GORGEOUS bling from ice.com

Okay - now all you husbands and/or boyfriends who are in the dog house because you got the wife/girlfriend a vacuum cleaner or something "practical" for Christmas can redeem yourselves. Do your woman right this Valentines day with diamonds or jewelry at affordable prices! A GF of mine recently turned me onto this site called Ice.com. It's a discount site for some awesomely sparkly baubles! Check it out (my personal fav) 1/2 Carat Princess Cut Diamond 14K White Gold Earrings:



Evidently, these (above) were shown on the Dr. Phil show. They retail for $1,000 but you can get them on the website for the low, low price of $495 OR 5 payments of $99. They also received rave reviews!

They literally cut prices in half, allow for payment plans and offer FREE shipping on anything over $150. Here are a few more examples:

These babies also retail for $1000. On sale for $495. (9-10mm Cultured Tahitian Pearl and 1/5 Carat Diamond 14K White Gold Leverback Earrings)

Ditto as above for these. (Michiko-3/8 Carat Black Diamond and Cultured Pearl 14K White Gold Spiral Earrings)

The site is having its 2009 Winter clearance sale now as well - up to 75% off! Hurry and make that lady happy! Or, start shopping for Valentines Day, which is right around the corner (hint hint hubby)!

Vegas day two, and three

Woke up Sunday morning around 6am and took 2 Aleve to stop the throbbing in my head.

Woke up again around 10 and took 2 more. Note to self: don't try to keep up with Al in the alcoholic beverage drinking department (yes, I tell myself this every year).

We decided to have breakfast in the room. It's always good to get something greasy in the tummy to help with a hang over. So we got to IP a little late - around 2pm, during the 2nd round of football games. Our first stop was the bar to get our bucket of beer (hair of the dog), then headed over to find a table amidst all the other bloggers. My next goal was to search out Falstaff.

Soon after we sat down, however, he appeared at my side, saving me the search. Falstaff!!! Always good to see you! We talked for a long while about the Charlotte area, and he gave us advice about certain areas to scout out for our move in the next year and a half or so (thanks!). Then Dawn Summers shows up and Falstaff bets her that he can name more former Panthers players than she can name current Pats. Falstaff's 15 went down to Dawn's 35 players. Here are some pics:

Soon after that, the very lucky team of Joanne and Buddy started buying shots. Here's a pic of Recess Rampage, Joanne, BD, Smokkee, Joshua Carlson and me, the love elf, doing our first of several (ugg) shots that day:

Oh, and Bayne finally showed up sometime into the second games. I always have to get my pic with him - it's tradition. I just decided that right now - lol.

The happy couple:

On our way home Monday, we hit some pretty nasty weather:

So that's it for this year's trip report. It was a great time and always fun to see friends. As usual, I wish I would have spent more time with the many other bloggers there, but there's always next year, and the next. A special thanks to Peaker for going to dinner with us Saturday. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of us! boooooo elf.

Gideon needs our help.

Dear Compassionate Animal Lover,

Gideon is a one year old, white German Shepherd who has endured one of the most horrific injuries a dog can endure. He was found in an Orange County park in terrible condition with maggots covering over half of his body; he was then impounded with Orange County Animal Shelter. Coastal German Shepherd Rescue (CGSR) was asked to assist with rescuing Gideon and getting him the appropriate medical care. He was rescued from their shelter on 11/18/08.

I am a faithful donator to CGSR and believe in thier mission. In fact, we adopted our baby Smokkee from this organization. I can vouch for them. I have no alterior motive for this post (no ad $$ for example), other than simply doing the right thing. We are reaching out to anyone who can help us fund the enormous medical bill that Gideon will be facing. Medical bills exceeding $12,000 are anticipated.

Read more below about Gideon's journey.....

Gideon en route to Dr. Wheaton's (no, not Wil !)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He is safe with us now, but he has a very long recovery ahead of him. It is believed that he was hit by a car and then dragged. He is missing most of the skin on his left side and pockets of skin are missing on his right side. His injury is a few days old and therefore there is a lot of necrotic skin. He is resting comfortably under the care of a wonderful vet team. Dr. Wheaton feels that even though this is the largest degloving injury he has ever seen....that with vet care, patience and a lot of love...we can pull him through! His recovery is going to be a minimum of 6 months.
Strength in a name....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are now calling him Gideon, meaning strength. He is very stoic and although he is in unimaginable pain, he rests his head on your hands to look up to you for reassurance. He is no more than a year old and will be a stunning boy once he heals. We need all of your well wishes and paws crossed so that he can stay strong through this next crucial period.
Join us to help Gideon!

(The staff changes Gideon's bandages twice a day and also packs his wound with sugar. The sugar acts as an antibacterial and encourages the regranulation of new tissue.

