Mall of St. Paul

I only found a few things antiquing today. No bookshlef..everything was too wide. Here's the things I did find..


I love owls. This is a votive candle holder. Probably about 4 inches high. I have another one that is kind of like it, I think they will look good together.


I paid $5 for this silk scarf. I had never heard of Adele Simpson, I just thought it was really pretty, and I thought it would be cool to use it as a belt with a brown jersey dress. Imagine my surprise when I searched for it on the internet and I found this...

http://www.retrodesignerdeals.com/catalog/item/4366357/7331606.htm

Selling for $175! Wow! Friends, this is why I love love love thrifting and antiquing. You just never know what you're going to find.


 I also got this little one-egg pan because I often make an egg for my son for his breakfast.

Changing focus...

I want to change the focus of this blog. When I started it, it was supposed to be about weight loss. And now I never post. You know why? Because weight loss is BORING. No one cares how much I weigh, including myself most of the time.

I'd like to make this blog about saving money, thrifting, and antiquing. I feel like I'd post a lot more if I just stuck to those subjects. The problem is, the name of the blog doesn't really match the topic of it, you know? Lighten up your wallet, I guess? If I change it, though, I think I would have to just start a new blog, and attach it to a new email address, and I just don't want to do that right now. So, we're all going to have to deal with the lame name for awhile.

I'm going to my favorite antique place today, and I'm in the market for a bookshelf for my bedroom. I'm sure I'll find other things too, I always do. I'll be sure to let you know what I end up with!

Daily Deal Sites

I love Daily Deal sites. I buy something from a Daily Deal Site at least once a week. I enjoy having a stack of gift cards and e-cards, so that when I'm broke and feel like shopping, I can use one of my pre-paid gift cards, that I bought, with my own money, which if I hadn't spent it, I wouldn't be so broke. Why yes, I do have money management issues, thanks for asking. Anyway, on to the deals!

Groupon - This is the most obvious and the most popular daily deal site. I think everyone knows about Groupon by now. I think they were one of the first Daily Deal Sites that featured local deals broken down by city. The premise is simple. Every day there is a deal, It could be to a restaurant, a play, a store, or a salon...but every deal is discounted, usually by around 50%. You only have one day to buy the deal. If enough people buy it, the deal is on. I have never seen a case where the deal wasn't on. I think it's popular enough now so that that isn't an issue anymore. Things I have gotten from Groupon include restaurant gift certificates, American Apparel gift card, GAP gift card, $75 to spend at an online wine store, $30 to spend at Bath and Body Works, a week of unlimited Mystic tanning and hydro-massages at a salon in St. Paul, and movie theater tickets. Groupon exists in many metropolitan areas. You can buy from whichever area you want, you don't have to buy only from your city. This is helpful for travel..if you have a trip coming up, check out the city's Groupon deals shortly before you leave.

CrowdCut - this is a new one, and for right now it seems to be based only in Minneapolis, but on their website they say that they are hoping to expand to every major metropolis. This is the same thing..one daily deal for a discounted price. When I signed up I got a free meal at Leeann Chin, I'm not sure if they are still doing that.

CBS Local Offers - This is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Recently I have gotten a half off gift card to a local bookstore (Common Goods, the one that Garrison Keilor owns, for those of you in the know) and 4 hours of housecleaning for $40.

Plum District - another one of my favorites. This claims to be targeted to moms, but I have seen plenty of deals that would be enjoyed by all. Just yesterday I paid $5 for a $10 gift card to Papa Murphy's pizza. Have you tried the Thin deLite pizzas? Holy crap, they are good. I totally abuse the "lite"-ness of them by hoovering the entire thing, but whatever. This site has also scored me a Caribou Coffee gift card. Right now their deal is $25 for $50 worth of merchandise at an online kid's store called Kidsel.

Living Social - Another local deals site. I have just recently signed up for this one. So far I have seen deals for a local salon, a framing place, and for teeth whitening.

