Last week everyone at work was sick, so naturally I have a touch of something this week. It’s not full-blown yet so I’ve been taking Airborne to give my immune system a boost and hopefully fight it off. Apparently it’s a losing battle as each day I feel a little worse.

Luckily there is a ton of cold medicine at work from all of the sick folks last week. There are Puffs tissues with Vicks inside of them, making it nice to blow my nose while also being able to breathe. One guy recommended Zicam that is suppose to shorten the time you have a cold. It worked for him as he started taking it at the first signs of a cold and only was sick for two days. I’m buying some tomorrow as it seems I have a cold for at least a week, sometimes longer.

If there was only a way to avoid having a cold altogether. Sadly by the time you hear of something going around, it’s too late. You’re already exposed and can’t really prevent it. Hopefully with Zicam and Airborne I can at least shorten the amount of time I’m sick. There is too much to do to be sick right now.

While visiting my husband’s family this weekend, we took the kids to see Santa. My nephew, who is four, promptly rattled off his Christmas list to Santa: a Gameboy, a truck, and a chocolate bar! A kid after my own heart!

Chocolate is one of my favorite foods, so when I was asked if I’d like to try to new dark chocolate, I gladly accepted. It’s called Ferrero Rondoir. The packaging was almost too pretty to unwrap. That gold wrapper makes a nice presentation. I did say *almost*. Before I could even snap a photo of it, my husband had already begun to sample it! I’m not the only one who loves the chocolate in our home. He did offer his opinion of the chocolate since he ate the majority of it.

The Ferrero Chocolate received two thumbs up. My husband gave me the pointer of biting all the way through the chocolate since there were multiple layers of flavor from the crisp wafer to the dark chocolate center. The mix of flavors were divine. I’m normally not a fan of dark chocolate but Ferrero Rondoir was really good. It was harsh like most dark chocolates I have tasted before. This will definitely be one chocolate that will find its way under the Christmas tree this year. Ferrero not only makes some sweet chocolates but they have a sweet way to donate to a charity this holiday.

Ferrero Rocher has created a website that benefits the charity Share our Strength. SOS is a great charity that is focused on ending childhood hunger in the United States. Visit Share Something Sweet.com and send a virtual snow globe to a friend. For each snow globe sent, Ferrero will donate $1 to Share our Strength, up to $20,000. You can either choose a picture from your computer or use one from the website.

It’s fun to create a snow globe, and it’s helping out a great cause.

While Black Friday has come and gone, it’s never too early to start thinking about next year. While some holiday shoppers would rather have a colon cleanse than to step foot into a store on the Friday after Thanksgiving, many begin their shopping since it is a great day to get bargains.

Here are some tips that I wished I had followed last Friday. First, bring your sales paper. Silly me thought that I could just pick one up at the stores but not all had them available. So, a lot of my shopping time was spent aimlessly wandering around trying to remember which store had which bargain.

Wearing comfortable shoes is a must. Even if I’m trying to break in a new pair of sneakers, Black Friday is not the day to do that. Since I was doing a lot of wandering around since I didn’t bring my sales paper, my feet paid the price. Never again will I make that mistake.

There are bound to be more that I can add but these stand out as mistakes made and consequently lessons learned. Maybe by next Black Friday I will have more sage advice for those brave enough to fight the crowds for a good bargain.

It seems all I did over the Thanksgiving weekend is eat. Everything was so good, but I feel like I won’t be hungry for days. I feel 10 pounds heavier and really want to find a Cyber Monday deal on fitness equipment. Still I guess once the bloating subsides things will be back to normal.

It seems I eat more over Thanksgiving than at Christmas. Maybe because the Christmas celebration is spread out and Thanksgiving happens all at once. We usually have our family Christmas a week before the holiday and then travel right at Christmas to my in-laws. It definitely helps not to feel like you’ve stuffed yourself for days on end.

Hopefully tomorrow I will feel more normal and not like such a glutton.

I’m really beginning to see the benefits of those large mailboxes. So many packages I receive in the mail would fit into one of those but not the standard size mailboxes. At least once a week I receive an over-sized package in the mail. If I had a larger mailbox, then the carrier could just leave it in there, and I wouldn’t have to travel to the post office to pick it up.

While I used to think people who had those big mailboxes must think highly of themselves, now I see the benefits of having one. With the rising gas prices, extra trips to town can really hurt. The expense of the larger mailbox might even save money when you factor in the price of gas and extra trips to town over time.

A larger mailbox is something to consider and might wind up being a weekend project within the next few weeks.

Throughout this weekend that kicked off the holiday shopping season I found several items that I can put on my Christmas list. One item is a tool kit that features all pink tools. It has a pink hammer, pink screwdriver, as well as a safety utility knife. My mother-in-law had a hammer that she painted flowers on the handle so that her husband or one of her sons wouldn’t carry off with them. Her thought was that they wouldn’t want to be caught with such a feminine looking hammer, and she was right.

I can never find tools when I need them. If I had my own set and especially if they were pink, I doubt they would be used by my husband. Knowing him he would probably use them since they would be new. But with the pink handles, I could easily tell which tools were mine and put them back in their right place.

The Marine Toys for Tots is a great charity that collects new, unwrapped toys from October through December. They collect toys until December 22nd. There are several drop-off places like Toys R Us that you can leave donated toys at. You can also make a cash donation at Toys R Us. In fact, if you shop there this season, you might be asked if you’d like to give. It’s really easy to give $1, $5, $10, or more at the time of checkout. There is also another interesting way to help out the Toys for Tots program that I recently learned about.

If you drink Coca Cola, then you can help out the program. All it will take is saving those red caps on your Coke product. Enter the code at My Coke Rewards.com and then donate those points to the Toys for Tots. Coca-Cola is giving away $100,000 in gifts but will give Toys for Tots the donated points to get additional toys. So far, they have had donated almost 2 1/2 million points!

It’s a great way to give that will only take a little of your time to put in codes. You will have to register for the My Coke Rewards website, and you can put up to 10 codes in a day.

Happy Thanksgiving! We are headed to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving, which is only a few feet away! Tomorrow we go visit my husband’s family which is about a four hour trip. So, we might get off easy today but tomorrow will be a different story.

I made cupcakes since I wanted to make a little something even though my Mom cooks enough to feed an army. The first cupcakes turned out fine but the second burned to a crisp. It is so hard to get used to this temperamental oven. At least I have a few cupcakes to bring.

Have a great day everyone and try not to eat too much!

It’s probably a good idea if we start to save now for our next vehicle as our ‘new’ car is 11 years old. It must be something about becoming a parent that has me dreaming of a minivan as our next vehicle. The days of thinking that a custom billet grille or paint job would be awesome are over. Well, at least until the girl gets a little older.

We do plan on getting a new-to-us vehicle within the new year. Our goal is to get another vehicle before our current one gives out. It would be nice to sell a running vehicle for once.

Buying a new vehicle is still at least six months away, but the time to plan for the expense is now. I will be adding a new car allowance into the budget beginning in January as December is crazy enough without trying to do anything extra.

Oprah’s Favorite Things episode is one I try not to miss each year. Well, I missed it this year but luckily there is Oprah’s Favorite Things website that has all of the items featured on her special show. I don’t think they are associated with Oprah but have been listing her favorite things for the past seven years.

This is one episode that I would love to be a member of the audience. Imagine getting a ton of great gifts in an hour. Your Christmas shopping could be practically done!

Glad I found a list of her items from this year and like all of her previous favorite things, very few are within my price range.