Original post: 1/16/14

Last edited: 1/25/14

Okay, so I have a SERIOUS shopping problem. When it comes to makeup and beauty supplies I just can't contain myself!! I have more makeup & products then you can even begin to image.

So here's the new things I ordered last night. I have never used any of these and I'm really excited to try each one. I will write a review on each once I start using them!

What is your tried & true beauty product?

My work awards points for sales and referrals throughout the year and I saved mine up until the very end. I turned the points in for over $2,000 of gift cards. There weren't many options for where to redeem them, but one of the best store's I could have dreamed of was on there...SEPHORA!

Here is what I've ordered so far (again, I will review products after using them)

Why I hate Kohls & will never shop there again!

A month or 2 before Christmas I started shopping. I absolutely hate crowds and traffic so I online shop A LOT. Generally I just don't have the time to go into stores also. Anywho...I went to Kohls.com and discovered an amazing sale on just about everything. I shopped for Lord knows how many hours on their site. I added many gifts for me (lol!) and my family. I attempt to check out and I get all kinds of errors that didn't make sense...lots of random letters and numbers came up...it kept telling me my Kohls charge number was incorrect when it wasn't...etc. I thought maybe it was my phone...so I get out of bed (at midnight), grab my laptop and log into my account. I try to check out and it tells me 3 of the toys I added for my daughter have since sold out in the 5 minutes their website was giving me issues. I attempt to check out on my laptop....same errors. Okay, fine...I give up. However, I was mad that the toys sold out because of their webpage error. I emailed them and told them the website was down but I was unhappy about not being able to order the toys now. Of course, like always, I get the generic "sorry for the inconvenience" response.

The next day at work, I log back in...re-do my entire order that somehow got deleted from my cart and checked out, no problem. A few weeks after placing my order, and a week before Christmas, I get 2 vague emails from Kohls...both say my order has been modified. One showed my order, but no modifications or highlighted areas...the second showed my order but under quantity listed "0"...but amount charged to card remained the same...huh??? Am I getting the order or not? And if not, that's not a modified order, that's a CANCELLED order. I call Kohls and get the same familiar message I get while calling anywhere "due to heavy call volume you may be on hold for a while"...first phone call I make, on hold for 20 minutes, no music, had no idea if I was even still connected...hung up. Second call, on hold for 30 minutes, music for 1/2 the time and then silence. Needless to say I hung up and never got to speak with anyone. I send my infamous email, never heard back. Never got my order.

Some time later, I'm talking to my mother in law and she says "Hey! I guess you weren't the only person that had problems with your online orders from Kohls, I guess a lot of people had problems and they are giving out $25 gift cards to everyone that experienced trouble"....uh, I never got an apology or explanation, hell I don't even know if I got a refund! Nevermind $25...I go to Kohls Facebook and see tons of complaints similar to mine, and apologies from Kohls. I decide to do the same, I leave my story on their page....nothing. A few days later (coincidently and not related to Facebook) I get an email from Kohls saying they are closing out my complaint because it's been a while and should be resolved...um no! It has in no way been resolved! I respond back to the email telling them not to close it out that I still hadn't spoken to anyone. I then once again get a generic sorry for the inconvenience email and will be passed on to a supervisor....that was 2 weeks ago and no call or email from any supervisor.

I did get a survey from them to review the items in an order I never received.

My experience & why I won't ever shop at Staples again!

Ah, Staples. As you may or may not know, I am an "extreme couponer" (although I am on a small break from it). I discovered Staples during the summer time when they always had the free after mail in rebate deals. Every time I'd go in, there was always a problem while being rang out. Of course I never really caught on to that whole check your receipt before you leave thing. I'd always get home and realize that my coupons were not rang in properly or at all. If have to call the store, drive back down and re-ring my transaction, etc. I got to a point where I decided that is was no longer worth my aggravation to get free things from Staples. A couple months later I get my weekly Staples email with a coupon "$10 off any $10 Swiffer purchase (no restrictions of one coupon per person/household or transaction!)"...ok, this was a deal I was not missing out on. I printed 10 copies and went online to plan my purchase, made a list of things I wanted and drove down to the store. When I got there, I decided I only needed $55 or so of things and was going to use 5 coupons and $5 of my Staples rewards. When I get to the register the cashier rings in the coupon and looks puzzled. She calls a manager over and tells him that the coupon says $10 off but is ringing in as $3 off. He tells me in front of other people in line that I was trying to use a fraudulent coupon. I advised him that Staples directly emailed me and pointed out the coupon was printed directly from Staples.com (as it printed on the bottom). He said, "oh well, there is a fraudulent coupon going around"...he wouldn't let me use them for my transaction, I left the carriage and walked out. I went right to my car and called corporate. I was greeted by a miserable employee who told me that Staples made a "typo" and it was supposed to be sent out saying $3 off...I told her that I drove the store specifically to use a $10 off coupon and wouldn't have bothered for $3...I told her I was embarrassed by the store manager and I told her I felt they should honor their mistake. She told me that Staples policy was that they did not have to honor typos and I was out of luck. I went home and typed an email and sent it to corporate. I didn't hear back. From the multiple coupon errors I had received from them in the last I figured out that they do this on purpose to get people into their store. I reported them to the BBB and finally got a response, a very generic and insincere apology.