Dealstork - This one appears to be for the Twin Cities only. Recently I purchased a voucher for a 60 minute massage at a spa in St. Paul for $32. What an amazing price! I've also seen photography sessions on this site, manicure/pedicure packages, weight loss programs, and a voucher to a local Minneapolis restaurant.

GoGo Savings - this appears to have numerous cities. Today's deal is for a spa package for 50% off. They are also offering half off tickets to an upcoming play.

Mamapedia - another recent favorite. I recently scored a $35 voucher to Shopthelook.net for a mere $10. I picked out $35 worth of jewelry. Nice! I have also gotten a voucher for Shoemall.com. Today they are offering 50% off for a voucher to a website that sells cookbooks for kids.

Tanga - Oh, Tanga. Sweet sweet Tanga. If you sign up for Tanga, you not only get numerous daily deals emailed to you (six per day, I believe), but you get fantastic magazine deals. Ridiculously unbelievably fantastic. I got 3 years of Rolling Stone for $5.99. 3 years of Parents magazine for $4.99, a subscription to Lucky magazine for $4.99, 2 years of ReadyMade for $7.99, a year of Family Circle for $2.99, 2 years of Shape magazine for $5.00. I'm sure there's more, the majority of my magazines come from Tanga. The daily deals are a little different at this website because they are items. There's usually a T-shirt, a kid item, an electronic, etc. I bought a T-shirt from Tanga for a Christmas gift. It was $5.99 and very high quality.

Jasmere - I've posted about Jasmere here before. Jasmere is much like Groupon and the rest, but the thing that really stands out about Jasmere is that the price goes down. Every day they feature an independent, small business/website. The price of the voucher starts at 50% off. The more people that buy the deal throughout the day drives the price down. Your credit card gets charged at the end of the day at the lowest price. I got a $35 voucher to a website that sells organic body products, for $13. I ended up with some very nice body oil, a body scrub, and body butter in beautiful cobalt glass containers, for $13. Jasmere also gives away the daily deal to a lucky fan every day.

Last but not least, another oldie but goodie..

Woot! - Woot! sells one item per day for a great price, and when it's gone it's gone. Sometimes the item is sold out at 9am, and then the site is dead until the next item comes up at midnight. Woot! has a few different sites...regular Woot! and Shirt Woot which sells a different T-shirt every day (for $10 including shipping), Wine Woot which has a different wine/food product every day, and Kid Woot, which, you guessed it, has a different kid item every day. There's also a Woot smartphone app so that you can always check the Woots to make sure you aren't missing anything. Every now and then there is a Woot Off. It's very exciting. It's random, and it involves sirens and screaming flying monkeys and Boxes -O- Crap. See, now you're curious, right? The Woot Off sells one item right after another, all day long. When it sells out they move right on to the next item. Every so often they sell a "Box O Crap". This is so popular there is an entire forum dedicated to it..people posting what came in their Box O Crap. It usually costs 5 or 10 dollars, and sometimes it's just a box of crap..duct tape, cheap toy, a random part..but people have been known to get Nintendo Wiis and iPods in their box.  I recommend you become a Woot fan, stat.

That's it for my list. Did I miss any? Do you guys know of any Daily Deal sites that I didn't post?

It's Too Early To Think Of A Witty Title

Hi, remember me? I don't blame you if you don't. It turns out I'm the worst blogger in the world, which doesn't surprise me. I am notorious for starting projects and ditching them in the middle.

It's 6:15 in the morning and I've been up since 5. Usually my son is pretty good about sleeping until 6:30 and sometimes even 7:30, but today was one of those random mornings when he decided 5am would be a perfect time to greet the day. I gave him some milk and tried to get him back to sleep, but he screamed loudly. I'm pretty sure the scream meant "Oh no, you crazy lady, I've been in this cage since 8 last night and there are BALLS to play with and CARTOONS to watch and CHEERIOS to eat and I don't really give a shit WHAT you think, you're getting up, fool." So, we're watching Sesame Street and feasting on Cheerios, and I am counting down the minutes until 8 when he'll crash for the first nap of the day and my ass will go back to sleep.

