The Big Summertime Giveaway

I've been wanting to host another giveaway for some time; with the convergence of several momentous events, now seemed like the best time to throw it out there! And so my giveaway is in honor of:

1. The obvious - SUMMERTIME! Yeah!
2. My blog is over a year old (March)
3. I'm close to my 100th post on THIS blog
4. My new blog "look" - coming very soon, it's almost here!

There are going to be two ways to win prizes in this giveaway. First, by commenting/following and/or tweeting about my giveaway (see "rules" below). Secondly, whoever is in the top commenter position (widget in my sidebar) at the time the giveaway closes will win the second prize!

The first prize will include the following:

Pink Gerbera Daisy Postage by WheatgrassDesigns

Sheet of twenty (20) of my custom Gerbera Daisy stamps

Pink Gerbera Daisy Note Card by WheatgrassDesigns

Eight (8) of my custom Gerbera Daisy note cards

Pink Gerbera Daisy Mousepad by WheatgrassDesigns

One (1) custom Gerbera Daisy mousepad

The above Gerbera Daisy items have been popular sellers in my Zazzle store, so I wanted to share them with you, my bloggy readers!

A beautiful shabby chic ceramic pitcher, along with some yummy lemonade - I wanted to provide SOMETHING so you could put your lovely pitcher to use immediately! (Or you can mix up some margies, whatever you prefer... or need.)


And finally, a really yummy book, Miracle Juices -- this book not only has great photos, but recipes for 60 nutritious juices recommended to combat specific ailments such as asthma, high blood pressure, insomnia and hangovers. All the juice recipes are guaranteed to boost health and vitality. Nutritional analysis of every juice details the vitamin, mineral and calorie content. It's a great book!

Now, what you need to do to enter my giveaway:

Follow me! If you already follow me, just leave a comment on this post letting me know this factoid, and you're entered. New followers leave a comment letting me know if you're following me via Google Friend Connect (the "Follow" box in sidebar) or RSS feed.

Once you're following me, here are several other ways to earn extra entries:
* follow my other photo blog
* follow me on Twitter
* tweet about the giveaway
* blog about my giveaway and earn an extra 5 entries!

Please leave me a separate comment for any of the above "tasks" that you complete. Remember, my lil pea brain has to tally up all the entries for each person. Make it easy on a girl, ok?

And, the second prize...

will go to whoever is in the top commenter position in my sidebar widget at midnight on Friday, June 12. The prize will be a sheet of 20 of my Gerbera Daisy stamps, (2) of the Gerbera Daisy note cards, and a book by David Elliot Cohen, "One Year Off".

(This book is awesome, I enjoyed it so much; it's the true story of one family's decision to trade their home for an around-the-world trip for one year. And they didn't have scads of $$ to spend, they did it in the most frugal ways possible. It's a humorous (they have 3 kids) and inspirational read.)

The giveaway will close at midnight on Friday, June 12. Miss Tori Mae will draw the winner for the first prize and I'll announce the winners for both prizes on Monday, June 15. She was a bit put out that I used randomizer.org to draw my last giveaway winner, so I've acquiesced to her demands and I'm allowing her to pick the winner again. I guess she enjoyed it more than she let on.

SkyWatch Friday

I just love to mix things up... so in that vein, I'm posting my SkyWatch Friday photos on THIS blog, instead of my other blog. Yeah, you can see I like to shake things up sometimes.

We had some storms pass through here two nights ago... sometimes the clouds were pretty intense. I think we got over an inch of rain in less than an hour!

angry storm clouds

lil house on the prairie
(enlarge to see cows in distance)

Click above to see beautiful skies from around the world!

Our Humble Abode... Before and After

The front porch last summer and now... as you can see, still need to paint the blue beam along the ceiling of the porch. Hubby finished caulking the foundation under the porch the other day; I need to get Kilz primer on it, then paint it. Note the new front porch light; we bought the same light for the back porch but still need to install it. The previous owners had just bare bulbs as their porch lights... nice, eh?


Another view of the front porch. We still need to replace the screen door; it will be the same as the back screen door that we replaced last autumn. (Just wait until you see the pic of the old BACK screen door further down in my post!!) We also want to get some roll-up blinds for the front porch. It would be lovely to sit on that bench in the evening, but alas, the setting sun is directly in front of our porch. It's not only blinding, it's freaking hot!


The back side of the house; you may notice a small patch of gray near the eaves (see pic below). There was a bird's nest there, and upon closer inspection we believed there could be babies, so we painted around them for the time being. The other day, the nest was laying on the ground with several broken eggs. The nest was an old barn swallow nest from last year and sparrows had decided it would make a nice home; obviously they did not do a home inspection first and so that was a flawed decision on their part, as the old barn swallow nest probably needed some shoring up. Oh well. I guess we can paint that area now. We still need to paint the entire eaves on this side of the house too.

The other side of the house last summer. Ehw.

And now this summer... much better, I think.

The back door, last summer.
That chair protected Ringo's dog food from rain, just in case you were wondering...
click here to see post about salvaged chairs.


The new back screen door.

We removed the awning, which was beat to heck in a hailstorm last year; not sure if we will get a new awning? Still have to put up the new porch light. Need to replace (or paint) the board along the roof line. Moved Ringo's doghouse off the porch and eventually we want to build a bigger back deck.

So you can see how busy we have been... all this house work in addition to all the fence repairs we have been doing, and tons of outside property maintenance. I'm hoping we can get our vegetable garden started NEXT year, and get more bushes and flowers planted around the house.

Baby steps, right?! :-) But I think we've come a long way since last summer already. A big thank you to my mom, who hatched up the plan to paint the house while she was here a few weeks ago. How many moms do you know that would suggest something that insane when they come to visit you?!

(I haven't even posted the before and afters of the kitchen,
only because it's not done yet...)