I would love to win this giveaway...

Photo borrowed from Memoryexpress Meghan

This Facebook giveaway caught my attention and I'm asking YOU to help! The giveaway is for a 320GB Western Digital WD Elements Portable Hard drive which would be great for keeping my photos so that I never lose them again. The person who's comment has the most "likes" by February 3rd wins. So if you have a chance, please take a look for my comment (Missy Misfit-Momma) under this photo and click "like"!

If you need a vote on something, leave a link and I can return the favor!

Get this kid off of me!

I breastfed my oldest child for 9 months, but stopped at 4 and 5 months for my middle two. Not once did I imagine that my little toddler would still be grabbing at me shouting "Boobie! Boobie!" past the age of 2! (She turned 2 in December)

She is rarely actually doing it to drink milk. She does it when she's trying to go to sleep. She does it when she's cranky, tired, upset or just bored. I can't sit at the computer without her squeezing herself into position so that she can force my shirt up to try and help herself. I can't lay down without her wanting her boobie. Most nights I can't even get out of bed to have some time to myself because she wakes up when I'm not next to her!

I wanted to wait until she weaned herself. It doesn't look like it's happening. She really isn't even breastfeeding anymore, simply breastsuckling for 1-5 minutes at a time (besides overnight). She drinks milk from a cup & I'm her human pacifier. A position I never thought I would be in, and I want out! I'm tired all the time, my nipples have little to no feeling left in them, and it's about time my older kids stop seeing her expose my breasts throughout the day. Not only that, she has made it a habit to pinch and squeeze the opposite nipple while she's suckling, and the lack of feeling doesn't help there because I can most definitely feel it and it's not nice.

It isn't bad when we aren't home. She seems to accept when I tell her "Not now, wait until we get home" but since we are home 95% of the time this is only a small relief. I looked for tips online, and one I found suggested putting vinegar on my nipples just before feeding. Now, I thought this sounded a little strange but decided to try it anyway. First, vinegar on nipples stings! I guess I should have, but didn't expect that. Next, toddler latched on, pulled back to make a funny face and a hm sound, then latched on again for a minute before heading off to the kitchen.

Did she go to the kitchen to play with the toys? Color at the table? Pull the containers out of the cupboard? Nope. She went to the kitchen and grabbed the vinegar that I left on the counter. She must have liked it so much that she was now dabbing it onto her finger and licking it off. How did she even know!?

My baby is a genius. Any ideas for me? Am I stuck breastsuckling until she decides she's done?

Years of photos... gone

Once upon a time, I had four computers up and running. Lets give them each a name to make things easy to understand.

One of them several years old and extremely slow compared to what you can buy today. This one technically still works, but it is honestly so slow that no one really wants to use it so it has been unplugged for some time. We'll call this one "Old Fart". I don't have anything else to say about this computer, I just wanted an excuse to name it "Old Fart".

The next one was around 5 years old, but since it was a gaming rig it was still pretty fast. It was mine. The case was black & red and the side was a spider web. It held all of my photos, all of my software, and was lovingly named "Spider".

The third computer was the first one that we had bought in one piece - I had no say in it and would have been against it if I had. I prefer to buy parts and put them together myself. My Husband doesn`t know the difference between one part or another and has no clue about putting them together so one day he came home with "My Toy" as he called it.

The fourth, the one I am on now, is the Husbands laptop. He is convinced that my computers crashed because I used Tweet Deck, kids games and other softwares so won't let me install anything on this one. My usage is limited, but at least I can get online.

Now, "My Toy" was the fastest while it worked but it was the first to crash a few months ago. With the motherboard, hard drive, and disc drive all being quite literally fried from a power surge it was unrepairable. It was a material loss, since the majority of my photos were stored on "Spider".

"Spider" started acting up just a few weeks after "My Toy" crashed. None of the scans I did could find any viruses or errors. I un-installed everything that wasn`t necessary. I moved all of the important files that I wanted to keep to one place so that I could get them off of the machine before the impending total crash and that was as far as I got. Before I had the chance to upload the photos online, Spider shut itself down for the last time.

I held on hope that I would be able to save the contents of the hard drive, and put off doing it for some time. Sadly, I can now say with certainty that everything is gone. I'm glad I have uploaded many of the photos to Photobucket, but there were hundreds that I hadn't uploaded yet.

All of those newborn photos that I didn't think were nice enough to share yet wanted to keep for myself. All of the birthday and Halloween videos from the last 5 years. The sexy photos that I didn't dare post online.

All gone. Sad Momma. Next time,  I'll start uploading them right away just in case. For now, a new computer along with an external hard drive or other photo storage device is first on my wishlist. Soon, I hope.

