Yesterday it was a dark and dreary day. It rained. And when it wasn’t raining, it was cloudy. Almost

every person I talked to seemed to be having a bad day, and the general, overall mood of the day was “I just want to go home.” I was not an exception to the rule. So, for today, I decided to cheer up, lighten the mood and laugh a little. Below you will find my top five favorite gag gifts for the season. Enjoy!

1. Humping Dog
2. Farting Santa
3. Money Soap
4. Mistletoe Headband
5. Santa Drinking Hat

Today I am happy to report to you that I ate my first Bake Pops yesterday, and the verdict is…they are delicious!

Over the weekend my friend and her daughter were looking for an activity to keep them busy and decided they should bake something different. They are already experts on rice crispy treats, chocolate chip cookies, and brownies. So this past weekend it was time for the two of them to add a new baked good to their list—and I am sure glad they did! They made two flavors: chocolate mint with vanilla inside and vanilla outside with coconut/pecan inside. I had one of each. They were both great!

So, the review is: my friend and her daughter could make Bake Pops together and they turned out unbelievable! You can do it too!

One of the coolest things happened to me the other week. I waited this long to tell you all about it because I wasn’t sure about it myself. But, it’s pretty cool, and I think you all can appreciate this reuniting story.

I opened up my email and found I had a message from someone I didn’t know via a social networking website. For some reason, normally I delete these types of messages, I decided to open it and read it…and I was thrilled to read it. It was a girl who I haven’t spoken to in 20 years who found me by my name (I do not have a picture of myself posted). She took a chance, and sent me a message. I must have read and re-read this very short note a million times over…I knew EXACTLY who she was without even looking at her picture. I sent her a message back and gave her my personal email address and just hoped she would get back to me. I literally waited by my computer to see if she would write back. She did! The night before Thanksgiving, I saw she wrote back—this time she sent me a surprise in her letter—a video of the two of us from when we were 8 years old! I laughed out loud for the full 2 minutes of the video (soundless). I dragged my mom out of the kitchen and away from her pie dishes that needed to be filled with pumpkin pie over into the other room and made both of my parents watch the video with me. I easily watched the video half a dozen times…laughed every time.

I am so excited to be back in touch with my old friend from so many years ago! I know so far we are “pen pals” and send emails back and forth, but I am enjoying getting to know her again. It has also given me a great conversation-starter and I can prove to my friends who know me now that I was, in fact, always camera shy. Have you reunited with anyone recently? How did you reconnect?

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I am excited to get on the road (not excited about traffic) and see my family. There are many things to be thankful for this year. I am thankful for tradition and getting the family together every single year. We also have the tradition of playing cards after the big meal. Its just something we have always done.

I know many families have a traditional dish, probably passed down through the generations, that they prepare each year. Some families decorate for Christmas Thanksgiving night. Why not? You’re all together and if you haven’t been bitten by the Christmas season bug yet, you might as well now.
Put the Christmas tree up and get the
solar Christmas lights on the house.

What are your family traditions and what are you looking forward to this Thanksgiving? Whatever you do, be safe and enjoy!

It is time to start planning for holiday traveling. This week is a short work week for me. I will be leaving the office early on Wednesday afternoon, so I can brave the day-before-Thanksgiving traffic to get home for Thanksgiving.

While it shouldn’t take more than 3 hours to get to my family’s, I have the potential of being in the car for a good 6 hours. So, I am getting prepared. I have already printed out the directions that I would like to take to get home. I have the
GPS Nav Mat already set up and waiting for the GPS just in case we have to change our route. I have my travel tote hanging in my
bathroom so I can start packing things as I use them. I made sure to purchase some food to bring in the car for snacks just in case the ride does to take 6 hours.

Have you done any travel preparation yet for the holiday? Do you have any other tips for me to prepare my car and friends for the potentially long ride?

I am starting to notice the colder temperatures more and more in the mornings. Here on the east, we’ve had a nice fall so far but the temperature is absolutely dropping. I had to put gloves on the past two mornings just to grip the steering wheel! My problem with wearing gloves is that I no longer have the use of all of my fingers!

