Marc Jacobs Giveaway at Our City Lights

Is this not a thing of beauty?
It's Marc Jacobs
Need I say more?

You can win it-yes you can!
Check out Our City Lights website for details.

This contest ends June 1st, 2009 at 12:01 am Los Angeles time

Nikita Lynne Handbag Giveaway at Frugal Mommmy of 2 Girls!

Look at this bag! Isn't it adorable?
I love the braided leather handles and the hand-embroidered details.

And I am known for loving my bags to be as pretty on the inside as the outside,
and this beauty has a polka-dot lining!

Check out all the great bags at NIKITA LYNN

Then get on over to Frugal Mommy of 2 Girls and enter to win this one.

This contest ends on June 4th, 2009 at 9pm EST.

Book Tour and Giveaway Spotlight-A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore

The last time I enjoyed reading a hot, steamy, historical romance was when I was pregnant with my boys, which was practically the entire decade of the 80's.
(No, I wasn't preggers for 10 years-I just had my four kids real close together):-)

Some women craved ice cream-I craved swash-buckling, bodice-ripping adventures of wild days of yore. It had to have been hormonal, because once all those babies were crawling and toddling around, I switched to slightly more cerebral fare and broadened my horizons a bit.(God, that sounds so hoity-toity and pretentious-lol)

However,:-D

There's a book out now that is currently on tour around the Blogosphere, that is getting rave reviews, and I've added it to my "must read" list for this summer.
It's called "A Hint of Wicked" by Jennifer Haymore.
And from what I've gathered from the reviews I've read, this one is going to sizzle.

Now I mentioned the blog tour-well many of these lovely blogs are not only reviewing this book-they are having giveaways for it as well!
You can bet that I am entering to win a copy.

Now some of you may be thinking "Why doesn't she just go buy a copy"?
And to that I reply "Because it is more fun when you win it Baby"!

Now check out these links below for all the different sites that you can put your entries in. Take note of the dates because they don't all start at the same time.
Have fun!



http://www.foreigncircuslibrary.blogspot.com/ - May 19 review
http://bookinwithbingo.blogspot.com/ - May 19 intro; May 21 review; May 23 Q&A; June 6 announce winners of giveaway
http://ajourneyofbooks.blogspot.com/ - May 21 Q&A
http://chicbookreviews.blogspot.com/ - May 22 review and giveaway
http://www.findthetimetoread.blogspot.com/ - May 26 review and giveaway
http://www.readingwithmonie.com/ - May 26 giveaway
http://zensanity.blogspot.com/ - May 26 Q&A
http://booksoulmates.blogspot.com/ - May 27 giveaway
http://yankeeromancereviewers.blogspot.com/ - May 28 giveaway
http://www.myspace.com/darbyscloset - May 28 review
http://confessionsofaromancebookaddict.wordpress.com/ - June 1 to 4 Q&A, review, and giveaway
http://dreyslibrary.blogspot.com/ - June 1 giveaway
http://www.morbid-romantic.net/ - June 2 review, giveaway, Q&A
http://mindingspot.blogspot.com/ - June 3 review and giveaway
http://kayespenguinposts.blogspot.com/ - June 3 giveaway
http://thereviewfromhere.wordpress.com/ - June 4 review
http://www.thebookgirl.net/ - June 5 review and giveaway
http://yougottareadreviews.blogspot.com/ - June 6 review and giveaway
http://martasmeanderings.blogspot.com/ - June 8
http://www.bookwormygirl.blogspot.com/ - giveaway
http://www.alphaheroes.blogspot.com/ - review

The Sak Handbag Giveaway at Mommy Goggles

One of my absolutely favorite things-A Handbag Giveaway!
And not just any old bag-It's a Sak!
Isn't it lovely? And You know it will look good on your arm! Uh-Huh.

And it's going on right now at
Mommy Goggles.

So ladies, head on over there and get your entries in.
This giveaway ends June 17th at 11:59pm central time.

Who Knew?

Snippet of conversation today between my mother-inlaw age 87 and her baby sister age 82.

Mum:"Gawd Helen,did you watch the movie the other night with What's his name in it"?

Aunty:"No, I went to bingo-why what happened"?

Mum:"Well I don't know". "I got distracted by those damn Extend commercials they kept showing every five minutes".

Aunty: "Oh Extends-thank God I don't need to wear those yet".

Mum:"Oh Helen, not Depends-Extends-you know the pills"?