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My Giveaway Pet Peeves (Rant)

So I get that everyone is entitled to make the rules for the giveaways on their own blogs, but there are certain things that drive me absolutely crazy when I am entering a giveaway! Here are some of the ones that annoy me the most, in no particular order.

Requiring an email in every single comment.

The only time where I see this as being necessary is when the commenter is posting anonymously. Requiring it in the first comment might be acceptable just in case they are one of the few people who don't have their email in their profile or didn't use some alternate form of contact as an entry (as in Twitter or Facebook). Requiring it in every comment? This just makes me think that 1. You aren't going to bother to check whether if anyone did the mandatory entry or not. and 2. You have to be pretty damn lazy to not be able to click on their name to at least check if their email is in their profile.

Not fixing broken Twitter links.

I'm sure if you are using or have tried out the "new Twitter" you have noticed that when you copy a link it adds some extra digits (/#!) in there which break your link and take you to a page which doesn't exist unless you remove them. It's honestly not hard to remove them, but why are so many bloggers asking entrants to follow their sponsor using these broken links? Don't you check your links to make sure they work before posting?

No links in their post.

This one doesn't happen all too often, but has happened enough that since I was already going on about links I thought I would include it. I'm sure it's an honest oversight, but again brings me back to wondering if you double checked your post before publishing it. Including links, especially when you want entrants to visit your sponsors site and comment, is pretty important. Not to mention that links are the whole point in the sponsors sending their product in the first place!

Asking entrants to comment on sponsors Facebook page.

This isn't just annoying, it's against Facebook's terms and I will most likely skip over this entry and not bother "liking" your sponsor at all unless the prize is pretty amazing. Once again, it's against Facebook's TOS. Enough said.

Captcha codes.

Hate them! Want to know what makes them even worse? Captcha paired with an embedded comment box. Just because it's the default setting in blogger doesn't mean you have to leave it like that. It will take you less than 30 seconds to change it and I bet you will make a lot of readers happy.

Not providing a tweet.

If you are going to include daily tweets as an entry, why not provide the tweet for readers to use. This way you can make sure your entrants are using a quality tweet, and they aren't going to be annoyed by having to write the tweet or shorten the URL on their own. At the very least install a tweet button, like the Wibiya toolbar I have below or one of the many others available.

Restricting all giveaways to US only.

Believe it or not, the Internet stretches farther than the US. If you are shipping the product yourself and aren't able to get to the PO to ship to Canada then fine. If your sponsor is shipping the prize themselves, many of them will ship to Canada and else where. Take the time to ask who the giveaway is open to instead of automatically marking it as US only. I've even seen this on giveaways sponsored by Canadian companies - ridiculous! (This of course does not apply when the sponsor specifies US only.)

Mandatory Entries with 4+ requirements.

I can handle a two part entry, maybe even 3, but some of them are just silly! When your mandatory entry looks something like this: "Visit my sponsor & choose your favorite color of this product AND choose another favorite product PLUS follow both of us on Facebook AND follow me via GFC." Really? Does all of that need to be mandatory? I understand that you want followers, but you will likely still get them if you use it as an extra entry. What about the people who don't use Facebook or who aren't able to access your page? (I have had this happen to me. There are certain Facebook pages that only take me to the Facebook home page.)


I'm sure there are more but this is what I can think of for now! What are your giveaway pet peeves?

Happy New Year!

Like usual, things didn't turn out quite as I pictured for 2010, but now that it's gone I suppose there isn't anything I can do about it! This blog has certainly grown much more that I imagined it would and I hope that I can make it even better in 2011.

Other than my blog, I do have a few other goals for 2011. I would love to lose some of the weight I have gained over the past few years thats for sure! Organization will be my biggest goal though. It really isn't even optional anymore. My house and life have gone from being slightly unorganized to being a complete disaster!

I will more than likely be moving in the next few months so hopefully that will give me a good chance to go through what I have and get rid of the things we don't need to being along with us. I know I have said that before, but we have long grown out of this house and need to go. I finally ordered the toddler bed from CSN stores that I have been wanting for so long, so will need to move before we can use it anyway!

I would also like to try to save enough money so that I can take my kids out more in the summer. We go to the park and all that, but they have never been to the water park! I had tons of fun going there when I was a kid and have been planning to take the kids every year but since it's so expensive we have never made it.

I won't set any exact goals since they tend to never get done and then I'm left disappointed with myself at the end of the year, but it's nice to have a few "things to do" in my mind at least.

Wishing all of my readers a Safe and Happy New Year!

