I'm Ba-aaack! (For today at least)

So why haven't I posted since March 14th or so? Well, it wasn't because Brutus and the other conspirators murdered me in the senate on the ides of March.

And at that time, it wasn't because I was pregnant and couldn't keep the secret.

I've just been...introspective? Withdrawn? I dunno. There was so much going on that I just didn't have it in me to talk about it all. I was too busy doing and living it all to write about it.

And I'm not necessarily saying that that's changed completely, but today Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer is giving away 20 sets of CDs and all I have to do to enter is link to this site: www.WOWonline.com. They're sponsoring the giveaway. And that's a LOT of really good CDs. So I guess my greediness overcame my laziness or whatever it was.

Template Update!

So last fall, I won a new blog design in the Fall Y'all Bloggy Giveaway carnival over at Bloggy Giveaways. After much discussion, Linda from RS Designs made me a lovely banner, background, and divider. Being my usual self, I have yet to install it. But today's the day! So apologies to both of my RSS feed readers if you get like five hundred "new posts" from me today and to anyone else to sees this while I'm trying to figure out how to make it work.

In the mean time, if you're bored, hop on over to the new giveaway carnival over at Bloggy Giveaways (this is now officially a quarterly thing) and spend an infinite amount of time signing up to win free stuff! Last time I walked away with a new blog design, a book, and a lavender-scented rice "heating" pad.

I have no plans at this point to host another giveaway of my own...but you never know what I might come up with before the week is out.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You!

Woohoo!!! Not only does my blog _have_ a winner, my blog _is_ a winner! One of the many offerings this time around was custom blog redesigns - and I won one!!!! It's so exciting! Until now, it's just been "Blogger Template #9" (or whatever it is) and it was starting to get _really_ old.

So now I get a very new design, courtesy of Linda at RS Designs!!! Woohoo!!

But now comes the hard part - figuring out what it should look like!

And on that topic, I think I'm ready for a new tag line. "My travels, my trials, my triumphs, and what I've learned and am learning through them." just doesn't seem as appropriate now that I'm a work-at-home mom in suburbia, MD. Back when I was a "carefree" humanitarian worker who lived in Baghdad and went to Cyprus on vacation, it made a little more sense. Now, the travels are far more "domestic." As in...which grocery store are we hitting today?

I'll be keeping the "Who Said Anything About Common Sense?" title, just not the tag line. So if any of you out there have suggestions, either leave a comment below or email me!

I have no idea how long this process will take, but be prepared for the new look's roll out sometime "soon!"

The Winnah!

And the winner is.....

............................

Qtpies7 (or more accurately, number 170 according to Excel's random number generator)!!

Hopefully spending her $15 at Panera's will be a time of refreshment for this mom of 7!!

Oh, and it gets even better. Apparently Excel's random number generator agrees with my mom who picked Qtpies7's comment as one of her favorites (I have to admit that as the wife of someone with ADD, it was one of mine too):

"I'm hungry. I wonder if I can find some Oh look! A pretty rock!" They only
have a 3 second memory you know. Easily distracted. Eating fish is what causes
ADD you know. LOL

So Qtpies7, I'll be contacting you here shortly to get your address and get your gift card out to you! Thanks to everyone for playing along! It was a LOT of fun...and one of these days, I'll tell y'all why that's one of my favorite questions to ask people.

Who Knew?

So, this Panera Gift card is actually a regift. It's not that I wouldn't use it if I ever thought of it...I just never think of it...so it's been sitting in my purse for months (no joke). Who knew that so many people would want it enough to tell me what fish think? So far I've got 156 comments with only a couple of (obviously accidental) duplicates, and really only a handful of people who didn't read the directions (if you're one of those handful and want to try again, I'll probably never notice).

But seriously...if you've got an hour to kill and need a laugh, read the comments to that post because some of them are HI-larious.

This is so much fun! I almost want to do it every day except that that would mean finding something to give away every day and thinking of something funny for people to tell me about. It makes me feel so popular though! All the comments in my inbox! :) They like me, they really like me! (or at least my gift card).

