Contests and a winner being announced.

I am sure many of you have entered contests and wait to hear if you won.  I do many through Facebook and have only won once, but this company did a wonderful job of not only listing the winners on their blog but also sending the product.   With my love of trying to win stuff for free I have noticed many MANY companies never announce a winner, so it has me wondering how many of these companies waste our time by never actually following through with awarding someone the prize.
  This brings me to my recent adventure with trying to see who won a contest, a jewelery company called Waxing Poetic out of California.  They ran a Christmas contest where you went to their web page and made a wish list, then one lucky person would win their wishlist items.  So I stalk and stalk their Facebook page (here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/waxingpoetic?ref=ts&fref=ts) and no announcing of a winner.  So I posted on January 24th, 2013 asking this:

Kari Estle Kovarik

Just wondering when you plan on announcing the winner of the wish list promotion you did in December? Any update would be great. Thank you.

 This was their reply:

Waxing Poetic We apologized if you missed the announcement, the Wishlist Winner was announced in December after the contest ended.

If you scroll down to January 8th on their Facebook page another fan of the page asked if a winner was announced and again they did not respond till January 24th with this response:

Waxing Poetic We apologized if you missed the announcement, the Wishlist Winner was announced in December before the app was removed form our Facebook page.

Again nothing stating who the winner was or saying you can find the winner's name on their blog (http://www.waxingpoetic.com/blog/) or their website (http://www.waxingpoetic.com/).  In the end I really am guessing that either this promotion did not generate enough revenue from the contest to pick a winner or choosing a winner would have cost too much based on the wishlist.  Either way when a company works so hard to promote their product, and I will say they have some beautiful jewelery pieces, but never does follow through on a contest, is well for a lack of a better word: Shady!

  Now if Waxing Poetic would like to contact me and let me know where I can find the winner of this contest, and I will contact the winner to confirm they actually won, I will be happy to update this post on my blog.  

  

  Now I ask my readers this: Have you had a company run a contest and never announce a winner?  Let me know because as a consumer I want to stay clear and far from these so called companies! 

Thanks for reading,

 Kari

Making time for fun and exciting blog posts.  After moving from Oklahoma to Virginia for my husbands job, the transition has been less then wonderful.  The little ones and I have been exploring the new area with an adventurous mind.  Traffic is crazy and there is almost too many stores to choose from, why yes I said too many lol!
 I will say that I am missing my family and friends in Oklahoma.  The old saying is true, you do not realize what you have till it is gone!!!  So here is to a wonderful 18 months here in the Northern Virginia area, filled with memories and lots of exploring! 

Scars....

  First I just want to say, "wow I took some time off from blogging."  Life sometimes moves so fast that certain things fall to the side and unfortunately my blog was one of them.  I hope to keep up with it on a regular basis now.

  Scars, many of us have them, some from childhood, some from our adult lives.  My C-section scar is my newest addition to my adult ones, but this scar does not make me cringe, it actually makes me smile because I have a beautiful daughter to show for it.  Now the one on my left pointer finger is where I stabbed myself with the chopper blade of my food processor and wow that one hurt.  It has taught me to be more aware of those sharp blades when cleaning it!  Yet I also have a few scars from child hood.  A long but light scar on my right forearm where I was playing with our childhood cat Whispers and got her so worked up that she unleashed the fury on me, a deserved scar that taught me to only go so far when playing with a cat!

  Yet the scars I have the evoke the most memory are the two tiny crescent moon scars I have, less then half an inch, with one on my right wrist and the other on my left upper arm, both so tiny that they would go unnoticed if I did not point them out.  These where given to me around the age of 7 or 8 by another little girl who was so proud of her beautiful long nails.  I remember that if I did not go and play what she wanted to play that I would just get scratched, then as time progressed and she must have noticed that I would not say anything, so she started to use them on me in a more pointed way.  The first scar came from when she grabbed my wrist to go over to the play ground, but I did not want to go so she became so mad that she just dug in with her thumb nail and I started to bleed.  Not wanting to tell on a friend I never said a word to my parents and life went on as normal.  It was not too long afterwards that the same thing happened again, this time she grabbed my upper arm, and with a no from me came pain and bleeding as she proceeded to again dig her nail into my soft flesh yet again.  My mom saw the bleeding right away and off to the girls house we went, showing her mom my battle scars from those pretty nails.  Her mom was mad and took care of the problem by trimming the little girl's nails down.  Till this day I remember that little girl being mad at me cause her mom cut off all her pretty nails and I think she never played with me again.

