giveaway

First I have to confess that my recent spree of blogposts was due in part to the fact I was home one am with a broken furnace and the only warm spot in the house was snuggling with Aidan and my laptop. So I published a weeks worth of posts in advance. During that time my laptop actually was hit by a major virus and bit the dust for a few days. (thank you to this friend for volunteering her husbands help.)

Second I wanted to tell you to stop by this blog where you can enter for a chance to win one of my bags! Jessica has written the sweetest little article and I would love it if you entered to win!

Hope your week is going well - I am busy but I will catch up with you later.

and the winner is......

...........Malaika at Never a Dull Moment. Thanks for all the comments........ I wish I had enough books to give one to each of you.

I also wish I could stay and chat longer but I am in the middle of a few projects and I have been on a roll so I hate to sit online and lost my steam. So in the meantime enjoy a few pics of our Valentine decor.

Notice the spools of velvet ribbon? I scored a bunch at Sundance after Christmas. The spools look so pretty I don't want to use the ribbon.

What about you - are you decorating for Valentine's Day?

Giving Thanks

Thank you for the sweet comments about my new banner. That was a project Aidan and I took on this weekend. (He wanted bright hearts and I wanted muted ones. More on who won that argument later.) And who would have thought that the "jeggings post" would generate so many comments? I think that is pretty funny. Forget the serious stuff, home inspirations and good recipes. I am going to talk about my fashion blunders from now on. (Because I think in a decade we will look back at our jeggings and say "what were we thinking????")

Now on a more serious note. I have been reading a wonderful book. Actually I read it in one evening and wept my way through it. So then I read it again with a highlighter and pen in hand (I never, ever write in books.) because I felt like she was writing it to me. There are so many circumstances in my life right now that seem out of my control and I have fallen into a pattern of self-pity and complaining, feeling fully justified in my behavior. How pathetic, eh? My friend Darlene was a great example of living every day like it was a gift and having a thankful heart. I feel embarrassed for my attitude; I need a change of heart as I have so much to be thankful for.

So...... to celebrate the gifts we have I am having a giveaway. ( I love giveaways!) If you would like to win the book please enter a comment and I will have a drawing in a week. If you link to this post in another you can have two entries into the contest..... just let me know in your comment. And even if you don't want to read it...... just look at the cover. How can you resist?

Giveaway!

Swell Life keeps having fabulous giveaways every week.

Here is a link to this weeks giveaway.

Isn't her Etsy shop just the cutest?

(picture from swell life)

Giveaway

No, not by me. But if you want to read more about it you can

visit the Swell Life and get all the details.

Please don't enter the contest though ........ I don't want any competition.

Giveaway!

Not mine- but if you click here you can find out how to win.

I have seen her stuff at I Like You, so it was so fun to read a little more about her.

And you will love the blog she is featured on. I know I do.

And the winner is.......

I had so many people enter that I just played "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo" to come up with a winner, and it was Stephanie. I have to say I am a little relieved, I was imagining the cost of shipping tea to Valerie in Mexico........ maybe when you come to visit I can hook you up, Val, and we can drink our tea after we shop at the Naturalizer store.

So Steph - I guess this means we really will have to have lunch! And I will send you some tea! Thanks for playing.!

Giveaway!

Don't forget I am having a giveaway this week that ends Tuesday! I guess I don't know as many tea drinkers as I thought I did. You can always re-gift it, you know.

When I like something,

I really like it.

I like these teas, their taste, their packaging, the way they work. (or the way they make you think they work. My office mate swears by the "Get Charged" tea. She drinks it every day on her long commute home before she hits the gym.) Plus- I am trying to drink tea throughout the day at work. I have a more sedentary job now and instead of reaching for the candy dish I am trying to keep my tummy full of tea.

So to celebrate the New Year I will have a giveaway of two tins of tea. Just leave a comment and tell me which two kinds you think you need. This could be fun.



You can check their website to see the full list. I can't guarantee that the grocery store I buy them at carries all the different kinds, but I will do my best for you!


I will keep the giveaway open until next Tuesday.

Feel free to tell others about it too!

Merry Christmas To You

I debated sharing this with you.

I still don't know if I should.

Sharing with anyone probably decreases my chances of ever winning.

However, as my readership is pretty minimal I guess it is a chance I will take.

My mom is really the one who told me about this site, and she has debated sharing for the same reasons.

So sorry Mom. I never won anything anyway. But to the rest of you, be sure to tell me if you win so I can vicariously enjoy the moment with you.

