It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and if you’re not too full, then it’s the opportune time to take advantage of some killer sales and wicked parties.

SHOP TO IT (SHOPPING AND INDULGENCES)

Black Friday is tomorrow, and more than ever stores are seeking to draw consumers in with huge discounts, online and offline. If the thought of waking up at 4 am to hit the crowded malls makes you queasy, then look for online discounts.

With Black Friday comes Cyber Monday, and here in DC you can attend an event by Shop.org to help the cause for online shopping. Shop.org will provide lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, laptop computers with high-speed Internet access, and will raffle off thousands of dollars in gift cards to shoppers. Shop@Lunch made easy.

Tax free shopping in DC this weekend on purchases that are $100 or less. Stock up on gifts for yourself and others. Look for more local deals from Washingtonian. Bethesda Row is a great place to start the shopping fever!

Shop for a good cause next Wednesday, December 3rd. The Carpenter Shelter for the homeless in Alexandria benefits, while you save! 50% of the proceeds go directly to The Carpenter Shelter. Shop goodies from local designers showcasing their chic apparel, accessories, jewelry, arts and services at HUGELY discounted savings (up to 70% off). 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM at the Westin in Alexandria. Check out the event on Facebook for more details.

Ann Taylor Loft, J. Crew and Banana Republic are featuring sales with up to 40% off. Stock up on professional looking winter wear.

• Ann Taylor Loft has 40% off already marked down sale prices.
• J. Crew offers an extra 20% off from mark downs if you enter the code EXTRA20 online through December 1.
• Banana Republic has 40% off of cold-weather items (think sweaters, gloves, etc.) through December 1.
• Work off those holiday pounds with cute and comfy clothes from Lucy. 40% off outerwear and up to 30% off already marked down items through December 2.

Looking for a special holiday or New Year’s Eve dress? Check out one of my favorite stores, Cusp, which has great sales and is offering free online shipping with with the code THANKS and an order over $150. Stock up on cute gifts for under $50 such as hand-knitted purple gloves ($34), a Bobbi Brown limited-edition lip gloss trio ($45), and shine on with super shimmery Lippmann Collection gold nail polish ($15).

Pre-order the latest book from Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling, set to release on December 4. The Tales of Beedle the Bard are sure to delight, as all five of the wizarding fairy tales that appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are featured in this treasury of tales. Barnes & Noble is offering it for $7.59 for B&N Club members. An extra 5% will be taken off if you order online. Amazon is even cheaper with a standard edition for $7.14. For the really hardcore fan, a special hardcover collector’s edition is offered for $100.

For some family holiday fun, check out the Polar Express in IMAX at the National Museum of Natural History. Check out http://www.si.edu/imax/ for details and showtimes.

SCENE AND BE SEEN (EVENTS AND PARTIES)

Thanksgiving weekend features parties all week. A few highlights:

WEDNESDAY

• The exclusive Shadow Room is having a pre-Thanksgiving bash tonight. RSVP for complimentary admission (which means free for ladies until midnight, and free for gentlemen until 11PM with RSVP). Absolute Addiction is promoting.
• The newly redesigned Eyebar is having its own Thanksgiving Eve bash, with no cover and open bar for all, starting at 10 pm. Gobble, Gobble! Go to Primo Productions for more detail.
• Itching for a Dewey Beach reunion? Head to Clarendon Ballroom for their annual Thanksgiving Throwdown, featuring Kristen and the Noise. HiBall events sponsors. Come early for $10 admission, and get in for only $5 with two canned goods. Prices increase through the night.

THURSDAY

• Spend time with your family you turkey!

FRIDAY

• My friend (and new Wizards girl) Lyndsay is hosting an event at Midtown on Friday night. (For those who don’t know, Midtown is the new Play.) The Little Black Dress party is sure to be filled with beautiful people, so make sure you dress to impress.

In other news, select summer 2009 shows are now on sale at Wolf Trap. Take advantage of purchasing Disney’s High School Musical tickets (which are sure to sell out) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. TLOTR will feature the complete film in HD with performances by a live orchestra, chorus, and soloists. HSM will be arriving on September 1-6, 2009 and The Lord of the Rings is coming August 28-29, 2009. For more fun and to purchase tickets (including Riverdance and 42nd Street), go to Wolf Trap’s website.

EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY (FOOD AND DRINK)

Thanksgiving is all about food. And, what better way to celebrate food than to share with others. Washingtonian is creating a Thanksgiving recipe box, where readers can submit and share their favorite family recipes.

