As a member of the Coffee Mate Brew Crew I found out that I could host a Coffee Mate Office Party. We are definitely coffee drinkers at the office. A number of us take turns bringing in flavored creamers for the coffee.
At the office we have a planning committee we like to call “The Happy Committee”. We plan fun little events throughout the year for morale boosters and such. I brought the idea of having a Coffee Mate Office Party to them and they liked it.
Coffee Mate’s website has recipes you can make using Coffee Mate creamers. I was amazed at some of the recipes that included creamers. A few of us picked a recipe to make for our office party along with plenty of Coffee Mate creamers for everyone to try.
Someone brought a griddle in and one of my coworkers and member of the Happy Committee made up the Cinnamon Vanilla Pancakes. They turned out so good.
We had our creamers set up on ice for people to try the flavors they wanted. Oh and by the way see the Coffee Mate tote in the back. I purchased a Walmart gift card to go along with it and had everyone put their names in a bowl and drew a name at lunch time to win the tote and gift card. Everyone enjoyed that.
Here is our spread for the Coffee Mate Office party. Each of these recipes were made with Coffee Mate Coffee Creamers. Everything was delicious.
Coffee Mate provide me with Coffee Mate cups and napkins. I made sure my coworker Ed here used the Coffee Mate cup when he went for his coffee. What do you think? The next Coffee Mate spokesman?
Here is some of my awesome coworkers enjoying the party . There is something like 30+ people that work in our office. I was trying to snap picture of all who participated and wanted to be on my blog. I love my coworkers.
Here are more of my coworkers partaking in the desserts. The girl in the back is pregnant so she couldn’t drink the coffee but she was still able to enjoy some of the desserts.
I was trying to catch more people as they trickled into the office at their respective start times. I think everyone had fun.
Thanks Coffee Mate for letting me share with my great coworkers. I love being a part of the Coffee Mate Brew Crew.
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This is slightly off my normally blogging path but I feel the need to vent my frustration for a minute.
As some of my readers might remember, I won a big giveaway on Mom Bloggers Club from Clorox Green Works. I’m going to preface this by saying there is no issue at all with Mom Bloggers Club and Clorox Green Works. It was after receiving my prize that I became frustrated because of the choices my hubby and I made.
The prize was $2000 towards a new washer and dryer and a full line of Clorox Green Works products. I did not know how to expect the $2000 to arrive. Would it be a check? Would it be a gift card? If it was a gift card, where would it be to?
I finally received my pacakage in what seemed like forever because of my excitement but really was an on time delivery. It came in the form of Lowe’s gift card. Now I don’t need a new washer and dryer When hubby and I moved into our house a couple years ago my MIL bought us a brand new Amana digital HE washer and dryer which I like very much. We have no issues with them so no sense in getting new ones.I thought we could use the gift card towards so many of the home upgrades that were going on in our house. I talked to hubby and his issue is that everything is getting done little by little and even if we bought all the materials it still may be a long time before everything was finished. We still considered just keeping it but remembered Plastic Jungle I had done a review for. I had used Plastic Jungle for a purchase, a sale, and a win and had a good experience each time. After talking it over we thought the gift card would be put to better use if we sold it and used the money to pay off some bills.
Unfortunately Plastic Jungle wouldn’t buy a gift card over $1000 value. I talked to Lowe’s to see if they would tranfer the balance onto a couple smaller gift cards but they said they couldn’t do that. So I looked into Giftcardrescue.com. I had seen a few reviews on them. They accept larger gift cards. I researched the company a bit including reading their BBB page. I sent my gift card overnight with insurance hoping it would expedite things. The site says most payments are processed in 2 days. After a few days I got an email asking me to fill out forms and fill out a questionaire as to where I received the gift card and a few other things. They said given the value of the card they needed to verify everything. Totally fine with me, I understand. After scanning and emailing all necessary paperwork I sent an email requesting them to let me know that they received everything. No response for a couple days. I sent another email. After a day, again no response. So I called the 800 number on the site. Got a hold of someone. They apologized and said they had overlooked the email somehow and said they couldn’t verify the card because they couldn’t find the site where I won the card. I email them a direct link to the contest page, the blog contact I had who contacted me, and they requested a copy of the email saying I won. So I provided all that. Again several days no response. I wanted the check for our vacation and at this point I didn’t think it would happen. They sent me another email requesting a link to the contest. This was the 3rd time I had sent the link to the contest as I had also written the direct address to the contest on the form I filled out.
I finally received an email saying that my check would be processed by the end of the day but when I went to giftcardrescue.com’s site it said it was still on hold. So again I contacted them. 2 days later I received a response saying they apologized that there was an error with the processing but that they would send my check out that day. 9 days later I received my check (even though it was coming from Maryland and I live in PA).
The next step, I went directly to my bank to deposit it in my account. I was not able to use the money on our vacation so I decided I would use a small portion to finish up what school shopping we had left. I handed the check to the teller with my deposit slip. She said “Uh what is this?” I said “it’s a check from giftcardrescue.com. I sold a gift card to them and they give me a check for a percentage of the value of the gift card. I couldn’t use the gift card”. She was frowning and looking over the check. In a rather condescending tone she asks “You only sold one gift card?” I said “yes I won a $2000 gift card from Clorox but I couldn’t use it so I sold it. That’s the amount that I sold it for”. I had requested some cash from it and was going to put the majority in my account. She said “We’re going to have to put a hold on this check.” I was a little frustrated but I understood. I said “ok that’s fine whatever you need to do” She said “well you know i can’t give you any cash from it while it’s on hold” I figured that much but I was thinking the check would only be on hold until the could verify that it’s ok. So I’m thinking a couple days. So that’s what I asked her. She said “well no…here I’ll check…it’s going to have to be on hold until Aug. 31.” Which is 3 days after the kids will have already started school.
