Contest Winner

So, time for my blog post filled with details about Tiffy! Today was her lucky day .. she got her prizes, a lunch date with me& it was even nice out. Or, at least as nice as it gets in the Cape this time of year! So, here is a breakdown of everything we accomplished in an hour :)

Interview
So, we started out with a trip to a little coffee shop callled Mandy Jays! We both had ham& swiss paninis. They were delicious. It was a super cute little place.. If you ever find yourself on the Northside one morning, be sure to check it out! Here's the end result of our interview& lunch!

Alrighty, now .. onto the interview. You may note that Tiff& I discussed how this was going to work. I'm taking the rough idea of what she said& hoping to get most of it right. I'll include a photo of the notes I took to show why getting everything right may present a major challenge.

Onto the parts of the conversation I could scrap up from that pathetic attempt at 'note taking':

Yvonne: So Tiffy, can you tell me what some of your favorite hobbies are?
Tiff: The only ttwo things that my life consists of are drinking coffee in my car& working out. I like movies also.

Y: That's awesome! You sound a lot like me, only I drink tea. So, if you could be any animal at all, what would you pick?
T: Well, this one time I read an email about bears. You can probably find it online. It basically says that bears gorge themselves on food, get knocked up, sleep through the winter& their labor while delivering babies the size of walnuts. When they wake up they have missed the infant stage of their children and are skinny again because they lived off their body fat for the last few months. Also, it's spring.
Y: That is badass. I always used to want be a dolphin. I wanna be a bear now.
T: Can't say I blame you for that switch.

Y: So, keeping with that what would you be theme. If you could be any kind of food, what would it be?
T: Pizza. For sure. Everybody likes pizza. Even vegans who don't like pizza like pizza. It's all kinds of variety.

Y: I like the way you think. So, now .. if you could pick any three descriptors for yourself, what would those be?
T: Breeding material. Do I need to say anything else? That basically covers all my greatest qualities.
Y: No, that's great. But, seriously. This isn't a game. Pick two more please.
T: Hahaha okat. I'll go with elite athlete, at least in my own mind. And indecisive, because I can never decide on things.

Y: Brilliant! So, now that we have a basic outline of your life, onto to the more personal questions. Who would you get to play yourself in a starring role about your life?
T: Jessica Biel. Before the that weird teeth thing she got done.
Y: She got weird teeth thing done? Remember that time she got in trouble with her religious parents on 7th Heaven because the doctor told them she was pregnant but really he messed up& it was her mom?
T: Yeah. But in their defense, she was a wild card. She would be pregnant as a teen.
*Journalists' note: I don't know what the tooth thing is. If anyone does, feel free to explain with a photo before& after. I tried to find it but I'm too tired / sore / distracted to do a thorough job. Help me out.

Y: This is true. I'd blame her for having premarital sex and not praying hard enough afterward. Now, when your movie makes you trillions of dollars, what would your dream vacation be?
T: Well, it would be in Las Vegas, At a 5* resort called the Wynn. It has an amazing golf course. I will be a pro-golfer at this point. Even though I have yet to swing my clubs.

Y: I like your ambition. So, in real life I asked you more questions. In the blog world, however, I've been typing a really long time& the Lakers game is on. My shoulders are also aching. On that note, I'm going to skip some questions& ask you the 2 most important remaining ones. First, how has winning this contest altered your life?
T: Well, it has greatly expanded my horizons. I'm in a café ..eating a panini ..being interviewed. Let's be real, does it get anymore glamorous than this?!
Y: Valid, valid point. Now, last one! It's a toughie. What's your favorite thing about the person currently interviewing you. That's me, in case you didn't catch on.
T: YOUR BLOG! It includes everything I love about you AND it gets my blog hits. I love when you link to it.

So, that's Tiff in a nutshell. Then I had to go to the chiropractor so our date ended. I hope you enjoyed Tiff's interview, I know we sure laughed while doing. I'm not sure whether that translates well into this online thing. Being a journalist is hard. Especially when you're a journalist with no training, sore shoulders& a Lakers game on in the background providing maximum distractions. Here are some photos of Tiffy post-prize obtaining.

