I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a master of makeup. Matter of fact, I’ve used it about once in the past 5 years, that being for my sister’s recent wedding. But I do think about it here and there because I do know how much better I can look when I take the time.

On the other hand, I do a lot with my hair. It’s really long and while I don’t expect to mess with that anytime soon, considering a new hairdo can be fun.

The MakeoverSolutions website lets you do that without all the actual trauma of getting a bad haircut. You can upload a photo of yourself and see how you’d look with a different hairstyle. If you have a free membership you can upload just one photo, but paid members can upload more. They offer tips to make it easier to pick a good photo, for example you don’t want hair in your face.

Free memberships also only get a limited number of hairstyles to try. It’s enough to play with and get a feel for things, but paid members get over 3000 hairstyles to play with, along with more celebrity hair styles, more makeup colors and accessories to play with. Paid members also don’t have to deal with interstitial ads.

And of course, it’s not just for women. They have hairstyles for men as well.

Overall, it’s just a fun site to play around at. You can get really serious about it or not.

I’ve always been a bit of a science and technology geek. Just how I am.

I used to love having The Discovery Channel Store in the mall. So much fun wandering the various gadgets and science toys. But they’re gone now, for several months. I gather they decided to stick with just selling online.

The Discovery Channel Store website is certainly a lot of fun. Lots of really great toys and videos. There’s a rainbow generator, for example, that I bet my daughter would love.

But I’ll keep missing the mall stores. They were just so much fun to wander!

Technorati Tags: discovery channel store

I need to get a car one of these days. I work at home and have been going without, just using my husband’s car, but every here and there I do get tired of that. It gets inconvenient once in a while.

The trouble, of course, is how much even used cars cost. But today I came across a site about government auctions, and that reminded of how I got my first car. You got it, government auction.

At the time I had someone in my family who knew when the auction was. That is, my mother worked for the government agency that was selling off its older cars, so she knew how the cars were maintained as well as when the auction was. This was pre-Internet, for those who might be wondering.

Now, it’s certainly possible to find out when many auctions are on your own. You just have to do the research. But I can also see where having a single resource to search makes a lot of sense.
What impressed me about this site is their section talking about auction scam sites. There’s more than that in the FAQ section, but understanding the difference between legitimate and scam auction sites is important.

I don’t know how soon I’ll be getting a car. But I’m going to be doing my best to remember to check out the auctions to try to save some money when the time comes.

Technorati Tags: government auctions, cheap car

Well, almost. You could be. At least with the help of some glow sticks.

So it’s not quite you glowing. They’re still fun, and with Halloween coming up, it’s a great time to shop for them. I got mine locally last year, but I love the selection available at the Premier Glow website. Plenty of glow sticks to help the kids be a little more visible when they go trick or treating.

On the other side of things, the flashing margarita glasses look like fun for the grownups. Add a little color to the party. Just make sure people don’t tilt their glass when it’s full as they try to play with the switch on the bottom of the glass. On the other hand, that could be funny if they’re outside and you don’t mind a spill so much.

They have a lot of really fun looking products. I would imagine that my daughter would go nuts upon seeing the butterfly wand, but that’s currently sold out. Then again, it plays music, so I’d probably go nuts too. For an entirely different reason.

Let’s face it; if it glows or flashes different colors, kids are generally going to love it. Sometimes it’s just that simple.

Yes, it’s true. Time to start thinking about your Halloween costume.

I love that costumes are available online. Most years I resort to wearing my Renaissance Faire garb - easily available and fun to wear. But I wouldn’t mind getting a real costume too.

We’ve always had fun making costumes on our own, especially split costumes. There was the time I went to work on Halloween as a split personality: Long sleeves, high neck, long pants on one side, short skirt and low cut top on the other. Even borrowed a coworker’s nametag.

That costume taught me one thing: Just because shoes are a similar height doesn’t mean they’re the same height, and a slight difference in height causes pain after hours of wear while working in a retail environment.

Take my advice. Wear matching shoes. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever wondered how to get the most for your money? Sometimes you can get extra perks for buying from the right folks. Some car dealers in my area, for example, give 3 months’ of gas with purchase. That’s not a bad little extra.

The trick is finding out who offers these perks. That is, of course, where ePERKS.com comes in. They have the information, and that’s how I found out about the dealers in my area offering perks like free gas. The deals go through the ePerks website.

The site overall is pretty good, although a FAQ would be nice. They do have a place where you can ask questions. Look under the Answers tab. Membership is free and there were a fair number of professionals in my area already offering perks.