I’m back home for the weekend. Home = Oklahoma where I was originally born and raised before I moved out to Los Angeles, CA. There’s a lot of things I miss about living here:

• It takes 15 minutes to get anywhere.
• Gas is under $3!!!
• When I’m home there is always something good to eat and I don’t even have to prepare it! It’s a constant foodfest here!
• My family is all here: My parents, brother, 2 sisters, and 2 nephews and 1 niece. The cutest thing is when my youngest nephew calls his older brother Jamin. (His name is Benjamin and he can’t pronounce it yet).
• Hot deals! For some reason, I just always find good shopping deals out here. Yesterday I bought a super cute sweater for $4!!! I think there is less competition for the fashion savvy out here haha.
• My new niece’s smile. It’s so cute! Yesterday she was falling asleep and she kept randomly grinning! It was the weirdest/cutest thing. She has a really big smile for a baby! I wish I had gotten it on camera. I wonder what good dreams she was having :)

Eat these foods to help boost your metabolism:

1. Cayenne Pepper – makes you sweat and raise your heart rate
2. Cinnamon – as little as a ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon helps your body to metabolize sugar 20 times faster and lower your body’s blood-sugar levels.
3. Ginger – expands blood vessels, increases body heat and metabolism by 20%
4. Citrus Fruits – Vitamin C reduces fat’s effectiveness and dilute it so that it exits the body
5. Apples and Berries – contains a lot of pectin which limits the amount of fat your cells absorb
6. Soybeans – keeps cells from accumulating fat
7. Bananas – boosts metabolism and regulates your body’s water balance
8. Essential Fatty Acids – lowers your level of leptin which has been linked with slower metabolism
9. Garlic – keeps your insulin low to maximize fat burning
10. Dairy Products – promotes weight loss and maintains muscle mass (be sure to eat the low fat kind though!)

I hate when I buy a plane ticket and find out that the prices goes down later on. Or even worse, I wait too long to buy a ticket and the price goes up! (This is what happened with my Peru ticket, I waited one day and the price went up almost 100 bucks!). With this new tool, Yapta, I don’t have to worry about that. Yapta keeps track of your flights using your confirmation codes and will notify/email you when prices drop. I had no idea that some airlines actually give out refunds or vouchers if your airfare price goes down after you buy the ticket.

Their top 5 reasons to use Yapta:

1. Get alerted when prices drop
2. Save money: get the best deals on flights
3. Pick and tag the exact flights you want to track
4. Get travel vouchers or cash refunds when prices drop
5. Track prices on ALL of your flights in one place

The website only works with these airlines so far: Alaska, America West, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, and US Airways.

at your local Krispy Kreme! It’s National Donut Day. Visit a Krispy Kreme and get a doughnut of your choice. Check for locations here.

I’ve always been partial to their original glazed donut

but there are a variety to choose from

Why doesn’t the US ever get the best cell phones? – I always wondered this!
Youtube fans say farewell to Bob Barker – the guy is 83, he is the oldest thing on TV! it will be weird when he’s gone
TV’s hottest new shows – I looked through the list and it all looks BORING! I’m going through Lost withdrawal
Super Mario (Line Rider version) – I have some weird obsession with all things Line Rider.
Tshirt Vending Machines show up in Tokyo – As a lover of tshirts and all things japanese, this is really cool!

This sounds so cool! Warner Bros and Universal Studios are teaming up to create “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” , “the world’s first immersive Harry Potter themed environment.” And don’t worry fans, the park is fully endorsed by the author:

“The plans I have seen look incredibly exciting and I don’t think fans of the books or films will be disappointed,” Rowling said of the Orlando park that is scheduled to open in 2009.

Imagine boarding Hogwarts Express:

Then taking a boat to the school:

Once there, instead of taking pics with Mickey Mouse or Goofy, you get to take pictures with a big ogre named Hagrid:

And we can’t have Hogwarts without a flying broom Quidditch ride!

Ok I finished uploading all of my Peru pics! The latest one is Part 4.

If you didn’t see the other pictures: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Here is the mini scrapbook I tried making that includes a few more pictures not seen on my blog.

And lastly, the full Flickr photostream from my trip!

Saw this cool website that allows you to sign up for a temporary email address: 10 Minute Mail

As per the name, the email address expires after 10 minutes.

Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don’t want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it’s free.

I have a junk email address that I use to sign up for everything. I probably get about 200+ spam emails a day. It’s rediculous. Wish I had known about this before!

Etsy is the Ebay version for crafts. It’s one of my favorite sites! The blog featured today, Etsy’s Most Wonderful Things, finds the coolest things on Etsy.

1. When did you start your blog, Etsy’s Most Wonderful Things and why?

I started the Etsy’s Most Wonderful Things blog just a few months ago, in March. It started out as a way of promoting my Etsy shop, but soon it turned into so much more. It’s such fun to discover a brilliant artist who is just starting out, or who hasn’t gotten the recognition they deserve, and tell the world about them. There are so many talented artists, and now I have a tiny bit of power to let everyone know about all of the great work they do. (I promise to use my power for good, not evil.)