With my autograph& daily affirmation that you, yes YOU, are grrrreat!

And that surprise! A gold bar. Don't say I didn't make you rich, Tiffy ;)

PS my car is fixed& returned. Thank you, boyfriend. You are the best ever, ever, ever. I appreciate it :) My Civic is very glad to be returned to the yard. Even though the other 2 cars, while newer, still managed to get more privileges than her. They are tucked into the garage& she's out facing the elements. Poor thing.

Contest Winners!

If you didn't enter, you couldn't win! There were 24 entries .. RANDOM.ORG is responsible for the results, so blame them for it! Thank you guys for playing along and helping me have fun with this ..I hope you will try again in my next contest ;)

Results
Well, congratulations to little Miss Tiffy!! Congratulations ..you are a winner :)

You will be receiving a text from me shortly letting you know just how lucky you are! All your hard work paid off and you get the amazing prizes from my very first official Blog Contest! How much fun is that?! Now you get to collect your items, show them off in a photo and lastly (and best) do a BLOG INTERVIEW with me! So much fun. We'll do it at a coffeehouse and be truly indie. Don't forget to wear your beanie!

Banquet
Today I have a banquet for my program. I totally forgot about it and now I'm in a rush trying to get ready, seeing as I spent my morning lazing in Garret's bed watching Sell This House. It was exciting ..then we got tea. Neither of us won. So now I'm sitting in pj pants with my hair air drying, my nails air drying and praying that I am ready in time to go to Margy's for some pre-celebration celebrations! Our banquet theme is tropical or something and I'm so not feeling it. It's FREEZING out. Bonus?! I'M NOT AT WORK RIGHT NOW!

Insidious
New horror movie that opened last night. I dragged Garret to come see it with me. It was incredibly cheesy but had some moments that truly made me jump. I'm pretty sure a true horror fan will never be overly scared, however if you are like my boyfriend then you might be scarred for life. In the end, it's one of those movies that you should really just wait until it comes out on DVD. I did, as always, really enjoy the popcorn that accompanied the movie! Yum yum.

Photos
I have been SO SLACK. I owe you guys three days worth of photos. I'm sorry ..I don't have them. They are on my camera, waiting for me to upload them& do something with them. I promise tomorrow I will provide a long post of banquet events, photos and whatever else. I hope you can forgive me!

Alright, so that's that. Sorry for the short sucky update, but I have much to do before I'm ready to hang out with my beautiful friends. Currently it involves praying that my hair turns out okay because if not, I don't know what I'll do. I also still have to fix the ass of my dress before I can wear it (long story), so I guess I'll go accomplish that. Bye bye :)

Lots of things!

Today is an exciting day for so many reasons. First off, my blog has exceed 4,000 views ..that means it took less than 1 week to get 1,000 page views. Thank you, people who either find me mildly entertaining or something. I appreciate the follows and the comments :) So, now it's time to discuss the things that are occurring today!

April Fool's Day
Ahh .. I love this day. I don't know why, seeing as I never do anything April Fool-ish or anything. I mostly just cross my fingers& hope that either someone will pull a prank on me or I'll get to witness an amazing prank being pulled on someone else. Or, that someday I will be clever enough& think ahead to pull my very own practical joke on someone! Will this year be the year? No, it won't. Since I will have absolutely no stories of malarkey to tell about, I will appease the readers (you) with this clever card instead (because I love when things are funny AND match my website. Thank you, someecards!):

Contest
Today is officially your last chance to get an entry into my contest in some way, shape or form. You can tweet, blog, comment or facebook it! The prizes are great (if you ask me!) and who doesn't want free stuff?! I can think of no one. Most people will take junk they'll never use under the ruse of 'It was free!'. Let's make this work for my blog .. you have until 11.49PM to get your entry in and I'll be drawing for it tomorrow! On the plus side, if you're sick of seeing me constantly posting about the contest and have no plans of ever entering, at least it will be over soon :)

Exercise
In the last 3 weeks, if you looked up the word slacker in the dictionary, I would have been there. Eating bad food and laying on the couch. I have exercised some .. it just hasn't been nearly as consistent as it was prior to that. It is time for me to get my lazy arse up off my couch and back into my Nike Frees and start running and doing Insanity. I am going to restart Insanity for the full 60 days on Monday and actually hang up the schedule as constant motivation to start .. finish .. and stick to the diet. Why have I fallen off the exercise train after so long? I tore a ligament in the top of my foot / big toe. It hurt for a LONG time and is starting to get better. I cannot wait! The other answer lies beneath this post .. which you'll be reading in about 5 seconds!

