New Year, New Prescription

My eyeglasses prescription recently ran out, so I faced the dreaded eye exam. I tend to look at it like any other exam, worrying that I'll fail it, but end up actually enjoying it somehow! The eye doctor this year was friendly, and mentioned that a few of her patients end up using their annual exam as an excuse to pick out new frames, and while she did push the brands of the shop, she did add that eyeglasses.com has a much larger range and the prices tend to be lower. Perhaps I'll go for a nice red pair this year.

Meeting the in-laws

My husband is meeting my mother for the first time around the end of next month, and he hasn't a clue how to welcome her. I suggested flowers as a nice welcome gift at the airport, only he doesn't quite know what to get her, so he's been browsing the 1800flowers site for a few ideas.

He has a terrible memory, so if he orders online from 1800flowers he'll have a set date to remember so they can be delivered on time. I did mention to him that she prefers yellow roses and somehow he had never even heard of them (that's men for you)! He is adorably hopeless when shopping online, but he did well with 1800flowers and found what he needed fairly quickly, so now all he has to worry about is that first meeting, first impressions and all...

Gift-giving season

I'm now in the midst of gift-giving season, where most of my friends and family seem to have their birthdays and anniversaries all crammed into one part of the year. Now that I've moved overseas, my circle of friends (and family) has increased, so I have found that I have far more people to buy for now than this time last year. Thankfully I've been making use of those 1800 flowers Promotion codes. I have three birthdays, two weddings and a wedding anniversary coming up in the next month and a half, so the Coupons for 1800Flowers I've seen floating around online are going to come in very handy indeed.

I do like to keep up with updates and deals from the companies I use the most, and I found out that 1800flowers also has a Facebook page, as well as a Twitter. Hopefully I'll find some more discount codes there, too. Got to love a bargain!

My choices of eyeglasses over the years

My husband and I were watching Harry Potter the other day and he remarked how much the main character's glasses look like John Lennon's. I laughed and started talking about how it reminded me of the day I went to get my first pair of eyeglasses when I was only 9. They looked exactly like Mr Potter's pair, and I remember my father affectionately mocking me for looking like a Beatle.

My taste in glasses has changed somewhat over the years, but I knew what suited me then and I know what suits me now. I often browse eyeglasses.com because of the wide range of choice, and I can easily tell what colors or styles will suit me. I can be very fussy with what types of glasses I would pick, but I'm quite happy to think I was a little English girl in the late '80s with glasses and an accent like a certain wizard phenomenon.

1800Flowers for that time of year again...!

So it's that time of year again when a bunch of holidays and events are coming up. First up is my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, which is in about a week. I have to find them something perfect, even though I always order them something from 1800Flowers, but since it's their ruby anniversary, I'll probably end up springing for the biggest bouquet on the site.

One of my husband's aunts is a big celebrator of St Patrick's Day, and I was thinking of getting a green-themed bouquet for her from 1800Flowers, but in light of a personal tragedy for her (she recently lost her adorable dog to cancer), I know she'll need some sympathy as well,

Aside from that, I'm pretty sure I can rely on 1800Flowers for a nice daffodil plant for my mother on (UK) Mother's Day on the 15th, so I can thank her for being an awesome mum.

Clearly I have my work cut out for me this month, especially as even before all of these events and holidays, my little brother's birthday is on the 1st. Too much shopping, methinks, but that can only be a good thing.

Alex Crisses Insight Venture Partners

I've noticed lately that a few of my friends have been becoming disillusioned with their jobs or going through terrible periods of ennui in their lives. I suggested to one friend that maybe she could think about charity work, but she seemed to think it was a bit of a minefield and couldn't decide where to start.

I looked up a few examples of people who had done this and Alex Crisses Insight Venture Partners came to mind. I told her about his work with the Make A Wish foundation and his fundraising efforts for the New York City Police Foundation to try to get the ball rolling, and my friend realized that, like Alex Crisses Insight Venture Partners, it was entirely possible to either make regular commitments to a charity or do one-off work whenever you can.

After our conversation, I noticed she had decided to enquire about particular fundraising events. She took a cue from Alex Crisses Insight Venture Partners and enquired about fundraising for Minds Matter, a charity for underprivileged High School students for which Crisses used to be the Director of Fundraising. It's making her feel a lot better about helping others.

Getting the right gift

My husband can't quite grasp the concept of the Twilight movie/book craze, but partly because he was never really interested in the "romantic" side of vampires, even though he is such an adorably hopeless romantic himself. So for our upcoming anniversary of my coming to live in the US (yes, we celebrate a lot of dorky anniversaries!), he decided to bite the silver bullet and try to source out some great Twilight-themed gifts for me.

He went to an old favorite, 1800flowers, because he had seen on MSNBC that they had been compared to other companies and found that their pricing policies were far more honest. With that in mind, he ordered a bevvy of Twigifts, including a Twilight Flowers Poster Bundle that all of my friends are fairly envious of (not just the gift, but also the thoughtfulness of my hubby).

Flowers for any occasion

So like most men, my husband was glued to the TV last Sunday watching the Superbowl. I wasn't really that fazed by it, but he felt bad about neglecting me anyway, and the very next day I woke up to cooked breakfast in bed and a bouquet of flowers - pink roses, my favorite type of rose, and he still remembered even though I only mentioned it a couple of times.

I noticed that he had had them delivered (from 1-800-Flowers), so I teased him about having planned ahead just in case I felt a bit left out when he and his friends were cheering on the Colts. When I heard that they lost to the Saints, I went out and picked up a bouquet of flowers as a gag gift to cheer him up. He was still pleased anyway :)

Valentine's Day

This weekend my town had a chocolate and ice sculpture festival to kick off Valentine's Day celebrations. They had a variety of traditional as well as modern sculptures, including a baffling one that depicted a tiger with sunglasses on.

The sculptures were all amazing and seemed resilient to melting (I think they might have been put up early that morning), which was perfect because in most of the ice pillars supporting the sculptures were some flowers that had been encased during the sculpting process. It was a nice touch.

Most of the shops had been sold out of roses for quite some time, but as I'm one of the few wives who likes to get her husband flowers, I know I can buy online from 1-800-Flowers for delivery. It's a nice surprise for him as he usually isn't expecting it :)