And on a different note, I'm getting _really_ good at typing with just my right hand as AJ pulls on my left or I use it to keep him from grabbing the laptop. Of course there was also the day that he was STANDING on my right arm as I was typing. That was definitely an exercise in, well, exercise! He's put on over three pounds since the last check up, so 20 lbs standing on your arm as you try to type and protect the laptop from injury is no small feat. Now I want to say something about AJ's small feet, but I can't think of anything clever. So insert clever small feat/small feet pun here.

Fall Y'all Giveaway: $15 Panera Bread GC

Ok, ok...I know that you regular readers are thinking, "Three posts in one day??!!! What's going on?!!" Well, what's going on is three-fold:
1) My in-laws are coming up to visit tomorrow and the house is a mess, so I'm looking for things I can be doing other than clean up. I mean, hey...I've got all morning tomorrow before they get here and a really small house! :) (and their only grandson, so they can't complain too much)
2) Since I haven't posted much lately, there's a lot in my mind that wants to be said and once I get started, I want to get it all out, ya know? And since I require large amounts of inertia to get going on a project, I tend to do lots of one thing all at once instead of a little at a time...especially when there's something else I ought to be doing instead (see #1) :p
3) As part of my procrastination today, I've spent lots of time waiting for my work computer to think about something and update my model. So in that down time, I've been catching up on my "It's Fall Y'all Giveaway" entries...and now feel _REALLY_ guilty that I'm entering to win lots of stuff from everyone else, but have yet to offer anything myself.

So now that I've put off cleaning for yet a few more minutes, let me tell you what you can win, why, and how.

WHAT: $15 Panera Bread Gift Card (I'd post a picture, but have I mentioned that I'm lazy?)
WHY: Well, for reason 3 stated above, but also because Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer is hosting another giveaway carnival like she did over the summer (remember this?). Most people posted their links Monday morning. I waited till Thursday afternoon, so I'm going to be at least giveaway #613! I've made it through #269 myself so far and most close sometime tomorrow so we both need to get cracking!
HOW:

• Write a comment to me below. Don't just say "enter me, please." or something similar (although politeness is preferred). You have to tell me what you think that fish think about. If you don't, then your entry won't be counted. I'm serious. Be creative.
• Make sure you include some way for me to contact you. Obviously, if I know who you are and we email regularly, you don't need to worry about this, but for all of you who are like me and only look at most other blogs on Works-for-me Wednesdays and various Giveaway carnivals, I need some way to contact you. Include your email address in the comment or a link to your blog or blog profile on which I can find an email address for you or can leave you a comment or something.
• This is open to people in the US and Canada (including APOs). Sorry folks in the rest of the world! It's not worth the $5 to mail you a gift card that I don't know you could use anyway.
• This is also open to my regular readers which I think primarily are friends and family. Hey, it would be great if I could just hand the card to you rather than having to remember to address an envelope and put it in the mail with a stamp on it and everything. So comment away. Extra points if you know the first person I asked what fish think. (Extra, extra points if you know why.)
• I'll close the comments after AJ goes to bed on Sunday (usually between 7 and 8 PM, ET - just remember to turn your clocks back - it's the "Witching Hour" this weekend, baby!) and then use a random number generator to pick the winner.
• If the winner cannot fulfill his/her obligations as the winner, then the runner up will get to be Miss America...or spend $15 of someone else's money at Panera...whatever.

So comment..................................NOW!!!

Works for Me Wednesday: Pasta/Rice Entrees

Maybe this one isn't so ground-breaking, but it works very well for our family (and for myself long before I _had_ a husband and baby). I turn those boxed/bagged pasta and rice side dishes into main dishes by adding in a chicken breast or about a pound of beef. It's like Hamburger Helper except that it's about 1/3 the price. My husband, who's a rather picky eater at times (at least in terms of veggies) really likes them. If you really want to get fancy, you could probably add fresh veggies too, but we haven't gone that far yet.