So Merry Christmas! This will be my last post for awhile. We are getting ready to load up the car and head to Kahl's in southern MN for a few days and then to Iowa to see my side of the family! We will have to catch up when we return. Enjoy your holiday.

A Very Bad Blogger

Yes, that would be me.

Promised Giveaway? One week late.

Pictures from our trip North for James first hunting deer experience? ummm...... none.

Thanksgiving? Family? Guests? er...... well.........

The last few weeks of busyness and projects??? New Thanksgiving recipes? Lefse making?

Yeah, so I have nothing.

But I do have a winner. I put the names in bowl and I came out with Bethany! Congratulations and I hope you enjoy the picture! Maybe it should come with coffee in Hudson or something?

Thanks to all who commented. Maybe next time.


{P.S. thankfully some people in my life are much better at updating their blogs than I am. So if you really care about our first deerless deer hunting weekend you can read Christa's blog. And if you would like a chronicle of our lefse making you can read my Mom's blog.}

Giveaway!

Only one more day left!

Check here for more details.

Obsessed!

Okay.... so maybe I am going a little overboard with the empty frames....... but I can't help myself - I just keep hanging them all around our living room. I had amassed quite a pile of them over the summer in anticipation of the living room change, and I can't quite bring myself to part with the ones I don't need. So for now they are randomly framing things around the room.

Today I ended up having a free day at home because Aidan is home sick again, so I finally took the time to hang some pictures on "my big wall" instead of just leaving them stacked because in a few short days the living room will be rearranged to accommodate a Christmas tree. Two of the pictures you see on the wall are waiting to be custom framed, so in the meantime they are just taped to the wall in their plastic protective sheets. And the frame in the top picture also makes the mirror look horribly imbalanced, so I will have to keep my eye out for a solution!

And for those of you who endured this post to the end I also have a giveaway.

I love this poster, and I hope at least one of you loves it too!

I will leave the drawing open through the weekend. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with your favorite decorating color. (And FYI- your poster will come unframed.)

And the winner is.........

..........Mary Beth. And since you live nearby you can stop by sometime and choose something from my sewing room. How does that sound? But not until the boy pictured below is feeling better.

This couch is where he spent the majority of his time today, which made me a winner today too. He slept and watched movies off and on all day, so as you can see by the state of my living room in the picture below, I had lots of time to do some painting today. As a matter of fact it is almost completed, I just have to finish touching up some edges tomorrow. I love it!

All I wanted to do tonight was to sit and stare and soak up the new colors, but all the furniture is covered with toys and curtains. I am so excited about how it turned out!

So stay tuned.... hopefully I will have more pictures for you soon.

I think we will be housebound again tomorrow so I should have plenty of time.
Poor Aidan not only missed his field trip today, but we were going to carve pumpkins tonight, and tomorrow he will miss his new Tae Kwon Do class and Halloween festivities with neighborhood friends, along with our long-awaited family photos which we will have to reschedule. I took his temp before bed and it was back up to 104. Even in his feverish state he knew that number meant trouble, and he started to cry hot little tears, "I knew it! I am not going to be able to go trick-or-treating tomorrow." So much disappointment in two days for that child! Maybe some of our neighbor friends will let us trick or treat later this week. If not for his sake, for ours! I try not to buy candy so his inability to trick-or-treat affects James and I too!

Last Day of the Giveaway!

I thought I had more than 8 readers.... if you are lurking out please feel free to comment. You don't even have to comment on my blog, but just blogs in general. And you can enter even if you have won before.

Today is kind of a freebie for me. I had a bunch of errands to do and places to go and I am home with a sick kid instead. We have spent the first half of the morning snuggled on the couch. I love days like that as they are so rare now that he is in school. We did have a rough morning, however, because today was to be Aidan's first ever field trip and he has been talking about it all week. "Only three more days until the big day mom......" "I learned who my team is for the field trip mom....." Poor boy. I am also assuming he has H1N1 as his only symptoms are a high fever and headache. I hope he does okay with it. Some of our friends' children only had those symptoms for a day or two and then they were better, where others have had it last all week and ended up needing hospitalization for severe dehydration.

This week I received two great surprises, both of which I have pictures to share with you, but none of the pictures are loaded onto the computer yet. On Tuesday a big box of dried lavender came in the mail from this lady's garden. Thanks so much Mindy! What a treat to find that in my mailbox. (Mindy knew my parents (and our family) years ago when they all went to the same church in Fargo ND.) I am thinking sachets, but am not too sure yet.

And yesterday I was at work and I happened to look out the window and see a figure looking alot like James bolting across the parking lot through the rain. I thought about calling him to see why he would be at Unity Hospital, but then I let it go thinking it was probably my imagination. Well, a few moments later who should appear but James with a vase of flowers for me, congratulating me on getting through his unemployment. (I don't know if he was being kind, or if I really did okay. I thought I occasionally "spazzed out" and drove him crazy. Maybe he was just being kind.) Anyway, I usually always work at our Mercy Hospital office, but that happened to be the only day in the past few months I was at our Unity Hospital office. So in other words, he had all the ladies talking about what an amazing guy he was to drive to not one - but TWO hospitals in search of his wife. Thanks James, they are right. And yes, I will miss you when you are gone all the time again.

This week a friend and I tried our hand at making lefse. It turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. Her parents have sold it for years and so she is thinking we should do the same. We will see if anyone actually wants to buy it from us! (And Jane - it is nothing like Bob's. He has the Kahl family totally spoiled as his the thinnest, most tender lefse you can imagine. I have no idea how he can make it like that! Maybe in 25 years Carin and I will be at that level)

I also picked up a chair on Craigslist for 10 dollars that I plan to reupholster. A friend of mine recovered a chair like it recently following step by step instructions that she found on You Tube. So we will see. I need to finish up a few other projects first. (My living room is currently half painted. And did you know that Behr painter and primer in one works on every color but red? That's what the man who works at the counter told me, so I am priming over the red, cursing the day I chose that color. ( I think maybe someone warned me about that.... but I did love the color and it made our living room very warm and cozy the last few years.) But the time has come to move on! I am so excited!

So that's the week folks. Hopefully Aidan will be recovered tomorrow as we have lots of plans! What about you? What kind of plans do you have? (And after I find my camera I will insert some pics into the post to help liven it up a little.)

500th post Giveaway!!!!!

I can't believe that Monday's post was my 500th! I started blogging two years ago, and I honestly wasn't quite sure what I had gotten myself into, and I certainly did not expect that I would still be blogging today.





But I am, so to celebrate I think we need to have another giveaway. Granted- I just mailed the item from the last giveaway....... ( I can't help it, my credit card was stolen so I needed to keep all my little stash of cash for things like milk and eggs people!)





So what I am trying to say, is don't expect an overnight delivery if you win the giveaway. but if you do, know that you will receive a handmade treasure in a few weeks. Okay? (It may be handmade by me, or I may feature some of the beautiful items my aunt is sending from Mexico.)





So to enter - tell me why you enjoy reading blogs. Because if you actually read mine regularly you must have the same sort of blog addiction I do. So it's now time to fess up.


Contest ends November 1st.

(P.s. I found the lovely picture collage here.)

Better late than never!

So in answer to the contest I posted last week......... Stacy is the winner! You are right, I finally bought a new Kitchenaid and I am loving it! You all have great observation skills! And Stace- if you send me your address I will send you a surprise. I wish I could say it is a Kitchenaid, but I only had one in my budget this year.

Giveaway! (no, not by me!)

Can you imagine having a bike like this one? You could almost carpool with that thing, and stop and pick up dinner too! Amazing! They also give away a bike every week. Yes- you read that right. Click on the photo above and it will direct you to their site where you will learn how you too can be entered in the giveaway!

Cupcakes anyone?

Isn't this the sweetest Giveaway? Click here for details! (I don't know why I am promoting this because I really want to win.)

But, since winning is such fun I want you all to have a chance to win too, and I thought I would introduce you to a fellow-Midwesterner's cute little blog. I am sure you all are looking for more blogs to become addicted to.

And the winner is.......

Mimi.

I am so glad you stopped by! Thanks for the great tip on the Velcro too, I think it may beat my sticky-tack idea, b/c the sticky-tac got too cold and never worked.

Although I am not sure what you would need a scarf for down in Alabama...........

Thanks to the rest of you who played too. I loved reading all your random facts. Jenica, yours really made me laugh, and while I would like to say I have no knowledge on the subject, well, remember the Rodgers dog, Nibs?

So this wraps up my month of giveaway's. Thanks for adding me to your "blogroll's" this past year. I feel like I have been able to reconnect/stay connected with lots of friends and family, and it will be fun to see what the next year brings.


Thanks again to all who left comments, I would have loved to give you each a present. Maybe next time!