2. Also, tell us a little more about your Etsy shop and the goods you sell there.

My Etsy shop is called Sugarcube Design, and I sell all kinds of handmade notecards, gift tags, and envelopes. I have things like notecard and envelope sets with big, mod flowers and handmade envelopes I create from old anatomy textbooks. I design everything, right down to the templates I use.

I was doing freelance illustration work for many years, and getting really frustrated about having to wait for the next job to come along. Then I heard about Etsy, and it seemed like a great way to do the kind of work I liked without having to wait around for someone else’s say-so. Now, whenever I have a brilliant idea, I just make it happen!

3. What have been some of your favorite Etsy finds?

There are plenty of nice things on Etsy, but my very favorite Etsy find has got to be the people! The Etsy community is so wonderful. Whether
I’ve got a quick question about the site or something in my life I’d like to share or vent about, or even if I’m just feeling bored, there’s always a friendly someone who’s happy to discuss it with me. And the lovely administration people behind the scenes at Etsy and EtsyLabs are great, too. So cute and funny and helpful. What more could you ask for?

4. What are some of your favorite Etsy shops that you frequently browse?

There are so many, but I really enjoy PataPri‘s silkscreened textiles. I’ve featured her work on my blog before. She has an amazing design sensibility and the colors she uses are just perfect. I also like Mark Wallace’s photographs. They’re beautiful and eerie at the same time.

5. Can you recommend other websites you enjoy? (Can be related to your own or not)

I’m on BoingBoing at least once a day! It’s like this little bubbleful of interesting stuff going on in the world. I also love, love, love the Make website. They’ve taught me to create fabulous things that make me look like a freakin’ genius (like a hovercraft from paper plates and a CPU fan!); and Bre Pettis does a weekly podcast that always inspires me to be a better geek.

Visit Etsy’s Most Wonderful Things.

If you’re interested in finding out new websites and reading interviews like these, remember to subscribe!

Oooooh, my favorite…a new letter of truth from Britney!

Dear Fans,

I just wanted to reach out to all of you and explain some of the things that I have been faced with recently.

It’s so funny how many stories are put out there about people. It’s like we all want our side of the story out there as well, but at the end of the day only a few people care to hear what is really going on since the bad is always so much more interesting than the truth. I don’t know why, but this is so weird to me. I used to be angry at the tabloids for printing horrible things about me, but now I try to just be numb to what I see. I saw Tyra Banks once get really upset and cry on her show because they made her look fat. We all want a certain image of ourselves out there, and at some point we all do really care what other people think or we wouldn’t be here.

Recently, I was sent to a very humbling place called rehab. I truly hit rock bottom. Till this day I don’t think that it was alcohol or depression. I was like a bad kid running around with ADD. I had a manager from a long time ago come in and try to direct me and my life after I got my divorce. I was so overwhelmed I think that I was in a little shock too. I didn’t know who to go to. I realized how much energy and love I had put into my past relationship when it was gone because I genuinely did not know what to do with myself, and it made me so sad. I confess, I was so lost.

This letter is to not place blame on anyone, although I do see the world with a completely different set of eyes now. Being in that vulnerable state and taken to dinners and parties with friends and finding out later you paid for everything was a huge learning lesson for me. I think the whole problem was letting too many people into my life. You never know another persons intentions or what another person wants. I feel I was too open and looking for answers when I had it all to begin with. I have had to cut so many people out of my life. It is so sad, because if anyone is a family person … it is me. When I was little I remember every night watching movies with my family and feeling so at peace. Dancing and singing all the time just like a little girl should. Now recently I find with my children that I want them to have that feeling all of the time. I am having to face a lot of things right now since I have children of my own. A lot of insecurities from when I was little are coming up again. It is like we are never good enough.

I know everyone thinks that I am playing the victim, but I am not and I hate what is going on right now so much. Maybe this is the reason for this letter … to maybe allow people to look at me differently. It is like when you are a real woman and say what you feel and how you think things are supposed to be, that people just say you are a “bitch.”

I feel like some of the people in my life made more of some issues than was necessary. I also feel like they knew I was beginning to use my brain for a change and cut some ties, so they wanted to be in more control of my life than me. I think it is actually normal for a young girl to go out after a huge divorce. I think it was a bigger issue because I had not gone out in such a long time. I am 25 and I do still have a lot to learn, and I am going to make mistakes everyday, and I am sure every mistake I make will probably be on CNN or Good Morning America. I am only human people and I love you for still loving me.

I am sitting here at home and it is 6:25 and both of my sons are asleep. I am truly blessed to have them in my life. Everyday is so surreal. Life in general is so surreal and crazy.

I just hope this letter made some of you think a little bit more of me and where I am coming from. I just want the same things in life that you want…and that is to be happy. It is just so weird because everyone has their own perception of me and how they think I really am. It is so weird how stories are told. There is your side, my side, and the truth. Somebody has to figure it out. I guess we will never really understand or figure out life completely. That’s God’s job. I can’t wait to meet him … or her.

Love, Britney

Quote of the month…
It is ok to disagree with people regarding certain issues. You’re not being true to yourself if you succumb to others opinions because you feel guilty.