Weather
Yes. I am going to blame the weather for this. Cape Breton weather has been sucking majorly. It is constantly cold, windy and either snowing or raining. Yesterday it was gorgeous out and I took Boots for a walk. Today started out promising, the sun was shining .. I heard birds chirping .. I was strongly optimistic. Ahh, optimism. You have foiled me once again. My mom had to go to Halifax today to get the Mini from her appointment with the car doctor, so I looked up the weather for her drive home. 5 - 10cm of snow .. freezing rain .. then rain. I love when we get the full spectrum of precipitation. It brings a smile to my heart and warmth to my limbs. It also makes me wonder why people would ever want to live here? Great place to vacation in summer& autumn. Which is 2 months. The other 10 really make me think this place is unfit for human living.

Photos of the Day
Ahh the joys of trying to take a photo a day for 365 days. I should have tried counting to 365 out loud before committing to such an extremely long project. Especially this whole concept of 'variety' ..I need help. My creative juices are NEVER flowing. This leads to a constant battle between what I can easily take photos of (my dog) versus things that will challenge me / not bore you guys (anything besides my dog). I promise to post later with them ..forgive me?

Music
I will leave you with something though, just not a photo. Some music! YAY you must so excited to get another musical pick from me, right? Well .. I will admit, it rocks. You've probably never even heard of this band before, either. Which makes my pick that much sweeter. Enjoy! And check back in a little bit for my post containing some sweet treats (ones you can't win, sorry folks)!



*April Fools ;)

Boots!

Told you I would have a post about Boots up tonight :) He is my second attempt at getting some dog photography under my belt. Poor Boots was rescued from an awful situation. His previous owners had tied him up and left him there. Literally. They moved away and didn't bother to take him. So, he chewed himself free .. ran away ..some people found him& put him on Kijiji, where my aunt found him. Now he lives with her and she probably won't abandon him. He is cute .. he likes to whine when my aunt isn't there. This led to my need to entertain him. We went for a "run" -basically, I tried to get him to run and he looked at me like I was ill. So we settled for lazing in the sun. He was not a good subject, as he was busy looking for Yvette and ignoring me. I did the best I could, but the dog was not willing to play my game. Mostly he didn't want the person who wouldn't let him give kisses, jump on the couch or do anything fun. He wanted Yvette .. apparently, I am not the dog whisperer I thought I was. This is a sad day of realization for me.

Before I post the photos of Boots, it is my duty to remind you to enter my contest! I think people will be glad when this is done so I stop adding that link to all my posts. Well folks, it will be done tomorrow ..so you better hurry and get your entries in! Prizes that are to be won are awesome, don't forget! Spread the word! Now, onto Boots :)

*More of Boots!

He is so so sweet ..and looks CRAZY like their old dog, Angel. I wish I had a photo to post so I could put up a comparison! When I first saw him, I actually thought it was just an old photo of Angel. I was wrong. Hope you enjoyed these :) I do not have a photo of the day for today and I'm not putting up another post today. So you're just going to have to wait until tomorrow, when I will post both of them ..ps, don't forget the contest ;)

Sunshine in the Cape

Yes, I awoke this morning to a glorious sight - the sun was streaming in the windows and it appeared like maybe the island is not going to be stuck in winter for the rest of the days! Oh, how wonderful that is. On my agenda for today? Several things. I'm heading to CBU for a lab .. then I'm heading to my aunts' to hangout with her dog while she goes for groceries .. I plan on doing puppy dog photo shoot #2 during this time ..the rest remains to be seen, however. I would like to include some tea, perhaps an ice cream (solely for the photo aspect, I forgot my camera last night) and then I'm not sure what else. It will definitely include an LA game though ..already set the reminder on my TV :)

Contest
Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen! There are a mere TWO DAYS LEFT. Today& tomorrow. Get your last minute entries in. The prizes are shown in the post directly below this one, and can I just say? They are basically way better than any other blog contest prizes out there ;) PLUS ..the part you can't see in the photo? An interview with me!! Does it get any more fabulous? I managed to include all kinds of things about ME (aka, what my blog is about) while also keeping you entertained in the process. I'm a marketing genius! It will be a roaring good time ..and the prize will be drawn for on Saturday :) Hurry, hurry, hurry to get entered and win some goodies!