Aunty:"Pills"?"I take enough pills already"."What are they for"?

Mum: "They're for the men"."You know".

Aunty:"For the men"?"What pill for the men?"

Mum:(exasperated)"Oh for Gawd Sake's Helen, you know for the men down there".

Aunty:(perplexed)"The men down where"?

Mum:"Oh for Christ's Sake-"Down there" Their things Helen, their things"!(rolls her eyes)
"They take the pills to make their things get longer".

Aunty:(amazed) "They have pills for that"?

Awww-I Got a Bloggy Award! :-)

I came home from work tonight to a very sweet message that I have received my very
first Blog Award from Bingo at Bookin With Bingo
In order to accept it though, I must pass it on to ten blogs that I have discovered and enjoy.
Well actually I've wanted to do a post on this subject for a while now, because if I am reading something and it's making me smile-well heck-I think everyone should know about it.
So without further ado, I hereby bestow this Attitude & Gratitude Award
to these fabulous writers and fellow bloggers.

Pretty But Shallow

The Peach Tart

Mandatory Blog Here

Drey's Library

Sweeps 4 Bloggers

Unmainstream Mom Reads

My Friends Are Sluts

Mommy Goggles

Skip-Trace

Aunt Pam's Closet


These are ten of the blogs that I thoroughly enjoy visiting-an eclectic group to be sure, but that is how I roll. :-D
If you want to read, laugh, learn something new,
or just toss your hat in the ring for a prize or two, check them out with the links above.
Nite'all.

What is Up With This?

OK, I am getting seriously fed up.
What is wrong with Internet Explorer today?
Every single link or button I click will take me to the page then a little grey box pops up telling me that IE can't open the page and will have to abort.

What is really irritating is that it does this after it's already opened the damn page. Then when I try and close the stupid grey box, it closes the whole page.

Crap.....}:-(

Good God! What Next?

This is going to be the first of what may become a series of postings I shall
refer to as the "Good God Chronicles"

My inspiration for this all began this morning while I was doing my usual admiring of my ever increasing "character lines" as I massaged one of my vast array of anti-wrinkle products into them.

As I tilted my head back to get to my neck , Lo and behold, what should peek out at me from my right nostril but a long black nose-hair. And I mean Loooonnnnggggg!
I could just about have flossed my teeth with that sucker!

Where the hell did it come from?
I mean it didn't just sprout up overnight did it?
Was it lying up there all coiled up, with me being blissfully unaware?
Had my friends already noticed it and were just too polite to mention it?

What to do?
I grabbed my Lacrosse ultra-fine tweezers and went to work.
Grasping the unwelcome intruder between the fine-stainless pincers I yanked-HARD!

And then I swear my right eye almost damn near fell out.
Seriously-the root must have reached to my eyeball for it watered and teared,
and the pain though brief, is now seared in my memory, and shall be known forevermore as "nose hair removal pain".

I carefully checked for others as experience tells me that these things often come in pairs.
So far, so good. Now just the wait to see how long it takes to grow back, or more likely, how many will grow back in it's place.

I will not give up without a fight.
I mean just look at what relentless tweezing did for my brows?
I certainly beat them into submission.

Then again, perhaps my brows never disappeared at all.
Maybe they just migrated lower on my face to a quiet dark cavern where they could grow wildly in peace.
Hmmmm...I'll have to think about this some more.

A Funny Thing Happened When I Tried to Make My buttons Scroll...

Last night I decided to try and make a scrolling marquee out of all my fabulous bloggy buttons that I've been collecting.
Sara, over at Subjective Beauty has published an awesome video tutorial for doing this over at her place.
Well although Sara's instructions are clear and concise,leave it to me to foul it up anyways.:-)

(My husband has oft told me that I could F-up a wet dream and evidently
that is what I did. This is also why I don't cook much-but that is fodder for another post.);-)

Anyhoo,

What was supposed to be a smooth, upward marching display turned into a lop-sided, hiccuping,mess that made my page load ever so slowly.
I tried to fix it this morning but alas, no luck.

And unfortunately because of my technology-challenged ineptness,
I lost a great many of my buttons.:-(
So today I shall being going through my fabulous blog roll and making visits to see how many I can retrieve.

Have a great day all!

I have Eyebrows Again!

