50% Off Domino's Pizza through December 19th!

Order Domino's Pizza online for carryout now through December 19th and get 50% off pizzas!! Just use Coupon Code 50OFFPIZZA at checkout!! I know where I'm getting my dinner tonight...mmmm!! Can't wait! Nothing like eating pizza while watching the Celtics kick some ass against the Knicks on tv.

Stocking Stuffer & Gift Ideas

With the Holidays right around the corner (Hanukkah starts tonight!!!), I thought I would suggest a few stocking stuffer & gift ideas. Obviously all gifts aren't for anyone, so pick and choose wisely.

Custom Printed M&Ms for the Recipients Favorite Team
http://www.mymms.com/

This is the perfect gift for any sports fanatic (brother, father, boyfriend, or even a female). A seven ounce bag for any team costs $10.99. However, shipping can be a bit pricey ($9.95 for 1-2 bags) since it has to get delivered in a styrofoam box to prevent melting. Tip: order two bags for different people. Since shipping is the same price for two bags as it is for one, you would be reducing the shipping cost per gift. You could also order a bubble gum like dispenser with 3 bags of the m&ms for $59.99 plus $17.95 shipping.

Paddywax Candles

http://www.paddywax.com/public/pag1.aspx

These are my absolute favorite candles! They smell amazing, unlike a lot of candles from Yankee Candles. Whenever I walk by that place, I feel sick. Anyways, the cute little tins pictured above are on sale for $4 each through December 10th (normally $5). Paddywax's holiday boxes are also on sale until the 10th for $8 (normally $12). The holiday boxes contain a candle in a nicer, glass holder and come in delicious scents such as Fresh Pine & Clementine, Cocoa & Vanilla Bean and Clove & Tangerine. These candles would be great as stalking stuffers or as a little gift to those you're not extremely close with (your teacher, real estate agent, therapist, etc..)

Juicy Couture Pajama Pants

http://www.juicycouture.com/

Juicy Couture Pajama pants are the most comfortable things every and they fit really well too. They're perfect for female college students because they can wear them around the dorm without feeling too shlumpy. Most of them cost around $58 but they can occasionally be found at Nordstrom Rack for around $30.

Sephora by O.P.I Nailpolish

http://www.sephora.com/

Sephora by O.P.I nailpolish is even better than the original O.P.I nailpolish. It's a bit thinner and therefore seems to apply a lot smoother. These make an awesome stocking stuffer for any girl and they come in tons of colors. $9 each.

Northface ETIP Gloves

http://www.thenorthface.com/catalog/index.html

This is the perfect gift for anyone with a touch screen phone. Almost everyone who has a touch screen phone gets super annoyed when having to take their gloves off in the middle of the winter just so they can use their it. With these gloves, they won't have to deal with that hassle anymore. Available for both men and women. $40 per pair.

Cooking Apron & Pot Holders from Williams-Sonoma

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/

These are great gifts for anyone that likes to bake and/or cook. The apron is $19 and the pot holders are $7 each. If you choose, you can even get the apron personalized with someone's name for $10 more. The thing I love about the pot holders is that they are nice and thick, making it very hard to burn yourself. Also, they are like an oven mit in that you can stick your hand inside, but its a lot easier and quicker than sticking a full oven mit on. These would also make a nice gift for relatives.

Baily Button Tripplet UGG Boots

http://www.uggaustralia.com/

Okay, yes! A lot of people think that UGGs are ugly. That's why they're called UGGs, right? However, they are super practical especially with leggings/jeggings being in style. I used to wear sneakers all the time but they look rediculous with these types of pants and I'm sorry but I don't always feel like wearing high heels or flats. They're just not comfortable. That's where UGGs come in. Plus, this particular boot is actually kind of cute. They can even be rolled down to make a shorter boot. I would suggest the color shown above (chocolate) because it matches with a lot. Although it is a shade of brown it wouldnt even look that bad with black in my opinion. Anyways, the price is $180.

White Chocolate Peppermint Truffle Gems Tube from Godiva

http://www.godiva.com/welcome.aspx

So I haven't actually tried this but the packaging is super cute and it would make a perfect stocking stuffer at $10. Godiva may be a bit pricey for chocolate but most of what I've tried from there has been well worth it.