Los Angeles Lakers
Lakers games are one of my favorite activities to enjoy. I sit on my couch with popcorn and pray that the Lakers win, while doing my best voodoo imaginable to help them in their journey. The reason I have not been blogging about my love for them thus far is because soon it will be the playoffs. I was waiting for the playoffs to begin to start mentioning them. So, this is really just a warning that you're eventually going to know WAY too much about how the Lakers are faring in their trip to the Finals. I hope someone picks up on this blog and offers me a trip to the Finals ...my god, what I would do to be in the Staples Centre while there was a Finals game occurring. It would be better than spring on the island.

Boots
Boots is the name of my aunt's dog. I'll include some details about him when I update later tonight with my doggy photos but I just had to mention how completely adorable he is and include a photo, so you could all be properly prepared for the photos to come! He looks CRAZY like their old dog, Angel. I actually thought it was her when I saw his photo. He is smaller and he is so, so sweet.

I bet you are all SUPER excited to see the photos that come from this adventure now, eh?! How adorable is this little pup?

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia
I bet there are several things you're wondering about this topic.
1. Why it's here
2. Why I know what it is
3. Is it relevant to anything?
4. What does it mean?

Well, yes, it is relevant. Relevant because today is CDH (the abbreviation for that name) Awareness Day. Thank you, Mary, for bringing this to my attention. I was going about this Thursday blissfully unaware that it was any different from the thousands of other Thursday's I've lived through.

CDH is a birth defect as common and spina bifida and cystic fibrosis but many people have never heard of it.

-Some business that wanted to encourage us to hear of the birth defect

I found out about it via Mary. Then we decided on a new avenue for my blog (and no, it's not continuing updates about what is the cause of the day.. that would be obnoxious& annoying) but it's still a secret. It made it to my website because it I figured I should promote awareness of these things every once in awhile. Here's my good deed for the ...century? I hope you all benefit from being aware. I know I sure didn't.

Photo of the Day
I'll leave you with my photo of the day from yesterday for this first post. In my second post this evening, I will include my one from today (it will be separate from the puppy's photos). Yesterdays shot was taken in a rush because I was busy watching the firemen putting out the fire in our backyard. Ahh.. the joys of grass.

It's the calendar. It's March. It's cute. And now I have to head off to class. I will return later this evening with photos of Boots :) Keep your fingers crossed that they turn out even half as good as those of Zac. Also, make the most of today. It's beautiful out!

Prizes!

So, as the title states, I have prizes! Well, I've had prizes for quite awhile now .. it's more like I finally bothered getting them together and taking their photo. It's really hard to get them to all look at the camera at the same time, but I managed to do just that! I'm such a natural photographer.
As a side note, today is the THIRD LAST DAY to enter! Click here to enter! Also, don't forget there are FOUR WAYS (tweeting, commenting, blogging& facebooking!) ..you just have to make sure you let me know so that I can add you to my list of entries, ladies and gents. Enter enter enter ..it's super easy! In honor to encourage people to enter, I'm going to now post my photo of the prizes. They are pretty awesome.

So, how awesome is that?! Seeing the prizes actually in my blog really makes it seem awesome, eh? I hope this encourages even more people to go and enter my contest :) C'est fantastique! Oh, and yes, 4 is purposely obscured because that part is the SURPRISE part!

So, aside from that .. I haven't been up to much. My parents bought a new Civic yesterday. It's bright red and pretty nice. They took me out to supper at the Black Spoon. It was sooo good ..I love that place and would encourage anyone heading near North Sydney to check it out!

