Winner!

It's time to announce the winner!

The winner of their very own copy of Love & War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of is...

Congratulations, Stephanie! I know I have your address, but you'll get your book a lot quicker if you e-mail it to me again at brieblogs(at)optonline(dot)net or send it to me via Facebook. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

And, for those of you who didn't win, I can't urge you enough to check out a copy from your library or buy a copy of your own. It WILL have a positive impact on your marriage - even if only one of you reads it. The important thing is to take it to heart and realize that there are things that all of us can improve on in order to be a better spouse. My hubby didn't get to read the book, but just implementing changes in my own behavior resulted in positive changes in his as well.

Don’t Forget to Enter

If you’re interested in a copy of this fabulous book, don’t forget to go here and leave a comment or send me an e-mail to enter. Entries are accepted until midnight (EST) this Sunday, June 20th. Winner will be announced Monday, June 21st.

Hope you all have a great Father’s Day…send some love to the dad’s in your life.

From My Bookshelf (and a Surprise!)

Hubby & I took a road trip a couple weekends ago down south for him to do some business and to visit our good friends from church who recently moved to Lexington, KY. While hubby was installing systems and showing farmers how to put the patches on the cow's rumps, I busied myself reading.

I finally finished Sarah Palin's autobiography. Personally, I've always had a lot of respect for Sarah Palin and reading her book only caused that respect to deepen. Whether your a liberal or a conservative, I think you'll find her book interesting. (click on the picture of each book for a better synopsis)

The next three books I found on the "new release" shelves at the library. I like to browse these shelves to find some new authors who I may enjoy.

I read this book by Mitch Albom before in my "Death, Dying & Grief" class my senior year of college (Side note: To this day my hubby likes to comment to people how weird I am because that was one of my favorite college classes ever. I defend myself by saying that when your career goal is to be a medical social worker specializing in serving families of children with cancer, it's a very valuable class to have taken.) and really enjoyed it so I thought this next book would also prove to be an interesting read. I was right.

This next book was a light-hearted one I found on the new release shelf. I was surprised to find it was by a Christian author given my neck of the woods (not a heavily Christian area). It happened to be the third book in the series, but it didn't seem like you really had to read them in order. I'd like to get the other two books and see if the author has written anything else.

This book was also by an author I hadn't heard of before. It sounded like it could be an interesting story so I picked it up. It took a little bit to really grab my attention, and I thought I had the ending figured out a few chapters into the book, but when I got to the end I realized I was completely wrong. It ended up being a fairly good read and I may look for other books by this author in the future too.

 

Lastly, I don't remember if I ever mentioned the book I read by John & Staci Eldredge (he's the author of Wild At Heart  which I suggest even women read to have a better understanding of the men in their lives), but it is EXCELLENT and one I highly recommend to any engaged or married couple I know regardless of whether you're in an "up" or a "down" part of your relationship.

This book has made a serious impact on our marriage and I'm so glad I read it. A lot of it may be common sense stuff, but the way they present it really helps you understand your spouses' point of view a little better. If you're married or engaged, do yourself a favor and read this book.

In fact, I think this book is so great that I just now decided to giveaway one (1) free copy to a reader. Want to enter? Just leave a comment on this post telling me how long you've been married or engaged and where you met your significant other or send me an e-mail to brieblogs (at) optonline (dot) net with the same info. Make sure to leave a way for me to contact you if you win so I can mail you your book. Entries will be accepted through midnight EST on Sunday, June 20th. Winner will be announced Monday, June 21st.

Happy reading and don't forget to enter for your chance to win!

I sponsored this giveaway myself and did not receive any form of compensation for the promotion of this book.

It’s Grown On Me

I was going to post the other day that the sign I made last weekend has grown on me finally. I actually really like it now and am proud of the affordable art I made for our family to enjoy.

