Passing Along The Joy

Four o'clock came and went today, and my pay it forward contest has ended. Yay to the 13 people who entered (really, only 13 -- odds are good, people!). You were good sports, and I got some good guesses and info on the delicious variety of Asian food I won from Parking At Home -- thank you again!

I will say that I've been enjoying many of the boxed items for lunch when I don't have the time to make something real. And when I've neglected to go to the store to buy something that is tasty and also suitable for lunch.

My favorite is the anchovy rice noodle soup. You might agree with me if you tasted it, but I don't think that many of you would agree to taste it in the first place!

The good news is that the food I've tasted thusfar has been yummy AND easy to deal with. I've figured out that the ones in containers are dehydrated soup type foods and just need to be filled to the line inside with hot water. That I can do.

And yes, the apple candies are REALLY apple-y. In fact, I'm going to send along a few of those to share with my pay it forward winner. Feel the love!

And according to my friend's mom, the mystery food that I couldn't decide if it was like oatmeal or something else may have multiple purposes. As originally intended, it is a breakfast food. It's roasted brown ride porridge. And no, I haven't tried that one yet. However, Parking At Home is also right in that frequently it's just crumbled up atop other soups, etc.

Parking at Home was also correct that the second mystery item was ramen noodles. I haven't made those yet, either, but I loved ramen when I was a poor college student, so I'm looking forward to trying the "real" stuff.

And now... for the unveiling of my mystery prize!

First, I have three books that I hope the winner will enjoy. Sandra Brown is one of those authors who writes a pretty entertaining novel that's really brain candy. I haven't had much of a chance to read since ummm my wee ones were born, but fingers crossed this will be passable. The Life of Pi is actually a book club book, so it's been read by me and has some underlining in it (sorry!) but it's a really thought provoking book while being a good read.

Second, I have some books for a small child. These are two that my wee ones enjoyed, and they aren't the most common. Crawlies Creep is a popup book where the creepy crawlies demonstrate their prowess (the owl blinks, the crocodile snaps, etc). I always loved pop ups! I'll Teach My Dog a Lot of Words is Mister Man's favorite. It was the first book he read by himself (outside the Bob books)!

Four refrigerator magnets are the next part of the prize. I thought they were so cute and homey. This is where having a stainless steel fridge doesn't work out so well.

Who doesn't need a cute little stuffed bunny? I never got into the collecting of Beanie Babies (my stuffed animal collection was already too large), but I always think they're so cute!

I know Little Miss loves carrying around purses, and the winner has a daughter (oooo, how's that for a clue?). I thought this striped tote would be perfect for her.

Now I have to hope the winner is Christian. Or at least celebrates Christmas. I love the old fashioned Washington Post look, and this ornament perfectly captured the look. I know I'm five months off, but preparation is a good thing, right?

And lastly, you all know about my apple-y candies. I'm going to share a handful of these with ...

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:10
Timestamp: 2008-07-23 22:42:07 UTC

The tenth commenter was a new visitor to my blog: Shelly Overlook of Scenic Overlook! Congratulations, Shelly! I hope you like your prize. Remember to pay it forward with your own contest. Your prize won't be in the mail tomorrow, as I'll be in the office, but I'll try to get it out on Friday.

And if I ever receive my second PIF prize, I'll do the second PIF contest. However, I haven't heard from the contest sponsor since getting the first email saying I won (I did follow up once), so maybe not.

Tomorrow, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging! Here's hoping that some of the new readers come back to visit again.

And The Winner Is ....

Well, it's the Fourth of July and it's now 8:05pm. I'm right on time with counting the entries, numbering them and running the random number generator. Yay, me!


A couple of caveats first.



1) My apologies to everyone who posted information about their favorite pets that I didn't respond to. To be honest, the 52 comments overwhelmed me. Can you tell I'm not used to this much traffic and love?



2) I did, however, respond to the first 12 commenters with two comments of my own. Those ended up being comments #13 and #14. To keep things simple, I didn't renumber the comments after me to take the place of #13 and #14 because being out in the sun all day baked my brain too much for that to work. Instead, if the random number generator had picked #13 or #14, I would simply have run it again. If it chose #26, that was the 26th comment vs removing my two comments and renumbering.



3) I tried really hard to figure out how to paste the random number generator into my post as I've seen other people do. Unfortunately technology doesn't like me and never has (yep, a post on that coming shortly!). The best I could do was copy and paste, but I don't think it's nearly as pretty. My bad.



ANYway! Thank you to all who entered. I had a lot of fun with the contest and hearing about your pets. You were all great sports, and I hope you'll come back to read my blog again! I did get my prize assembled, and pictures of it are below. It was a mystery prize, and I thought about keeping it a surprise until the winner had received it, but I'm too impatient for that!

It started out being a packaged of three books, a variety that I hope would suit someone's tastes. Sandra Brown's The Alibi, Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Wife, and Mary Higgins Clark's Before I Say Goodbye. I've read and enjoyed all three, so I can vouch for them. Ok their quick and easy reads when you just want to turn your brain off -- although Amy Tan's is really good and one I've reread three or four times.



Then I decided to add some more fun to it. And fortunately Karen has children, so hopefully this won't go to waste. What kid wouldn't love drinking from this cup with the oh so funky straw?



And when the cup is dirty, said child can use this special Spiderman straw instead.



And if you're going to have drinks, you definitely need snacks!

Since today is the Fourth of July, I felt like I had to throw something patriotic in there. We have flags out the wazoo from all the decorating we do for Memorial Day and other events, so I was able to dig up four flags. And the squeezy stars are pretty cool. They handed them out in today's parade, and when I was putting the box together tonight, the wee ones wanted to donate them to the cause, as well.

Going with the theme of items that were handed out in today's parade, I'm also going to toss in two of the multitude of bubbles handed out in today's Fourth of July parade (just for fun!). If you'll notice, each of the bottles includes a coupon for a buy one get one offer from the local chi-chi soaps and lotions store. If you're ever going to be in the neighborhood, save the labels and bring them in!

As I started packing the box, I realized that I needed some packing material. And what better packing material than candy? Can you tell that Werther's and Jolly Ranchers are my favorites?

And I hate to say it, but I was also going to include a fun orange frisbee for kicks, but unfortunately it wouldn't fit in my box. So I'm going to hold onto in until I decide what to do with it.

Now everyone is either drooling over the prizes or crossing their fingers hoping they don't win. So without further ado, the winner is:

Search RANDOM.ORG
True Random Number Service
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:23
Timestamp: 2008-07-05 01:02:32 UTC

Commenter #23!

And I'll be nice... I won't make you dig through all the posts to find who that was. Karen, one of my regular (I hope!) readers, had the luck of choosing this. Fortunately for me, she does have children, so the cup et al won't go to waste -- I hope!

Karen, I'm sending you an email to get mailing info. Your responsibilities are to create a Pay It Forward contest of your own and keep this group effort going! If you aren't up for this, let me know, and I'll choose a new winner. Somehow, I have a feeling you can do it, and I might even have an inkling of what your giveaway prize might be. (But that's being awfully presumptuous of me!) Anyway, congrats, Karen! And thank you again to everyone for playing!

Oh yeah... and Happy Fourth of July! By the way, YES we've had tons of random loud unsafe fireworks going off for days and days (not 11 days as with last year thankfully) and I currently can hear them from three sides. My town's fireworks aren't until July 12, however. Hmmm....