Saturday, November 17, 2012

Personalized Greeting Card from Treat for FREE

Hey!  Have you heard to Treat??  Treat is Shutterfly's greeting card brand.  You can make totally personalized cards quickly, easily, and uniquely and you don't have to stand in a line or even put on pants if you don't want to.  Sounds lovely right?

Last year I sent out Thanksgiving cards and it was so much fun!  My friend Jen said that no one sends out Thanksgiving cards.  Wrong-o Jen!  Everyone should send out a Thanksgiving card.

Treat is giving away cards for two days.  Giving them away!  Free!  No cost to you.  Go make a card, make it your own, and give it away, for free.  Make someone's day.  Prove Jen wrong.  She's right so much, she won't mind a bit.

So, it couldn't be easier, on Monday the 19th or Tuesday the 20th, go to the TREAT website and make a card.  Use the code:  TREATBLOGR and make someone's day.

This one makes me think of my friend Jaclyn.  She loves this old pyrex.  She would love this card.


My friend Sarah is stuck in the bed after knee surgery!  I bet she makes one!!  Let me know if you make one, and remember to spread the word.  What a great price:  FREE

New York, New York

So, as most of you know, I went to NY!  I went to NY to learn Google Analytics, which for the record, was HARD.  If those people over at Google ever team up with that dude over at Facebook, that creepy movie with Bruce Willis just might become our reality.  I am just sayin' they are stinkin' smart.  They are measuring stuff that never even occurred to me.  Amazing!

In typical Ouida fashion, a weather event delayed my trip by a day, but not in the neat tidy, your flight has been cancelled hang out in the city another day and watch the beautiful snow kind of way.  Nope, more like race to the airport in a cab with a grumpy cabbie who wants you to kneel down and thank him driving you to the airport, which be definition, is exactly what you are paying him to do (for realz?) only to get your hopes up, move your gate, then your terminal, only to tell you that your flight has been cancelled, but you are rebooked for the first flight out, just kidding we cancelled that one too, and all of the hotel rooms have now been booked kind of way. You  know that way right???

Other than the whole airport fiasco, the trip was great.  The class was great, the city was great, the food was great, the company was great, the sites were GREAT!

I got to see my cousin Ryan who I have not seen in years.  Probably 10 to be exact.  He's a male model.   Really.  How many people get to say that?  I am super proud of him.  He really is living the dream.  He lives in a tiny little apartment in Astoria, just a really quick cab ride from LaGuardia and he makes a living smiling, pouting, looking pensive, playful, whatever the shoot calls for.  He hangs out with celebrities and skateboards through NYC.  Quite the gig if you can get it.  He went with me to check in to the hotel and I am pretty sure the lady checking me in thought I was living a reverse Pretty Woman scenario.  I mentioned this to Ryan and he didn't get it.  Twenty two year old men aren't familiar with Pretty Woman.  Who knew?  Anyhow, we hung out in the city for a while, then he ditched me to go smile for the camera.  It was fun while it lasted.  Then I was lost.  Hopelessly, but I stumbled upon the Apple store, and from my research realized that I had also found FAO Schwarz.  All was right with the world.  Well, mostly.  I was still lost, but I found a really cool toy store, so it didn't seem as hopeless.


  The city is like an assault on your senses, especially if everything you see is a postcard in your head.  I left my nice camera behind.  I had to have my laptop count as my other carry on, and there is no way I would check it, so I had to count of my phone and my little Canon point and shoot.  Less that ideal, but what I had.  There were a million scenes I wanted to snap, but I also forgot my battery charger, so I was always afraid I would miss the next best thing.  I especially loved this bike.  Pretty right??


And this gate.  This was at the Met.  I didn't get to go in, but I could have stared for days.  There was so much detail, and it was just amazing.  I could have stayed for weeks.  As cheesy as it sounds the city really does make you feel alive.  It is so darn exciting!


The whole story of the trip, the airport, the snow, the hurricane.........it is a doozie.  For now, I will leave you with this teaser!  

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Shutterfly Wants You to Thank the Troops

Today is Veteran's Day.  My grandfather is a veteran.  He very proudly fought for our country many, many moons ago. Greg's grandfather was a real American hero.  There is a story of him saving his entire flight crew.  Today we have lots of men and women doing the same things, and it is much easier to tell them THANKS!  I can't imagine what it would have mean to our grandfather's to have been thanked on a day like today.

Shutterfly has made it really easy this year.  Just go Thank the Troops and create your own card.  Shutterly will print and ship the cards.  Their goal?  No biggie.  They just want to send a card to every American hero.  The cost to you?  A couple of minutes of your time.

My friend Summer has a husband in the Army.  He is gone for up to a year at a time.  My friend Jennifer photographs soldiers returning home, or more sadly, leaving their family for a deployment with a program called Op Love.

This is a very small, very easy, very awesome thing you can do with just a few clicks.  Come on, you can do it.  Send me your card so I can see what it looks like!!  Here is the inside of mine!