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Jan 26, 2009

Sick Child = Picnik Account Giveaway!

January 26, 2009 By

We’re currently dealing with a sick child in our house. Mira came down with a massive cold on Friday, and we’ve reached new lows of sleep deficits due to her inability to sleep more than 15 minutes without coughing, waking up and crying.

This is only Mira’s second big cold, not counting occasional runny noses that don’t develop into much. Her first cold was at 6 weeks old, when they stuck a needle in her back as a result, so I can see why her immune system has been on high alert to avoid any further colds.

Since she’s sick, and I’m exhausted as a result, this makes it a perfect week for some giveaways. And it happens to be the Bloggy Giveaways carnival right now, too – Mira has good timing.

So first up, today I’m giving away a 1-year premium account to Picnik. If you haven’t used Picnik yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. It is a web tool that lets you edit your photos, with everything from simple touch-ups and brightness adjustments to wacky effects and collages. I use it all of the time to touch up and add special effects to my photos.

Many of the tools are free to use, but some of the cooler effects and collages are limited to premium accounts. They have a new set of Valentine’s Day collages right now. In less than 5 minutes, I put this together:


And I’ve used their special effects to produce images like this:

color boost, slight softening, greater contrast

To enter:

Leave a comment on this post telling me how you currently edit your digital pics. Be sure to leave an e-mail address for me to contact you if you don’t have a Blogger profile – many times Blogger doesn’t record e-mail addresses. One entry per person per day.

This giveaway will end Friday, January 30 at 11:59pm. One winner will be chosen at random using Random.org and e-mailed the gift code for a Picnik premium account over the weekend.

Good luck, and watch for more giveaways this week!

Edited to add: Thanks to the folks at Picnik, I’m now expanding this giveaway to TWO winners!

Comments are now closed for this contest.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,


Nov 27, 2008

We’re Thankful For Everything But The Germs

November 27, 2008 By

I’ll never understand why my children can’t be like other kids, even if just for a little bit. Mira is sick – again – this time with a simple cold, but the snot is a continuous stream coming from her nose, with no way to turn off the faucet. She’s also running a fever and clearly looks miserable.

So is she sleeping more? Or maybe just more quiet and interested in laying on the couch all day, like most kids (and adults) I know? No way – she’s got things to do, living rooms to trash, and a mommy to climb all over.

The only difference now is she’s getting snot on everything (including me), and instead of going about her destruction merrily, she’s grumpy and whiny and complains about everything in short shrieks and grunts. If I walk into the kitchen and leave without bringing her an edible offering, she falls to the ground and flails in a fit until you succumb to her will. Of course, when I offer her food, she takes one or two bites and then drops the rest on the floor, unwilling to eat any more.

Show no mercy

Somehow, we have yet to celebrate a holiday without at least one sick child. I’m not sure what the odds are, but I’m thinking with two children under five who can’t understand why handwashing is important, my real surprise should be that they aren’t sick every single day of the year.

My only hope is that Mira will be close to healthy by Saturday, when child development specialists will be taking over our living room to do a full evaluation for Mira. Ever since her screening, we’ve been urging her to say anything that might show up in Webster’s, but Mira has her own method of communication, with the few words she says free of the burden of complicated consonants.

I’m secretly hoping for a speech therapist like Henry Higgins, just so we can teach her to say The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain with such a lovely accent. Nah, who am I kidding? If she would say mama, I’d be overjoyed.

Have a great Thanksgiving, US readers. We’ve got two family T-Day events to attend, driving from one end of the county to the other. In this time of thanksgiving, I’m thankful that despite the suckiness of this year, we still have our house, we’re staying on top of our bills, we have wonderful family and friends (including many of you) who are supportive in so many ways, and even though my relationship with Aaron has been through the wringer recently, I still have my family intact. Oh yeah, and I’m thankful I finally got the president I voted for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. May you avoid cranky and sick children in your travels this weekend. (Those of you we’ll be seeing tomorrow not included. Sorry.)

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PS – In the mood to win something? Come enter my contests at Mommy’s Must Haves – I’m currently giving away a $100 Home Depot gift card, Lands’ End clothing, and ten pairs of Lee jeans! I’ve got several more contests coming soon, too.

Filed Under: holidays, Mira Tagged With: ,


Sep 5, 2008

Haiku Friday: Not Fair

September 5, 2008 By
I sneeze and sniffle
I can’t breathe and my head hurts
This is so not fair

The weather is hot
so why am I suffering
from a stupid cold?

Colds are for winter
Not summer – I can blame this
on my one year old.

She had the sniffles
first – guess that’s what I get for
sharing food with her

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. What’s a haiku, you ask? Click here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON’T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will delete any links without haiku!