Announcement: New Giveaway Entry and Note about CSN Stores Giveaway

Since I have had a few people ask me about this, I have decided to add following me on twitter as an entry to my giveaways. I have two Twitter accounts and as an explanation as to why I hadn't given this as an entry before, well I want people to want to follow me, not just because it is an entry. Not only that, each account has a different reason which might deter people from wanting to follow. Some of you already follow, but for those of you that don't please read the details below before deciding to follow.

Like I said, I have two accounts:

• @Missy_wpg

~I use this account for tweeting giveaways that I am entering, which is approx. 100 tweets a day. I also use it for tweeting my own reviews & giveaways as well as Sponsored Tweets.

• @MisfitMomma

~I use this account for chatting, tweeting out the posts on my adult blog as well as other adult related topics & giveaways.

If you follow me at one or both of these accounts, go ahead and take an entry for each one into any of my giveaways (even if it isn't listed on the giveaway as an entry)

My CSN Stores giveaway is ending tomorrow, but the day I posted it the entry for following me via Google Friend Connect was missing. If you have entered this giveaway and did not take that as an entry, don't forget to add it before the giveaway ends!

One more thing - I have just purchased domains and hosting for each of my blogs. I will be making another post soon to announce when my site will officially be moved over. My button code will need to be changed at this time and I am looking into the details to see if you guys will need to resubscribe to my feed. I am considering switching to Wordpress at the same time, but leaning towards sticking with blogger. More info to come!

Today was one of those days...

Today was the day my daughter was so looking forward to - Max & Ruby Live! She had been asking me nearly every day for the last couple weeks if it was time yet and was so excited when I finally said Yes! Today is the day. Sometimes I wish every day were so eventful, but in reality I like my boring days - even though they don't give me anything to write about...Well, here is a very long post to tell you all about my equally long day.

A friend of mine has had his stuff stored in my garage for some time, and had arranged to come and get some of it today so before it was time to get ready for the show I had to wait on him. That turned out to be fairly un-eventful, I was happy to see him as it had been a while, but he didn't stay to chat or anything since he had brought his brother-in-law along to help. They loaded up the truck and went on their way in under an hour so not much to say about that, hopefully we can catch up next time.

After that we started to get ready, rushing around and leaving a few minutes later than planned - as usual. Thankfully I had planned to leave extra early so the few minutes didn't matter. I had never been to the Pantages Playhouse Theater before, and neither had my driver so we ended up passing it and having to turn around because we missed the sign. With all the one way streets in the area it took more than a few minutes to get back to it but we were still on time.

We quickly found our seats and waited for the show to start. They had a no camera policy, but I managed to sneak some photos anyway. I wasn't the only one...others were using their cameras with the flash, I can't imagine their photos turned out too well in the dark theater. I wasn't able to upload them yet, but will share when I post my review!

My girls sat quietly through the beginning of the show, and like most live performances there was an intermission. After the intermission instead of the quiet co-operative girls I had in the first half, they both started getting restless. My toddler wouldn't sit still and insisted on nursing, which she doesn't often do anymore when we aren't at home (Luckily I wore my Expressiva Nursing Top!).

When the show was over we were supposed to be picked up at the door. I wanted to use the restroom but my oldest daughter wouldn't stand still to wait, I figured since I would be home soon I could just go when I got there so went outside to look for my ride. The show ended a few minutes earlier than I had expected so I wasn't worried that he wasn't there yet, but once he was 5 minutes late I started wondering (he is anal about being early!).

By this time my daughter was running all over the large cemented area in front of the building and wouldn't stay near me no matter how many times I tried telling her to stay still. It was when she was pulling the you-can't-catch-me bit by running circles around the flower pots that I finally saw my husband walking up. With the day not quite ready to end, he greets me by telling me the van won't start.

Oy. Remember how I said I had wanted to use the washroom?

Just before I was about to call my Mom to come and pick us up, he got the van going and we headed home. We got there just in time, as the boys were dropped off from where they had been for the day only about 5 minutes later. When the boys are home the neighborhood kids tend to swarm around like bees, and the next thing I knew the pup was running down the street because these kids go in and out the gate like no body's business and he escaped. The evening went on to us watching a movie and having a late supper, and my 9 year old throwing a huge tantrum. I'll save that for another post, since this one is already way too long as it is! Right when I thought everything was going to calm down, my toddler knocked down my Doodlebug Scentsy Warmer and the top broke in two. *cries*

Sigh...please let tomorrow be a boring day!