Perhaps you're wondering what ever happened to the Ten Pound Challenge? Well, it remains a challenge because I lost 1.5 pounds in 4 weeks. Awesome. (and I say that sarcastically). I think I'm on my way now, though....first of all, the holidays are over. No more plates of appetizers and snacks everywhere I turn. Also, I re-joined Gold's gym and have been going regularly. (well, for 4 days.) So far all I have done there is my trusty elliptical, but I hope to try the Pilates class and the BodyStep class. I'm tempted to try the BodyJam class or the BodyCombat class, but I know better. There is no way more guaranteed to make me look like an asshole than a fitness class with choreographed moves that relate to either boxing or dancing. I know this from experience...I once took a class at the Y involving kickboxing, and the other members of the class actually slowed down to watch me flail uncontrollably about the gym. I've got no groove. I also took bellydancing once, and I had to quit 3 sessions in because watching myself in the long mirror was just torture. I did not look as I imagined a bellydancer to look. BodyStep is about the only thing I can handle, and even that gets complicated sometimes.

I also set up my Xbox Kinect. I got a fitness game for it..."Your Shape". It has workouts developed by the people behind Men's Health and Women's Health magazines. It scans your body and then tells you when your form isn't correct and shows you how to correct it. I've only done it twice so far, but both times the workouts kicked my ass. I think it's going to be super great for days when I am baby wrangling all day and can't get to the gym.

Well, Declan wants me to play catch with a balloon, so I'd better go. I will be back soon, though. I am preparing a post about books and also a post about my favorite deal websites.

Scanxiety

My dad has lung cancer. Every 3 months he gets a scan, sometimes more often if there is something specific they need to check out, or if they are checking to see if a new treatment is working. Starting 7-10 days before the scan, I start to come down with what I call "scanxiety". There's a dull sense of dread in the background for the first few days of it, as I go about my normal life. Then, usually starting 3-4 days before the scan, I have cold symptoms as the anxiety gets worse. I truly believe that I worry myself sick. (this time I happen to have a full-blown cold that my son has too, so I think that it's not scan-related.) I get achy and congested and my throat gets scratchy. The day before the scan, a weird calm sets in. The morning of the scan, the cold fear sets in. Especially right after the scan..because then I think "What's done is done, whatever is going on in there is now tangible on films and papers and can't be changed." The hour or so before we get the results is just dreadful. I can't concentrate, I'm jittery, spaced out...

Ugh.

With all that said..today is scan day. At 7am this morning my dad had a CT scan, from his eyes to his thighs, so we can see if his new chemo cocktail (I hate that phrase so much, why do I use it? I need to think of something different.) is working to keep his cancer stable. I have already gone over the worst case scenarios in my head, researched them all, and come up with a plan for each of them, like I do every time.

About three hours till results. Fingers and toes crossed for good news.

My Food Diary

Today I joined myfooddiary.com. It's a website that helps you track your food intake, water intake, exercise, and weight.  I have been a member of Sparkpeople.com for years, which is basically the same thing, and free. Myfooddiary.com is $9/month after a free 7 day trial. One thing MFD has that SP doesn't, however, is a small thing included in the daily report, after you log your food and exercise for the day...it tells you exactly what day you will reach your goal weight if you continue eating how you did that day. That was the clincher for me. Sparkpeople gives an almost identical daily report, but it does not say "Madelyn, if you eat every day like you did today, you will reach your goal weight by May 7th, 2011." That's right, I willingly pay the internet to tell me what I'm going to weigh in the future. What did we ever do without technology like this?!?

Ten Pound Challenge

Today starts my Ten Pound Challenge. I need to try to lose ten pounds in the next 4 weeks. I know you might all think I'm nuts for doing this over the holiday season, but honestly? I don't eat any more over Christmas and New Year's than I do the rest of the year, so I think I'll be fine.

This morning I weighed in at 208.2. My size is a 14. Four weeks from today, I'd like to be 198 and maybe a size 12. I'll weigh in once a week.

I plan to keep track of what I eat (and eat less, obviously) and maybe even do a little exercising.

I'll let you know how it goes!