Sometimes I find a product in the endless array of cosmetics out there, that actually works and
I just have to crow about it.
I have been bemoaning my sparse, over-plucked brows for a few years now.
They just seemed to get lighter and thinner with every passing birthday, and I have been dreading the day I'd have to give up and "draw" them on.
Either that or resign myself to wearing bangs down to my eyelids.

I had tried a few products in the past but the effect was too 'Mommy Dearest' and I didn't want to go around scaring any small children.
This Saturday I decided to try again, and I bought a product from Revlon called
Brow Fantasy.

It's a duel-headed product with a soft color crayon on one end and a wand with sheer color gel on the other end.
Now I am no expert when it comes to applying products, (especially to my eyes) but I admit that this was easy. I took the crayon and penciled in light short strokes to my skimpy brows. Next I took the wand end and lightly applied the setting gel.
That's it. Instant brows and they don't look all drawn-on-(Believe me I checked in my 5x power magnifying mirror!)

So God bless Revlon-this product is a keeper!

My Mother's Memoir

In the summer of 1999, shortly after my mother passed away, the following was found in her personal papers, written in her own hand on spiral bound notebook paper. I would tell you the exact day she died but I cannot remember. I have blocked it out. (I'm sorry Mama, but that day does not live in my "memory place")

Mama, here is your story.

Lake Tot-A-Wayne

This is the tale of a dream that began long ago. The dream of a little red-hair, freckle faced girl everyone called Tot. She was a bright child and loved nature. She loved flowers, birds and most of all creeks and rocks. About every other day her mother would send her to her Aunt's house to get fresh milk.

Tot would walk down and over hills, across a branch and creek, through the fields and some woods. she would get very tired and when she walked along the path she would stop to rest at the top of a small rise before she got to her Aunt's house.

She would look down into this beautiful green meadow that had a creek running by it and think to herself, "Oh how I wish I had a little house in that meadow with lots of flowers and a small lake with lots of rocks around it."
She would dream a while and then she would go on to get the fresh milk.
This routine went on for some time.

As things go, the little red-hair, freckle-faced girl grew up to be a young woman and she put her dreams away in her memory place.
She married and had lots of children. They grew up and she became quite sick.
She was very sick and Life wasn't very good for her but she made the most of what she had. Yet, there were times when her memory would recall the little green valley.
But as these things go, the valley belonged to other people and she just put it aside.

She was getting old by now, but near the little green valley lived a young man named Wayne. He also had a dream. He wanted a log cabin and a lake. He was lucky because he lived on one side of the little green valley and he built his log cabin and was very happy living in it with his wife and boys. Still he would look out over the valley and visualize the lake, dreaming how it would look. But the little valley belonged to someone else who had no plans to let it go.

Now here is where Fate steps in.
One day the now old lady (by the way, she still has red hair) heard that the little valley was for sale. She told her husband that she wanted it and he replied "You can have it, but take me to see it". So she did.
Alas, the old man could not see any green valley with creeks running near it.
All he could see was overgrown brush and bramble head-high.
But the old lady knew it was there, she could see it inside of her.

The next day she bought the place and the young man came over to see her and told her of his dream of a lake. In fact, it was the same dream she had stored away in her memory place.
They soon started planning, thinking and working very hard.
It wasn't long until a big machine came into the little valley and began making their lake. Soon, the skeptics came and laughed and said "It can't be done". But the old lady and the young man knew it could.
Nature came along too, it rained and rained for many days.
Mud was everywhere. It was a mess. The skeptics laughed.

One day amidst all this, a tiny duck came out and swam in the mud hole.
It gave hope and the sun came out and the big machine finished the little lake and after lots and lots of hard work, the little lake was finished. People came with fish to put in it.

Flowers were blooming all over the little green valley and the old lady and the young man just smiled...dreams do come true, because Lake Tot-A-Wayne is real.
This is a true story, tell it however you want, but always remember...

Dreams don't die, Only the Dreamers do.
By- Dolly 'Tot' Garrett.

The Peek Pronto-One of My New Favorite Things

I had never heard of The Peek until I came across an excellent review at Mommy Goggles. In fact, it was this very review that inspired me to purchase one.

For those of you who have never heard of the Peek, it is a nifty little hand-held gadget about the size of a Blackberry that enables you to take your email with you anywhere and you are able to text message with it as well.

I opted for the Peek Pronto and made my purchase at amazon.com
My total price was $79.99 with free shipping.
The only color available in the Pronto was grey so that is what I got.
(you know I love pink gadgets but oh well...)