Well, imagine my surprise yesterday when I was checking out Kimba's blog and saw that I was the winner of the $40 store credit to The Rusted Chain! How exciting!! I really like these items:

Create Dream Inspire - $23.00

Loved By - $29.00

ANNA earrings - $15.00

All I Need - $23.00

We’re getting whalloped with snow this weekend and I have an incredibly cute nephew who turns one in a few weeks so I plan to craft his birthday gifts this weekend and will post photos soon.

Some Delicious Meals on the Way

My friend Shelly who blogs at Frugal is the New Sexy had an awesome giveaway this past week. She was giving away three prizes, but the one I really wanted was this:

I've made a couple of Ree's recipes and they've been downright tasty for the most part. I can only imagine how much deliciousness this book contains.

Boy was I surprised when I clicked over to see who the winners were. Lo and behold there was my name right next to the PW cookbook! Yeah! Hopefully I can find some FBD friendly meals in there. If not, there's always time for a "cheat nite" now and then.

And, speaking of giveaways, I haven't forgotten about the one I promised. I'm hoping to settle on something this weekend and will let you know what I come up with next week.

If you haven't checked out Frugal is the New Sexy, I highly recommend you check it out now. I've already taken advantage of many of the great deals Shelly tells us about. Even my hubby has gotten hooked on checking out this site daily.

I Love My Followers & Commenters

Just wanted to send a big thank you to those of you who follow this blog and take the time to leave comments. There have been so many times where I wanted to reply to your comments, but there are a few things that have often prohibited this.

The first matter is this is a “semi-anonymous” blog in which, per my hubby’s request, I don’t use my last name and just post the general area of the country where I live. In fact, it was only recently that my hubby give me permission to no longer block his face out of photos.

There’s one tiny problem, though. The only e-mail addresses I have are linked to where I work (which would reveal where I live) or have my full name in them (which would obviously reveal my last name). I know you can easily set up other e-mail addresses, but I need to get the password info from my hubby to add another e-mail account that would not have my last name in it and would work seamlessly with my Outlook. I just received my laptop back with a full upgrade so hopefully this weekend, this issue will be resolved and I’ll have a “semi-anonymous” e-mail address.

The second matter is that often I want to reply directly to a particular commenter, but there is no e-mail address associated with their blogger profile. Personally, I don’t go back and check the comment section of a blog once I leave a comment, so if the author was to respond there, I would never see it and thus I don’t like to respond via the comment area. Plus, I like e-mail because then it’s possible to carry on the conversation further if interested.

So, if you’d like to start receiving replies to your comments (which I would love to be able to do!), please either leave an e-mail address where I can reach you in your comment (you can use (at) instead of @ and (dot) instead of . to cut down on spammers) or go to your blogger profile and under the “Privacy” section, check the box that says “show my email address”. This way, when you leave a comment, instead of saying “no-reply@blogger.com” it should show me your e-mail address.

Also, I currently only have time to read blogs in my downtime at work, but now that I have my laptop back, I’m going to try to make a more concerted effort to visit all of your blogs at least once a week.

Lastly, as a way to thank all of my followers/commenters, I’ll be having a giveaway shortly. Nothing grand, but something as a way to say thank you for joining me in this journey called life.

I won!!!

While letting my breakfast of honey wheat pancakes with apples settle, I decided to check my e-mail.

Remember how I entered Centsational Girl's faucet giveaway? Well, I did a little happy dance (ask my hubby he'll vouch for it) when I just saw her e-mail saying that I won!!!

WAHOO!!!

I now am the proud (soon to be) owner of a brand spankin' new faucet for my kitchen. I may not have walls or cabinets, but I have a faucet people. Oh yeah...moving on up in the world!

Thanks, so much Kate! I love your blog and am hoping to use many of your ideas as we continue to move forward with your renovation.

Wanna win a free faucet?

I'm only letting you all in on this so that I can get a second entry to win a gorgeous faucet for our kitchen renovation. I mean seriously...if one of you wins after I tell you about this, I think I'm just going to have to cry.

But, in all fairness....If you want to be entered to win a brand new faucet, hop on over to Kate at Centsational Girl and enter for your chance to win.

