Carol's random babble

So I see a couple of giveaways on other blogs that end tonight: the Grand Event Cash Giveaway for $1,000 Paypal and a KitchenAid stand mixer . Of the two, of course, I would want the money first. I had to take back the brand-new laptop I had bought myself on Valentine's Day so I could have money to get my car fixed. The car is at the shop now, but I haven't heard from the mechanic. He said he would probably be able to look at it Thursday or Friday. Friday is payday, but I was planning to pay rent. So I've got what's left from the laptop money (since I had opened the box, they took 15 percent restocking fee - ouch!), which I put in my savings account so I wouldn't spend it. Anyway, there's also a Brother sewing machine and Kindle Fire giveaway on a couple of other sites. I have a Kindle Fire and love it and will be spending quite a lot of time with it tomorrow, as I'll be working from about 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. with a couple of breaks here and the...

Once again I will be giving away a copy of My Memories Suite 3 digital scrapbooking software. I'll post some examples so you can see some cool things you can do with this product. I made a "cover" for one of my Facebook pages. You can make custom page sizes, even the 851-by-315-pixel size for Facebook covers. I also used My Memories for the profile photo, so they match. See the blank area in the lower left corner? That will be covered up by the profile picture. If you click on this photo, you can see it bigger. This is the profile picture. Note that it has the same background as the cover. I'm going to make covers and matching profile photos for the Carol's Random Babble Facebook page, as well. I just haven't decided which photos to use. So, here's the giveaway. One download copy of My Memories Suite 3 digital scrapbooking software. The contest begins March 3 and ends March 15. Anyone over 18 in the U.S. and Canada may enter, including my n...

I will be hosting a giveaway on my blog in the next few days, but more on that later. Here's the big news and if you have your own blog and want to participate, please sign up for this using my blog name, Carol's Random Babble, as the referring blog:   Cost: $7 to enter, $2 is admin fee due to the magnitude of the giveaway, $5 is for Facebook Link only which will be due on May 13 to the winner of the giveaway. In addition, each blogger will supply the winner with $5 paypal cash. (This one is going to cost A LOT of my own time to organize, set up and make it a success I’m certain it will be. I’m pretty sure it will make the HP giveaway look like child’s play.) When: Blogs can sign up until March 30, 2012. Giveaway runs April 1st- May 13, 2012 which is Mother’s Day. How it works: There will be teams: The number of teams depends on how many people sign up. If 100 bloggers sign up, the teams will be divided into 10 bloggers per Rafflecopter and which means there will be...

For the Asus netbook PC giveaway, the winner is Lisa C. The administrator of the giveaway has notified and verified the winner. Congratulations! I should be starting a new giveaway in the next few days, so keep tuned in.

(Sorry, long post and a bit of whining. Feel free to skip this one if that bothers you.) This will be my last post typed on this particular computer. I will complete a couple of Family Search Indexing batches I had downloaded, and then remove all personal information from it before boxing it back up and returning it to the store. It's the only way I can think of to get cash to get my car towed into town so I can possibly fix it or if the fixing is too expensive, try to get another car. And yes, I'm feeling a teensy bit sorry for myself. But on the other hand, I kind of brought it on myself by buying the laptop in the first place. Had I saved that money, it would have been available without all the hassle of returning something and I wouldn't be moaning about the laptop. And my (I thought brilliant) idea about using my tax refund to pay my tithing for the year so I wouldn't have to constantly fret about it was apparently the wrong idea, I was informed at church...

Woke up earlier than I wanted to, couldn't go back to sleep. Had pork potstickers for breakfast, topped with Thai sweet chili sauce, and half a bottle of diet Dr Pepper, which was all I had left. I had forgotten to go to Walmart last night to get sodas, which is probably for the best, as you will see. Updated my history blog post for today , which is still not done, but is next on the list. It's an incredibly long post, about the death of a prominent citizen of Fort Dodge in 1907. Took a nap - not as long as I had hoped, but once woken up I couldn't get back to sleep. Why? Too much on my mind. When I drove home last night, my car was acting weird. The steering wheel vibrated more than usual - it does shake a bit and pulls to the left. But it also started making a strange noise as I approached home, and was kind of bouncy. I managed to get home, though, and left myself a note to check it out before going to work. So, after my brief nap, I took a flashlight and sleep...

