Winners! 2 Winners!

I honestly had full intentions of video taping Princess Belle drawing the names this morning. But then my precious in-laws offered to take her for the weekend to allow Jade to recover in peace...so that would have left me in front of the camera. Which would have been quite a disappointment after promising Belle, so I resorted to the random number generator instead.

My Blogoversary Giveaway Winner is...

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:11
Timestamp: 2008-11-01 08:04:43 UTC

'Chelle @ World of Chelle...I have been enjoying her blog for almost a year now. She currently has a Love Dare challenge going on that is great. 'Chelle, e-mail me your address and I'll get the $10 Starbucks gift card out to you ASAP.

My Bloggy Giveaways winner is...

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:87
Timestamp: 2008-11-01 07:47:32 UTC

the Organized Dreamer! It doesn't look like her blog has been updated in a few months, so I just e-mailed her to let her know that the Ghirardelli chocolate will be on its way soon.

Congrats and thanks to everyone who played along!

Happy Birthday, Blog! Giveaway Time!

Well as I mentioned a while back, in honor of my first blogoversary, I decided to give one present to myself and one to you guys. The present to myself was the new sidebar. Yay! I'm so excited to have a second sidebar now. There are some other little things in the works, and I'm still not done rearranging everything yet, but I think Candace at Mommy Designs Blogs has been great to work with. She even made a little button for my blog with code. It's over there a ways down on the left. Isn't it cute? Copy and paste away. Thanks, Candace!

It's been a fun year. And thanks to the ol' blog, a lot of it actually got recorded. Never mind that Jade's baby book is near blank. I'm thinking that when my PT job has officially ended in a few weeks, I'll have time for all of that. Right? Yeah, I thought not.

Anyways, I thought I'd pull out a few of my favorite posts...one for each month.

And then I thought, who would actually read them? Maybe my mom and one other soul? Yeah, I thought so. Although I am going to eventually round up some of my faves for my own sake and list them in my new sidebar, I'm going to save myself some time and get straight to the giveaway.

I previously said I was going to round up all of the spare change from my car and sofa cushions...and actually had started doing so. Then Lily found a pile of change and claimed it as her own. Something just doesn't feel right about robbing my daughter's piggy bank for a little giveaway.

I'm just going to call it an even ten bucks and get the giveaway a goin'. A $10 gift card to Starbucks. Any takers? Just leave me a comment here before Friday at midnight and I'll let Lily pick a winner Saturday morning. She may still be wearing her Princess Belle dress from Halloween the night before, but that will just add to the drama. I think a video post is in order. Oh, and I would have Jade participating in the drawing festivities, but she is having ear tubes put in and adenoids removed early Friday morning. I don't want any drunk looking baby footage floating on the internet...CPS creeps me out.

Anyways, I know $10 isn't much. I do think it will possibly buy you 2.7 of the new Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates that they have out. I would have never thought to order a hot chocolate with the word "salted" in its description, but when I grabbed a free sample at Kroger earlier today...wow. I thought about ordering one immediately...but then I remembered it was 80 degrees outside and resisted. Yep, still holding off on carving the pumpkins...they would mold right away in this heat.

Regular reader or commenter or not...everyone's game...spread the word!

Blogoversary Approaching...Giveaway Coming!

Blogoversary. Now that is a word that I did not know a year ago. That and tons of other blog lingo.

A few terms that come to mind:

Meme
Blogosphere
BFF (Blog Friend Forever)
Blog Carnival
Blogroll
TrackBack
Permalink
Feeds
Tag Cloud
Blogiday
Blog Hopping
Blurker
Dashboard
Sidebar

The list goes on and on. These are some of the funniest terms I've come across recently:

Blogstipation - writer’s block for bloggers
Blogathy - not wanting to post and not caring about it
Blogopotamus - a long long blog post
Blogorrhea - unusually high output of articles
Bleg - to use one’s blog to beg for assistance etc.
Hitnosis - refreshing your browser repeatedly to see if your hit counter or comments have increased
Blogorific = blogtastic - something which a blogger says is terrific

Sadly I think I'm guilty of some of the above terms. Humor me...tell me some of your favorite blog lingo.

So, back to my blogoversary. It is just 18 days away.

I know it is better to give than receive, but I'm going to be doing both. I'm all about balance.

For me? I've been working with a graphics person to add some new elements to my page. I'm keeping my header because I love it...all of those photos represent special things in my life. I actually won it in a giveaway and posted about it here (warning: that post is an example of a blogopotamus). You won't think you've landed on the wrong page by any means, there will just be some added features.

For you? You can expect my first giveaway ever. I'm so excited. By that time, I'm hoping that even my fellow Texans will be enjoying some cooler weather. Cooler weather means it will be time to check out the Starbucks menu to see what new drinks they are featuring this fall.

So, come back in 18 days if you want a chance at winning a Starbucks gift card. How much you ask?

Well, that depends on how much change I can come up with by cleaning out the car and underneath the couch cushions.

Christina, I know that one freaked you out! Meet Christina, who doesn't like sitting on the cracks between couch cushions for fear of what is lurking below...I just love that I know that little piece of trivia about her. Considering that this type of cleaning hasn't been done in...well, that would just be embarrassing if I told you...let's just say her fear would currently be substantiated at my house.

All that said, I think that all of my cleaning out should produce a good sized gift card. Whatever coins I find minus the 8.9% Coinstar fee. Coinstar is another justification of mine. I can turn my coins into a Starbucks gift card right there at the kiosk. So spending that 8.9% saves me a trip, which saves me gas, and ultimately saves me another $5 because I won't be tempted to try one of the new fall drinks.

I'm sure by then though that I will have justified that I need to try a drink or three just so I can steer you in the right direction in case you happen to be the winner. I'm only thinking about you of course.