Wow!  It’s been a really long time since I participated in Fun Monday.  It’s mostly due to being busy lazy.  But when I saw the theme for this week I decided to join in.  Our host for Fun Monday this week is RDH Mom, but actually her daughter Cassie is hosting for her.  Here is the assignment:

“My assignment this week was to see inside your closet, without your organizing it before the picture!!”

Easy, right?  I don’t have to clean or think- just snap some pictures of my closets.  So, here ya go:

This is my half of the closet.  I know I’m going to have some major closet jealousy when I visit the other participants and see the lovely walk-in closets that I’m sure many of you have.

This is Rich’s side of the closet- and I realize it is a bit blurry.  But I am much too busy lazy to go retake the picture.

We are actually in the process of switching some rooms around in our house and there is bunch of stuff stored on the right hand side of the picture that I was trying to hide (not in the closet, but up against the wall)- which is part of the reason it came out a little blurry.  We are switching around Brooke’s and Hailey’s rooms.  Brooke (my step-daughter) lives a few hours away from us.  When she was younger she spent every other weekend with us as well as school breaks and time in the summer.  Now that she is older she has a job and a lot of activities at school and isn’t able to come and stay with us anymore.  Lately we have been traveling to go see her.  Anyways, because of this we have decided to switch around Brooke’s and Hailey’s rooms.  Brooke had the bigger room and Hailey was running out of room in her room.  So, Brooke will still have a room here for when she is able to visit us but it will be a little smaller.  It just makes sense to let Hailey use the bigger room since she is here all of time.  I have very mixed feelings about all of this- I’m happy that Hailey will have more room in her room and I won’t have to trip over all of her toys in the living room because there will be room to keep them in her room.  But, I’m sad too that we don’t get to see Brooke very often anymore.  Anyhoo- who knew that my Fun Monday post was going to turn into this?  Not me.

Here is an empty closet.  This is Brooke’s old closet and will be Hailey’s new closet.  And right now the closet is (mostly) empty because Rich is in the middle of painting this room.

Here is Hailey’s closet, which will be Brooke’s new closet.  And usually all of that stuff is not on the floor.  But those are bags of clothes from Brooke’s old closet.

So hop on over to RDH Mom to see the other participants who were willing to share the secrets in their closets.

I don’t know what my problem is but I’ve been feeling a little down lately.  It could be the thought of winter coming- and I hate winter.  It’s always cold- many days it’s too cold to go outside at all, it’s always dark and dreary.  Anyways, I don’t know if that’s what my problem is but I just feel a little sad these days.

So, to try to make myself feel better I’ve been doing some online window shopping.  I always enjoy buying gifts at Christmas time so I’ve started looking at gifts I can buy for the people I love.  It’s fun for me and makes me feel a little better about the yucky days that will be here soon.

While I was doing some online window shopping I was looking at breitling quartz watches.  And I started thinking- who could I buy a beautiful watch like this for?  The more I thought about it- the more I thought that I should like to buy one for myself.

I looked at several Breitling watches and the one above is my favorite.  It’s a Breitling Windrider Starliner Ladies’ Watch Two Tone Mother-of-Pearl Dial.  The list price is $6,030.  You can get it at the Watchery for $4,500.  And if you buy it you’ll be able to get a second watch for 80% off.  It’s definitely out of my price range but thinking about wearing one of those beautiful watches makes me feel a little better.

One day last December I decided to find out what IZEA was all about.  I had heard of them and had saw some of my bloggy friends writing for them.  I wasn’t sure if it was for real though- could I actually get paid to blog?

Turns out- it is for real and IZEA is a great company to work with.  Since that day last December I have written over 800 posts for IZEA between their two different marketing sites.  Not only has writing for IZEA provided us with some extra income to purchase things we wouldn’t normally have bought- but it has actually allowed Rich to pursue his dream job.  He has always wanted to work from home and wanted to try doing an online business.  Since I was a stay-at-home-mom I wasn’t bringing in any income, making the idea of Rich leaving his job pretty scary.  Once I started writing for IZEA and saw that I could bring some money for us it was possible for Rich to leave his job that made him very unhappy and to work at making his dream come true.  For many people writing for IZEA is probably just some extra fun money so they can buy extra things.  For us, it has been life-changing.  And for that I will be forever thankful to IZEA.

So, imagine how thrilled I was the other day to get a package in the mail from IZEA letting me know they had picked me for their Postie of the Month for the month of August.  I mean- out of the thousands of bloggers who write for IZEA they picked little old me.  And they sent me a package full of goodies.

Check out all of the fun stuff IZEA gave me!

And here is my Postie of the Month award!

Congratulations to me!  And thank you to IZEA!!

The way that I do my shopping has changed a lot over the last few years.  In the past I would browse through items at the store and then make my selection.  Now, when I have something I want I research it online.  And it doesn’t have to be a major purchase.  I was looking for a doll that goes to the bathroom to use with Hailey for potty training.  So, rather than just run out and buy one I looked at the reviews that others have done on these dolls.  And of course, for larger ticket purchases we do the same thing- we did it for the DVD camcorder we recently bought, the new TV we bought, the laptop I got last year at Christmas time and we’re doing this now for the laptop Rich is looking into buying. 

I think advertisers must realize how important it is to have happy customers talking online about their products.  People post on their blogs about things they love and things they hate.  They talk in online forums and leave reviews when they make purchases online.  I was reading an article today about how this is the Missing Link Marketing- and I think the article is right on.  Companies need to make everyone happy with their purchases because they just never know who might have a popular blog with lots of readers who will be finding out what an average person thinks of a product.

How about you?  How has your shopping changed with all of the information out there on the Internet so accessible?

Remember this picture from a year ago when we were at Disney World?

Hailey is declaring her love for Mickey by biting him on the nose.  While at first I thought it was just an open mouthed kiss, I realized it was a bite when I had to pull her off of him.

Well that has been over a year ago now and Hailey’s love for Mickey has grown.  While we were in Disney World we bought her a stuffed Mickey Mouse that has become her favorite stuffed animal.  She always sleeps with him and brings him many places with us.  And the other day she told me, “My loves Mickey.”

So, when I saw this giveaway going on over at Chic Shopper Chick I knew I had to enter.  It’s for these cute Mickey Mouse Popsicle Makers.

Aren’t those just the cutest?  I know Hailey would love these, so of course I am entering to win.  If you want a chance to win- stop over at Chic Shopper Chickbefore October 4th.