Season(s) of Dexter on DVD

www.amazon.com

Almost everyone who has seen this show loves it! I didn't think I would considering it's about a serial killer, but wow. I watched the entire first seasons in two days. All four seasons can be found on Amazon and are in the $22 to $27 range.



Fragrances from Victoria's Secret for Her

http://www.victoriassecret.com/

Victoria's Secret is constantly coming up with new frangrances. My two faves right now are NOIR and Chiffon Pheony Fresia. Go into the store and take a whiff of these to see which one you like. Giving someone a fragrance can be tricky though if you don't know what they like. Just remember to ask for a gift receipt. That way, if they don't like the particular scent, they can go back and find a fragrance they do like. NOIR costs $29-$49 depending on the size and Chiffon Pheony Fresia costs $45. There are also numerous scents, including NOIR available in miniature sizes for only $10 in cute ornament like boxes, as pictured above.

Chrome Cologne for Him

www.walmart.com

www.macys.com

This scent is perfect for any guy that wants girls all over him. It's amazingg. Everytime I walk into a store that has it, I just have to go and smell it. It can be found anywhere from Walmart to Macy's. At Walmart, a 1 ounce bottle goes for $23 and a 1.7 ounce bottle goes for $33. At Macy's they're obviously more expensive.

Softlips Lip Balm

http://www.softlips.com/index.php

This is the perfect lip balm and is great for a stocking stuffer. They are sold individually in drugstores all over the place but online they are currently offering a winter holiday pack with 5 different flavors online for $10. The thing I love about this lip balm is that it smells really good and it doesn't clump like most chapsticks.

Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts Gift Cards

www.starbucks.com

https://www.dunkindonuts.com/

 This is the go-to gift that is good for everyone!! What else can I say?

Express Ties for Men

www.express.com

Express ties are uber sexy. All of the ties are $39.90 except for a few that are on sale. Get these for your boyfriend/husband ahora!!

Scrabble Diamond Anniversary Edition

http://www.amazon.com/

This is a great gift for the whole family and/or friends. This edition is great because each square has raised guides to prevent tiles from shifting. Also, the board rotates so each player can see the board in the right direction on their turn. The game costs about $35 on Amazon. It can also be found at Barnes & Noble and several toy stores.

I hope everyone has fun doing their holiday shopping!! 

Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Here's a recipe for a pumpkin cheesecake I made that I found the recipe for on the Food Network Website. I know it's probably a little late to post this considering Thanksgiving is already over but I didn't want to post it before I tried it. I must say, it came out pretty well for my first cheesecake. Enjoy!

Bath & Body Works Anti-Bacterial Foaming Hand Soap

Ok, so my mom is a little crazy and buys almost 20 Bath & Body Works Anti-Bacterial Foaming Hand Soaps at a time. I love the soaps just as much as her. The only problem? Ever since they changed the packaging a few months ago from the older translucent bottles, the soap has been a lot harder to pump. Instead of pumping easily onto your hand, the soap shoots out, sometimes missing your hands. The new packaging also prevents the soap from foaming properly.

As you can see in the photograph I have taken, the foam that comes out of the new pumps is very watery. I am not writing this to prevent any of you from buying this soap. The soap itself is amazing. Rather, I would appreciate it if other fans of the soap would complain to Bath & Body Works so that they will come up with newer, better packaging...or better yet, just go back to the old packaging.

Think Before you Reduce the Price of Your Home

Many people who are selling a home for the first time make the common mistake of assuming their realtor wants to sell their home for the highest price possible since their pay is based on commission. However, this is not always the case and here's why:

Real estate agents are in business for themselves and the company they work for. Just like any other business, they want to make as much profit as possible. The best way for them to do this is by selling homes quickly so that they can have more time to sell more homes. Think about it: Would they make more of a commission if they spent several months trying to sell a home at $500,000 or instead trying to sell the same home more quickly at $400,000 and then having more time to sell another similarly valued home at the same price? Ding ding...the second option would give them more of a commission.

We all know that the economy is bad right now and homes aren't selling that easily. Since the realtors still need to make a living, they're going to want to lower the prices on homes they're representing so that they will get sold sooner rather than later. This may be espeically true if the home is in a prosporous area but is not worth as much as other homes in that same area. Why would a realtor want to waste their time trying to sell a $500,000 home in a bad economy when they can focus more time and energy on the numerous other homes in the area that are worth $1 million+. Instead of focusing their effort on the $500,000 home, they'll try to practically give the thing away by lowering the price considerably.

