It’s a little bit like Christmas around here with all of the packages I received in the mail yesterday. I’ve had really good luck with Swaptree—I’m up to 34 trades! My goal was to use all of the books, music and movies we didn’t want anymore to get digital versions of what we had on cassette and vhs. Recently added to our collection:

I also got a copy of The Namesake, which is my book-to-read in February.

Today I also redeemed an iTunes card I’ve had sitting around for almost two years. I was worried it might no longer work, but it did. (Yes, I had an iTunes card sitting around for that long. Note: this is NOT a good gift idea for me.) I bought Cruel and Gentle Things. (Charlie Sexton. Swoon!)

This list of blogs in my rss feed is quite long and sometimes I get behind reading them all. One that I read almost daily is One Crafty Mumma. She has a Bella, too! I think I found her during Handmade for the Holidays over at Sew, Mama, Sew! last year. (Hey, Christy! Do those tree ornaments look familiar?) I also love her birthday invitations that were featured on Craftzine. There is so much crafty goodness to explore on her blog!

You may have noticed I have a payperpost button in my sidebar. I wanted to try it out a little bit before I wrote my review. So far I’ve been really pleased with my experience. I first heard about it through Christy’s blog. (A lot of good ideas come from her blog!) I figure I’m already pretty open with my opinions, so why not get paid for them? It only took a few days for them to approve my blog. It also didn’t take them long to approve my post.

I don’t expect to make tons of money with this. However, if someone wants to give me a few bucks to write about my favorite things, that’s cool with me! The only thing that bugs me is that my Google rank is kind of low. This doesn’t allow me a lot of opportunities about which to write. I was all excited to write about how much I loved my baby sling, but my little ol’ blog didn’t qualify for me to do so. Anyone out there want to link to my blog?

Now all I need to do is figure out a way to get KitchenAid to pay me for all the love I show them. Ha!

There’s a new Indian restaurant in town and it is fabulous! It serves some traditional northern dishes, but its focus is on southern Indian food. Ever since our trip to Madurai, I’ve been a little obsessed with Tamil cuisine. (There are some beautiful photos of Madurai here on flickr. Yes, everything there really is that colorful!)

Here’s a review of The Peacock. I can’t wait to try their buffet and get a sampling of all of their food!