From Inmates to Playdates

Posts Tagged ‘Bloggy Fun’

Find out more about this picture and CSN stores right here on my Review Page. 

I was recently contacted by a company called CSN about the possibility of reviewing one of their products. They have over 200 stores and offer just about anything you or I or anyone else for that matter could dream of. They have an entire web-site dedicated to bedroom furniture sets and strangely enough one dedicated to massage chairs of all things. Sadly, that’s not what I’ll be reviewing. Instead, I’m waiting for one of these….

Head over to my Review Page for more.

A few days ago, I posted about a bloggy swap I was participating in.

The red, white and blue swap, hosted by Our Dandelion Wishes is taking place this week and packages are arriving on doorsteps all over the United States. Because of a glitch in scheduling (on my part!) my partner and I sent our packages a few days early.

The only instructions given were that each item had to be red, white, or blue, or all three. (Well, if you’ve ever participated in a swap hosted by Mamarazzi, you know there are hundreds of instructions, but I’m all about organization, so the instructions make me smile!) I was paired up with DivaEva from Daily Dose of Eva.

It seems she doses out a daily dose of Eva. And I dish a daily dose of crazy here at my place, so as you can probably imagine, we make a great pair!

I received my swap package on Friday. Can I just say that Eva went above and beyone with this little package. First of all, it was filled with little red, white, and blue metallic stars and blue tissue paper. It also included a sign that said, red, white and NEVER blue! I loved that and thought it was a sweet touch! Oh, and there was bling!

I just love getting a box of unique goodies, especially goodies that each have a note attached to them. I tore through that package like I meant business. Before unwrapping the stuff, I managed to snap a picture of the note Eva sent.

And just have a look at all of this great stuff!

 I was like a kid in a candy store.

Do you see the red box with white polka-dots? That happens to be a box of red velvet cupcakes. That’s not what I want you to see though. If you look just in front of the red box with white polka-dots, you’ll see this little jewel, which just so happens to be my favorite thing about Eva’s swap package.

 Can you believe that?

My very own tiara.

I squealed with delight, y’all!

With delight! I couldn’t believe Eva sent such a wonderful little gift!

And look what else was in there…

 This is a hand-crafted “charm” (that I intend to wear as a necklace) made by Eva’s best friend. I just love that it is one of a kind!

Oh, and did I mention she sent me a tiara? Because she totally did!

And I might or might not have spent the better part of an hour snapping candid pictures of myself in the tiara before going to bed on Saturday night.

I’m a nerd, oh yes, I am!

Because just look at this thing.

So sweet of her to send that! I just love it!

The tiara is propped up on a ‘white’ paper umbrella that is decoratable (is that a word?). I have never seen anything like it, but it is very unique and I will treasure it.

Oh, and just in case you forgot, I got a tiara.

Here’s another picture of the goodies.

1. Little white paper umbrella

2. Red poppy grow kit

3. Red Boa

4. Really cute oven mitt and potholder

5. Little red bottle of bubbles

6. The custom “charm”

7. Red Velvet Cupcakes

8. Glow In The Dark Jumbo Glow Stick shaped like a ladybug

9. Jalapeno Lemonade (unique, I tell you!)

10. Body jewels (blue star) which I may wear as a tramp stamp on our camping trip this weekend just for kicks!

11. Blue martini glass

12. Pomegranate martini lipgloss

13. Oh look! It’s a tiara.

14. Cosmopolitan Martini Mix (Can you mix that stuff with sprite?)

15. The empty box

Wow. Just wow. I was overwhelmed with all the great stuff.

Especially this cute little booger.

Raise your hand if you think Queen Elizabeth takes candid pictures of herself in her crown? I bet she does because I’m telling you its a blast!

I guess it’s safe to say I enjoyed Mamarazzi’s red, white, and blue swap! I appreciate Eva putting a rush on my box so that I could post before leaving for the week!

Before sending Eva’s stuff a packin’ I decided to wrap each item and include a short poem. 