A snow day, 2-hour delay and yet ... Despite my efforts and the extra time to sleep, Cayla is going to miss the bus again. Which means I have to drive her to school, and since I have to work some time this morning, I might as well just go to work. The difference between today and yesterday is that when I'm done with my morning assignment today, I will be heading home for a nap. Yesterday I didn't because of threatening weather, but today I've got to have more sleep. I may be getting ahead of myself by predicting a missed bus, but I doubt it. She's got 10 minutes to get dried off, dressed and out the door. But since it's already after 9 a.m., whether she misses the bus or not at this point I'll probably go to work early any way. It's just more fun to blame it on the kid. (Update: She made the bus, not at her stop but still within the little town where we live. I still have to go into town and since I'm up, I might as well do it sooner rather tha...

Last Monday, the day before Valentine's Day, Kent wanted to talk to me. He wouldn't talk about it on the phone. So I drove over to his place (had to anyway to give him some of the tax refund) to find out what he wanted. Turns out what he wanted was what I feared - reconciliation. He said he missed his family and blah, blah, blah. I said I don't feel that way about him and I thought when we parted that he was fine with that. Yesterday, when I was over at Mom's to change the lightbulb in her bathroom for the third time this year (technically the first time for me, as Donna did the other two, but the third time it had to be changed), she dropped a little bombshell. Kent had changed his relationship status on Facebook. Recently, as in the past few days. Really? That's all you have to do? Just change your status and you're done? I wish I had known that. Unfortunately, before I found about about this, other members of my family did and left a comment or co...

So I'm participating in this giveaway . So far, more than 800 people have liked my Facebook page (and presumably are also following me on Twitter). And I'm starting to feel a little tense. We're only 3 days into the giveaway, which ends Feb. 28. Potentially thousands more people may be reading my blog. I feel pressured to entertain and inform. I should be working on blog posts daily, coming up with new, unique things to say to keep the audience captivated by my wit and charm. Or, I could just go to bed and read until I fall asleep. To all my new readers: thanks for coming here or liking my blog on Facebook or following me on Twitter. I hope to keep a few of you after the giveaway is over, If you are interested in history, mosey on over to In Old Fort Dodge , my history blog. I find and transcribe newspaper articles from the early days of Fort Dodge, Iowa. There you will find some fine writing. And some humor, some scary things, and once in a while, truly gross st...

(Update Feb. 29, 2012) And the winner is ... Lisa C. She has been notified and verified by the administrator of the giveaway. Congratulations Lisa C.! I'm excited to be a part of this group giveaway. One person will receive an Asus Netbook PC. Netbooks are a lighter, more portable version of laptops. This one weighs under 2.5 pounds , or less than half what a laptop would weigh (well, less than half of my new laptop). The giveaway ends Feb. 28. Good luck! The Asus 10.1" 1015PX Netbook PC provides the perfect combination of a rich multimedia and Internet experience with a unique look all its own. This cheerful design, exclusive to Walmart, will match your personal style while meeting your technology needs, all with the quality you would expect from the most reliable Windows-based portable PC brand. Key Features and Benefits: Intel Atom N570 mobile processor 1.66GHz, 1MB L2 Cache 1GB DDR3 DRAM system memory Expandable to 2GB Allows you to do the compu...

So, I've been wavering over the last few days. Buy a desktop computer that can handle the games I want to play (and also Photoshop and Illustrator), built a PC or buy a laptop. Of the three, I like laptops best, but thought maybe I could get more value for the money from a desktop PC, and even more if I built it myself (it was actually Amanda's idea). So, on Saturday, I went to Office Max with the intention of buying a desktop that was on sale. I left with a monitor but no PC, and planned at that point to build one. Yet, I wavered. And this morning, after looking at too many options available (this barebones kit includes the processor but no graphics card, this other one has a graphics card but no processor, and neither included the operating system - and that was just between two systems) I was leaning again toward getting a middle to higher end laptop available and on sale at Office Max. And yet ... On the front page of the ad was a basic laptop for $300. I could get ...

Recent visitors to my blog may have noticed a new graphic in the right-hand column. I'm participating in a giveaway with a group of bloggers for a netbook computer. The giveaway will run from Feb. 15 to Feb. 28. I will post more information when the giveaway goes live.

and so far I have managed  to not let it become a great time-sucky, lose a day pinning distraction. Mostly because I hardly go there. (I'm finally learning my limits.) But I get reminders, people who follow my pins then repin them, and I get an email. But the latest email was amusing. "Carol Foltz + 2 others repinned your pins on Pinterest." Actually, that was all me. I repinned a couple of pins from one category to another after starting a board on Organization. I do have followers, really. Thirty-two of them. And none of them are me. If you'd like an invite to Pinterest, let me know. I have to invite through Facebook or have your email, so contact me one of those ways. My email address is in the right-hand column, below my profile (I post it this way to try to avoid spammers).