I'm so excited!

UPDATE 6/11/08 : I will be closing comments sometime around midnight Friday, June 13 and the drawing will be done Friday morning... after I've had my coffee. Check back around 12pm Pacific time to see who the winner is!

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FLOR and Maximo designs have teamed up to offer one of Alexander Girard’s classic designs “La Fonda del Sol” in FLOR’s unique modular carpet tiles. The product is really pretty cool. It’s an eco-friendly (see... I’m still green), anti-microbial, high quality carpet that comes in squares that you can arrange any way you like. You can read a lot more about it here.

FLOR has given me one 3’x5’ La Fonda del Sol Mandarina area rug to give away.


I thought long and hard about what I should require in order for one of you to win this (Because I wouldn’t mind keeping it myself… but that’s against the rules. Darn!) and finally decided that you don’t have to do anything! I’m just that nice… and I hate making decisions. So, in order to enter the contest all you have to do is write a comment on this post telling how you would use this rug (or just say you want it.) I will assign a number to each person who leaves a comment and, when we have over 100 entrants, I will have a random number generator pick the winner. FLOR's media relations person will ship the rug directly to the winner (so I can't snag it) within 2 weeks. I’m going to rely on you guys to pass the word along so that we can get to the 100 minimum quickly. Ok?

Unfortunately, there is one catch... FLOR is unable to ship internationally so only readers who have addresses in the U. S. and Canada are eligible. Also, members of my family are not eligible. Sorry guys... I’ll do another chocolate give away soon and everyone can enter.

So start commenting. I am truly excited about this and I hope you are too!

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P.S. You don't have to have a blogger id to enter. Just leave an anonymous comment but be sure to put your name and email address in it so I can contact you if you win.

The results are in! Thank you for entering!

100 posts...

and I totally missed it! This is number 102. For some reason this is typical of my life. Milestones and landmark events are overlooked, anniversaries and birthdays forgotten. Why is this? I have no idea. It's not that I'm a heartless creep who doesn't care. I'm just completely lame.

Thank you for sticking with me through 100 silly, sad, lame and pointless posts. I truly appreciate each and every one of you!

gina

You just have to read it...

It is very rare to find a man who is capable and willing to express his deepest emotions about his wife and children. Even rarer... a glimpse of that man on the night his son is born. I can't begin to express how much this post by Jim at Sweet Juniper touched me. It is truly a gift.

Another week down..

Three weeks into the month and you are all doing so well! I'm really enjoying reading everyone's posts. The box of Hershey's goodies goes to Nancy at A Step at a Time. Congratulations Nancy! Please email your address to ginaagain@aol.com and I will send the box out right away.

This week I want to do something a little different. I would like to encourage you to share more about where you are from... where you are living now or, if that really doesn't excite you, then perhaps something about where you grew up. We are a diverse group from all over the world and I think this will be a fascinating assignment.

The prize this week is a few wonderful things from Batdorf & Bronson a coffee roasting company based here in Olympia, Washington. I'll be writing more about them later in the week after I tour their roasting facilities!

Now there are a few catches.. first, I don't think that a random drawing will be a good way to choose a winner for this one, and second, I don't want to "judge" your work. So, on Friday I will post a poll and I'm going to ask you all to read everyone's work and vote for a winner. In order to be in the poll you have to have your "Home" post done by Friday, ok? Does this make sense or am I making it too difficult?

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I'm still thinking about the voting issue. I've never used a blogger poll so I want to give it a test... by giving you all a chance to decide whether or not we should vote for the best post this week. Could you please take a minute to vote so I can see if the poll feature is working. Thanks! gina

I've fallen...

... and I can't get up!

This is what it's come to. My creativity has sunk so low that all I can think to do is quote crappy commericals from the 80's.
Hopefully someone is sending help immediately.

Week Three

Hurray! We made it through our first full week of February and everyone is doing so well. You should all be proud of yourselves! I wish I could give a prize to each and every one of you but today our winner is Karen Meg at A Day In The Life! Congratulations Karen. I hope you get a lot of inspiration from The Pocket Muse. Please email your address to ginaagain@aol.com and I will get it in the mail tomorrow.

Our prize for the coming week is a Hershey's gift box filled with yummy chocolate treats, a really cool silicone pan that makes brownies look like chocolate bars and a t-shirt.


Write on Bloggers!

And the winner is...

Our first weekly winner is Leeann at Is It Morning Already. Congratulations Leeann! Please send your mailing address to ginaagain@aol.com and your chocolate will go out in tomorrow's mail.

The prize for this week is a copy of a book that I have found very helpful when I'm feeling like there is nothing more to write about.


The Pocket Muse: Endless Inspiration, has a good balance of writing prompts and advice plus some really cool photos. For me pictures are great creative triggers. When I'm out of ideas a few minutes of flipping through the pages of this book is often enough to get me writing again. In addition to the book there will be chocolate, of course, because I'm a great believer in the brain boosting power of the almighty cocoa bean! (plus I did promise food and prizes)

Write on bloggers.

February Blogging Challengers

Hi again... sick of me yet? Here is a list of everyone who has currently said they are participating. The logo is uploaded to flickr.com if you want to snag it for your blog. I had a lot of fun today shopping for prizes... More on that later.

Here's the list... and, of course, it's still open to anyone!

Leeann at Is It Morning Already?
Nicole at You Have Got To Be Kidding..
Heidi at Viking Conquest
Karen Meg at A DAY IN THE LIFE... one glass at a time
Debi at Life: The Journey
Debbie at Etc.,Etc., Etc.
Taylor at Taylor's Blog
MS Teacher at ms_teacher
Nancy at A Step At A Time

Yesterday I announced the February Challenge... I'm afraid I haven't come up with a better name for it... There are many people out there who are much better at this sort of thing but I've officially jumped off the cliff and I'm soaring.. sort of. I'm really excited and honored that anyone responded!

As I said yesterday, the challenge is to post to your blog every day in February but, since it's a big goal and big goals are more achievable when broken into small parts, I've decided that we need weekly motivational prizes. Since my readership is still very small I think it's pretty safe to just use the names in a hat method of choosing a weekly winner. Our prize will be posted on the first day of the week with the winner from the preceeding week announced that day also. In order to get your name in the hat you just have to post each day of that week (and let me know that you are participating if you are a "maybe" participant). Ok, that would be enough to make my head spin but the migraine I'm currently fighting has already done that so if any of this doesn't make sense to you just let me know and I'll babble on even more.

Ok, enough of that! Here's the big announcement:

Today is officially the first day of week one.. and week one will officially end on Sunday February 3rd. It's a nice short "week" but our first prize is delightfully long-stemmed... and yummy. It will only take three posts for you to be eligible to win 200 grams of delicious swiss chocolate in a pretty rose themed box.




Write on Bloggers!

Bye Bye January

I swore that this year I would not succumb to the January blues and, for the most part, I was successful. I haven't had much to say but at least I didn't feel like whining all month long. For the first time in years I didn't hate January, but I'm not going to miss it much either.

Sooooooo.... on to February and a CHALLENGE. I am going to post every day in February, because it's a short month and I really need a motivational hook right now, and I'm challenging all of my friends and bloggy buddies to join me. In fact, I'm just desperate enough to be willing to bribe you all with random weekly rewards. Did I say weekly? Yep, I did! While my objective is to encourage daily posting, I know how hard it is to do this; I don't want anyone tossed out of the party because they had a bad Wednesday.

Rules? We don't need no stinking rules! Just let me know you are up for the challenge. I'll announce the prize on Monday and everyone who posts daily will be entered in the drawing on Sunday.

NaBloPo No Mo

This is my final post for nablopomo and I am happy to say I am finally working on my own computer again! Best Buy came through for me and finished fixing it before the end of November. (hahaha) I'm so happy to have it back.. but I'm also happy to say that despite the inconvenience (mostly to Bob since I commandeered his computer) I managed to post every day. Yay me!

Ok.. enough self-congratulatory drivel. I want to take a moment to recognize my friends, old and new, who made this month fun and kept me motivated to keep posting.

Some of you only dropped by a few times but your visits were wonderful. Professor J, Your comment about my old dog warmed my heart. Don Mills Diva, I'm glad you stopped by and I'm enjoy reading your blog. MS Teacher, you are in my thoughts often. If you want to talk you know where I am.

Some of you checked in regularly and, after a month of wondering what you might like to read, I feel like you are friends.
Heidi, I am looking forward to seeing more of Norway.. and the rest of your journey. I'm a bit jealous but happy I can live vicariously through your blog. Karen Try not to stress too much about December. I have a feeling you are going to do just fine. I hope you will keep blogging when you get a chance.. at least keep posting your wardrobe! Mrs. G, what can I say? You are a nut and I love your blog. You need a few more secret boyfriends though...

Then there are two of you who have been there for me forever. You were reading my long-winded foolishness long before blogs were invented and the fact that you have stuck around for TEN years is amazing, and a bit humbling. Nic, I'm so glad you decided to start your own blog! I'm awed that you have time to write with everything else you are doing. And your post today... I'm still processing what that could possibly mean!
Leeann, You never gave up on me... even though I didn't post for months at a time. Thank you so much for your compassion and encouragement. You are such a true friend to everyone and you leave your sparkle on every person you touch.

Finally, there are a few people who I know read this blog but don't respond here. My lovely sister in law, Anne, my great friend and kindred spirit, Ellen, and my sister at heart, Bev. I love you all and I'm so excited that I might be seeing all of you at the end of December!

Writing is a solitary business, mostly done within the confines of the empty space between my ears, but there would be very little reason to waste my time if no one ever read what I wrote. Thank you so much for giving me the gift of your time... I hope that this is just the beginning.

gina

Worth Reading

I have truly enjoyed this marathon month of posting and reading and fully immersing myself in this bloggy world we have created on the internet. It's amazing to me that there are so many fantastic writers out there and so much to read every single day. Years ago I gave up on newspapers because I just couldn't stomach the poor quality anymore, most modern fiction gives me similar indigestion.

There are so many blogs worthy of note and quite a few of them are listed on my sidebar. Fascinating people who travel, and knit, and teach, and raise children, who share their real lives with a bunch of strangers and make the world better for it! Thank you so much.. each and every one of you.

From what I can see most of the people reading my blog also read many of the blogs I love but there is one that I don't see on your lists. Sweet Juniper is a thought provoking, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always amazingly intelligent blog written by a husband and wife team. I think you will enjoy reading it.

Writer's Block Isn't Fun...

But these blocks are...

Aren't they adorable?

This shameless advertisement is brought to you by the patheticly uncreative mind of Gina...

Alexander Girard Blocks available at http://www.houseind.com/ along with a few items that are a bit less wholesome.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)

I've decided to throw caution to the wind and sign up for both. No, I'm not losing my mind. I have serious doubts that I'll complete either one but, for the month of November, I am committed to writing a novel and posting to this blog every day. Why am I doing this? I guess to prove that I can. I have been saying for the last twenty years that I want to write, I just don't have enough time. However, I'm finally beginning to see that I will never have enough time. The world isn't going to stop for me so I'm just going to have to thumb my nose at it and do what I want. This is what I want and I'm going to do it!

Reading the blogs of strangers

I love the little link at the top of my blog that says "next blog". Some days I can spend an hour swimming through the blogosphere looking for someone interesting and I am rarely disappointed in my quest (unfortunately I often find scary pictures of undressed people along the way but that's the subject for another post.) I have read the blogs of office workers in India, missionaries in Africa, college students, other moms, and countless individuals who post fascinating pictures yet remain a compelling mystery to me since I am limited by my ability to read only one language. It is amazing how many exciting people one can find. Or perhaps it's amazing that I find accounts of day to day life so interesting? Today I drifted into a delightful group of people who seem bound together by a common love of yarncraft but are very diverse in their interests and lifestyles. Before long I found myself feeling at home and yet terribly out of my element on the sites of these intelligent, focused, and creative individuals. I came away feeling like something is missing from my life. A passion. An obsession with something more than the tragicomedy of my day to day existence. I think I'll go buy some yarn.

Six months later

I have started several posts for this blog that never got out of the draft stage.. oh who am I kidding.. I never even got past the title! I know everyone will forgive me (and I know who both of you are so you'd better) for being such a bad blogger but it's really kind of sad. I look at other people's blogs and think they are so creative and cute but I don't like mine at all. So, in keeping with my new-found ambition to restructure my life, I am committing to really doing this blog. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it though.. maybe just trash everything and start over. The whole anvil/parachute thing just doesn't lend itself to vibrant passionate blogging and I really want to move away from obsessive analyzation of how I'm feeling. Why am I who I am? Who am I really? What does this world want from me? Blah! I'm sick of it.. I want action!!! The question really is.. what kind of action am I looking for? Stay tuned! New changes are coming soon!

It's all about the luggage...

What do you pack when you are jumping into the abyss?

Yes, it's a melodramatic analogy, but bear with me.

Eventually all of us will stand at the edge... it's not always a bad thing.. but when we stand there, looking into the unknown, we make choices about what we are taking with us.

A parachute slows things down, gives us time to experience the fall, time to (oh horrors!) feel something. Not my preferred choice of travel! Packing an anvil is the quickest way to the bottom.

Of course, there are some unfortunate side effects to travelling downward with an anvil. Just ask Wile E. Coyote. Eventually someone is going to have to sort out the mess. I guess that's what I'll be doing here.