My box of goodies included a rubber pot holder, a blue plastic freezer cup, Blue Raspberry twister, Red, white and blue DOTS, a white shower puff, a fluffy red hand towel, red nail polish, a white magic eraser, blue Dentyne, a flag key-chain, a serious red, white and blue earring set (I say serious because the hoops were huge but I couldn’t pass them up because? hello, they were red, white, and blue!), and a candy apple red candle. I hope Eva is enjoying her goodies!!!

A big thanks to Eva for swapping stuff with me and to Mamarazzi for hosting another great swap!!! You can check out other swap partners over at Our Dandelion Wishes!

Bloggy Swaps work for me!

This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday over at We Are THAT Family!

For my mom’s birthday, a friend of hers made a really cool birthday cake out of candy bars and various little pieces of candy.

That evening she brought it to dinner because she knew my boys would love it.

Every waiter and waitress that passed our table stopped to admire it and asked if we sold them.

A few weeks later, I made one for my sister-in-law, Bridget.

First, you’ll need approximately 19 candy bars, an assortment of mini candy bars, Hershey kisses, peppermints, and whatever else you might want to include, as well as aluminum foil, a glue gun, 3 Styrofoam rings from Michael’s or some other hobby store for flowers, ribbon, scrapbook stickers or foam stickers, as well as a tiny bit of patience.

Begin by covering the styrofoam rings with aluminum foil like so.

Then, carefully hot glue candy bars around the edge of the styrofoam foil wrapped rings. (Try saying that three times real fast!)

If you have a quality glue-gun, you can continue on your merry way until you get the styrofoam rings covered. If you decided however to splurge on a new-fangled cordless glue gun, the gun will probably give out after the fifth or sixth candy bar and your birthday cake will have to wait until another day as was the case with this cake.

After covering the rings with candy bars, fill in the spots above the shorter candy bars (Kit Kat and Snickers) with miniature candy bars. Cover the entire top of the cake with peppermint candies and miniature candy bars.

Wrap a colorful piece of ribbon around the cake, hot-gluing it to the candy bars.

[NOTE: I attempted to drop a strip of hot-glue on the top and bottom of the ribbon for the entire length of the ribbon. This resulted in a serious burn on my thumb when the ribbon wrapped itself around my fingers.]

Next, add scrapbook stickers or foam stickers on top of the ribbon. In my case, the letters read, “Happy Birthday, Bridget”

After the top is covered carefully hot-glue candles on the top of the cake.

For other Work For Me Wednesday posts, head over to We Are THAT Family.

Well alrightythen.

Looks like I got in on Mamarazzi’s Red, White and Blue Swap.

Wonder what my swap partner will send?

Wouldn’t it be great if somehow I finally received a sweet little Saturn Sky?

After all, there are lots of choices.

Chili pepper red?

Polar white?

Or perhaps midnight blue?

I’d be thrilled with either of them.

Do you think the post office makes a shipping box big enough to hold one of the suckers?

Stay Tuned.

Swap packages will be sent out on Wednesday!

I do not consider myself to be a photographer. Which is probably obvious to most of you who visit ‘From Inmates To Playdates’ frequently.

I enjoy taking pictures and I like for my pictures to look nice because I am a blogger and a scrapbooker.

For quite some time I’ve hinted to McDaddy that I’d like to have photoshop.

The only problem is that photoshop costs hundreds of dollars and if I’m going to spend hundreds of dollars on something, it should include carat weight or the initials iPad. And anyway, there’s a pretty good chance, I wouldn’t even be able to navigate my way through it. Basically, I just need a program that allows me to add borders, round corners, color correct and add text to the photographs.

I’ve used photobucket for my photographic needs since I began this blog, but I’m not real thrilled with its options.

Then, a few weeks ago, someone talked to be about Picnik.

They didn’t ask me to go on a picnik, they told me about Picnik. As in http://www.picnik.com.

You can totally thank me later.

Upon uploading (or is it downloading? I never know!) a photo, you have several options that will allow you to round your edges, add borders (thick, thin, double, or single), write text on photos and lots of other cool options.

