I am sure most of you know what a Groupon is by now... but in case you do not, let me tell you about it! Groupon is a website that offers daily deals for your area and during that one day you can purchase the coupon, and after that day it will be a different coupon. They are for all sorts of businesses and services. This week Nashville has had some great ones
- hair cut, color and blow out for $45 at Fierce Salon
- 1 hour facial at the cosmetic market for $40
- today's is RuSan's $15 for $30 Food Gift Certificate.

I always think of the Newcombs when I hear RuSans! Anyway those are some great deals. That is a full day of pampering and dinner for $100. They offer things like clothing store discounts, spray tans, dog grooming.... all sorts of things.
I am also fond of these because of the exposure and business they bring to our local establishments. When Allium in East Nashville had a groupon, the manager told me it did awesome things for them, which makes me happy since I want East Nashville to thrive.

Anyway just wanted to let you all know about it in case you wanted to take advantage. If you want to have access just sign up for their daily emails at Groupon.com

URL

Yesterday the bubs and I cruised our local thrift shops, just for fun and I had some good luck! I spent about $8 total and got what you see below and one vintage sheet that is in the washer right now. It was a great flower power one from the 60's though!
That camp light below is especially neat! Runs on a huge 6V battery! Then some vintage tupperware and melmac in Harvest colors!
Vintage Tupperware is one of my favorite finds and you can read how to properly care for it and bring it back to life HERE.


My favorite thrift searches are Retro Sheets, Retro Kitchen, Mid Century peg leg furniture & the art section. Generally I am checking the art for frames. Below is a great example of a recent purchase. It is a numbered hatch print, that was custom framed. I bought it to replace that print with one of our hatch prints therefor recycling the frame and saving us tons of $$. I will put up an after shot of that soon. I did that before HERE and am really pleased with the results.
Anyone else find great steals over the weekend?

Tight Shirt Shot:

Regular shirt shot:


I had my 2nd Doctors appt last week, where he read blood work results and we heard the heart beat. It lasted all of 5 minutes. I seem to be anemic, but no worries I have pills for that now.
I had gained 3.6 lbs which makes 8.5 lbs total for the last 3 months. Not too bad, however it will be interesting to see how that goes in the next few months, since booboo griza will be growing now.
I have been feeling pretty much almost all the way normal, except for occasional head or back aches and the wearing of maternity pants every day. Best.Invention.Ever. I may just wear them for the rest of my life.
I have never in my life ( before now) experienced a bra leaving indentions in my skin, which is new and strange. I also worked a very long time to ween myself from dairy products, especially milk, which is all in all a disgusting phenomenon, and now I drink it every day. I think that is my only taste bud reversal.Also, this week I have eaten about 65 mangos, and so much sour candy that the inside of my mouth is raw.
We made some progress this week in cleaning out the nursery but it is still very much a work in progress. Pictures of that soon!
I am also considering paying for a gender ultrasound this month. If I wait for my doc, he wont tell me until April 2nd and I just don't know if I can wait that long. I feel like knowing the gender might make this more "real". How far along were any of you moms out there when you found out?

I read about this recipe or idea on THIS BLOG and had to try it for myself. Mine did not turn out as pretty as hers but it was definitely tasty! All you need is a can of cinnamon rolls and some colored sprinkles.

Bubs is running in the rain/sleet to do the Preds 5K that he does every year! I thought his outfit was particularly cute and fanatical so I had to take some pics! Also interesting is how he holds Ralpy like a little dishrag.

Erik and I have both talked a lot about how we want to do some blog giveaways to thank all our friends and readers and finally this month we are gonna get that party started! In honor of my love of Holidays and Illuminations, I have these lovely items up for giveaway!

I am sure you guys have heard me talk too many times about my multiple journals, books and checklists, but I know a few of you who share my passion and for those I shall talk about it again!
I have been searching for about 5 years for a 81/2 x11 Leather 1" 3 ring binder that I could use for my checklists and business cards and Franklin Covey stuff and I have NEVER been able to find one, EVER, except one my neighbor has that I have coveted for about a year now. She told me she got it at Office Depot a few years ago , and low and behold , January is the month they carry them! I found one! Now, its not beautiful but it definitely does the trick.

$11 at Office Depot and if you want, for about $5 you can order a Monogram decal from Etsy to jazz it up! And in celebration of me finding the perfect, elusive binder I shall point you all to a few sites of fun printing forms.
Real Simple. They have a checklist for Everything! Organizing the closet to cleaning the bathroom.
Mom Agenda - For moms and stuff like that.

Tip Junkie

Now one of these blogs I happened upon has a chick who talks about all her lists and her home maintenance book, but I cant find it! Does anyone else read that blog? Help me out!