One box is about enough for two (if you have a veggie on the side), with at least one container of leftovers for hubs' lunch the next day.

Check out Rocks in My Dryer for more "Works for Me Wednesday" tips!

Works for Me Wednesday: Travel Diaper Rash Creams

So Rocks in My Dryer (really, I do more during the day than just read/advertise for Shannon's blog, but it's really a great blog!) hosts a weekly carnival called "Works for Me Wednesday." Each week, people from around the world post on their own blogs about helpful hints that work for them, and then link to their sites from Shannon's site. That way you can help others with your own ideas and be helped by everyone else's brilliance. Well, while I've been gleaning from the insight of others for months now, I've always felt like I had nothing to add myself...until recently. All of the sudden, I have six ideas for WFMW! So for the next six weeks at least, I'll be participating! :) Yay! No longer a mooch off of the system, am I!

So my first "works for me" idea involves those travel/trial sized packets of diaper rash cream. I don't know about you, but when AJ was born, I received lots of free samples, trial sizes, etc., of diaper rash creams. My original idea was to put those "little" ones in the diaper bag and use the "big" sized ones at home...but I found that I never used the ones in the diaper bag because I knew that once opened, there was no way to reclose the trial sizes - and there was no way that my little man was going to need the entire packet in one diapering.

So one day I had an epiphany. Why not put the big tube (with the recloseable lid) in the diaper bag and keep the samples for the changing table at home? That way I can use the entire sample package in as many diaperings as it lasts with minimal mess, but I still have a relatively mess-free way to have diaper rash cream on the go as well!

Now that he's seven months old (!!), we're starting on our final sample. After that's gone, we'll use one of the _really_ big containers of cream that someone gave us. But now I feel less wasteful, I've gotten a chance to see which of the samples works the best, and AJ's bottom is mostly rash-free!

Anyway, it works for me! Hope it helps you too!

Bloggy Giveaways

****WARNING****
Following this link could be an infinite time sink.
****/WARNING****

Ok, so I've got Rocks in my Dryer on my blogroll because I read her stuff frequently. Well, today she's hosting a carnival in which people give away free stuff. As of the last time I reloaded her website, there were 192 people who were giving things away...things ranging from a purse that was used once to a $50.01 Amazon gift card, with oodles of things in between. Granted, most of these items are being given away by "mommy bloggers," so the content is mostly geared towards people in that category, but then again, who couldn't use $50 to spend at Amazon?

I'm not giving anything away myself because that is _way_ too much hassle in the middle of deadlines, an increasingly messy house, and a teething baby...but I certainly wouldn't mind _getting_ free stuff.

And just so you know, I'm working my way through the links while I try to pay attention to the meeting that never ends (seriously...this thing has been going pretty much daily and for a good part of each day for like the past month and a half...but the light at the end of the tunnel is only two days away!!!! Yay, Wednesday COB!!!!).....I'll post again later today with video of what else I do during meetings.

My Childhood Home

This is another of those things where someone's running a carnival. And since this was something that is currently on my heart a lot, I thought I'd share.

When I was six, my family moved to the town of Laurel, MD so that my dad could become the Minister of Music and Youth at First Baptist Church of Laurel. We started out living in an apartment, but moved into our house about three months later. And while I have many, many very fond memories of that little yellow and green house in North Laurel, that's not the place I think of as "home" during the time we lived there. The place I think of is the church building. We were there so often (my mom taught school there for a while too) and spent so much time there that that building is really what I would consider to be my "childhood home."

I really just have pictures in my head of things:
- seeing how far we could roll a bouncy ball under the pews during adult choir practice
- sliding under the pews during adult choir practice
- rolling bouncy balls and sliding along pews during adult choir practice (do you see a theme here?)
- painting a rock for an Easter program (during adult choir practice) with a 102° fever
- Boogy "Hart Fall" (the PC name for "Boogy Fart Hall" where the "Boogy Fart" lived....long story...which, incidently, begins during adult choir practice)
- the 8" of cross that hung down into the baptistry
- the corner of the ledge by the elevator that was always broken off

It's where I got baptised, it's where I was commissioned to go overseas, it's where I met and married my husband...