There is a premium option, but I don’t know much about it. I do know that the wrinkle remover and blemish fixer hides out in Premiumville, so I may go premium very soon. (IF I HAD wrinkles or blemishes, I could still fix those on photobucket for free). Also, purchasing the premium version allows you to upload 100 pictures at once. (Which I’m not sure I would ever need anyway!)

And speaking of photobucket, picnik allows you to save your photos directly to photobucket or flickr or a number of other photo storage sites. And, it does all of that pretty quickly. Not to mention, it SUPER EASY to use which is great if you are me, because I don’t catch on to things quickly.

Here are a few examples of what you can do over at picnik.com.

ORIGINAL:

COLOR CORRECTED:

WITH ROUNDED EDGES:

WITH A BORDER:

WITH TEXT:

AND WITH A VIGINETTE:

If you are looking for an easy photography editing program, you should try picnik.

It sure works for me!

Check out other things that might work for you at We Are THAT Family.

So, my friend Heather, over at Desperately Seeking Sanity had an idea for a blog swap. It works kinda like Wife Swap, only instead of swapping wives, we are swapping blogs. When I read about the opportunity to trade bloggy spaces, I quickly added my name to the list of swap partners and waited to hear who I’d be paired up with.

My blog swap partner is Lisa Boyd over at Simply His. She’s posting here at From Inmates To Playdates today, and I’ll be posting over at her place. To welcome, Lisa here at Inmates, Inc., I’ve rolled out the welcome mat and set out some refreshements on the table. Pull up a chair and get comfy as you read Lisa’s post. Then, visit me over at her place.

—-

As that familiar tune started, my friends and I squealed and ran onto the dance floor. We lined up in a circle — girls on the outside facing in, guys on the inside facing out. We began the dance steps that would take us around the circle, dancing with every guy there. When I first saw him, I thought to myself Dream on! I am so out of your league! You could never have a woman like me! We were in a country bar, dancing to country music and he was … well ya’ll, not country at all.

The next time I saw him he had changed his outward appearance which got my attention — a little — but what he did got under my skin. He danced with every woman there but me. I was furious. Why wasn’t he dancing with me? I could make him look so good out there on the dance floor! Finally we started dating and eventually married. Over the years we’ve had our struggles. We’ve had good times and rough times.

Mother’s Day was a little tough for me. Not because I’ve lost my mother or because I’m not one (Mom’s doing awesome and I have a very smart daughter), but because the pastor preached on the Proverbs 31 woman. As I sat there listening to all the things the P31 woman did, I had the urge to smack her. Why did she have to do all those things and do them well? Why couldn’t I do even half those things?

I confided in my husband that I felt like a failure. The house is a mess. I don’t cook. I don’t clean. I don’t do laundry. I don’t feel like I’m very successful in running my own business. I’m not a good homemaker. He just smiled and held me tight. He said that when he was listening to the sermon, all he could think about was how much he loved me and how thankful he was for all that I do. He went on to list things that I do that I just don’t even really give myself credit for.

Through it all I’ve learned that love is not a feeling … it’s a choice. I obviously don’t believe in love at first sight, but I got to know him and somewhere along the way I made the choice to love him. And I’m so very thankful he made the choice to love me back. Some people make it easy to choose to love them. Some make it very hard. Who can you choose to love today?

Lisa Boyd is a coke addict (red-and-white can preferably) who loves to play softball and ride her Harley. She’s often accused of having an affair with her laptop. Thankful her husband got her attention 16 years ago, she’s trying to raise her daughter to not be stuck on herself. She’s very thankful Jesus made the choice to love her and stay on that cross. You can read her ramblings at simply His.

As is always the case here at From Inmates To Playdates on Mondays, I am playing along with MckMama’s Not Me! Monday carnival. I have found that confession is good for the soul and is also cheaper than therapy. In fact, there is a lot more to this bloggy thing than what people might think.