Please make a donation today! Anything helps - $10, $15 or $20. Together, we will make a difference. WE ARE ONLY A FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS AWAY FROM REACHING OUR GOAL.

Mail:
Coastal German Shepherd Rescue
PO Box 50726
Irvine, CA 92619

Online:
Coastal German Shepherd Rescue

Telephone:
Alicia Pet Care Center (Gideon's Fund): 949-768-1313

Vegas Day One

We got up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning, got ready, packed and dropped baby Smokkee off at the doggy hotel, then made the 4 hour trek out to Vegas. We got to our room around 1:30 so Smokkee had to rush off and get registered for the tourney. I spent the next few hours "luxuriating" in the room - you know, girly stuff like doing my hair, makeup, hanging out having some "me" time.

I headed over to the Venetian around 4pm and the bloggers happen to be on their first break from the tourney. I saw Kat first, then CK and Peaker! I was so excited to see everyone! However, it was during break and conversations were short - something like "Love Elf! Great to see you! Gotta pee - we'll talk more later!" I headed over to the poker room to look for Smokkee and also saw Don, Blinders, Aston, Bayne, BadBlood and several others. Break was soon over and everyone returned to their respective tables. I headed to the bar to find my very good friend Al.

He was sitting with Joanne and another friend, Mike. We proceeded to order drinks and talked for hours. As other bloggers busted out and made their way to the "losers lounge" as some called it, I captured the moment in photos:

Al and me:



Bobby, me and Al:



The famous Dr. Pauly and me:



Smokkee, Joe Speaker and Al:



BuddyDank and me:



More to come later. I'll link everyone up later, too. Just wanted to get a brief update out!
Oh - and I'm disapointed to report that one of my very favorite bloggers, Waffles, is not in attendence this December. Miss you Waffs!!

Almost there

I can't believe this is the last week of Fall semester!
Whew - I've almost made it through. I have one more final paper due, then I'm done. For now. Well at least done with school for the next month or so. Then, it's back to the grind.

One and a half more years of classes. Then a year of internship.
The time is actually goring pretty fast. But, the last 3-4 months has been tough. I'm learning a lot though, which I guess is the point.

So, I'm really excited about seeing everyone in Vegas. Hotels and gas are so cheap right now that we really couldn't pass on it. And, it will be nice to get away and celebrate the semester end. During break, I hope to blog more and post lots of pictures of the last 3 months - so much has happened.

My nephew turned 2, Ray and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary and my mom turned 60. None of which I posted about. Ho hum...
Busy bee, busy bee.

So I'm mostly done with Christmas shopping, which is awesome. I have a few more things to buy, but I know what they are. These days I go with a lot of gift cards. They are a no-brainer, and the shipping cost is minimal! Ray and I are traveling to Charlotte for Christmas to see my mom and her husband. He was diagnosed with cancer about 4 months ago and it will be good to see them. After some pretty intense chemo, radiation and surgery, the docs report that they got all the tumor and the prognosis is positive. Now we just have to fatten him back up!

We Vegas!

As some of you may now know, we have decided to make the treck to Las Vegaaaaaahhhhhhhssssssssss!!!!!!!!

So, we are driving out Saturday morning and staying @ TI.
Looking forward to seeing everyone!!!

Rakeback, anyone?

Decided to look into some rakeback deals and promotions that are being offered for the last month of the year. Of course as always the big 3 of rakeback are the ones that had the best stuff on their sites.

RakeBrain.com caught my attention the most. As always they have very good sign-up bonuses and return percentages but they got some pretty cool rake chases this month. For Betfair Poker they got a free roll up for grabs where the top 9 raker's of the month battle for the prize pool, which is their rake total and will probably reach a substantial number as the clock to the deadline winds down. CelebPoker is offering something pretty sweet in my opinion as well. They are hosting a 30,000 Euro prize pool game which different levels of raker's could qualify for and they have until January 15th to do so. Found this pretty cool so hopefully you guys will use this and get some free money from RakeBrain.

Smokkee and Iggy have bounties in this week's Bodonkey

On Tuesday December 9th, the Blogfather sits with a T$109 bounty and on Thursday December 11th, Smokkee will play with a T$109 bounty on his head. Last time Smokkee played The Bodonkey with a bounty, he took it down and captured his own bounty.

You can download poker for free and play the Bodonkey Tue and Thu nights at 9:05pm ET. T$600 is added to the prize pool every week.



Bodog is also offering prop bets on several poker bloggers. Smokkee is the overall favorite to finish on top of the leaderboard and win the Tournament of Champions December 18th. That should be some trick since he's gonna miss the first hour and blind down while we pick up our luggage from the airport and drive to my Mom's in Charlotte, NC.