A Few of my Favorite Websites...

I have kind of become addicted to some of these websites lately, so I'll share them.  Most of them you have probably heard of, but if not they're ones I check every day.  Post Secret is this website that people can mail in any kind of confession or truth about themselves that they want, anonymously, on a postcard.  Its kind of weird but interesting:

Some of the postcards are really funny and light, and others are intense.  Its just interesting.

Now on to shopping!  I have sort of become addicted to Groupon and Living Social.  These guys offer a deal each day.  There is an IPhone app or you can go to the website.  Its everything from museum admissions to hair salons to movie tickets to restaurants.  You kind of never know what you're going to get.  Its a different coupon for each city, and its good to check the cities other than the one you live in, because sometimes the coupons work anywhere.  Yesterday on Groupon for Memphis was a $75 worth of services for $35 at the place I get my hair cut so I got that!  You just sign up with your email address.  I LOVE coupons so I love these websites!

The other two websites that I love that I have to give Summer Tyson credit for are Gilt and Jetsetter.  They are owned by the same people, but Gilt is clothes and home and Jetsetter is travel.  I haven't bought anything through these yet, but they are fancy schmancy and fun just to look at.  I'll buy something soon I'm sure.  Gilt has sort of like Sample Sales from Citizens of Humanity and Kate Spade and some fancy designer stuff that is still too expensive even at 60 or 70 percent of the cost, but fun to look at!  Jetsetter has amazing five star resorts all over the US and the world for usually about half off the regular nightly rate.  The funny thing about these websites is that you sign up, then they make you wait until they "have room for you to join", then you get an e-mail invite a few days later inviting you to join.  So far no one I know has been turned down yet!  Not sure what's up with that, but it is fun to window shop on these websites and I'm sure I'll buy something soon! Oh and if you click on the Jetsetter link above and sign up this week you get a $25 credit toward a purchase.

Last but not least is Restaurant.com.  Here you can buy gift certificates to restaurants at a discounted rate.  There are some important things to know about it before you buy, but still a really good deal.  Enter in your zip code and go through the list and pick out restaurants, then read the rules for the gift certificate.  Usually its a $25 gift certificate for $15.  The important part to know is usually you have to spend a minimum of $35 and tip on the original total.  So just make sure you buy the gift certificates with that in mind.  BUT the MOST IMPORTANT part is that when you check out, they always have a coupon code to enter to get you anything from 60%-90% off and this is when it becomes a really good deal.  You can either google "Restaurant.com coupon code" at the time you are buying it, and one of the coupon code websites like RetailMeNot will have the code for that time, or if you sign up on the restaurant.com website, they will send you e-mails with the coupon codes every week.  So with the codes, the $25 gift certificate ends up being around $2.  Hard to believe I know, but we use it all the time!! 

Back to RetailMeNot, any time I buy anything online I google the coupon code for whatever store it is.  You can usually find a coupon code for at least free shipping for most online stores.  Like if I am ordering something from JCrew, I google "JCrew Coupon code" before I check out and about 25% of the time I find something to save a little money.  RetailMeNot is a good place to look for coupon codes because they keep it very current and let people rank whether the code worked or not so you can see the percentage that the particular code worked for people.  Ok enough!  Enjoy!

Music Monday: Miranda Lambert- The House that Built Me

Well this is another one I've got to give Brian credit for.  He heard it on the radio and came home and downloaded it, and I love it.  The song is so good and her voice is awesome.  I'm not a huge country fan, but this is a good song.  So here you have it:

Smile for a Lifetime, Dinner with Sarah and Josh, Sunday Funday at Shelby Farms!

We had a fun non-traveling (almost) weekend in Memphis.  On Friday, we drove to Jonesboro to a fundraiser for Smile for a Lifetime at Dr. Burris' house.  It was a great chance to see some friends from dental school and get together for a great cause.  Their house is perfect for entertaining and we had a great time and ate some delicious food!  On the ride to Jonesboro the sunset was so pretty I had to take a picture. 

 Brian and Matt Carlisle

Andrea Carlisle and Emily Gairhan

Clark and Summer Tyson and me and Brian...I kind of match the table cloth

Jennifer Steele and Emily Gairhan

Summer, Kendall Jones and Me...I sort of look pregnant in this one:



On Saturday we watched football all day.  The Tennessee game was a nailbiter and if it wasn't for the UAB kicker missing 5 field goals we would have lost!  Then the Arkansas Alabama game was alllllmooostttt a great upset.  For dinner we went to Sweetgrass with Sarah and Josh and their fun friends from college, Scott and Courtney.  We passed the House of Mews and spent some time checking out all the crazy cats:

Sarah showed us some killer dance moves at Celtic Crossing: 


Today we took the doggies out to Shelby Farms off leash area for dogs and they had a blast.  Ayla is slowly getting better about being scared of big dogs.  Coco gets outside in the great wide open and turns into a wild woman!

Destin with John and Amy, Knoxville for the Florida game...I'm Catching up on Blogging!

Weekend before last, Brian and I headed down to Destin for one last beach weekend because I had a day off.  John and Amy, our friends from New Orleans, drove in to meet us.  Jennifer was down in Destin with dental school friends so we had fun hanging out with them too.  We had a nice, relaxing weekend and enjoyed some awesome weather.  Amy made us turkey sandwiches with bacon and avocado to eat on the beach and they were so yummy I'm addicted.  Here are some pics from our beach weekend:

We had an awesome dinner at Louis Louis, the new restaurant owned by the same people that own the Red Bar.  Same menu, same cool atmosphere, closer to Sandestin.  We give it two thumbs up!
For some reason, a girl at Rum Runners later that night thought Jennifer was a bachelorette and gave her a tiara and ring.  We're still not really sure why, but I think this picture of Jenn is super:

Last weekend, we headed to Knoxville for the Tennessee Florida game.  I did not take enough pictures.  We stayed with The Tara Kelley and Steve and had a fun time even though the game was sad.  Steve brought out the Jorts flag again this year in honor of the Florida fans and it was a hit as always:

And a shot of the field.  Like I said, I dropped the ball on the pictures this weekend.  Got to see Tara and Alicia and Mike D and Amelia and McKernan and crowd, but we just needed more time!

Cocodot

I read about this "Evite"-ish website on my friend Amelia Daniel's blog about forever ago and it looked so cute, but I didn't have any invites I needed to send so I forgot about it for a while.  I thought about it today and looked back into Amelia's archives to find the website and it is sooooo cute!  It is called Cocodot.  It has all of these really cute invites that you can use as Evites, but the really cool thing is that you can save the invite as a picture and make your own!  They even have these super cute Lilly ones:

I haven't made my invitation yet but I am super excited about the possibilities with this website.  LOVE IT!