Carol's random babble

Twitter Blast Prize: $100 Ends 4/30 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (I know it says EST, but we're on Daylight Saving Time). Kindle Fire giveaway Prize: 4 Kindle Fires, 4 winners Ends: tonight (says 13 hours 36 minutes on the Rafflecopter so I'm guessing about 11 p.m. CST). Month of May giveaway Prizes: 3 cash prizes (one per Rafflecopter) and one grand prize of an Asus netbook PC. Ends: May 1 (says 1 day 13 hours, so I'm guessing about 11 p.m. CST). I am signing up for more giveaways, so I'll keep you all informed. I had two blogs signed up for the Month of May giveaway and found that was too confusing to keep track of, so I'm going to keep most of my giveaways here. Feel free to hop over to my history blog if you enjoy reading old - really old - newspaper articles that give the flavor of the 1850s to 1920s.

Cayla had an orchestra concert today and I missed it. I could have gone, but we didn't realize there was a $2 charge until I had spent nearly all my money and didn't have access to any until tomorrow. (I think I have $1.87 or thereabouts.) So I sat in the car all during the concert. I worked some word search puzzles from a book Mom had given me that she's had for 10 years. Seriously. And I dozed off for awhile, sort of. So now we're home and I'm listening to Spotify . When I bought my current car last August, I was sort of desperate and didn't notice (or care at the time) that it didn't have a radio. I soon regretted that. Normally, I like to listen to the radio when I'm driving. I like listening to new music and old favorites. I try to win some of the contest the local station offers. But all of that has been put on hold. I should point out that I kept the radio from my old car that (I believe) threw a piston rod, but it needs some sort of adapter...

So Cayla is using the hair dryer on her hair. The bathroom door is open and Chicken (Amanda's cat) is freaking out. She does this every time. She hunches up her back as if she's under attack, she bats at stray pieces of paper on the floor, she pounces on flecks in the linoleum. And I laugh long and helplessly. It never gets old.

If you are a blogger who wants to build up your blog's fan base, a giveaway is a great way to accomplish that. Signups are currently going on for Chic Algene's Birthday Bash, which goes live on May 8. The prize is $100 Paypal cash. Go to the signup page for more details. This post will be removed when the signups are full.

So my 16-year-old nearly missed the bus again this morning. I'm sure I'm the one to blame. After all, I didn't  start trying to wake her up until 5:17 a.m. And I only told her to take her shower about every five minutes. I made sure there were frozen chocolate chip waffles for her breakfast, but I didn't cook toast them for her. I didn't pre-chew them (a la mama bird) so they could slide down her throat - oh, no, she had to chew them herself (which took what, 20 minutes for two waffles?). I didn't scrub her back, I didn't blow-dry her hair. In fact, when she started blow-drying her hair (11 minutes after I told her it was 7 a.m. and she was still in the shower until 7:10 - her bus comes by 7:15), I yelled that she didn't have time to blow-dry her hair, pounded on the wall between my room and the bathroom and then, when I saw the bus, pounded on the bathroom door and screamed "The bus is here!" I did take her oboe out to the car, but not ...

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CNN reports that three people came forward with their shared winning lottery ticket in Maryland - one of three tickets to win the Mega Millions jackpot on March 30. The three are public school employees and they are not planning to quit their jobs. Each gets $35 million after taxes in a lump sum payment. What would you do? I don't buy lottery tickets any more, because my church ( I'm LDS ) is against gambling. If I won a lottery jackpot, I couldn't pay tithing on it. But this one time I did buy some tickets - and gave them away. I had lovely thoughts of what I could do with that kind of money - it involved some charitable organizations in the area. And yes, I would buy a house - or have one built to my specifications - and a few other things. But it was really fun thinking of how I could make a difference to other people. I also see in the CNN article that the person in Maryland who had said she won but lost the ticket was wrong. A woman who was asked to buy ti...

I'm participating with a group of bloggers for a Kindle Fire giveaway. I own one (my birthday present to myself this year!) and I use it every day. My mom has one (my family went together to buy her one for Christmas) and she enjoys it a lot. I get most of my books free from Amazon.com. I started before I actually bought the Kindle Fire. Now I follow a couple of blogs on Facebook and occasionally check for good free books myself. Here we go everybody! Are you ready for this? Freebie Shark , American Family , Coupon Pro , and Mark Your Savings have teamed up with Acadiana's Thrifty Mom and a group of AWESOME bloggers to bring you 1, no 2, no 3, NO 4 CHANCES to win a Kindle Fire! You read it right, there are 4, yes 4, Kindle Fires up for grabs in this colossal giveaway! We have taken all the work out of the Rafflecopter and made this as easy peasy as possible ♥ So what are you waiting for? GO!!!! Good luck! *This giveaway is not affiliated with Facebook, Twitter, or Pi...

So I've been sick nearly a week now with a nasty cold. And right now the cold symptoms aren't that bad, but I get so wiped out whenever I do something. And yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown at work (*shamed face*). My days off are back to Wednesdays and Sundays, so I don't have two days off in a row any more. It's hard to recover when I get so tired. Meh. Enough whining, I guess. Except one more thing: I asked Cayla to put my clothes in the dryer this morning and it wasn't until I went down to get my (dry) clothes that I discovered they were still my (wet) clothes. I didn't realize Cayla didn't go down, because my ears are plugged up and I thought I just didn't hear her because of that. Nope. I didn't hear her go to the basement because she didn't. So I'm waiting for my clothes to dry so I can get dressed for work, for which I am late. I've got some leeway, but this is still not good. And I still have to go to Mom's (on the ...

FOUR WINNERS: Three Paypal Cash Winners and One ASUS Laptop computer winner! Sponsored by Mom Blog Society       Welcome to the Month of May Giveaway! Get ready to win and win big! There will be FOUR winners: Winner from Rafflecopter 1 will win $130 Winner from Rafflecopter 2 will win $110 Winner from Rafflecopter 3 will win$110     And.....the Grandprize winner will win Asus 10" Netbook PC! Asus Black 10" Eee PC 1011CX-RBK301 Netbook PC with Intel Atom N2600 Processor and Windows 7 Starter The ultra-mobile and lightweight Asus 10" Eee PC 1011CX-RBK301 Netbook PC lets you embrace all day computing with excellent connectivity. It features intuitive shortcuts for easy access such as EeeDocking. The stylish and ergonomic design features exciting multimedia enjoyment options like the 0.3MP webcam with digital microphone. Built-in 802.11n wireless networking provides an excellent, on-the-go Internet connection. Asus 10" Eee P...