Amanda’s Beauty and Recipe Finds: Drugstore and High End Makeup Reviews and Recipes

Inspiration For Your Next Baby Name

February 24, 2009

baby names Another cool site I just came across is Nymbler. The name of the site doesn’t really give away what the website is really about. I clicked on this site expecting something completely different.

If you’re expecting your next bundle of joy and are currently pondering baby names, this is the site for you. Nymbler lets you insert a few of your favorite baby name ideas and then gives you a list of alternatives to choose from.

What’s the cool part? If you’re looking for uncommon names, this site tells you where each name ranks in popularity among U.S. baby names. Take a moment to check out the Nymbler blog also where they list things such as the top baby names for each month.

Amanda siggie

{ 1 comment }

Top 10 Unique Quick Bread Recipes

February 23, 2009

10 quick bread recipes Once in a while I enjoy a slice of my favorite, banana nut bread. I love the traditional banana nut but thought maybe there was something better out there. So, I decided to look for some unique quick bread ideas and thought I would share them with you. Below are the 10 most interesting bread recipes I found.

Cream Cheese and Applesauce Bread – This unique bread has a powdered sugar and cream cheese center filling along with a pecan, brown sugar and cinnamon crumbled topping. Yum!

Strawberry Bread – This bread would be ideal for welcoming spring. This sounds so delicious with almond extract and crushed strawberries.

Key Lime Bread – I can taste this bread in my mind with it’s sweet mixture of lime juice and chopped walnuts, mmm. Even the glaze has lime juice added. I bet this is delish!

Zucchini Maple Bread with Cream Cheese Maple Butter – This Just Baking bread recipe has a nice combination of ingredients including maple syrup, ginger and nuts. I can just imagine how well the butter compliments this delicious bread. (no longer available)

Cranberry Bread – The site of this sliced bread is beautiful. It’s studded with loads of chopped fresh cranberries and golden yellow raisins. Nice recipe for fall and winter months.

Oatmeal Carrot Date Bread – This bread is loaded with everything but the kitchen sink! If you made this recipe into muffins, they would make for a filling breakfast treat.

Glazed Lemon Bread – This recipe sounds so refreshing with it’s lemon and powdered sugar glaze on top.

Hawaiian Bread – This delicious bread contains some of my favorites; bananas, coconut, pineapple and walnuts. Sounds like a moist and sweet yummy treat.

Orange Blueberry Bread – This sweet bread is full of flavorful orange juice and fresh blueberries. Add a couple of other simple ingredients and you have a beautiful loaf of bread.

Rocky Road Bread – This unique quick bread recipe contains just what you think; chocolate chips, marshmallows and toasted almonds. Sounds different but I bet it’s pretty yummy!

Amanda siggie

{ 3 comments }

Recession, What Recession?

February 22, 2009

shopping during a recession Yesterday afternoon my husband and I went shopping to our local mall and surrounding shopping centers and I was left wondering “what happened to the recession”? As I recall hearing, consumers aren’t supposed to be spending money as much now, right? No one must have told my fellow western Pennsylvanians.

The restaurant where we ate dinner at was packed. By the time we left, there was a huge waiting line. We followed dinner with a trip to Sam’s Club and Lowe’s which were both super busy with shoppers. And yes, they were buying stuff. Those places weren’t anything compared to the actual mall itself.

By the time we got to the mall itself, it was well after 7pm and it was difficult to even find a parking spot! There were people walking all over the lot with loads and loads of bags. What the heck?! Did we go back in time? There were so many people shopping that I thought Christmas was just around the corner again. It was so busy that we left.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining that people are spending. That’s good for all of us. What I hate is that the news outlets give us such bad news that we panic and think that we SHOULDN’T be spending. Even if we may not be affected by the recession personally, we’re made to think that spending is bad. That we should be ashamed of still doing our normal day to day spending.

While I was initially shocked by the amount of people out and about yesterday, I was glad to see that bad news reports haven’t stalled shoppers from spending. Keep it up, that’s what we need to fuel the economy and keep stores in business.

Amanda siggie

{ 1 comment }

Online Shoppers – Get Cash Back With Ebates

February 20, 2009

Ebates is a really interesting site that I came across accidentally today. Being curious, I hopped on over to see what I could find out about it. Here’s what I found: For every purchase that you make by following the store links from Ebates, you get a designated amount of cash back in your pocket. Each participating store offers a percentage of cash back which gets deposited into your Ebates account. Once rebates accumulate in your account, Ebates pays you via check or Paypal. The site claims that payouts occur at least 4 times a year.

Now for me, I’m not a frequent online shopper unless it’s before Christmas. But I know a few people who shop online exclusively. For those people, it sure would be worth a try to do it this way and see what kind of money you get back.

The list of participating sites is enormous. It was hard for me to come up with a site that was not included. Lowe’s was the only one I couldn’t find even though Home Depot is on there.

So the rebates may help to convince you to join the site (it’s 100% free) but that’s not all they give you. There are HUNDREDS of online coupon codes listed for these online retailers too! These coupons can get you free shipping, money off or even free gifts. For instance: not only will you get 2% of your purchase back from Office Depot but their coupon code will also get you 2 FREE large pizzas from Papa Johns! Your order has to exceed $125.00 but for an office who purchases supplies from Office Depot, it’ll get your employees free lunch too!

I bet your wheels are turning now, huh? Mine too. You need to sign up to view the list of offers and coupon codes but there is some info at the Ebates blog you can read up on too.

I’d love to hear from anyone who is currently using the Ebates site. Even if you don’t currently use the site, drop me a comment if you think this is an interesting idea.

Amanda siggie

{ 1 comment }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →