Giveaway Mania, Part 2 (The Fun Part!)

For anyone who wants to join the frenzy (and I will say, this is entertaining for me... I'd rather do this than watch TV), you can enter some of the great giveaways at Bloggy Giveaways.com. They are having a carnival this week... some 1,000 giveaways to enter all in one week. These are my favorites so far:


Careerbags.com Red Laptop Tote at Musings of a Housewife
$100 Visa Gift Card at Unexpected Bliss
$50 Victoria's Secret Gift Card at A Family Completed
$100 Amazon Gift Card at Miss Musing - just for letting her know what your favorite book is. How hard is that? If you win, you could have more favorite books. :)

Giveaway Mania

I like giveaways. Matt's not exactly sure why. I know people doing giveaways are advertising, and I'm okay with that. Really. I'm inundated with advertising every day... I might as well have something enjoyable out of it. As a matter of mere coincidence (and maybe the fact that I enter several giveaways per week), I won two sweet prizes in the past week. The first was from Maricel at Mhay Cards for her Blog's 1st Anniversary:



and the second was Mr. Beardsley from Intimidnation at Cafe Handmade; Ethan really likes him:

Photos from the Birthday Party Bash!

I might have overdone it for a 2-year old's party... we actually had two. I am certainly not doing three next year. We had Ethan's friends over on Saturday am, and our family and a couple of friends over Sunday night (this was a felicitous mistake on my part as I sent Leah and Tali the wrong invitation: just one good reason why pregnant women should not try to plan two parties at once). Photos are on Picasa. :)

Ethan's 2nd Birthday

A Total Copy Cat

Okay, I have been studying all day, so I am tired and don't really have anything to say. I have to admit it: I am totally stealing this idea from my friend Lisa's blog Blessed with Grace; she got it from somewhere else. But it is so fun! I put in my own names. Feel free to send me yours. :)

To find your ROCK STAR NAME take your first pet & current car:
Dinky Volvo (not an impressive start, but the Dinky Volvo below is pretty cute!)


To find your GANGSTA NAME take your favorite ice cream flavor and your favorite cookie:
Coffee Chocolate Chip

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME? Your favorite color and favorite animal:
Green Kitty

Everybody wants a SOAP OPERA NAME, so take your middle name and the city where you were born:
Karen Tucson

Want to know your SUPERHERO NAME? Just add the word "The" plus your 2nd favorite color, and your favorite drink:
The Blue Margarita

Your NASCAR NAME. Take the first names of your grandfathers:
Pedro Calvin

If I ever go into WITNESS PROTECTION you can find me with this name. Your mother’s & father’s middle names:
N.M.N. Lee

TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME? Just take your 5th grade teacher’s last name and add a major city that starts with the same letter:
Um, I have no idea. But here's an idea: Sawyer San Diego

Of course, if you find me in witness protection I will assume it was because you were using your SPY NAME. Add your favorite season/holiday to your flower:
Autumn Columbine
This is my absolute favorite. If you every see a book written by that author, it might be me. :)

Tell your kids their CARTOON NAME by taking your favorite fruit, an article of clothing you’re wearing right now, now add "ie" or "y":
Mango Cordsy

And lastly, your ROCKSTAR TOUR is heading across the northeast...it's called ("The” + Your fave hobby/craft, your fave weather element + the word “Tour”):
The Knitting Lighting Tour

Let's Meet as Usually

Every so often, I clean out my e-mail spam box. Google does a really good job for the most part, but when I once actually won something in an online drawing I had entered, the message must have said something like, "Congratulations! You have won an online drawing!" because it went straight into the spam. So, from time to time, I peruse the spam box, just to be sure there's not anything legitimate in there.

To be honest, I really don't know why these people bother... aside from the usual male performance-enhancing nonsense, my spam messages contained subject lines that are so straight from some fantasy land, I'm not sure anyone would click on them. Subjects range from the innocuous "You have been approved for MBA" and "Now you can feel good about yourself no matter your wage" (or is it supposed to be age?), to the unlikely "$10,000 in free money!" (I should have never signed up for those online scholarship searches) to the very unlikely "Even your house is paid off," and the just plain ludicrous "Your watch will obey you like a good child." Really, I'm tempted to click, just to find out which knock-off watch is supposed to obey me like a good child, and to find out what culture the person who wrote the subject line came from. Do people in Hong Kong, for instance, prize obedient watches? Do they prize good children? Do they actually have good obedient children? Was something lost in the translation?

The only thing that keeps me from clicking on the spam is the fear of having to glance through more subject lines like, "I'm in trouble! Where are you?" or worse, "Cheap Offer: 10V!agra+10Cializ=$69.95, Combo Pack for your 1st trial! jco mh."

(note: all actual subject lines from my very own spam.)

White Parenting

I had a moment today. I'd been looking for a good list of microbreweries in the US, and got on Time.com, and found a funny article by an Asian/African-American girl about a satirical blog called Stuff White People Like. Her point was that she liked most of those things, too. She talked about Stuff Mixed People Like, and I could relate a little. So, I went to the blog to see what white people like, and I had my moment. On the first page of this blog, there was a container of sea salt. It appears white people like sea salt. Matt & I have that sea salt in our pantry. Not just any sea salt. THAT EXACT SAME sea salt. I couldn't stop laughing. I understood how the Time author felt. I guess it means I'm white. Or a snob. Or something.

In the same vein, I offer my top 10 list of Stuff White Parents Like:

#10. Bumbo seats
#9. Gymboree
#8. Making homemade baby food; better if it's organic
#7. Baby monitors
#6. Bugaboo strollers
#5. etsy
#4. Anything organic cotton, including breast pads
#3. Wooden toys
#2. Designer nurseries
#1. Cloth diapers

My Instructables

I've been called off at work a couple of days recently, so I had some time at home I wasn't expecting. In addition to undecorating, doing laundry, playing with Ethan, watching my items for sale on e-Bay, buying other items on e-Bay, grocery shopping, and crafting, I wrote some Instructables.

Two of them were featured on the main page at Instructables.com, and I entered two in their Holiday Gifts contest. Feel free to take a look at the projects, and especially, feel free to vote for my holiday gifts. The prize is a Dremel drill set Matt and I would love to have. We might even fight over it. :)

Make Designer-Style Baby Blocks


How to Make a Grandparents' Calendar & Scrapbook (even if you don't know how to scrapbook)

How to Make Maternity Jeans Using Regular Jeans and a T-shirt

Tummy Time Baby Quilt

Upcycled Maternity Jeans

It's difficult to go through life with both a love for shopping and a hatred of spending money. I could chalk up my latest project to a great New Year's resolution to save money, but that's not the case. I'm tight with money anyway, so rather than buy new maternity jeans, I stared at maternity jeans on Gap.com for hours, put them in my shopping cart, took them out of the cart, put them back in, almost checked out, then closed the browser, raided my Goodwill stash (sorry, Goodwill shoppers) and made a pair of maternity jeans from regular jeans and a t-shirt.


Here's a link to my Instructable (Instructables.com is one of my favorite sites) and a picture of my 27-week belly (above). Note the drastic difference between that belly and my little, tiny, itty-bitty 25-week belly during my first pregnancy (below). As I recall, several people hinted that it wasn't really a "belly" at all.