  I feel a sadness when I look at these scars, not from what they did to me, but for that little girl who would get so mad that she felt the only way to express that anger was by inflicting pain on another.  I just hope that I can teach my children, by showing them the scars, that it is never okay to hurt someone out of anger or frustration.  I am sure the scars you can't see, the ones we all carry inside, impact our lives on a much deeper level then the superficial scars we carry on the outside, yet I can only hope that if I share these scars with my children that maybe, just maybe, my kids will be all the better for it.

Kari

How time flies.....

It has been pretty busy around here, and for shame I have neglected my wonderful blog readers.  I will now punish myself by drinking coffee with no creamer...Okay done!

 So where have I been, well this momma has been a busy bee and had a few of those weeks where it seems that I run in circles most days.  I enrolled little miss A in hourly care on base so that I can go to my doctor appointments and not chase her around.  So yesterday was our test run, and even though I think I was having a harder time with it I do believe that little miss A was not thrilled to be there either.

  They have a big screen t.v. that they can zoom in on little miss A, so standing in the entry I stood there for 20 minutes watching her stand in place, looking around and not crying.  I really did think she was going to shed a tear or two for her mommy but nope just looked stunned at all the kids and toys.  Yep mommy was not handling this as well as little miss A.

  So I ran around, got some stuff done and before I knew it time had come for me to get little miss A.  I was so happy to see her and she was very happy to see me, she even started to cry she wanted me so bad.  She stopped once I got her and blew kisses to her teachers and off to the truck she went smiling all the way!

  We both made it through this new experience, and other then her inability to nap at day care she did really well.  Her next fun day will be Thursday when I have a doctors appointment that does not allow kids in the exam rooms (there are legit reasons for this so I understand) getting an ultrasound while trying to wrangle a 15 month old might be more then even I can handle.  So here is to hoping that little miss A has a blast on Thursday and does not do her impersonation of a statue for too long this time.

  Did I mention that I do absolutely love being a stay at home mom and the joy I get from seeing little miss A grow right before my eyes is truly amazing.  I am blessed, I really am.

My find of the week!

Most of my friends know that I love to shop second hand stores.  I find all sorts of goodies and have fun with the "hunt".  So what did I find on my trip to the local Goodwill, why a chair but not any chair.  After purchasing the mustard yellow/orange velvet and wood chair I did a little hunting online and found that it is a Lewittes chair which in better condition seem to sell for over 200$.  I bought my chair for 10$ and ran right out and bought some fabric to cover the removable seat pad, and what did I get but this.....

  The chair back needs to be re-stuffed but for right now it is a place for my cats to curl up on and sleep.  I plan on getting it totally re-done but till then my quick fix by covering the seat will have to do.  I think the fabric cost around 15$ (I got it on sale for 40% off and it is upholstery fabric) so my total spent was 25$ which for a wonderful and comfy chair that is over 60 yrs old is not a bad deal at all.  Let me know what you think!

Knotty Baby Wear: BIG HUGE GIVE AWAY!

Knotty Baby Wear: BIG HUGE GIVE AWAY!

I know I know there are so many give aways but really 700$ of AWESOME swag could be yours! I have entered but I really do have to share this with you, because I love to share and who would not love to have 22 different prizes (yep you will win all of them!!! They are not awarded out individually but as one big prize!) Good Luck!

Kari

Jumpin' Jelly Bean my house smells good!

As many of you know I love and sell Scentsy!  If you are not sure what Scentsy is, it is a wickless candle concept.   The warmers come in all different styles and sizes and the warmers use the heat from a light bulb to melt scented wax.  Like this warmer called Charity. 

With over 90+ scents to choose from there are many to choose from and you are able to change scents when ever the mood strikes you!  

  So why does my house smell so good, well I am making my monthly samples (we have a scent and warmer of the month every month) and I melt down a bar into smaller samples and attach them to the flyer.  Now that I actually have the technique down, and seem to keep the wax from getting everywhere, my sample making went way smoother this time.  

  Now please do not take this as me trying to "sell" you anything, I promise I am not, but this is my work at home business and on top of that I really do love the product.  Its part of my life right now and it is fun to do, and after all so many of my past jobs... well sucked!  

  So now that I am done I guess I better hop on heating up the left overs I have sitting in the fridge and get the little monkey ready for bed.