A good friend of mine (we’ve known each other since high school) is getting married in a couple of months. Since November, I’ve been helping her with planning some of the details. All of the major details are taken care of: videographer, caterer, location, etc. but we’re still working on a lot of things, including the wedding favors.

We want to fiind wedding favors that are both unique and inexpensive, but we haven’t had any luck coming up with the perfect items yet. I just learned of a site called The Knot Wedding Shop that could be very useful for us. It has some great products such as personalized candy, coasters, silk fans, cookie cutters, and a whole lot more. Plus, the prices are very reasonable and are within the budget that the bride-to-be wants to work with.

I’m going to send my friend the URL right now so she can take a look!

I’m sure you’ve seen that little app that shows how much a particular blog is worth. I don’t know what kinds of things are taken into consideration to come up with the final number, but I’m pretty certain that it’s not accurate. Because according to this site, my blog is worth $15,800!

Ha ha, I wish! This blog has a PR0 and doesn’t get an astounding amount of traffic or anything like that. If someone offered me $15,800 for it, I’d sell it in a heartbeat.

Any takers?

Here’s a question posed by the email marketing experts at MindComet: if you could email anyone, who would it be and what would you say?

How can I pretend that there’s anything on my mind right now other than Super Bowl XLI? I would email Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner and BEG him not to put too much pressure on Rex Grossman this Sunday. Establish the running game. Use short drops and screens. Not every pass has to go 30 yards downfield to Berrian. Let’s win this thing!!

This post brought to you on behalf of MindComet.

The second HP puzzle over at PayPerPost is almost finished. The special key was released a little while ago, so now posties are scrambling to find it. I was not at my computer for the last 6 hours or so, which means that I missed several pieces. As a result, I’m not currently combing the Internet for the key since I wouldn’t have the completed puzzle anyway.

It’ll be interesting to see who takes home the top prize this time. The $1,000 opp is just sitting there in the blogger panel at PPP waiting to be claimed!

When I was in my early 20s, I was very irresponsible with my credit cards. At first, I promised myself that I would only use them when I ran into a financial emergency, but I soon started charging things like beer, pizza, and other unnecessary items that college students tend to deem important. It didn’t take long before I was thousands of dollars in debt with no way to pay off my bills quickly, and of course the incredibly high interest rates the credit card companies charged made things even worse.

After a few months of making the minimum payment — and getting nowhere — I decided to try consolidating my debts. Some of my friends had utilized loan consolidation to reduce their student loan burdens, so I thought I could benefit in the same way.

Although it certainly wasn’t an overnight solution, debt consolidation did work out for me in the long run. I was able to pay off my credit cards a lot sooner than if I hadn’t consolidated, and I’ve been very careful about my spending habits ever since.

I was fooling around on YouTube this morning when I came across some video clips that West Wing fans put together of Josh and Donna. You can see a bunch of them by following this link or simply searching for the terms “josh donna” on YouTube.com.

Josh & Donna Clips

It was so nice seeing these clips again. It made me realize how much I miss The West Wing, and even more, how much I miss great relationships and/or chemistry in my TV shows. When I think back over the years, I’ve almost always had a great couple to follow. In the mid-1980’s it was Maddie and David on Moonlighting; in the early to mid ’90s it was Mulder and Scully on The X-Files; then in the late ’90s through last year, it was Josh and Donna on The West Wing.

After taking stock of the shows I watch now, I realize that there’s not a single couple that turns me into a ’shipper. I watch 24, CSI, Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, The Sopranos, Prison Break, and Grey’s Anatomy pretty regularly. The only couple I’m even slightly interested in out of all those shows is Michael Scofield and Sara Tancredi from Prison Break, but they’re hardly ever on screen together, so it’s not very fun to be a ’shipper for that show. GA has a lot of couples, but I don’t like any of them because they’re all so dysfunctional.

So what am I missing? Are there any shows out there with a truly great couple that practically burns up the screen with their chemistry? Let me know!

The latest $1,000 scavenger hunt from HP and PayPerPost is almost over, so it’s time to take stock of the puzzle pieces that you have and make sure that you’re keeping pace with the other players. From what I’ve read on the PPP forums, it seems that most people have around 37 or 38 pieces. When you consider that there are only 48 total in the entire puzzle, you can see that the end is near.

To refresh your memory, PPP postie Michelle took a bunch of pictures with the HP camera she won in a previous opp, and PPP made a collage from those images. We’re now trying to recreate the collage piece by piece. I have #15 for you right here, so grab it now!

This post was brought to you by HP. Hey, did you know that they offer a full range of digital photo printing services? I found out about Snapfish during the last puzzle and am currently organizing a bunch of digital photos that I want to print. I’ll be getting the first 25 prints free, so I figure why not give them a try!