This is a great time to think of others. Consider volunteering at a local shelter or food bank. Many need extra help for the Thanksgiving holiday, but consider volunteering at another time. Help is needed year round. If you can’t volunteer your time, please volunteer your dollars. Check out Food and Friends, Capital Area Food Bank, So Others Might Eat (SOME), Bread for the City, and the DC Central Kitchen.

Union Jack’s new Ballston location is hosting a grand opening next Thursday, December 4th. There will be a free buffet to sample food, and lots of fun to be had for all. Could be a great overflow spot for Rock Bottom’s Wednesday night $1 beer debacles.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting information for a contest to win a 1 lb. box of Enstrom’s toffee. If you’ve never had it, I highly recommend you get into it. More to come…

NOTE: Posted this a bit early this week with the holiday in mind. Check back every Thursday for a weekly round up.

Well, here is another weekend update from yours truly. I know, boring. I have a few other things to say, but just haven’t had the energy and motivation to write coherent thoughts. So, for now you get the boring “I know you don’t give a shit what I do but I’m gonna write it anyway cause it’s my blog” weekend update. Feel free to stop while you’re ahead. I’m pretty tired though after being up until 4 am two nights in a row (I’m entirely too old for that), so this shouldn’t be too painful. And, one day I promise I’ll finish tagging all my previous posts. It’s irking me.

On Friday I headed out to the grand opening of Rain in Fairfax. One of my friends is the DJ there so I promised him I would come out. It was a nice club and the music was of course good. I’m not sure how well it will hold up in that area, but there were a lot of people there and quite a diverse crowd. Hopefully it will do well. I hear the food is good as well. It seems like it will turn into a good spot to go to if you live in the suburbs and just don’t feel like making the trip into DC or even Arlington.

Saturday I had a mini-sorority reunion in Arlington. We ended up at Mr. Days (gag) and ran into about 20 people from college that I haven’t seen in years. It’s always funny to see people from college, most of the sorority girls I saw it was cool to run into them, but I mean, I wasn’t friends with them then and I don’t hang out with them now, so I didn’t really care. There are some girls that are still really into it and hang out with the same people all the time, and while it’s well and good to keep some of those relationships…most of it I just don’t get. Maybe I just wasn’t cool enough or something. And, well, I also ran into my ex-boyfriend, which is always a joy. Luckily that encounter was short. It’s funny he asked me how I was and what I was up to, and I kind of answered him and then I didn’t even ask him what he was doing. It didn’t even occur to me. I think that’s better though.

Sunday I met up with BSG in Georgetown for a little shopping and ladies lunch. I was not so impressed with the selection of clothes out right now, everything is really big and baggy and that does nothing for anyone’s body, least of all mine. From there I headed over to Shirlington to catch Crave at Signaure Theatre with a couple of friends. It was an interesting show, definitely one that I think you need to see multiple times to get the most benefit from. Afterwards we had dinner at Luna and then I finally came home. Sadly I missed Justin on the Grammy’s, but I’m sure I can find it on YouTube later.

This week is my last week at my job, my last day is Thursday. I took Friday off just because, and I start my new gig next Monday. I have already been busy with the new company, and am looking forward to starting there, although I am a little bit nervous. My current job is keeping me busy too, they want me to finish up a lot of things that I just don’t want to or care about anymore. I’m trying to get motivated to do it, as of course I don’t want to burn any bridges…but it’s really hard when I just don’t have my heart in it and I know it. I think it’s shitty that they’re trying to squeeze the last of my energy out on things that help the company…and even worse is the fact that I just don’t care.

What a fabulous weekend! On Friday night I headed into DC for a good friend from college’s birthday celebration. We started off with a couple drinks at Mate, and then headed to Lima to finish off the night. I had SO much fun, and I don’t even really like house/trance/club (whatever you want to call it) music, I’m much more a hip-hop kind of girl. We ended up getting a table at Lima and went through about 5 bottles of champagne and vodka. They brought out the bottles with sparklers attached, very fun! Yours truly actually drank a lot, which is a rare event considering the combination of unfortunate asian glow and the fact that drinking usually makes me not so much fun. This time though, it was all good, and 6 mixed drinks and 2 shots later I was still standing! Thanks to KassyK for her favorite drink (that I have inherited hehe) which started my night off right. Lima was a good time, and I actually ran into one of my old coworkers that I hadn’t seen in over a year, and also one of my sorority sisters. My only complaint was those damn stairs to the basement, I thought I was going to kill myself walking down them! We finally headed home and fell asleep by 4 or 5…let me just say that three people sleeping in a King size bed made my Queen seem pretty inadequate.