Last night
Garret and I went to the movies to see Lincoln Lawyer. I kept thinking I had heard of it before, only to realize I've already read the book.. which sort of worked in my favor. Because I ended up sleeping for quite some time in the theatre. The beginning and end of the movie were both excellent though, I would suggest you (at the very least) see those parts ;) We also went to Orange Julius and the arcade in the mall and spent all my money on trying to win tickets. There is a stupid game there where you have to jump 'rope' ..which is really a row of lights. I found a video on youtube:



So ..I kept trying to play this game but the most I can manage to jump? TWO. What the hell, I'm so good at jumping rope in real life. And I'm so good at arcade games. Although, after last night I'm thinking Garret could go pro with his skills. He won WAY more tickets than me :( In the end, we combined our tickets and got some pretty sweet treats. Fundip& rainbow ribbons. YUM.

News
Also, just got some crazy news. It is incredibly expensive to insure me. So you should all be glad that I am not a primary driver on your insurance policies. You should also all try your best to never, ever, ever get any type of ticket from the police (I would encourage offering money, sex, anything you have on you). Try even harder not to put a pregnant woman into labor by ramming into the side of her brand new minivan that she has only owned for 2 hours. Both of these things will come back to bite you in your ass for five years. That is a LONG time. I am shocked that I am considered a high risk driver, especially considering in the 8.5yrs that I have been a driver those are my only two 'convictions'.
Also, I had no idea I was a convict. It would be exciting in a bad ass kind of way if it wasn't so frigging expensive. Next time I feel like I wasn't in the wrong during an accident, I'm going to fight tooth& nail.

Photo of the Day
So, I owe you guys two photos. I currently only have 1 of them, from yesterday. I am going out for ice cream with Bhreagh later this evening and wanting to take a photo of that for my photo today so you're just going to have to wait! My photo from yesterday is Garret :) Just a quick snapshot outside his garage! A little overexposed, but whatever. I still like it.

Along with photos of Mr. Garret, I also will include some of us on the new bike he is building! I love these ..so much fun :)

New hair
So, lastly I'll include a photo of my new hair. I really love it. It's sooo much lighter and it DESPERATELY needed a pick-me-up! In the photo that I have of it, it is a mess. So let's all pretend that behead is still an awesome look and most people want to have it. That's the story I'm believing. The lighting also made my eyebrows look funny, however overall, I like this photo. So, here are the new curls :)

Enjoy your day and remember if you're going to be bad, don't get caught!

Winter in spring

The title perfectly describes Cape Breton at this current moment. It's snowing .. it's cold .. it's windy .. did I mention there was SNOW?! The perk to the sucky weather today is that it's 12.52PM and I have already accomplished so many things! I will provide a brief overview and some details on the more exciting parts.

Haircut
Went to Rena at Hair Solutions. She was super sweet and it was a really laid back place. Had a few laughs, solved my hair issues, got bangs AND it didn't even cost me that much money! It was great and really perked up my mood. I now have lots of energy and am feeling better about the fact that it's freezing cold out. Mostly I'm just super happy that I have a hairdresser who can actually style my hair! Welcome back, fabulus curls :)

Contest
So, my blog contest only has today+ 3 more to enter! Hope you guys are planning on entering at some point! Don't forget the 4 ways to win (blog, comment, tweet, facebook) and also, all parts of the blog prize have been compiled and are just awaiting me to take their photo! I am trying to decide to how to best photograph them to show them ..I will be uploading both them& my photo of the day later this afternoon!

Silly String
I also bought 2 cans of this stuff. What I am going to use it for remains to be seen! Mostly I just want to spray someone or something with it ..I'm not picky. Contemplating covering my puppy in it, but can totally see that backfiring on me and ending up with a dog covered in silly string that I can't get off. LOL. He would hate me for the rest of his life. So I figure I'd spare him and just silly string something else. Just not entirely sure WHAT yet!