Yet another place to add to my "never again list". I usually go grocery shopping on Sunday nights for the week. Last weekend was crazy running around and I barely got any quality time with my daughter. I decided to order from Peapod to save time. Sure there was a $10 delivery charge, $1 fuel surcharge and we tipped the driver $5...but if it meant getting an extra hour or more with my daughter...the extra money was worth it...or so I thought...

I chose the delivery day of Wednesday, even though we were in desperate need of food...because it was their "value day" which saved $5 on delivery charge. I was already inconvenienced on the delivery date but that was my own decision to try to save some money.

On Wednesday, the delivery driver brings us our order while I'm feeding my daughter dinner. My husband puts all the groceries on the kitchen floor to be put away and signs the invoice. The driver told him that they were "out of stock" of chicken so I wasn't charged for it. Okay well now this whole Peapod thing just defeated the whole point of paying extra for delivery for the "convenience" since I will now be going to the market for the chicken. If someone has called and told me they couldn't bring the chicken, I would have cancelled the order.

I don't mind food shopping...I actually enjoy it...but the point was to not have to go to the market in the first place, had I known, I would have done my whole trip. I wasn't happy. Especially because my order was very inexpensive ($63), the trip would have been fairly quick.

I go to unload the groceries and notice they are all soaked in water and covered in what looked like dirt. I'm assuming our order was crushed at the bottom of the refrigerated truck. Absolutely disgusted. As I put everything away, my husband and I talked about "never again", "what a waste of money", "lesson learned", etc.

I then grabbed the invoice to make sure the chicken wasn't charged...and it wasn't. So my $63 order should have been $55 or so...wrong. The invoice total said "$82.45". Huh?? I printed my original receipt and compared the 2 side by side. I had ordered (2) 1/2 lb. filet mignon steaks at 18.99/lb...I was already hesitant in ordering them being so expensive but I figured a steak for each of us totaling $19 wasn't too bad. Well, they delivered (2) steaks that were OVER 1lb each. I understand you can't always get it to be 1/2 lb exact...but that was over double the amount. My $19 steaks just turned into $39 steaks. (Btw, they turned brown a day before their sell by date)

I called Peapod and waited 10 minutes on hold and decided I would just email instead. I went online to find that their email won't allow more than 500 characters which wouldn't allow enough room, so I picked up the phone and called again. This time I was on hold for 15 minutes, and hung up. I emailed them saying my order was wrong, I am not paying the additional money as I was staying within a budget, and to please have someone call me as I cannot get through.

It's been 3 days and I haven't received a phone call or response to my email, but that money was taken out of my account. Unfortunately I made the mistake of paying with a debit card, so I can't even call my credit card company to dispute it.

I attempted to call again today and the recording stated they were closed.

There appears to be no solution in sight, so I will just never order from them again, lesson learned.

Since I went on a rant on how terrible the customer service is at Kohls & Staples (experience with Peapod coming soon!), I should also be giving recognition to the places that deserve it and should set an example of how customers should be treated.

So here goes, why I love Nordstrom...

1. Their return policy. Return anything at anytime. Don't even need a receipt. I mean, this is great...I'm the type of person who will buy something without trying on...then I get home, find out it doesn't fit and don't return the mall for another 6 months. Tags/no tags...doesn't matter. This shows that Nordstrom truly stands by their products.

2. Their customer service. Very few times have I had to contact them for any reason, but every time I have they are so nice and helpful.

3. They reissue your expired/unused rewards. I don't understand why every company doesn't do this. You earned that reward, there shouldn't be an expiration date on it.

4. Free shipping! No minimum purchase necessary...free shipping all the time AND free returns.

5. No late fees. I am the worst when it comes to paying bills on time. Seriously. I have the money...I just forget. And forget. And forget. Last month I called them to pay my overdue bill and was ready to ask for a refund on late fee...the girl on the end (who was very friendly) advised there was never a late fee charged! She said they don't charge late fees when the bill isn't very high. Amazing! And I would also like to add that there wasn't a ridiculous hold time to speak to a representative like every other company.