If you are trying to sell a home, don't let the realtor convince you to lower the price without first doing your research. Get an appraisal. If the realtor is telling you to put the home on the market for much lower than the appraisal price, realize that they may not be looking out for your best interest. Also, be patient. Homes arent selling as easily right now but does that mean you're willing to let your home go for tens of thousands of dollars less than its worth? If you can, wait until the market picks back up.

My First Blog Post Ever!

Hi everyone! So, this is my first blog post ever as the title of it suggests. I realized that I have a lot to say about almost everything and almost no one to say it to when I can't sleep in the middle of the night. so here goes nothing. I'm going to start by telling you a bunch of things about myself. You can expect my future posts to have to do with any of the following.

name
My name is Julie Rae. Rae is actually my middle name but I do not like my last name so I often choose not to use it, except in professional settings.

personality
people say I tend to act like a know it all. I tend to disagree. haha. I would say that I like learning new things and helping people. I'm always researching something and if I know some information that may help someone out, I'll be the first to blurt it out. However, I have no problem admitting I'm wrong. I'm usually not wrong but if I am, fine. Ok, now I just sound conceited. Well, I'm not that either. I do have very high self confidence when it comes to some things but I also have insecurities about almost everything. I'm usually confident until I face the fact that there's always going to be someone better out there at whatever I do. Sure I might be the best at something out of a certain group of people but when you put all of those groups of people together, it's possible that I'm the worst out of the bests. I don't necesarily care about being better than anyone at anything, eventhough it sounds that way. It's more of a personal thing. I'm a perfectionist and I'm not happy with myself unless I view my results at whatever it is as the best possible. For example, if I like someone else's photograph of a flower better than my own, it means that my results weren't to my standards because I like someone else's better. Anyways, I promise this is the most confusing section of this post.

Another thing about my personality is that I can be shy when meeting new people on a personal level. However, once I get to know them better, I'm no longer shy. I also tend to hide my emotions from those I'm not super close with. Luckily, in a professional setting I can put on my game face if need be and be more friendly, less shy, etc..

religion/nationality
I am Jewish. However, I am hardly religious at all and do not really associate with the religion. I do believe in god and pray to him almost every night for those in my life and even those not in my life. Whenever someone asks me what nationality I am, I don't really know how to answer. My great great great grandparents were from England, Russia and Poland. Funny thing is, I look spanish and everyone comes up to me speaking spanish. Sometimes I go along with it because I do know spanish fairly well from school and because if I don't, it will turn into an hour long conversation about where I'm from and how the person insists that I must be spanish.

school
I am 24 years old and I graduated from Simmons College this past May with a Bachelors of Science in Management and a minor in Economics. I started off at Boston University in the College of General Studies and although it was one of the best years of my life, the classes weren't for me. After freshman year, I took a year off and worked several temporary jobs before deciding to transfer to Simmons.

work life
I am currently looking for a job and am getting a bit frustrated. I was offered several positions pretty shortly after graduating from college but didn't take any of them because they simply were not jobs I wanted. One day I would like to start my own company but as for right now I am just looking for experience. Most people wouldn't admit this but I actually really want to be an administrative assistant starting out. One, it will help me get my foot in the door at whatever company I choose to work for and two, I like helping people and constantly having to prove myself to them. The thing that bothers me is that most administrative assistant roles out there right now are senior level, requiring more experience. For what though? I know I can handle any administrative assistant role. I've done it before, i'm an expert at all of the Microsoft Office programs, I've handled multi-line phone systems, I'm great at problem solving and I'm a perfectionist that can multi-task. What more could a company want? I mean seriously. I normally don't admit to be an exert or being great at anything because I don't want to come across as being conceited but these things I know.

family life
I have a pretty small family. My parents are divorced and I have one brother who is 2 years younger than I am. He and I could not be more opposite from eachother. I've never been that close to anyone in my family but hope to have my own family one day that I'll be a lot closer to.

love life
I was in a relationship with a guy I was planning on marrying for about 3.5 years starting my freshman year of college. Although there was so much love on both ends, there was also so much hate and anger. Eventually it got to the point where as much as I wanted to, I couldn't continue it anymore. After that, I had a few shorter term relationships that just weren't right and then I met my current boyfriend who is so amazing, words can't even describe. Our first date was to Bertucci's and a Celtics game and we've been together for a little over 6 months!

music
I love listening to music and have over 2,000 songs on my itunes. My goal is to get to 10,000 songs by my 30th birthday. I like everything from hard core rap to the Backstreet Boys. My top 5 favorite songs of all time?