Today
You know that saying about today being a gift, that's why they call it the present or something? Yeah, if I wasn't so lazy I'd look it up. Well, I was thinking about that the other night at work ..and wondering how much truth was in it. Keep in mind, my evening at that moment was not going particularly well. My first thought was to think about how awesome my gifts have been from immediate family and friends (amazing) and those who got gifts for me because they wanted to come to my party / had to for some reason (less than amazing and also more abundant). Then I started thinking about about my days. Some moments are amazing, while most of the day is basically incredibly ordinary. I think these people might be onto something with this thought. So, my end thought? Each day probably is a gift, however most gifts are disappointing.

New Music
Hopefully you will all love this song as much as I do! It's really sweet& cute. I also noticed a crazy trend with my music ..I obviously love male singers way more than female ones. The only female singer I ever put on here, I ended up retracting my like of her song due to her stupid behavior. Way to go, JG. Ruining female artist's chances of being discovered as the next big thing via my blog. I hope you reform your vulgar tweets because of this consequence. So, for now I will continue my trend of beautiful songs sung by guys :) Enjoy!
Oh, and also ..sorry for the weird video that accompanies this song, but it was the best version I could find of it. I am amazed I could even find it!

Sunday Adventures 2 ..

Okay, photo of the day is taken! Thank goodness the pressure is off for that. Now, all I have to do is mention two more things before you get to see it :)

1. My blog contest -Enter people! Enter ..even if you don't want to comment, you can retweet / facebook / blog it :) It's super easy and awesome. Not to mention the fact that you could get something free out of it! This is always a selling point for me, seeing as I love all things when they are free. Regardless of how silly or, like in this case, awesome they may be! Plus it will be a hilarious story!

2. Spring Trends -Much different in Cape Breton than the rest of the world apparently! Today at work some of the highlights of spring clothing were:

Men
A. Cropped bleached jean shorts that are slightly too big leading to my view of your gray underroos that are stained with some black substance. Also, to match? A lovely stained gray t-shirt, white socks and sneakers.

B. Button-up shirts that are about to pop because they are 3 sizes too small over giant beer bellies! Along with pants that are straight from ...I don't even know. They were awful though.

C. Hats used as an attempt to cover up whatever the hell you think you're growing on top of your head. I'm pretty sure it's either not hair, or it started out that way but took on a life of its own because you stopped paying attention to it.

D. Very fancy pea coat with a fancy polo on underneath. This guy looked stylin' until ...I got up to ring him through and? Awful gray sweatpants that were easily 6 sizes too big for him that he pulled up about 6 times from being rung in until receiving his change.

Women
A. Shorts. That's it. WHO WEARS SHORTS WHEN IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE?!

B. Overweight woman who came in with a tshirt, an oversize mens' sweater AND a puffy jacket. Also sporting wayyyy too baggy jeans and flip flops. Can you say 'Gave up'?!

C. A teen in a skirt so short that she was constantly pulling at it .. along with a tube top and bra straps (gross) and high heels. At 10AM. Why does this scream 'I didn't go home last night' to me? Also, it makes me wonder where her parents are and why they are letting her traipse around in such clothes?!

D. Tights as pants (Topic 2). I repeat - THIS. IS. NOT. A. GOOD. LOOK. FOR. ANYONE. Stop trying to make it be.


Now, onto my photo of the day! It is cool .. it's Easter eggs. Prepare for a lot of Easter-y things from now until the event because this is easily my favorite holiday. It ties with my birthday as my most beloved event. Now, if only Easter could possibly fall ON my birthday, I'd be the happiest girl in the world. While likely to never happen, dream big! These Easter eggs are even better than the kind that come from chickens, ostriches or emus! Why? They are made of chocolate :) And they are wrapped in beautiful colors. Can't get any better than that. So, here they are:

*Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE my light box?!

Unforseen circumstances

I promised photos of the blog prize. I will not be delivering on that promise tonight. I have completed the autograph part of my prize .. the photo part is dependent on the winner .. the secret& Lick-A-Chick article of clothing have yet to be picked up.

Why, you ask? Well .. the last 2 parts of that were supposed to be picked up before work. Circumstances changed, however, and being the sweet co-worker I am I went into work 30 minutes early for Caelyn, thus preventing my chance to achieve my promise. Isn't the lack of actually SEEING what you're all vying for really building anticipation?!