On another note, I had a record amount of giveaway entries today! I added my giveaways to a few linkys and sites recently, where did all my wonderful new friends come from? Thanks for all the support and good luck everyone! I've cheered up quite a bit now, especially after finding out that I won a Cisco Valet wireless Router from One Savvy Mom!

And also...

The Max & Ruby Bunny Party Tour isn't over yet! They will be travelling across Saskatchewan and Alberta next so make sure to check if they are coming to visit your city too!

I slipped on the cement

Yes, you read it right. I decided to go to the corner store and as I was walking up to the entrance, which has a slanted sidewalk for wheelchair access, I slipped on the cement. I landed pretty hard and scraped my right knee, and if that wasn't enough when I tried to catch my balance with my less foot that one slipped too! So now both knees are scraped and bruised and I even managed to scrape the front of my right ankle somehow. Of course there had to be a car full of people right there to witness it, they asked if I was ok but I'm sure they had a good laugh as they drove off. I must have looked like I was drunk and couldn't walk!

I put the fault on my sandals which have no traction left on the bottoms. I normally don't even wear them out but I was just taking a quick trip and didn't bother changing my shoes. Slippers make my feet too hot so I wear the sandals around at home. The bottoms are so slippery that I have even slipped on the carpet a few times! It's obviously time to get myself some new house shoes, these ones have been a favorite for a long time so I will be sad to see them go.

I was planning to get at least a couple more Cool for School posts up today, hoping to have them all up by the 15th but was so tired today. I went to bed around 2, and my toddler woke me up around 4:30. She woke me up by guiding my hand and forcing me to tickle her! It was cute and funny but once she knew I was awake and wasn't able to use my hand to tickle herself anymore she stayed awake for almost an hour playing/messing up the papers on my desk. She finally calmed down and fell back asleep. I had some trouble getting up and sending the kids to school on time...they were almost on time, only about 5 minutes late.

Heading to bed now, will get some reviews up tomorrow!

Just one more day!

My kids go back to school tomorrow morning!! I can't believe the summer is over already, it never lasts long enough. I am seriously jealous of folks that live in warmer climates, our winters are terribly cold and the start of school means it is that much closer. Sure, we probably won't have any lasting snow for a couple months yet but it's coming. I always feel so upset at this time of year when I think back on the things I had planned to do over the summer that didn't happen. The warm weather seems to fly by so fast, we keep thinking we can put it off another day or do it next weekend and before we know it - it's too late!

My son changed so much over the last two months! We went into summer with a little boy, and are coming out with a pre-teen! He is just about 11, I honestly thought it was too early but he hung around with his friend (who is a year older) for the majority of the summer and seems to have picked up some habits from him. His friend had to leave because he moved out of the city and was only staying here with his Grandmother until he had to go back home for school, so I am curious to see if my sons new habits disappear and if I will get my Mama's boy back for a while.

I hope I am able to wake up to get the kids off to school in time. I was working on sleep routines and everything went down the drain over the summer. None of the kids are back to their school schedule and the baby has basically switched her nights and days...she will stay up all night! I haven't got new shoes for any of the kids yet either! Typical of me -I don't wait until last minute- I wait until it's late!

Need to do laundry today too, not sure if I will make it to the store or not. It isn't like they don't have shoes that they can wear, but they need a pair of shoes to leave at the school. Instead of an actual supply list, their school just asks for a certain dollar amount per child so that every child has the same supplies. It makes it a little easier to not have to shop around for that stuff, but also pricier. I bought a lot of the stuff from their list previous years on sale or even at the dollar store and was able to save quite a bit but you don't get that option when you are just giving a cheque to the school.

I have a review of one of my favorite Etsy sellers handmade clothes which I won coming up tomorrow along with a great giveaway to celebrate the first day of school. I'm a little behind and wasn't planning to take the last few days "off" so hoping with the kids gone at school it will be easier to catch up and stay that way. They will still be coming home at lunch, but thats only for half an hour so three out of four kids will be gone for most of the day! I can pay and have them stay at lunch, but if I am home I figure I can use that money for something more necessary.

That trash was my treasure !

Sometimes I hold onto things for months. Sometimes YEARS! Things that don't get used, even though I am sure they would have a wonderful use!

I recently threw away one of those things, finally deciding it would never have a use. It was a pair of jeans, with very big holes in both legs, that was also too small. How could I have known that only a few days later I would find out that I could have cut this fabric up to make so many different crafty things.

I am trying to de-clutter my house but this is why it gets so cluttered! My dad taught me nearly everything has a use at some point, so I do save a lot of seemingly useless stuff. But I have good reasons for it and I guess this was meant to be a reminder! I wonder if they are still in the bin.....