Consider for instance, a mommy blogger, (a very well known mommy blogger in fact) gets the bird-brained idea to raise some money for Compassion’s Child Survival Program in an effort to “Wag More, Bark Less” in her walk with Christ. She heads to her local Apple store and purchases a brand spankin’ new iPad. Her intention is simple. She makes a compassionate plea for her readers to donate for the cause. For every person who donates $5.00 to Compassion’s CSP program in the next 24 hours, they will receive one entry for the the iPad giveaway. Her family will in turn give $1.00 for every person who donates.

Her hope was to raise $2,000.

The giveaway ran for 24 hours.

Within the 24 hour period 873 people donated to Compassion’s cause.

Within the 24 hour period those same 873 people donated a whopping $30,332.

$30,332. – All through a bunch of mommy bloggers.

Unstinkinbelievable.

I was honored to participate in this endeavor. God took a measly iPad and blessed and blessed and blessed.

So, when I say that there is more to this bloggy thing than what people might think, you should totally believe me!

—–

And no, I did not tear up while typing this post thinking of what God can do with a bird-brained idea. Awesome. Just awesome!

This past week, it most certainly was not me who spent nearly twenty minutes looking for keys that were apparently left in my front door ALL NIGHT LONG, just after spending fifteen minutes lecturing my two sweet boys about the importance of keeping up with their belongings.

This past Thursday, it was not me who completed a Thursday Thirteen post but neglected to post it.

Sheesh.

I am one of those mothers who never allow her children to play with sharp objects, so there is  NO WAY that I turned around in church to discover my sweet Stevie playing with a small pocketknife that belonged to his papa. It was very small. But still.

And speaking of knives, it was not me who sliced her stupid finger while attempting to slice a piece of ham. Couldn’t of been me because surely I have more sense than that.

Because I am the queen of organization, I definitely DID NOT spend precious time making a three-page-long “To Do” list, only to lose it an hour later.

Likewise, it was not my organized self that e-mailed the Vice Principal at Stevie’s school inquiring about the date and time of a planning meeting for the school carnival to discover that the meeting was the day before.

Dang.

What about you? What sorts of things have you NOT done this week?

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere. I’m so glad you’ve stopped by. If you are one of my eight loyal blog fans, I appreciate you and hope you learn something about me you don’t already know. If this is your first visit to ‘From Inmates To Playdates’, I sure welcome you to visit any ole’ time. I just love having company. There’s copious amounts of Dr. Pepper in the fridge and there just might be a hidden box of Tagalongs in the corner cabinet.

For starters, I started blogging in June, 2006 for myself and 200 of my closest friends on mySpace. After deciding that me and this bloggy gig could be a happy couple, I decided to take the bloggy plunge and join the blogosphere. That whole Inmates to Playdates title? Well, let me just say that my title has nothing to do with me finding love in jail. Before hanging up my handcuffs to be a stay-at-home-mommy, I spent my time walking the hallowed halls of the Regional Jail as an inmate counselor.

I am 36 years old and I am married to McDaddy who happens to be the most patient man on the planet. He is a control systems genius engineer and also a member of the WV Air National Guard. He was recently deployed for six-months at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he diligently protected our butts, our freedoms and whatever else needed protecting . I talk about him often here at Inmates and I am so proud to be his wife. Oh, and did I mention he is hot? Because, clearly, he is.

I have a seven-year-old son named Stevie. He is a cool kid who loves Lightning McQueen, Monster Trucks and his beloved DS. He is one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever known and I’m not at all just saying that because he is mine. He is thoughtful, polite and loving. (He’s also very smart but I don’t want to sound like one of those mothers).

I also have a four-year-old son named Alex. He has two speeds. Asleep. And wide open. It is comical to watch him in action. He loves to run, jump, climb and bulldoze. He also likes Lightning McQueen, Monster Trucks, Tom & Jerry, and any little trinket he can carry around in his hands all. day. long. He is sweet, independent and cute as a button.

My boys are the joy of my life and I am thankful for the privilege of being a [stay-at-home] mother. Even though I always thought I would have a daughter, I am thrilled that my boys are the best of friends and wonderful playmates.