Nickleback - Far Away,
Alicia Keys - Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart,
London - Back to the Way,
Keri Hilson, Kanye & Ne-Yo - Knock You Down, and
Fabolous - Breathe

that list would probably change if you asked a different day though. Boys II Men and 112 should definately be in there some where. My current fave song is All of the Lights from Kanye and the whole crew. Too many artists to list.

tv/movies 
Lately, I don't have the attention span to sit through entire movies unless I'm in the theater. I love love love any movie with Denzel Washington in it and surprisingly not many chick flicks. Don't get me wrong, I still end up watching most chick flicks but most of them are so unoriginal and I'm just getting sick of them. Lifetime movies are always good though. As for TV, I love almost any reality show following around celebrities (Run's House, Daddy's Girls, Running Russel Simmons, The T.O. Show, Basketball Wives, Keeping up with the Kardashian's, etc.)

food
I am very passionate about food but also try to eat healthy food that usually tastes like cardboard. I love both cooking and baking but definately have a lot to learn about cooking. I am currently working on a compilation of all my favorite recipes and will most likely end up posting a few of my favorite ones. I also love to try new restaurants and cuisines all the time.

exercise
I actually like working out but do not have easy access to a gym. In order to compensate I try to encorporate activities that keep me active as often as possible. Some of my faves are kayaking, ice skating, rock climbing, going for walks and dancing. I'm not an expert at any one of them but they're fun.

health
I have several conditions: fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, raynaud's syndrome and scapula bursitis. I normally don't like talking about them because I'm not looking for attention or pity and I always give 100% to everything I do. I don't want people to think that I'm not capable of certain things. However, it can be frustrating at times when people just assume that I'm feeling 100% because a lot of times, i'm not and I'm in a ton of pain. I also feel it is important to let people know about my conditions so that other people with them can come to me for help. I'm no expert in dealing with the conditions but I'm sure it would help for those people to have someone to talk to about them especially if they were just recently diagnosed.

photography
Photography is something I've always been interested in. Again, I'm definately no expert but I enjoy good photography and when I see it, I become inspired. Currently, I have a 14.1 megapixel Sony camera that I'm extremely dissapointed with. I'm hoping to buy a Canon or Nikon at some point so that I will obtain more motivation to become a better photographer.

art
I've always had a love/hate relationship with art. I can be decent at both painting and drawing but since I'm a perfectionist, I'm usually not happy with my results and I tend to spend way too much time working on each piece.

regrets
Although there were many events in my life with which I wasn't happy with the outcome, I have no regrets. I look at life as a learning experience and am glad to have experienced everything that I have.

travel
I would love to travel the entire world one day but as of right now, I don't even have a passport meaning that I've never been outside of the country. However, traveling is one of my passions and I would love to open my own hotel one day. Inside of the country, I've been to numerous cities in Florida, as well as to most of the states along the east coast and Los Angeles, CA. The top ten (I can't choose just five) places I want to visit are probably Dubai, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, and South Africa.

fashion
I love shopping and can tend to be quite a bit of a shopaholic. Don't get me wrong though, I know how to manage money. I am an economics minor afterall. Anyways, I love love love clothes. My favorite store is Express. I'm probably their best customer. I would say about 70% of my clothes come from there. Other than Express, I shop anywhere from Marshalls to Saks. Sure, some of the clothes I buy can be a bit pricey but I save money in other ways. For one, I have coupons for almost everything and two, I don't waste money on junk I'm not going to use.

So it is now 6 in the morning and I am getting tired so I think I am going to call it a night (morning). I'm sure I left tons of stuff out about myself but I don't really expect anyone to read this anyway. If anyone does end up reading it, feel free to comment, leave questions about anything. I hope everyone has a lovely day! :)