So, I was just sitting here being my usual weekend slug-like self, and I decided to take a quick tour through some daily deals just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

Well.

If you hop over to Fab.com, first allow me to draw your attention to the NPW boutique, which has—hello!—temporary tattoos in the shape of monster hand puppets. Love. Stocking stuffer! Now that’s only $4.75, which is crazy cheap, but there’s shipping, too, so I started looking around.

The Vivo Studios boutique says it’s filled with “Stylish leather accessories”—and it is—but waaaaay down at the bottom, it also holds three different tiffin sets. These never go on sale, and my teen has been dying for one. Score. And definitely not a “stylish leather accessory.”

So yesterday we mysteriously had no Internet, and then as the day wore on I realized that I should’ve wished that was the worst thing that would happen all day. Just… one of those days.

Anyway! A little retail therapy may not fix it all, but it’s a good start.

This weekend Lane Bryant is having a pre-Thanksgiving sale (uhhh… I guess it’s technically pre-Thanksgiving…) with 40% off everything when you use coupon code FALLROCKSLB.

This weekend at Express, take $15 off your $30+ purchase with coupon code 1818, or use code 1827 to take $30 off your $75+ order or $60 off your $150+ order.

Shopped Loft lately? All sale items will be an extra 50% off when you add them to your bag this weekend, or if you’re feeling rich, shop the full-price items and save 30% on them when you buy a full-price sweater and use code SWEATER30.

This weekend at Home Decorators Collection, all Outlet items (and some non-Outlet items) are 15% off and ship for free. I’ll try not to blather on about how much I love this place, but have I mentioned that I love this place? Because I do.

Today’s Gold Box deal at Amazon is your choice of men’s or ladies’ Stuhrling self-winding skeleton watches. They’re very, very pretty. I don’t need a watch, not really, but at half price I’m kind of hoping my husband reads the blog today. Ahem.

And here’s one I’m just throwing out there, in case anyone’s in the market—Amazon currently has the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 available for $240 shipped. For the unfamiliar, this is not a Lego set, not really—it’s a robotics kit, and it almost never goes on sale. Basically if you know what it is and what it costs and you have a kid jonesing for it, this is a decent price. If you don’t know what it is or why it’s a big deal, skip.

And now, I think I hear a second cup of coffee calling my name….

Have you bookmarked Amazon’s Countdown to Black Friday section yet? It’s extra Lightning Deals every day, just to get us psyched up for the main event. Today they seem to have been doing a slew of photo-themed deals, and right now I see a fabulous deal on the Lowepro Slingshot (a great camera bag for the photog on the go) available.

They seem to be starting off pretty slowly, but I like it. Let the games begin! Before we know it we’ll be into the cutthroat holiday lightning deal frenzy. Heh.

So in the last post I pointed out that most holiday electronic sales give you bargain-basement prices on lesser or generic brands, which can be frustrating if you’re looking to invest in a top-quality electronic. So catch the good deals on the brand names when you can—like this 48-hour HDTV sale at Amazon. Many of them are 3D TVs—which quite frankly I wouldn’t want even if you gave one to me—but there’s also some really good prices on not-quite-the-latest models of regular HDTVs from top brands like LG, Panasonic, and Samsung.

Definitely worth a look if you’re in the market for a new set.

Never one to wait until the last minute, Best Buy is hopping on the holiday train early—today and tomorrow they’ve got some featured “Shop Early, Save Big” prices going on.

As you’ll see is pretty typical of holiday sales, the biggest discounts are going to be on the lesser brands rather than the top-shelf name-brand stuff. If your goal is to get the best of the best, this isn’t going to be the sale for you. But if you’re looking for a computer for the kids (or yourself, on a very tight budget) and are okay with slightly lower quality in return for—hello!—a laptop for just $200 and free shipping, this is the place.

The sale is two days only, or while quantities last.