It's where I grew up (heh...as much as I ever will).

But in less than a month, we'll turn the keys over to the local police department for their new headquarters as our church family moves into a much-needed larger facility a few blocks away. I know that we need it (heck...VNB and I are the ones who took over the pastor's office for a Sunday School class for a while), and I'm really glad that we have a set of pastors who _aren't_ as tied to our current space as people like me are....but I don't know that it'll ever feel quite _right_ to be in the new building. It won't be "home" as much as our current location is. There will be new bells and whistles that will be nice, there will be plenty of classroom space for everyone with room to spare, and we won't need as many services because we'll all actually be able to fit in one room at the same time...but it won't be home. At least not for a while anyway.

I know, I know, a church is a group of people, not a building...but home is where the heart is, and my heart loves that place because it represents so much of my childhood (and life!) to me. And I'll be sad when it's gutted and it quits being part of the heavenly justice system to become part of the earthly justice system.

But, at least for now, the outsides will stay and I can still drive by and remember climbing the tree on the corner, and running through the snow and birdseed on the way to the car on my wedding day, and playing "escapee baby" on the fire truck jungle gym in the playground, and slicing open my knee on that same playground, and playing three different parts (at least two of which were male) in one Christmas cantata, and, and, and...

My Blogging Story

So reading Rocks in my Dryer turned me on to this "carnival." I don't know who'll find it interesting, but I felt like participating, so here goes!

How did you start blogging?

I was living in Iraq, working for a humanitarian organization. The folks back home liked hearing from me, but I stopped being able to access the email account I was using to send out mass email updates. A friend of mine had been blogging for about a year at that time and it seemed relatively easy, so I started blogging instead of emailing (after one final mass email which was painstakingly sent out to about 15 people at a time).

Did you intend to be a blog w/a following? If so, how did you go about it?

Well, yes, and no...initially, as I just said, my "following" was those from my email list who successfully a) _read_ the email (a surprisingly small number), and b) actually went to the effort to continue to keep up with me. I was surprised with the number of people who complained to me when I got back that I "just stopped writing!" There's no real polite way to tell people that if they had actually _READ_ what I wrote, they would have known how to continue reading updates from me!

In any case, when I got back, I was blogging just for me essentially. Most of my "following" gradually lost interest (life in America isn't as exciting, I guess). Now it's down to a few family members and friends (to the best of my knowledge), but that's ok. It's really just a chance for me to tell someone the crazy things that run through my head without having to actually sit down with a person and _talk_ about them.

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?

Originally, the purpose was to make sure my family and friends knew that I was still alive, and to keep them apprised as to what I was actually doing and how things were actually going "over there." Now, it lets me easily share pics and stories about AJ with friends and family, in addition to giving me an outlet for my thoughts. I think I'm mostly successful. Now that there _is_ a "little man" in my life, I need to be better about writing about something besides him from time to time. I may be a "mommy blogger" now, but that doesn't mean that there are no thoughts in my head other than him!

Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?

Gosh...these questions didn't seem quite so redundant when I read them through. I guess I don't travel as much anymore (and certainly not to such exotic places), now I've got a husband and baby (originally I was just longing for the day when I'd meet my husband), I've definitely matured some over the past few years.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?

How it was all going to end. Very shortly after I began blogging, we left Iraq for some training and I was never allowed to return. While I still carry some of that angst, I can definitely see how HE was working in all of it. If I hadn't come home exactly when I did, I literally would never have met my husband.

Do you make money with your blog?

Currently, no, but I've thought about it. I'm just not sure that I've got enough traffic to support it. Would be nice to make some money for "free" though!

Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?

I know they at least _knew_ about it back in the day, but I'm not sure how many other than my mom (hi, Mommy!) still read it. Now I'm letting the in-laws in on the secret too, so they're starting to read (hi, in laws!)

What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?

Um...write for you, not an audience, and don't name your cat Monkey because you'll end up with very confused toddlers.