Amazon shipped it out quickly and although I am not very tech-savvy, I had it up and connected within a few minutes of taking it out of the box.
The cost of the monthly service is a flat rate of $19.95 with absolutely no contract to tie you down-love that! And you have UNLIMITED text messaging-woohoo!

Now since I've had a few weeks to play around with my new toy I thought I'd let you folks know how I'm liking it.
I figured out how to send tweets on twitter with my Peek!
Now, no I can't see other people's tweets-who knows though-maybe that is in the Peek upgrade future.(Are you listening all you app-creating geniuses out there?)
I am very impressed with the tech support-I follow @peekinc on twitter and I have asked questions both via twitter and by emailing tech support and both times have received prompt and friendly replies.

One thing I'm not wild about though, is that if I don't use my Peek for a couple of days, when I turn it on, all of my email that I've already read and disposed of on my laptop is still on my Peek. Not a big deal-I just have to mass-delete it and bring it up to the present.
Like I said-The friendly Peekster people will probably come up with a solution for that too-who knows?

All in all, I am quite fond of this little gadget and I take it with me everywhere.
It's simple-Email and Texting-all in a thin, portable little device.
It does just what it claims, and for that I am happy. You can learn more about the Peek by clicking any of the blue links in this post.It is also available at getpeek.com

Now I just have to find a little pink case for it.:-D

The Thrill of The Snipe

I sit here now before this keyboard, basking in the afterglow of a successful hunt.
For you see I have just won an auction at ebay that I have been stalking for the past six days.

When I was a novice ebayer I used to go and blindly bid on my chosen items.
Gleefully, having the winning bid right up until the last moment, when a phantom bidder would suddenly swoop down and scoop my prize away from me. Even as I pitifully cried "Noooooooooo"
so loudly that my husband would leap from his recliner,
and rush into the room to see what evil had befell his Darling.

Then I wised up.
For you see, I learned that there was a name for what was happening to me.
I was being "Sniped"
Oh yes, you can visit the Help forums of ebay and read all about it.
Some folks have it down to an art form.

Desperate, I enlisted the help of a dear friend and seasoned Sniper herself who
advised me on how to hone my skills in order to bag my prey.

She taught me how to be patient. To watch and wait.
And never reveal my bid until the last possible moment.
And to only hit confirm after it was far too late for another bidder to come from behind.

Now I know how those sweaty, panting guys sitting in their tricked-out bass boats
feel, as they are reeling in their catch on the fishing and hunting channel.

I am not always successful.
I still am "out-sniped" on occasion.
Then I find consolation by telling myself that the other buyer paid far too much.

But not today.;-)

7 Days of Fabulous Gifts for Mom at Hip Mama's Place

Heads up on another fabulous giveaway going on right now at Hip Mama's Place!

Take a gander at all of these marvelous goodies she's put together to celebrate Motherhood.
*Sterling Sentiments Mother Bangle Bracelet in Sterling Silver engraved in Five Languages – English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian by Carolee LUX Jewelry (a $115 Value)

*Mama Mio Skin Care Gift Pack (includes full sizes of the O-Mega Body Oil, Wonder-Full Balm, Massage Oil and Gravida Candle, a $106 Value)

*Natasha Satchel Bag in Gray by Shopsuey Boutique, (a $58 value)

*Rose Ann Hall Designs Confetti Glass Pitcher from Cambria Cove (a $50 Value)

*Weleda Almond Facial Care Kit (each a $15 value), 3 Winners

*n-fini shape Shapewear - any (1) top or bottom undergarment, 2 Winners

*MarieBelle Signature Truffle Chocolate Assortment - 16 piece box from Cambria Cove (a $38 Value)

*Cilantro Farmer's Market Bag by Sweet Pea Toad on Etsy (a $25 Value)

*Hallmark Greeting Card Pack (each a $32 Value), 4 winners

*Mrs Meyer's Clean Day Snap Pea Spring Cleaning Kit and a 7.2 Oz Jar Lavender Candle (a $25 Value), 2 Winners

*EcoTools Bamboo 6 Piece Makeup Brush Set, (a $12.99 Value)

*ALMOND PIE Rich Soufflé Lotion for the Body by Votrevu (a $48 value), plus a $50 Bruno Jamais Restaurant Gift Certificate (PLEASE NOTE: This prize is available to U.S. addresses only)

Click HERE or on the button in my sidebar or at the bottom of this post and get over there and get your entries in.
This awesome promotion will end May 9th.