Filed Under: Haiku Fridays, me me me Tagged With:


Jul 22, 2008

Wait, I Have A Blog?

July 22, 2008 By

Oh yeah, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it? I suppose you’re probably thinking It’s been TWO DAYS since BlogHer ended, so where’s my update, lady! I get it – I’d probably be thinking the same thing, too, if my keyboard didn’t look like such an inviting pillow at the moment.

I had a lovely 5 hours of sleep last night, which would be fine in most cases, but considering it was 5 of the 6 total hours I had slept in the past 48 hours, you can see how I might be just a wee bit exhausted. Thanks to a very early morning flight on Monday, and the voice of my frugal grandmother somewhere in a corner of my brain tsk-tsking me Pay $200 for another night at the hotel when you’d have to leave it at 4am to catch your flight? Do you think you’re made of money? I spent the night in the airport, uploading pictures and waiting for the American Airlines ticket counter to open.

(That 6th hour of sleep was graciously provided by my friend Violet, who invited me back to her house after the conference on Sunday, feeding me fast food burritos and offering her guest room for a quick nap.)

A full recap is coming, but I came home to a vomiting three year old with a high fever (yet unusually clear in her language skills), so I’m on sick child duty today. And need to run to the grocery and do all of those other mundane tasks I forgot about while I was gallivanting around San Francisco like some kind of blogging superstar.

Oh, and TSA? Was it really necessary to confiscate the sealed jar of Jif peanut butter I accidentally left in my carry-on? How exactly am I furthering the terrorist cause? Killing people by clogging their arteries?

More to come…

Filed Under: BlogHer08, clearly insane Tagged With:


May 12, 2008

I Wish Some Gifts Came With Receipts

May 12, 2008 By

As much as I wanted my girls to not be themselves for Mother’s Day, I have to say that it wasn’t as bad as I expected. My husband – always the bright one – caught on when I said I only wanted a card for Mother’s Day, and nothing more. He recognized that this meant I have no idea what to ask for, so make it good, buddy and took the appropriate action.

Well, sort of. On Saturday he did misinterpret my go buy my gift and enjoy spending some time alone, and hey, maybe you could bring home some ice cream as a message that said go buy my gift quickly and spend the rest of the evening at a gaming store until midnight, because I didn’t want to spend any time at all with you, and oh, I wasn’t serious about asking you to bring me home ice cream or asking you to call if you were going to be late. I can see how that mistake could be made.

The girls, too young to drive themselves to Target to pick out a pretty gift, instead showered me with gifts that were, shall we say, more intangible and less wanted. A quick round-up of the gifts that were bestowed on me this weekend:

From Aaron: Two martini glasses, a cosmo shaker kit, and a box of Choxie dark chocolate truffles. Hmmm…you think he knows me? It was a nice gift, and nearly made up for me going to bed alone the night before.

From Cordy: Blow-out diapers all weekend long. I still haven’t figured out if it was some kind of gastrointestinal virus or a reaction to something she ate on Friday, but either way I didn’t expect to spend the weekend wondering if it was worth the risk of a toxic spill in public to leave the house.

Sick girl

From Mira: Attitude. I can already see this child will somehow be involved in my demise. She’s doing a great job at making me feel like a first-time mother again. This is the age we’re supposed to be setting limits, right? She should get upset when I use a firm, strong NO, right? So why when I give that firm no in my best mean mommy voice, I now get this in return?

Scary (drooly) evil grin

Teaching her new friend Evan all her tricks

Razzing me

Oh yeah, attitude galore. And as soon as I tell her no and pull her away from what I don’t want her to do, she goes right back to it, giving me that impish, scrunchy-face grin as if to say Oh, you’re in for it, lady. Is she my Stewie?

From three random little girls: A pretty carnation. We went out to dinner on Sunday night because I wanted a nice dinner and decided any risk of toxic spill was an acceptable trade-off. The restaurant had been giving carnations out to each mom, but they ran out about twenty minutes before we arrived. No big deal. Sitting across from us was a family who had three girls. They were cute and funny and clearly having a great time together.

Shortly after we ordered, they finished and gathered their things to leave. I saw the youngest (maybe 4 years old?) lean over and whisper something to her mother, and her mother replied, “I think that’s a great idea.” They walked away, and less than a minute later, the manager came to our table and handed me a carnation. He explained that the girls said they were planting a flower garden and didn’t need the flower, so they wanted to give it to me, since I was a mommy and didn’t get a flower. Awwww….

Overall, not a bad day. But maybe my daughters can take a lesson from the little girls in the restaurant and just give me flowers next year?

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Another cool gift I got this weekend was my first monthly delivery of photos from Kinzin. Check out my review of this photo sharing and printing service.

Filed Under: Aaron, being a mom, Cordy, Mira Tagged With: