Categories
Contests

God Gave Us You Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the God Gave Us You giveaway is . . .

Elisa!

Make sure I have your address and I’ll get that in the mail!

Thanks to everyone entered.

Categories
Contests

Blogoversary Group Writing Project

It’s been waaaay too long, and the Fifth Blogoversaryfestathon wouldn’t be complete without one—a MamaBlogga Group Writing Project! Five years ago I started this blog, so the theme for the August Group Writing Project is “Five years from now.”

MamaBlogga Group Writing Project badgeAs always, feel free to go in any direction that appeals to you. Even if you don’t choose to participate, you can encourage others to participate!

  • Your post can take any form as long as it reflects this theme—this includes anything from serious to sarcastic, about your children, your future children, your pet, etc.
  • You can participate with a blog post, a podcast, a video, a page on your website, etc., etc. If you don’t have a website, contact me and I’ll be happy to publish your entry here on MamaBlogga.
  • Only NEW posts (i.e., posts have not been published prior to 15 July 2011) are eligible. Posts must be submitted through the submission form before Saturday, 23 July 2011.

Why participate?
There are lots of reasons to participate! All entries that meet the guidelines will be listed and linked to here on MamaBlogga. This an opportunity for you to discover new blogs (and for others to discover yours!). Also, see how you can get the most out of the GWP.

And, of course, there is one more incentive: one lucky post author, drawn at random, will receive a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com (to be announced Monday, 25 July 2011).

Finally, we’d appreciate it if you linked to this post or to the guidelines/submission form on your entry post so that others can learn about the project and participate.

Get the badge!
Copy and paste this code to get the MamaBlogga GWP badge above (it includes a link back here, but I’d still appreciate a text link, too).

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/blogoversary-group-writing-project/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3513/3809317958_29e3f156e4_m.jpg" alt="MamaBlogga Group Writing Project" title="MamaBlogga Group Writing Project" /></a>

Previous Group Writing Projects:

Categories
Contests

Giveaway + Freebie! from EnDANGERbles

We’re kicking off the Fifth blogoversaryfestathon with our first giveaway today! The EnDANGERbles sent me a free CD, but they’ve got an even bigger prize for you!

As the press release says, “the CD features 10 original upbeat songs, all composed by Fred Bogert, the three-time Emmy-nominated musician-performer widely acclaimed for his musical contributions to the popular kids-based folk-rock duo Trout Fishing In America.”

The songs themselves were cute and danceable. They’re geared toward kids, so the message isn’t exactly subtle, but hey, who wants to see more species head for extinction?

You can download the EnDANGERbles’ short theme song, “Extinction for Extinction,” for free—but one lucky winner will get not only the CD but also a free plush toy! You can choose from:

  • Ulysses (Eagle)
  • Milton (Orangutan)
  • Sasha (Baby Seal)
  • Bucksnort (Indian Rhino)
  • Ms. Scarlet (Scarlet Macaw)
  • Khul (Tiger)

To get the freebie
To download the free song, first enter the contest. Then go to the EnDANGERbles website and sign up to be a deputy. Be sure to select SSA for how you heard about them! the song will be delivered via email.

To enter the giveaway (aka rules)
To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post!

For additional entries:

  • Follow this blog (see the sidebar) and leave a comment saying you did.
  • Tweet about this post and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the Tweet itself.
  • Mention this contest on your blog or Facebook and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the FB or blog post.

Giveaway open to residents of the US and Canada.

Entries (aka comments) must be received by midnight on Friday, July 8, 2011. Winner to be announced Monday, July 11, 2011.

Categories
Random

Happy Independence Day!

Thank you to all those who have worked and sacrificed to preserve our freedoms!

(I made this free printable on our craft blog!)

The Fifth Blogoversaryfestathon will continue this week with giveaways, but we’re dealing with a situation in my extended family and I’ll be offline for part of the week.

Categories
MetaBlogging Fulfillment

Four years of fulfillment: blogoversary reflections

It snuck up on me again: today is my blogoversary. Blogiversary? Whatever.

Four years. I’ve been blogging for four years. I keep thinking that must be wrong, but then I remember I started when Hayden was a few months old, and now he’s four, so it must be true.

If I’d been paying attention (and not distracted by something so non-time-consuming as a new baby, a toddler, and a preschooler 😉 ), I could have had a wonderful party set up here for you today. Instead, you’ll have to make do with my thoughts. But, hey, that’s what blogging’s all about anyway, right?

I started this blog for the same reason lots of people start their blogs: I wanted to keep my far-off family updated on my kids’ (well, kid’s at the time) life. And I was bored.

Actually, the boredom part played a big role in starting the blog. While I knew being a mother was where I belonged, I still felt overwhelmed—and bored. I vacillated between wondering How can I handle all this? to Is this it?

And I kept waiting for the sense that I was in the right place, doing the right thing—that all this effort was worth it. Fulfillment. But no magic wand bestowed fulfillment on me. I didn’t wake up one morning with the peaceful assurance that one day—perhaps even that very day—my children would rise up and call me blessed.

I hoped I wasn’t the only one.

Over the last four years, a lot has changed. Our family has grown—and slowly, but not-so-steadily, so has my contentment with motherhood, my current season in life. I’ve come to learn that “finding” fulfillment is misleading. We choose happiness, and then it comes to us.

It’s something we must recapture every day, sometimes. It’s easy to lose. To be honest, a big part of the reason why this blog has been so quiet these last few months is that I lost it, big time. (And some days, it felt like I was seriously “losing it”!)

Things have been wonderful since Rachel was born, even being on my own for the last four days. It’s not because the nature of the thing—motherhood—has changed. My capacity for doing, on the other hand, has. The newborn days are still tough (I swear Hayden and Rebecca could be put down once in a while…), but I know they’ll come to an end, and my tiny little girl will grow into a toddler who’s stringing together four and five word sentences (before her second birthday!), and then a preschooler making amazing connections in logic and reasoning, and on.

I’m trying to treasure them as they are now and imprint them on my heart at each stage, because soon the amazing new things they’re doing and saying will fade in novelty, or out of their vocabularies forever. (Rebecca just stopped calling her brother “Hee-ah” last week. “Hay-DEN,” she corrects us.)

How do you treasure today? How has your foundation for fulfillment evolved over time?