Tune in tomorrow

Just a reminder to watch Martha Stewart tomorrow if you want to see a giant crane land on top of a lady's head! Or to catch my mom and me in the studio audience. Check your local listings for the time.

First person to leave the correct answer telling me what either my mom or I was wearing will win a PRIZE upon my return.

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Megan for correctly guessing the location of our house first!

Hope you all had fun playing along. I enjoyed it because I got to learn a lot of facts about my soon to be new hometown that I never knew before.

Your prize will be on it's way soon, Megan!

2nd Set of Clues

1. This city used to be a stop along the Underground Railroad. Today it still is a major transportation hub.

2. This city is home to 4 professional sports teams and has hosted the Superbowl & the MLB All-Star game as well as other major sporting events. Sailing and car racing are also favorite pasttimes.

3. This city boasts one of the nation's largest theater districts.

4. This city has been voted one of the top 25 most liberal cities in America, much to the chagrin of this conservative family.

5. This city shares a border with a river.

6. This city is east of the Mississippi River.

Think you know what it is? You're allowed to keep guessing until I get a correct answer. E-mail your guesses to brie14 (at) juno (dot) com. Contest will continue until I get a correct guess.

Did you miss the first few clues? Find them here and here.

If I receive no correct guesses over the weekend, I'll post one final clue on Monday.

A Clue

Here are the next clues:

1. This city used to be the capital city of its state
2. It takes longer to go north-south across the state than it does east-west
3. Our neighborhood is on the national, state, and local registers of historic places

Think you know the city? E-mail me at brie14 (at) juno (dot) com with your guess. The first person to guess it correctly will get a nice surprise that has to do with the city.

If you missed the first clue, check it out here.

If there's no correct guesses by the end of today, I'll post more clues tomorrow.

Any more guesses?

Tomorrow I'll post clues for those of you who may be trying to guess where our house is located. For those of you who may have missed the first clue, you'll find it here.

I'm also going to change it so that you e-mail me at brie14 (at) juno (dot) com with your guesses instead of leaving them in the comments section.

I'm still not allowed to fully disclose the location on my blog until some more things are settled with hubby's politics, so this will allow me to disclose who the winner is without giving away the correct guess.

And, I promise the giveaway will be something good and something related to the city. I also promise that I will fully disclose where the house is located once I'm able to.

A Visit to our House & Family

My dad came prepared this time in case anyone tried to mug him again!

One side of the hedge trimmed, one more to go.

Me in my lovely work clothes!

We took some time to go visit my relatives across the state.

Me & my cuz, Casey

Casey, me & our grandma who just got back from a trip to Africa to visit Casey's mom & dad. She got sick with pneumonia while over there and now she's in the hospital due to complications and may need surgery.

The skyline of our soon to be new hometown. Hubby and I were enjoying a nice pizza in the park when we looked up and saw the pretty sunset. I'll send a little surprise to whoever the first person is who guesses which city it is.

Leave a comment and the first to guess it correctly wins.
Those of you who I've already told are not eligible unfortunately!

Tunes for the Summer

I just found out about this giveaway on Rocks in My Dryer. Hop on over there and check it out.

Also, don't forget to check out WOW Hits 1 to view info on some of the songs/artists you might be listening to this summer!

Hoping 19 of you are the other lucky winners!

And the Winner is...

I had fun getting to read everyone's comments when I came back. I learned that I have some readers out there who found my blog via other blogs I read. How exciting! Thanks for the feedback on the topics you enjoy reading about; now I know what to write about more.

And the winner is: TIMALEE! Congratulations! How neat seeing how you too got married in CO, moved to the East Coast, and lived with your in-laws.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what she won. Well, here you go:

A really cute cupcake plate and a great cookbook full of different cupcake recipes. I'm also going to throw in some edible marker pens (for writing on food/frosting), some cute cupcake liners, and a few other baking items.

Hope you enjoy the gift, Timalee. Send me an e-mail at brie14(at)juno(dot)com with your address and I'll get it off to you over the weekend.