So, before I give you details+ photos of my awesome adventure today, I will complain about something at work. Certainly not the work I do at work, because I spent most of today photoshopping photos& reading about celebrities that I don't care about. Getting paid for that is basically the most awesome deal ever.
This is about people who talk on their cell phones while interacting with me. It's SO FREAKING RUDE. Ask the person your talking to hold on while you purchase your things or DON'T PURCHASE THEM. Ugh.
If someone is that important that you can't ask them to hold, then perhaps you shouldn't be buying your smokes, lottery tickets and junk food while trying to converse with them?! And if they aren't that important, perhaps you could employ some courtesy& etiquette and behave appropriately. I AM important, I DO deserve your attention& I AM judging you. Oh, and even blogging about you. You know who you, snotty 'Too-good-for-you' jerkface.

Okay, so now! In order to make up for my complete lack of delivering on my first promise .. I have some awesome shots from my adventure today with Barry& Zac! I mean, some of these came out awesome. I'll post a few of my favorites here and a link to the rest of them on my photobucket. I'm going to work on getting some kind of slide show embedded into my posts, but for now ..clicking into my photobucket will have to work. Or else, you could not click and just not see them. Trust me though, these are worth seeing! Hope Chelsea likes them :)

We fought through the bitter cold, wind and the "unwilling to stay completely still& cooperate with us" puppy, aka the star of the show! He's pretty handsome .. so I will forgive him! Plus, I dressed weather appropriate and it was really only my hands& face that nearly got frostbite. Barry was in just a sweater and I'm sure close to hypothermia by the time we finished! So, here is a snapshot of the results. I will let the photos speak for themselves :)

*Click for more Zac!

And, before you go ..don't forget to enter my blog contest! The more people that enter, the funner it will be for me. And this is my blog, so let's make my wishes come true! It will take you 1 minute TOPS to comment and enter :)

Weekend!

It's officially my very last weekend of work! I have to make it through three more shifts (hello, extra Monday shift!) and then no more corner store :) So my posts will have to start being about something else ..perhaps all the things I can do now that I have time to myself on weekends?!

I couldn't sleep last night and was wide awake by 7.30AM this morning! So far I've thought about making pancakes, watched a ghost story, lamented over the snow on the ground& enjoyed the early morning sunshine coming through the windows! In reality, it's absolutely beautiful out as long you don't actually GO outside. Oh, the main thing I've done though is look up some information on blog contests. Including trying to find a good idea for a prize for mine. Every site keeps saying to 'include prizes that are relevant to your blog' ..to which my only thought is 'My blog is about me. My work, my day, my dog ..hey, wait. Can I give my dog away as my prize?! Naw, shipping rates would be too high.' and then invariably I'm at a loss again. When you consider that the only comment so far is from my mother, I figure there's lots of reasons to come up with something spectacular -namely to encourage others to get involved. So, I have been busy thinking of something spectacular and amazing.
I looked up some things other blogs had offered and realized I am WAY out of my league. Blogs are offering thousands of dollars worth of prizes. Sorry, folks. Until someone starts donating things to me, you're winning something way crappier. I keep slogging through sites, hoping something would both peak my interest and be doable.

And I was still drawing blanks. Then, I had a brilliant idea. Now, I don't have the actual prize in my hand yet ..so you're going to have wait for a photo but it will be arriving on this blog after work tonight.

Grand Prize Includes:
1. My autograph (I mean, the tips DO say to have a relevant prize. And this blog IS all about me!)
2. A print of your favorite photo from my website (just pretend this is really exciting)
3. A visor / hat / shirt from Lick-A-Chick (because, really. Who DOESN'T want this?!)
4. A surprise (it wouldn't be nearly as fun if you knew exactly what you were winning. Plus my blog is all about keeping you guessing ..sort of?)

So, now that you know what's going to be the grand prize .. you're probably slightly disappointed and less motivated to enter than you were a few minutes ago, but you definitely should! I am truly looking forward to this, so don't let me down blog readers!!
Simply click here to leave a comment on this post& you're entered!

