Found this at the cemetery. Was confused as to why this single stone said "endowed."

You could put up this Christmas tree alternative now and use it all year. (Apartment Therapy)

Wow, my winter gloves are not nearly this cool. (Swagger 360)

I love this – this living room is just beautiful. (Apartment Therapy)

30 Etsy Shops for Cooks. (The Kitchn)

On Friday night, I went to see Trent Reznor get interviewed live for the New York Times’ Arts and Leisure Weekend.  It was fantastic, and most of the interview has made it to YouTube.  Here’s one of the videos. (Click here if you can’t see the video.)

Help with stopping excessive phone checking during a dinner out.

Great explanation of how much sun you need. (Lifehacker)

People getting puppies – so cute.  (Click here if you can’t see the puppy video.)

Miss Nubby Twiglet has a fabulous closet and wrote a great post about her organization.

I’m cutting this one off for now – see you all next week!

Christopher S. Penn sent along this idea in his recent email newsletter.

Here’s a personal branding tip to help you clarify who you are and what you do. Collect all of your recommendations from LinkedIn, all the complimentary tweets about you on Twitter, and any other place you’re likely to have nice words about you. Stuff them all into Wordle and see very clearly the words other people use to describe you. This is very powerful, especially if you’re at a loss for words to describe yourself on resumes, web sites, etc.

So, I used my LinkedIn recommendations to create the cloud you see here.  I’m really pleased with it.

What would your word cloud look like? Will you be happy with the words that show up?

I have not been shy about saying how much I love shopping the deal-a-day websites (possibly a misnomer since most of the sales on product last for 2-3 days), especially on my other blog, The Daily Wishlist. I think they are great ways to shop for yourself and even better for shopping for the holidays, etc.  However, I am finding it really interesting that Gilt has identified a way to take the exclusivity of “members only” deals (which seem to generally be on items that are coming to the end of their season) to a new level.

If you’re familiar with the Target designer collaborations, you might also know that some of them have been massively popular and have sold out quickly.  I even wrote about it in January 2009. For example, jewelry designer Temple St. Clair has a new line with Target, and some of the pieces were sold out almost immediately once they were available online.  I was lucky enough to buy a Rafe for Target bag a few years ago that I saw later on eBay, selling for 3 times the purchase price.  Target is bringing high-end design to the customer who loves great style but doesn’t want to pay $1000 for a bag.  Collaborations on home decor have also been successful.

So, how brilliant was it for Target to team up with Gilt to offer exclusive first access to a number of new collaborations for the fall? I got this email from Target…

…and this email from Gilt:

So your everyday Target shopper is encouraged to join Gilt, a site that offers savings on fabulous things (definitely a pull for the Target customer) and on the other hand, Gilt is offering exclusive access to an affordable option from a high-end designer, which totally matches their brand.  Excitement builds because of the precedent set by other Target offers in the past, and Gilt is excited because they just garnered however many new members to send emails to every day about shopping on their site.

I did shop this sale by the way. I scored a Mulberry bag (still in the box, I might sell it on eBay since I’m already seeing them there) but was unable to secure the John Derian tray that I wanted, it was already gone.  Within minutes – the site was totally overwhelmed by everyone trying to shop that sale.

I have to wonder if this new sale was as successful?

Another completely new line being released by Gilt first.  While Venus doesn’t have the same track record as the Target designer collaborations, it’s all about brand introduction.  All of the Gilt shoppers will be exposed to her brand, and very well might pursue the brand outside of the realm of Gilt, and that would be a success as well.

Ultimately, for brands, I see the deal-a-day sites as a great way to expand the presence of your brand, of your product. Every company that sells product will have something to get off of their hands, and why not sell through a site with a built-in audience of engaged shoppers?

Who else has ideas for ways to utilize the deal-a-day websites for other uses than the obvious one?

This week was a bit tough, upgrading to WordPress 3.0 was troublesome. I am back in business though, and it’s time for some Sunday links.

Picture of the week – from a trip I took to Dubai a few years ago, I’ve been thinking about going back.

The red sand was stunning. This was taken during our duning adventure.

Get ready for it – the top 10 cutest cats from Zooborns.

I guess that giving the iPhone testicles will appeal to some people?

Great collection of social networking visuals from Edelman Digital.

Gorgeous desk posted on IKEA Hacker. I wish it wasn’t facing the wall though.

I had a friend email me the link to this video, and I find it really inspirational for a number of reasons. Mostly though, great song, great scenery, and photographers!

Death Valley from Scott Gold on Vimeo.

JibJab has done it again, this time, it is an abridged version of The Empire Strikes Back, starring myself, my husband, my brother and one of my closest friends.

Click here to make your own JibJab video.

I just searched online for some rental car coupon codes for an upcoming trip to Florida, and I stumbled upon this site, RentalCarMomma.com.

My price dropped by $300 when I booked through the link on this site.

I am not getting paid to endorse this, but since I was so excited about the price difference, I had to share.

Please leave a comment if you have any great resources for hot travel deals!

I was introduced to using Polyvore today and it is ridiculously fun.  I created this outfit based on the idea of spending a fabulous spring day enjoying NYC and using that baby blue camera.

So, I’ve been MIA from this blog, because I’m working on a new project that I’m really excited about.  It is almost ready and once it is, I’ll be posting a big announcement here.

In the meantime, I wanted to share something from one of my favorite blogs.  I only discovered Gala Darling within the last few months and have been greatly enjoying her content.

Anyway, in February, Gala will be posting additional content, in a series called “The Playgirl’s Guide to Radical Self-Love.”  Gala is incredibly positive and inspiring, so I highly recommend her blog.  She has suggested that there will be homework assignments to go along with this month’s additional content, and perhaps I will even post it here.

I hope to be back within the next week to announce my new project!

I asked someone recently what their goals and objectives were in relation to using social media tools for their business.  They responded with “well, we have to,” which made me cringe a bit.  I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said when I say that NO,  you don’t have to use social media tools.  Especially not if you aren’t ready to commit to it in such a way that it is given a real chance to help you connect.

I was surprised yesterday to visit GourmetLibrary.com, one of the latest ventures of Gary Vaynerchuk and Wine Library, and not immediately find links to Twitter, Facebook, etc.  (A link to Twitter has since been added, as you can see on the screenshot from this morning.  No tweets so far yet though, not even an introduction.)

I was surprised that the site was even launched without those things in place.  I can’t be the only person who immediately looks for ways to connect to online shops or brands that I’m potentially interested in buying things from, whether it is subscribing to a feed about sales or connecting on Twitter or Facebook.  How many other people who follow @WineLibrary, who follow @garyvee, clicked on the site yesterday and then had no way to connect?  It seems like a major miss, especially surprising to me given who is behind it.  I am connected to a few Wine Library employees that I met at a Tweetup there a few months ago, and they are all great.

There are 114 followers (as of now) on the GL Twitter account, but I would imagine that number would already be so much bigger if there had been prominent callouts to connect on the site BEFORE it was announced.  I know that there is a massive amount of promotion that the site will get through the thousands of people watching Wine Library TV, so maybe this isn’t seen as such a big deal to the people behind GL.

Bringing it back to my story at the top, this is definitely the place to connect with potential cheese (etc.) shoppers!  If I had an online retail business, I would be all over this.

Update: I pulled the first screenshot this morning, now it is nearly 7pm and Facebook has been added as well:

Watching these things go up now makes me think that perhaps they saw the miss with these items as well.  What do you think?

Update, the day after.  Look who’s tweeting up a storm!

I am happy to see this engagement but still think that I made a valid point by wondering why this wasn’t all in place before launch.