Win This!

You can win a box of Cheerios, all five books featured in the Spoonful of Cheerios campaign, AND a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card.

You can win all that just by answering one of these questions...

• What is your story time ritual with your children?
• What is your favorite children’s book?
• If you could be a character from a children’s book, who would it be?

... in the comments section here. You can comment/enter once a day until Sunday, November 1 at 11:59 p.m. So get crackin'!!!!!

My First Giveaway!! Cheerios offers a spoonful of stories

I have always loved to read. Yes, there were times when it became a chore because you were required to read things that were less then interesting (high school, college?) and that dampened my love a bit, but as I got older I learned to love reading again.

Now, I am trying to instill a love of reading in my girls. I want them to feel the power of a good story, and love a book so much you can't put it down. Ryann likes to read but she doesn't love it. I don't know if it's an attention span issue or what, but reading is not the first thing that comes to her mind when looking for things to do.

Jayden looks at books and then says "I can't read yet!" Well, that's partially true, she's in kindergarten and is learning words quickly but still wants to be a "non-reader". She does make up her own stories to go with the pictures which gives me hope that once she can read completely on her own she will be sucked in to the story and read with reckless abandon.

Cheerios also knows the value of reading and over the past eight years, they have given away more than 40 million children’s books by distributing them free inside cereal boxes and have donated $3.2 million to First Book, their non-profit partner, which provides books to children from low-income families.

The program is part of Cheerios’ ongoing commitment to helping parents provide their children with a healthy, nutritional and educational foundation. Beginning this month, Cheerios is again bringing books to the breakfast table, by providing six million children’s books free inside Cheerios boxes. The books are for children ages 3 to 8 years old, and include a brand new book in the popular “Trucktown” series, available only inside Cheerios boxes. And for the first time, all five books have been specially printed in both English and Spanish.

Through MyBlogSpark™, Cheerios provided me with a free box of cheerios and a copy of each of the five books available, as well as the prize pack below to give away to one of my readers.
The prize pack includes a box of Cheerios, all five books featured in boxes of Cheerios- Junkyard Fort, Sleepyhead, Ballyhoo Bay, Tea for Ruby, and What's Under the Bed?- and a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

My girl loved all of the books, and Ryann thinks it's very cool that they are printed in Spanish too.

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post and answer one of the following questions.

What is your story time ritual with your children?
What is your favorite children’s book?
If you could be a character from a children’s book, who would it be?

You can enter until Sunday, November 1st at 11:59 p.m. and I will post the winner, selected at random, on Monday, November 2nd.

So, comment away and I wish you all luck! Thanks to Cheerios and MyBlogSpark™ for providing this awesome giveaway!

****edited to add**** feel free to comment (enter) once a day!

Music Memory Monday

Last week I received an email saying that JamsBio, the website where I used to write out music memories was going to shut down to focus solely on the magazine portion of the site, and therefore the memories people had posted would not be available for an indefinite amount of time.

Well, panic set in and I promptly saved all my memories and now plan to post a new one every Monday. They are in chronological order by year, and I hope you enjoy and possibly even- relate.

I Got My MTV

On Labor Day weekend 1981 my Mom and I had a new beginning. We moved out the house we shared with her boyfriend of two years and moved into a duplex a mile or so away.

My Mom was 19 when I was born, we grew up together and the boyfriend had infringed upon our relationship, so needless to say I was a happy girl.

Not too long after we moved in some salesmen were going door to door to get you to sign up for a cable box so that you could have this new channel called MTV. I had heard about it from all of my fourth grade friends and I knew I wanted it, and I was able to convince my Mom to sign up.

The salesman returned with a wood grain and black box that had about 13 or 14 buttons across the top. He promptly hooked it up and pushed what I believe was button 13 and there it was, the video for Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart". My introduction to the greatest thing to happen to music in my lifetime began with a lady in a black leotard running down a dark hallway. When she wasn't opening doors in the hallway she was wailing on a saxophone. That song and that video were permanently etched in my mind for all of eternity as my introduction to music television.

And here, my friends, is the gadget that gave me music videos 24 hours a day. This picture was taken at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Yes, you are officially old when items from your youth are in a museum.

Introducing...

... the new My Life of What Ifs. Please take a few minutes to tell me what you think, and stay tuned for an awesome giveaway later today!