On Saturday I took a long nap and then headed to my friend’s house to order Chinese food and watch the Syracuse vs. Louisville game. Sadly, Cuse lost in the last minutes. When that was over I met up with some friends at Shirlington to see Notes on a Scandal. The movie was fantastically funny with a witty narration by Judi Dench, although it was a bit creepy at times. Not so much a story about the affair Cate Blanchett led, and more about crazy ass Judi Dench. Still, I enjoyed it and definitely recommend it!

Another great movie I saw was Waiting, which starred hottie Ryan Reynolds. Dane Cook also appeared along with some other C-list actors. The movie was definitely a hilarious reminder of my time waiting tables at various restaurants through college. There is just something about working at a restaurant…sometimes I kind of miss the craziness.

The rest of my weekend is supposed to be spent cleaning my apartment (which was supposed to happen last weekend but another long night out prevented that as well), but we’ll see how that goes. I also need to buy a new vacuum…which is turning out to be a great debacle. Who knew that finding a good one would be so hard? Every review I read sucks, and the really good ones are way too expensive. Ugh. Any ideas????

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this week as I think there are about to be some BIG changes to my world. We will see what happens, but it will certainly be shared!

This weekend was pretty good, I spent some good time with good people. On Friday I met my bff at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants, Peking Gourmet. After dinner I headed over to Carpool to see my friend’s little sister’s band play. They are pretty good, I’ve seen them before - they have a fun setlist and great energy. I ended the night with a little unexpected smoke and SHUB action. All in all, a pretty damn good Friday night!

Saturday I went to see The Departed with my friend N, which was always a good time. The movie made me want to hit up Boston for some hot Irish cops, corrupted or not! N, you were looking fabulous too my friend! Especially in your I Love Black People shirt hahaha. I then headed to Tysons to meet some friends for dinner at CPK and pick up a few things, including a VERY espensive perfume (um yeah, I won’t be eating until next week as I can now not afford food) and exchanging/buying a couple shirts at Nordstrom and Express (got some cute and cheap stuff there!). I kind of feel bad stealing someone else’s signature scent (I got the name from a friend’s girlfriend)…but it smells amazing - and it’s not like I see her/them very often. If you want to know what it is ask, but I don’t want to share lest others know the secret to my sexy new scent. It’s also great because the fragrance lingers forever and it smells as expensive and luxurious as it is. Clearly I’m obsessed with it.

Sunday I met the Ad-Man for coffee (or in my case, a tasty chai latte) in Arlington. He’s helping me out with some career advice and networking, and it was definitely good to meet him. Thanks for the ego and confidence booster Geoff! The rest of the day was spent cleaning up and laying around the house. My roomie made us a yummy dinner and we got pumpkins to carve this week!

I can’t believe it’s almost November. And I also have NO money for Christmas presents. I guess that is time that I can be happy my family is so small. I really only have to get gifts for my parents and a few friends. But, I’m an overly giving person, and I always end up spending way too much on entirely too many people. I can’t help it…I’m the ultimate consumer and I LOVE buying presents!

Anyway, fun times, good people, and now…back to work. Sigh.

What a great weekend! The weather was great, it was actually bearable being outside. I spent Friday night on the rooftop of the Clarendon Ballroom with some friends from work, and before that enjoyed some turkey burgers with my roommate at home. Mmmm so good.

My friend and I enjoy the rooftop breezes

All sweaty from dancing with some friends downstairs…
SO excited they played SEXY BACK
(I know I’m a loser)

Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, my stomach was not feeling so well. I watched Rumor Has It with my roommate (cute movie) and then went to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. Unfortunately I still didn’t feel well so I was a failure and missed my dear friend VP’s birthday par-tay…I’m sure it was crazy fun though.

Sunday I picked up my bff/life partner at National and then we went to work out before a lovely dinner at Chevy’s (yeah, defeating the gym time I guess, but whatever). And now, I’m just relaxing, ready for another week of work. Or, pretending to be. Sigh. It sucks so much.

So, on another note - I had at least two really great, insightful post ideas on relationships (dating, family, work)…but was too busy and/or lazy through the week to actually sit and write anything. Hopefully I’ll remember what they are and actually be able to formulate intelligent thoughts. I also apologize for not posting more pics (as requested) from New Mexico…blogger has been a bitch about uploading pics lately. I’ll bust some out one day as a surprise - they really are beautiful.