6. They respond to customer's emails, and fast! I like to give credit where credit is due and let them know that they are doing a fantastic job and to please not fall into this ditch that all these other companies have seemed to get stuck in. Less than 24 hours later not only did I receive a reply, but a personal reply, from someone at Nordstrom thanking me for my nice email.

7. Nordstrom cafe. Enough said!

8. Sparking Pomegranate Lemonade...oh my goodness.

9. Their stores are always very clean, including their bathrooms. I always opt to use their bathrooms in the mall lol.

10. I don't care how expensive Nordstrom may be...I see VALUE in their company, and TRUST their company...I am willing to pay more for that kind of service. I am willing to support a company that is doing things the right way. They have definitely earned a lifetime customer here in RI.

I came home from a stressful day at work to see my beautiful MAC package sitting on the counter begging to be opened!! I ordered another MAC pro palette and inserts, Platinum pigment and 7 new shadows - Typographic, Phloof, Fresh water, Swish, Aquadisiac, Moon's reflection & Atlantic blue! MAC is my absolute favorite makeup to work with. I will be uploading looks along the way :)

Besides my regular rants & rambling a I plan to put on here, I will also be sharing tried & true favorite recipes, most of which I have found on Pinterest. Anyway, here is the first recipe...I made this the other night and we all loved it. Not only did it taste (and smell) incredible, but it was super easy to make. It's one of those crock pot set it and forget it recipes

Chicken Pesto Ranch

Ingredients

8 boneless/skinless chicks thighs

6 oz. jar of pesto

1 package of dry ranch seasoning mix

1/2 cup chicken broth

Directions

Place all ingredients into crock pot. Stir to combine all seasonings. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Back in 2007 my dentist had told me the dreaded words that I never want to hear...that I needed all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed. The top two ended up growing out normal on their own, but the bottom 2 were impacted/sideways. I have an older sister by 5 years so of course I had witnessed everything she got to do first and this was no exception. I tried and tried to put it off and did for a long time.

In 2012, I became pregnant with my daughter and my OBGYN had asked about my health. I told her other than wisdom tooth pain I was good. She freaked out and said I needed to get them done ASAP under local anesthesia because if they became infected, the infection could travel to the baby. Of course I didn't want that to happen but I was also a huge advocate of not doing anything while I was pregnant. I wouldn't even take tylonel, never mind get these damn teeth out.

I went to my dentist after this and my dentist refused to even do x-rays on my teeth. He didn't recommend getting the teeth out and said he could always prescribe something if they were to get infected. Okay, so I didn't get them out. My daughter was born January 2013 and I thought, if I can give birth I can get my wisdom teeth out. I didn't make the dreaded appointment until December.

In the meantime I read everyone else's story and scared myself solid! Not a good idea, yet here I am posting my story for all the other scared souls out there. I chose local anesthesia (novacaine & laughing gas only). I did not want to be put to sleep in any way. The morning came and my husband drove me (even though they said I could drive myself). I have asthma so they took my inhalers "just in case". I cried in the chair lol. They gave me the gas and I immediately started to freak. I didn't know how to take the mask off but I was telling the nurse to get it off me once she returned. But then...all of a sudden, the butterflies slowly disappeared and I felt okay. I wasn't loopy, just okay with what was about to go down. Then the oral surgeon came in and the butterflies reappeared, though not as intense. They shot me up with novacaine everywhere, including my tongue. That was uncomfortable. I got nervous about swallowing. I was panicking big time. The procedure began and it was just a lot of pressure. They took the 2 teeth on my right out first. Then, when they got to the left, I don't know if they turned my gas up or if the gas just kicked in but I felt great. I felt drunk...keep yanking those teeth, this feels amazing!! The nurse must have been able to tell I felt great bc when they were done, she took my headphones off and told me the party was over lol! The first day or 2 after wasn't so bad. I took Percocet every 4-6 hours on the hour. I ate KFC mashed potatoes. It really wasn't so bad.

But here I am, a month later, and my lower jaw bone is still incredibly sore and in pain. They said my left bottom had a root or nerve? somewhere they weren't expecting and it was a little harder to get out than they thought. But both sides still hurt. I am still taking IBprofen 600s every 5-6 hours every single day. I can eat normal, but it hurts after. The oral surgeon and my dentist both checked and said everything is healing great. I think I am going to call tomorrow to see why I am still in pain.

But there it is! My wisdom teeth story. Everyone asks me if I am relieved to finally have them out. I tell them no, the pain I feel everyday is not worth it. I'm sure once that pain goes away (if it ever does) then I will finally be relieved. But it is one less thing I will not have to worry about when we finally try for baby #2.