To my surprise and delight, the Huffington Post has taken note of Taylor Gifts’ texting gloves in their article, “19 Weirdest Products For Keeping Warm”. We’ll take the “weird” distinction, as we think we’re the most normal product of the bunch! These texting gloves are great! There is a flap on the mitten to keep your fingers covered and warm, or if you need your fingers for texting (not while driving, of course) or any other reason, just flip it back and there your fingers are! The extra-long arm of the mitten keeps your arms warm as well as your hands.
Thanks for the mention, Huffington Post!

So as you know I was recently on a cleaning kick and scrubbed my entire apartment. All I have left to do is change my sheets on my bed. I’ll probably do that tonight. However, in the spirit of cleaning, let’s go back to cleaning the bathroom.

I read an interesting blog post last night about organizing your bathroom, and I recommend reading it here if you get the chance. It discusses different way to keep your bathroom organized since it is probably the most used room in your home. Some of the highlights included putting a Lazy Susan under the sink, toilet paper holders to vertically store toilet paper right next to the toilet, hooks to hang towels and robes, and more.

There are many different ways you can succeed in organizing your bathroom. Definitely check out the article for other tips to organizing your bathroom. What will you do?

Happy Monday! I hope you had a productive and fun weekend. This weekend I had the realization that it is already mid-November! Where has the time gone? I started to think about all the things that I need to begin planning.

I have to plan my trip to my family’s house which should only take three hours, but has taken up to seven! I need to put together a list of what I hope to purchase for my friends and family, as well as extra host/hostess gifts for parties. Finally, I need to dig out my holiday decorations and begin to decorate and of course, purchase new decorations!

I love looking at Christmas decorations. I love seeing all the lights, colors, characters, and themes. I love seeing others’ Christmas trees in windows. Whether you decorate November 1st or wait until Christmas Eve or if you cut a fresh tree every year or have an artificial tree, it is definitely time to think about the holidays.

Last night I needed a little therapy. Everything has been busy, people have been needing things, work has been a lot of hard work, and everything, for some reason, needs to be finished or accomplished all at the same time. Therefore, I needed to take charge of my night last night.

My house has been suffering. I have barely been at home except to sleep, and when I am at home for an extended period of time that last thing I’ve wanted to do is clean…but the poor place was desperate for a good scrubbing. Fortunately, last night not only was in the mood to finally get to cleaning, but my body wasn’t completely exhausted, I had plenty of time, and I was stressed out from the day. Under normal circumstances, I would have gone to the gym to work off my frustration, but cleaning was the task at hand and it worked like a charm!

I scrubbed every inch of my kitchen, cleaned every single piece of furniture and small item in the whole place. I dusted everything in sight and put every out-of-place item back where it belongs. I ran the dishwasher, took out the trash, and cleaned the floors. I hate cleaning the floors because they are all hardwood or tile. They collect dust and dirt so quickly. Luckily, for me, I use the Shark Steam Mop (http://www.taylorgifts.com/item/shark_steam_mop-original/27970) to clean my floors and it makes the task a whole lot less daunting.

Since it took me so long to get through the regular cleaning, I didn’t get to the bathroom. So, on tap for tonight; cleaning the bathroom! I hope you have something better planned. And if you’re cleaning, too…happy cleaning!

It’s about that time of year that everyone starts to be really nice and kind to each other—they do call it the season of sharing! The funny part is that we show our love by baking sweet treats for our friends. Then, you bring the sweet treats to everyone, everyone gets really excited, and then they bake a sweet treat for everyone in return. It’s such a vicious cycle, but it’s part of the fun of the holiday season.

I always have the staple baking food in my house at all times because you never know when a craving to bake something sweet. Of course, I don’t want these treats sitting in my house as I will be tempted to eat every last one! So I pack up the cupcakes in my cupcake carousel to carry those my friends or to work to share with others.

Do you have a favorite go-to sweet treat you bake for your friends on a regular basis?