I have been wanting to discuss this for a while, but was honestly too lazy to try and explain the step by step stuff. Thankfully Brandy over at "You Don't Even Know" has written out a great tutorial with pictures and everything that will show you how to:
- associate your email with your comment name
- and receive emails when you get comments on your own blog

This is important b.c a lot of you that comment have the same name as someone else, and when you say stuff to me, or ask me questions that I want to reply to, I can't b.c I don't know which one you are, and you don't have an email address linked to your google comment name. For instance, whoever Sarah was that commented about a corn muffin recipe, yes please email me that! But I don't know if you are Sarah Lewis, Sara Ussery, Sarah Macon , etc so I didn't know who to email! Ya Feel me ?

Another thing, for the LOVE, could ya'll please do me a favor and add your face to that facebook friends box over on the right margin? It is so sad and lonely with 2 faces in it! I don't think it will do anything crazy like clog up your facebook home page, but it will make it look as though I've got some dang friends/readers!

Oh, and one other random thought. Erik and I talked it over in the beginning about how we didn't want to the blog to become a full blown baby blog, b.c non baby peeps will find that boring. I try REALLY hard to not be boring on here, but dang if ya'll don't blow up the comments when I post about baby stuff. The announcement had 43 Comments ....FORTY-THREE... THE.MOST.EVER. Snubs took one look at that and said " we should've had a baby a long time ago if it means comments!" lol So now I'm confused and need you to vote on that subject in the margin! If you are reading this through reader, please go to the actual www.igriza.com and vote! Thanks Ya'll

This is what we made for our Snow Day Food and it was delicious! I also made some Cheesy Cornbread but it was not good b.c I thought baking soda and baking powder were interchangeable ... ( they're not).
I used some fresh cilantro and lime juice as a garnish to my soup and also think its better with Shredded Mexican cheese instead of cheddar. I made about half that fried tortilla strips suggested serving and it was plenty!
PS I got this recipe from THIS BLOG and it is a great cooking blog!

It has snowed like crazy here today! Maybe the most snow I have ever seen in Nashville! Thankfully Erik was off today so we got to hang out (safe) at home and get some stuff done plus play!

Princesses don't like to get their feet wet...
But the Prince is having the time of his life.
Erik & Ralpy did some roughing around in the back yard...
and then they made snow angels... LOL (this really, REALLY cracked me up) You can see Ralphie things Erik has clearly lost his mind...

So I read about this foundation on The Confessions of a Sephora Junkie and was very intrigued... especially intrigued after reading those other 4 blogs she linked to where hundreds of women were all screaming their praises for this new foundation they think is like Make Up Forever.
I set out to get myself some, and when it was ALL.SOLD.OUT. in every shade, I thought hmmm there must be something to this stuff!
So then, I finally found some at Wal-greens where it just happens to be buy one get one 1/2 off right now! I have only worn it once but I will have to say I am really impressed! It is not thick or greasy, and does give nice even coverage and somehow I managed to match my skin tone perfectly, which I have never done with drugstore makeup before!

Read here
and here

for more info!
Happy Friday
xoxo

Yesterday was the long anticipated announcement of Apple's Tablet, essentially a large Ipod Touch. Everyone was pretty excited about it, and then blown away by the low price point. I'm not gonna lie, I want one! Do I need one? No! But dang, the thought of a 1lb computer hanging out in a diaper bag sounds pretty awesome to me.
So what all does it do?

• Internet
• Email
• Picture & calendar management
• Music
• Tv & Movies
• Wifi & 3G
• Games
• Ebooks
• Maps

What is it lacking? I think apple always ( wisely) leaves things to be desired so you have a reason to buy the latest and greatest models.

• camera
• background running apps (multitasking)
• Flash

Alot of people are disappointed because they were expecting something crazy wild, and this was pretty much exactly what was predicted, and that is disappointing. I wasn't WOWED like with the iphone announcement, but no one was really excited about the ipod when it first came out either, and LOOK at how successful that has become. Apple is not a company of dummies, and my money is on them. If they make it, if they think its cool , chances are it will be very successful, and when you just compare it to Ebooks, well it definitely squashed the competition and the price is so similar I cant imagine anyone not choosing it over the Nook, Kindle & Sony books.



Keyboard shot: (it is all touchscreen)
Case with a kickstand for watching TV etc:
Keyboard Dock, pretty brilliant turning it into a regular computer
Desktop Dock which allows the ipad to become a digital picture frame rotating your pictures when not in use.
Price Points:

So, something for everyone. Someone like my mom could get by with the 16gig, because she doesn't have a huge itunes library and is a light computer user, but for me with a 5,000 song itunes library and tons of Tv shows/movies... I like the big daddy!

I also think this is a great way to introduce people like Granpa or my Nonie to the Mac world. Its a low investment computer for them that would be really fun to use.

Keynote Video Link

Apple Commercial


*pictures from engadget **