Thanks so much Courtney at Judith Shakes Designs. It's beautiful!!!!

Brilliant

I LOVE Post Secret. I have for many years and I still get excited when I realize that new secrets are up and ready for my perusal. Here are a couple of my latest favorites.


This one is so simple and yet it says so much. Three little words that could be good, could be bad, all depending on your frame of mind.


This one I can relate to a little too much. I have a Bachelor's degree in Broadcast & Film with a minor in Advertising and I work part time in a flower shop, which I love, and it makes me above and beyond happy.

Of course I am also using my Associates (and experience) in Journalism which also makes me above and beyond happy when I nail it, but it also makes me hate myself when I fall short.

Look for a re-design of this blog any day now and a really cool giveaway!!!! But you have to comment on the blog post to be eligible. Stay tuned!!!!!

The Broken Clock is a Comfort

I'm starting to notice a pattern. It seems that while Fall may be my second favorite season it's also the time of year I am most likely to go into a dark place and start questioning everything. It may be why I quit my job almost a year ago, although I feel like I was fairly in control of that decision, but it's probably why I am starting to question myself again.

I've had some interesting things happen to me in the Fall, things of great significance. Some were bad, some good, some in between. Some events that made me question so many things about myself and my life- my decisions and my dreams. All the questions come with the darkness. The early darkness of Fall.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be content. I wonder if anyone is truly content for any length of time. I recently had a discussion about motivation versus inclination. So I may be motivated but not so inclined to complete the tasks that are required to do my work. Or maybe I am inclined to do them, but not motivated?

This seems to be the time of year I go looking for things. Things both good and bad- ha ha. I can laugh about it now. It's also the time of year I miss things, and people. I reminisce in the early darkness of evening and I wonder, what if? I dissect lyrics, and scenes from films, and I replay significant events from my life over and over in my head. Seasons come and seasons go, it's that time of year, and that, nothing and no one, can change.

The beauty of my first born

This post is admittedly overdue. I had planned to write it two days after my last post- on her actual birthday. But yeah, you've been neglected. I spent September living the dream. I was a kinda-sorta stay-at-home-mom with kids in school all day. (Every day. Did I mention that?)

If you ever have the chance to live that dream I will warn you. It can be a shock to your over scheduled system. It's hard to prioritize, or it's hard to accomplish rather, umm...anything, if you seem to have endless time to accomplish tasks. So short story long, I didn't blog about my beautiful firstborn's 9th birthday.

Ryann Emily was born on September 29, 2000 at 9:49 p.m. Despite my mother's humorous attempt to get me to push her out faster by saying "you could have your baby at 9:29 on 9/29!" she arrived 20 minutes later weighing 8 lbs., 5 oz., and was 21 inches long. That night her name was Ryann Grace. The next day she was Ryann Nicole. And damn it come Sunday as I filled out endless paperwork, she was finally Ryann Emily. Ryann because I always liked the name Ryan for a girl. We added the extra N to match our last name, and it was Cory's idea. I was so excited he had an idea that I ran with it, much to my chagrin now. Emily was my great-grandmother's name, it's a name I love, and a name I may have used as a first name if only my husband hadn't had a dog or known a dog with that beautiful moniker.

So she was born following an induced labor that lasted ALL DAY!!!! (But obviously not every day!) and she had a cone head. But we loved her just the same. That love has grown, and grown, and now I look at her and can't believe she's mine. I can't believe I had a hand in creating this stunning, beautiful, lovely young lady. Yes, she has her moments, but so do I. She has beautiful blue eyes, and thick (often snarly) brown hair. She is girly beyond girly and yet can kick a soccer ball with those long, strong legs, like no one's business. She can be shy, she can be silly, she can be harsh and overly-sensitive. She values cuddling with Mom and Dad as much as sleeping over at a friends' house. She sometimes wishes her little sister wasn't her little sister, but then always hugs her good morning and good night.

She is nine now. One year shy of double digits, and just a little too close to being a teenager for her Dad and me. She is my shopping partner, my fellow music lover, and my future best friend, at least one of a couple :) I wish a child like her for anyone, and I only hope I can continue to guide her through life in a way that's healthy, and that helps her become a strong, independent, loving woman. Life is short, and she is one of my two proudest achievements. I hope I can help her be all that she can be.