Alright, all that's left are some photo of the days, 2 to be exact. Then I have to workout (so excited that I'm finally feeling better. Sleep is clearly the cure to all life's ailments), make lunch, gather things for the blog prize and go to work. Where I will watch Big Bang Theory season 3! Ahh .. this is shaping up to be a good day, assuming that work doesn't suck a lot. Which is always highly likely. Look at me, being all optimistic!

So, here is my photo for yesterday :) Some cookies that I snacked on ..they were delicious and I didn't eat all 4 ...or at least, if I say that that means the calories don't count right?! Oh well .. they were pretty good and until I go shopping for some healthier choices, they were my only option! Hope this photo captures how good they were!

So now .. it's 10.20AM and my photo for the day is already done! Wow ..go me! I am on fire this AM. I really, really needed a few nights of honest good sleep and now that I've gotten it I feel WAY more like me. So glad. So, my photo for today is a photo of a painting with a sweet saying. Props to Mom for owning things that are cool to take photos of!

Enjoy your Saturday, folks! Enter my contest and check back this evening for an update including the photo of the goods :) Stay fabulous, ladies& gents!

**Since writing this post, I have my SECOND entry into my blog competition! Wow ..GO ME :D Keep on entering folks .. let's make this be awesome!

3,041+

YES! Thank you absolutely everyone who viewed my blog. I have gotten 240 page views today .. exceeded my 3,000 goal by 41 (last time I checked) and there's still lots of time until the day is over! You guys rock :)

So I heard that a great way to increase traffic to your website is to start something called a Blog Contest. This is where you offer a prize for people to win if they decide to enter the contest. I think I'll hold my very first blog contest right now, because you all have been so great to get me to my goal for the day!

So, my tasks for the day have just gone from lazing around to setting up a blog contest! Who knew .. this is a big moment. Let me start with an outline:

What is the prize?!
It is magnificent. You will LOVE it. I will update this shortly with a photo of your prize ..if you should be so lucky to win! Until then, you will wait on the edge of your seat for the big announcement.

Rules& Regulations
So, in order to win my magnificent prize, you have to do at least ONE of the following:
1. Comment on this post
2. Tweet this post
3. Facebook this post
4. Link this post to your own blog

Now if you happen to really, really, really want to win this prize, you can do all four of the above mentioned things to have a grand total of FOUR entries into the draw! Don't say I'm not awesome.

The contest will run for SEVEN days (1 week). It will start the minute I post this blog and will continue until April 1st. I know, that's April Fool's Day, but I promise a winner WILL be selected and really will get a prize in my first official blog contest! No jokes being played on you!
If you are selected as the winner, I require one thing; contact me ASAP with your contact info. Imagine if someone wins this who isn't my mother, Garret or one of my girlfriends!

PS Mom, Garret, girls - if you win, I don't need your contact info ;)

Winning
How very Charlie Sheen of me, no? Except I actually mean winning the contest, not twitter.
How will I select who wins? It will be 100% arbitrary. I'll use a random number generator to select a number. Everyone who enters will be given one .. and then bam! If you're lucky enough for that generator to pick your number, you're going to be the very first official blog contest winner for HalfPastWonderful :D

Now, if you DO win .. there are 2 things I'd love to do. The first is a Blog Interview with you, because hell, if I'm going to succumb to all things cliche about blogs I may as do the interview thing. BUT more importantly .. I would LOVE a photo of your prize proudly displayed in your home.

*Please note, neither of these things are required. They would simply be the icing on the cake.


Alrighty, so now we've got that whole contest thing taken care of. Best of luck to everyone who enters. Which you may as well do if you're reading this ..I mean, you're already here. All you have to do is comment (which, by the way, you don't have to register for ANYTHING). Approximately 23 seconds of your life, from start to finish!

So, I enlisted my friend Kelly to help me decide on a prize. Her suggestion was good but involved me being there personally, which started us talking about my international visitors (hi, guys! You all rock) and lead to this gem:

Kelly says (2:53 PM):
fascinating..
And one from the arctic
I should probably count as Russia hahahahahhahahahaa

Oh, Kelly! You make Sarah Palin proud :)
Alright, I hope people play along with me and enter into my First Official HalfPastWonderful Blog Contest! It will be fun if you help me make it be :D

PS check back for updates, including my photo of the day& a hint at the prize!