name-the-state-capital-quizzes. This is fantastic for children or for adults who, ahem, tend to forget things taught to them in the third grade. This is different than lessons purposefully forgotten, like sharing. I never had much use for that one.

The quiz I play the most often is the one below. I apologize for its too large size. There is not a quiz on the site to teach one computer coding skills. If you are on a tablet or smart phone, you can turn the screen sideways and it will fit. You can actually play that one below.

It is an entirely unnecessary quiz for a writer. The words are not likely to ever be forgotten, so there really is no need to practice them. However, it is more of a memory game at this point. I have to get all one hundred words each time I play. Sometimes I can only remember ninety eight. I slap myself with my Anthropologie receipts when that happens.

I also am a huge fan of anagrams. I have a good friend who I have flown on an airplane with a few times. We like to do puzzles on the airplane together. That actually is one of my favorite parts of the trip. We keep saying that we will get together to do puzzles without travel one day, but that never happens. We play anagram scrambles. There are a few on Sporcle that I like. Of course, those are one time play games. Once you know the answer to those, it is not really necessary to play it again.

Their baby name quizzes are fun, too. Although I am terrible at those. I am also horrible at most of Sporcle’s movie and television quizzes.

It’s The Little Things: Wasting some time while still getting your learn on (based upon this sentence, I still have a long way to go).

Have you ever played on Sporcle? What are your favorite quizzes? Do you challenge yourself?

April 7, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Modcloth Stylish Surprise: SHOES!

This post could also be titled, “Modcloth, you have my heart.”

You all ready know that because Modcloth embraces every woman by offering a variety of different sizes, it is the store that makes me smile the most. Add that to their amazing customer service and customer appreciation and that site just makes this girl’s shopping heart sing.

But this post really isn’t about that.

This post is about the amazing promotion Modcloh does every few months:

It took me awhile to get over my light headedness when my box containing my Modcloth Stylish Surprise* (explanation about stylish surprise at the bottom of this post) full of shoes arrived at the door. For $10, Modcloth picked a pair of random shoes for me in my size and sent them. Shipping is always free at Modcloth for orders over $50. So, I ordered five pairs (three for me and two for my daughter. This might seem selfish, but her feet are still growing. Mine are not).

My daughter and I were nervous and excited to open the box full of shoes.

But we did!

Boy, did we get lucky!

We both loved our shoes.

I found out about The Stylish Surprise the same day I put up my post about my March purchases. I had ordered the clothing surprise from them a year ago and liked what I received, but I have enough clothes. I wanted to try the shoe version. It intrigued me.

I also wanted to immediately do a post the moment I learned about the sale going on, but I did not want this blog to seem too consumerismy (another new word). I also had never ordered the shoe surprise before, and I was not sure if it was something I was willing to recommend (this is important to me. I would never speak about a product here that I would not purchase myself). I decided to wait until morning to decide. Then the Stylish Surprise Shoes sold out. So, next time, I am alerting you right away. And if it happens to be on the same day as a post about clothes, well, that will just have to be the way it goes. I don’t want you guys to miss out! I think this promotion Modcloth does is amazing!

Okay. On to our loot:

I got these beautiful Chelsea Crew Tia Pumps in mustard. They fit like a dream. I love them for evening fun. They are my favorite of the shoes I received.

My daughter got these cool Dollhouse combat boots. These are so her. She was thrilled. She has worn these all week.

I also got these Seychelles Two Birds Heels. They are SO tall. I could never actually wear these. I ended up giving them away to the sweetest eighteen year old girl I know. And she was happy. And I was happy. So, it all worked out.

My daughter got these Chelsea Crew Notch Your Step heels in red. I was jealous of these. They are adorable. More importantly, she is madly in love with them. And I would rather her have been happy than myself. Thankfully, we both were happy. She wore these last Thursday and her outfit was perfect with these shoes! So cute!

I also received these Chelsea Crew Class Treasurer Heels (funny enough, I was class treasurer… Or secretary. I can’t remember. I also do not remember doing a thing for that title. Maybe I needed these shoes). They are the most amazing orange color. I love them.

So, for $50 we received approximately $337 worth of shoes. This works out to roughly 85% in savings.

I would (and will) absolutely be partaking in these surprise sales again. Not only was it fun, but it was a great bargain, too.

Have you ever purchased a Modcloth Stylish Surprise? If yes, what did you get? If not, would you?

* A Stylish Surprise is a sale that the online company Modcloth runs every few month. For a low fee, usually between $5-15, they will send you a surprise in the category you purchased your surprise in (apartment, accessories, shoes, or clothing). They guarantee your item will be worth a certain amount, usually much higher than your initial investment. Stylish Surprises are nonreturnable. If it does not fit or if you do not like the item/items you receive, you are out of luck. It is a risk.

* In the pictures, I am wearing Anthropologie’s Midday Dress. It is currently on sale. I am wearing a medium. I have a separate post about this dress going up on Sunday.

* This blog receives a small commission when a purchase is made through this website at Modcloth. : )

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

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My Black Friday 2014 Scores

I Hate Pigeons

It’s The Little Things: Sporcle

Modcloth Stylish Surprise: SHOES!