Anyway, on to the puzzle piece:

I just got done talking to my friend Mark about the Super Bowl party he’s having at his house this Sunday. He has decided to order Italian beef sandwiches from Portillo’s, which (in my opinion) is one of the best fast food joints in Chicagoland. Portillo’s is definitely one of my favorites, and is usually the first place I go to after I’ve been out of town for awhile — like after a six-month stay in Japan or whatever. Can’t wait for Sunday!!!!

Oh, wow: I just noticed that the Wikipedia entry for Italian beef features a Portillo’s sandwich!

I used to be a big hockey fan and even had season tickets to the Blackhawks when I was in junior high. Like many fans, I kind of lost interest in the game after the lockout, but I’ve slowly been getting back into it. I like the new rules that promote more offense and I love the fact that the future of the game rests on the shoulders of quality young players like Ovechkin and Crosby.

So now I’m starting to follow the sport more closely and at least keep up with the current standings. I’m also looking to get more involved with other fans, which is why I’m thinking about joining an NHL forum. The one over at HFBoards.com looks like the best. It’s been around for more than 5 years and has a very active community. I like the way members can talk about things like the Business of Hockey and Trade Rumors in addition to the standard team/game threads.

HFBoards.com looks like a keeper, so check it out if you’re a hockey fan!

With the big game less than a week away, Super Bowl hype is in full swing right now, especially in Indianapolis and Chicago. I love reading all the different articles that come out prior to the Super Bowl — just like this one from Redeye (a part of the Chicago Tribune). It’s a fun matchup pitting Indy against Chicago, only they’re talking about the cities themselves, not the football teams. Of course Chicago won as the better city, in categories such as famous landmarks, celebrities, and big companies. Now let’s go win the Super Bowl, too!!!

It was my aunt’s birthday over the weekend, but since she lives in Arizona, I couldn’t make a personal visit or anything. So instead, I decided to send flowers to mark the occasion. My aunt loves to decorate her home with fresh flowers, so I knew she would appreciate the arrangement of lilies that I ordered for her.

Actually, I find myself sending flowers more and more often these days. It’s just easier to go online and select a beautiful bouquet to be delivered anywhere in the U.S. than to go out to a store and spend hours shopping around for a gift. Plus, most online flower delivery websites also offer gift baskets, which makes it even easier to acknowledge special occasions. I just love this convenience!

I was watching Larry King Live a bit earlier tonight. Tyra Banks was his guest, and even though I’d heard of her before, I never really knew anything about her. I’ve never seen her talk show or America’s Next Top Model, so basically I’d never heard her speak before.

Let me tell you, I was VERY impressed by Tyra. She is not only intelligent and articulate, but she seems extremely kind and caring as well. I like how she’s using her talk show and America’s Next Top Model to show young women that it’s ok not to look like the anorexic actresses and models that are in every magazine on the newsstands.

I was actually just flipping channels and wasn’t planning on watching Larry King, but Banks came across as so sincere that I stayed put and watched the last 45 minutes of her interview. I am now a Tyra Banks fan and will try to catch America’s Next Top Model when it airs on Feb. 28.

I’ve often written about how my husband and I are trying to plan for our retirement. We know how important it is to have enough savings of our own without relying on social security benefits, so we’re always checking for solid investments. We’re far too conservative to risk our money in the stock market, so we look to high yield savings accounts instead.

None of the financial institutions in our vicinity offer high-yield savings, so I frequently scour the Internet looking for the best rates. I’ve found a website called emoneycentral.com that lists some of the highest yielding accounts currently available, which is a great tool to have. Many of the accounts listed at emoneycentral.com provide an APY of more than 5.00% and have reasonable minimum deposits so I’m going to have to really sit down and evaluate them to find a couple of good ones to put some money into.

Have you been following the whole Barbaro story? That’s the horse that won the 2006 Kentucky Derby but then got injured in the Preakness last May. Ever since then, Barbaro has been in and out of sports news as he had surgeries to try to repair his fractured leg and save his life.

Things were looking good recently, but then he developed an infection or something and couldn’t recover. The owners decided the horse was in too much pain and discomfort, so Barbaro was put down today. Pretty sad.

Have you been following the Winter X Games results? My husband loves “extreme sports” and always watches the X Games in the summer and winter. Of course after taking in some of the snowboarding competitions, he wants to hit the slopes himself.

I’m not much of a snowboarder myself, but I wouldn’t mind spending a long weekend in the mountains. Some of the ski resorts in Colorado and Vermont provide simply breathtaking views of the scenery, so I’m sure we’d have fun. There’s still time for a short getaway this winter, so you never know!