You Win Some, You Lose Some

No doubt you're very familiar with the many giveaways happening here and there and everywhere. Hey, speaking of which, have you entered my latest? You can enter for yourself or for someone else - you don't want to pass it up!

Anyway...

Thank you all for commenting on my new look here at the "Place." I loved the old blog but I outgrew it and it was time for something new. What you're seeing now is a customized (pre-made) template I won from MWYT and blog designer, Lena, at Premades for a Purpose. In fact, MWYT's blog is also a premade by Lena. It was hard to choose just the right one but I believe I did, don't ya think? Lena has some new templates available, all very reasonably priced, and they are so adorable. If you get a chance or are in the market for an uplift to your own blog, check her site out. She has other templates to choose from than what's shown on the home page. Sales of these templates and other services she provides go towards a very worthy cause (adoption! A cause I support as I'm adopted [did you know?] and have extended family members who are adopted. Yay!). Again, I encourage you to visit her site and help support her cause. Her blog button is also displayed in my sidebar.

I do want to clear things up from my last post or two. I'm a dork. A huge dork. Okay, that's actually nothing new but when converting from the old to the new I ran into some snags as you know. Normally, converting from one template to another shouldn't be a big deal. My problem was I was making things more complicated trying to add in Disqus comments but what I didn't realize is it was there the whole time! With my old blog I had to disable Blogger's comment settings in order for Disqus to work. I thought that rule carried over to the new template. By accident I learned that isn't so. I was enabling Blogger comments since I couldn't get Disqus to work because I had it on "good authority" (aka my head) that comments weren't working. I also failed to grasp the fact that comments will show up on NEW posts, not current or past posts. So I enabled Blogger settings, created a new post and viola! Disqus showed up. For past comments, which I thought were forever lost or inaccessible, I can go to individual posts and click 'allow' comments in post options. I did this for a few of my last posts but not all. I might go back and turn them all on but really, who's going to be commenting, let alone viewing, many of my old posts? What this all means is my giveaway is good to go. I didn't have to repost or start over with comments. It's all working now. The only thing I have left to do is customize my header (blog title) with the matching font as post titles and a few cosmetic things and possibly a few additions. Small stuff, fun stuff left basically.

I really appreciate all the positive feedback about the new look. I'm sure this makes Lena very happy as well (in more ways than one! *wink*).

So yeah, that was a fun giveaway win for me. Some of the other giveaways I've won recently was a jar of coconut peanut butter from Tropical Traditions I won from Cook.Vegan.Lover. Yum! The jar is now empty...it found a good place in homemade fudge. Time for more - both the fudge and the coconut peanut butter. :)

I just received a package yesterday from Biokleen that I won at Mommy is Green blog. I love Biokleen. No, really, I do. We currently use the dishwash liquid and have used the produce wash. Now, I get to try their bathroom cleaner, glass cleaner and stain/odor eliminator (please excuse the poor picture quality). Oh, and it came with a reuseable tote too. Mommy is Green did a review of all of these products if you'd like to check it out.

The book I won at The Daily Raw Cafe, Becoming Raw, is wonderful! It's loaded with great, useful information no matter what level of raw you're at. The information is detailed without being overwhelming or "too technical." From the book, I've been making their Thai spring roll wraps - yum! I'll do a follow up post about that. The book has some other recipes I'd like to try, like their salsa flax crackers. It's not a recipe book but does have some recipes and even goes as far as menu planning with the recipes so the book does a good job at covering a bit of everything to help one get started...or even those who've been at it for awhile. Love the book!

Of course, all of those wins have been so glorious! Nothing like seeing your name pop up somewhere as the winner of something fab! So I love and appreciate all the giveaways happening...but there have been many many giveaways that I didn't win. That's okay though. It's still fun to participate and hope.

For you faithful readers, I do have a couple more giveaways in the near future you'll want to be on the lookout for. Seriously. Okay, here's my final reminder to you in this post about my current giveaway for an ecofriendly, lightweight, stainless steel sippy cup from EcoMom.com. Good odds so far for those participating.

Now, that I'm emerging a bit from changing templates and doing other things I hope to (once again or should I say, per my usual) get caught up with blog reading, including giveaways! :) If you have a giveaway going on that I missed or haven't gotten to yet or know of others, let me know and I'll post in my 'giveaway' tab. I post 'em even if I'm not participating. I also have some things to post about that have nothing to do with giveaways...hope to do some of that soon too.

Happy Thursday and TAX DAY!