As my tagline says, I am a self proclaimed princess who gave up a career in corrections for stay-at-home-mom royalty. I have a truck-load of quirks and I am gifted in the art of conversation. Just ask me. I enjoyed my time in jail very much but I enjoy motherhood even more. I love the Saturn Sky, Reality TV, and Dr. Pepper. I am also a Longaberger consultant and scrapbooker.

This blog is like a bag of chex mix. Sometimes you get a boring ole raisin and sometimes you get a M&M. Either way, when enjoyed together, it is a great mix.

I have talked at length about my funeral, watching an embalming and even pap smears. Some days I talk about my sweet boys, my hubby or my Jesus.

I host a fun bloggy carnival on Tuesdays called What I Learned This Week. I’d love for you to join me sometime.

Although I realize you have a lot of stops to make, I invite you to nose around and enjoy my daily dose of crazy. Believe me, there is plenty to go around.

Thanks for stopping by From Inmates To Playdates! And thanks to the gals over at 5 Minutes For Mom for hosting this soiree.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the hundreds of prizes being offered at the party. Hear me, I said hundreds!!!

My top three prize choices, in order of preference are:

1. The Grand Prize offered by 5 Minutes For Mom - A Toshiba Satellite Laptop

2. #39 – Be My Guest Certificate – Good for $250.00 (2 night stay) at Hilton Garden Inn – Provided by The Hilton Garden Inn.

3. #63 – Razor Rip Rider provided by Busy Mommy Media.

Here’s a list of some other really great prizes that I would LOVE to win!

40, 46, 11, 6, 68, 72, 75, 76, 101, USC 3, and USC 13.

And if I’m being honest, winning ANY of the prizes would thrill me!

You may recall reading about a blog swap I was participating in. The swap was hosted by Our Dandelion Wishes and basically, we were instructed to purchase a few of our favorite things, wrap them up, and send them ‘apackin’.

Well, technically we weren’t instructed to wrap them up, but wrapping the items makes it a bit like Christmas.

Packages were to be sent out on Saturday, March 6th and so this whole week packages have been arriving on doorsteps all over the country. My package arrived on Monday!

I was paired up with a sweet gal from Wisconsin- Sherrie over at  My Life With Boys. I’ve enjoyed getting to “know” her through her blog prior to sending the package.  As you can imagine, I was like a kid in a candy store ripping that box to shreds. I did pause just long enough to take a picture before blowing through Sherrie’s favorite things like a tornado.

 And now, let the fun begin.

1 & 2. Matching plates and napkins for my next get-together.

3. Lipton Green Tea to go (Cherry Blossom)

4. Trident Layers Gum (Green apple and Golden Pineapple)

5. MAC Pigment (fuchsia) that can be used as lip gloss or eyeshadow

6. Bath and Body Super Indulgent Pear Glace Bubble Bath

7. Some cute little furry chicks

8. A hand written note from Sherrie 

9. A beautiful Christmas Ornament

10. Long pink and white candles

11. Live/Love/Laugh Black and Thank You Cards (which I love by the way!)

I can’t be sure if lime green and pink are Sherrie’s favorite colors, but my OCD smiled when I saw all the matching items. And for the record, I am a fan of lime green and pink, too. 

I love, love, love this Christmas ornament.

Sherrie, I will think of you and your family each year I hang it on my tree!

My boys wanted a piece of this the moment I opened it. I would never have imagined that any kind of apple gum would be good, however, it is pretty good stuff.

 I have no earthly idea what I’ll do with these little boogers, but they are just adorable. My seven year old went on and on about how cute they were. Any ideas for their use? I’m thinking they would look cute in a small easter baset.

I especially loved the plates, napkins, and long pink candles. I am in the process of planning a shin-dig so that me and a few of my closest friends can get together and use them. Did I mention that I love get togethers?

Sherrie, It was so fun shopping for you and getting to “know” you through My Life With Boys. Truly, we have a lot in common. Thanks so much!

And here are a “few of my favorite things” that I sent to Sherrie in Wisconsin….

 I’m very loyal to my favorite things, so I was happy to share them!

As is probably evident, Mamarazzi’s Blog Swap 2010, was a huge success! You can head over to Dandelion Wishes and read about all of the favorite things that were swapped!