Understand that I realize each of these places are just trying to make sure everything is kosher. I’m sure they do have bad gift cards and bad checks coming through but it just seems like I’m never going to get my winnings I’ve been waiting so anxiously for.
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I’ll be back blogging and tweeting as usual on Friday. In the mean time, if you all could help me out by tweeting some of my giveways too I’d appreciate it.
See you soon.
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As someone who both enters and hosts blog giveaways, I find the same questions keep coming up. I’m excited to see that some of my friends and family and giving blog giveaways a try. I know there are still more out there that want to enter but find it confusing.
BASICS
Number one most important thing, read the rules. Each blog giveaway will have it’s own set of rules for entry. Some examples you might want to look for
—Is this giveaway open to my county or my state/province?
–Am I old enought to enter? (some giveaways may require an entrant to be over 18, 21 yrs or older, etc.)
–What do I have to do to make sure I’m in and qualified for the entry?
–What form of contact info do I need to leave so the host can contact me if I win?
Some giveaways might require a “mandatory entry”. Normally this entry must be completed to be qualified for the giveaway. This could be any number of things. For example: you may be asked to visit a website and comment on a product, like a facebook page, follow a person/company on twitter, leave a specific comment OR you may be able to pick and choose which entries you want to do. Always read through the rules.
There are a couple giveaways out there that may require you to be a blogger to enter. But, I’d say the majority are open to anyone. Most bloggers welcome both bloggers and non-bloggers alike. It’s always nice to see new faces and faithful readers alike. If you’re really not sure about a rule or how to enter try emailing the blogger or commenting to get your question answered. Bloggers want to help you have a good experience on their blog.
Some blogs may offer “bonus entries”. These entries are not mandatory. If you’ve completed the mandatory entry (assuming there is one) then you’re entered. Bonus entries can give you more chances at winning the prize.
SPECIFICS FOR ENTRIES
In this section I’m going to pose a question in some for of how I receive questions.
1. How do I “follow” a blog?
If the blogger does not specify how to follow it usually means through Google Friend Connect. If you look in my right hand column about 8 boxes down you’ll see a little blue button that says “Join this site” with a bunch of little pictures under it. Click on the “Join this Site” button. It will ask you how you want to join the site. You can use an account you already have through Google, Yahoo, twitter, AIM, netlog, or OpenID. In other words if you have a gmail account, you’re on Google+, Youtube, or any other google site, you will be able to sign in with Google.
Some may ask you to “follow’ through RSS feed or email subscription. They may either have a clickable link right there in the post to take you to where you should go or they may have a box somewhere on their page for this option. (Note: I made the words “RSS feed” above clickable so it will take your right to the RSS feed subscription sign up for my blog). For example: mine are to the right of this post 12th and 13th box down from the top. Just a note, if you follow through email subscription you will receive a notification to ask you to confirm your subscription in most cases. If you do not confirm your subscription you won’t be following.
RSS feed is a constantly updating “feed” of things that are being published on the site you subscribe to. when you sign up through RSS feed it will ask you which reader you would like to use. There are lots of readers to choose from depending on your preference: MyYahoo, Google, Newsgator, AOL, and lots more options for you.
2. I tweeted the giveaway, now how do I find the “tweet link”?
The tweet link will allow a blogger to go to your specific tweet if they need to verify the entry. This is a copy and paste of one of my actual tweets:
Each tweet will have a “time stamp” under it. In my tweet above my time stamp is “8 hours ago”. If you just tweeted it may take a second or two for the time stamp to show up. Also when it first shows up it will sometimes use the word “now” as the time stamp. You can click on “now” to get your tweet link. It will open you up to a page that shows only your specific tweet your’re trying to get the link for. Up in your web address bar you’ll see your tweet link. Copy this link and paste it into the entry area (either a comment, contest entry form, etc)
So if I click on my 8 hours ago time stamp used in the example above my tweet link looks like this:
3. I shared a link on facebook now how do I find my facebook post/status link?
Finding a Facebook post/status link is almost exactly the same as finding your tweet link. Here is a cut and past of one of my facebook status updates:
Again you click on the time stamp which again in my example is “8 hours ago”. Copy and paste to contest entry area. What should the link look like? Something like this: https://www.facebook.com/FFCandM/posts/262367347110194
Other Helpful Hints
Be sure to leave some way for the blog hosting the giveaway to contact you if you win. They may ask specifically for your email or a twitter ID may be acceptable. When you leave your email in a comment it’s best to NOT type it out like this: joeschmo@email.com instead space it and spell each section out like this: joeschmo at email dot com. This is a helpful hint to keep spammers out of your inbox.
Rafflecopter giveaway are a fairly new way of entering. They are sometimes easier. There will be a Rafflecopter form in the post. Click on the green button to complete that entry. Not sure what they are asking for? That’s ok just click on the more info link next to the green button to see exactly what they want you to do for the entry. Here is a rafflecopter form you can practice with if you like. This is just for practice. Don’t worry if you feel like you messed up.
Another way to enter you might see is Google Doc forms. They are a kind of “fill in the blank” entry form. The positive to these is that no one sees that you entered except the blog posting the giveaway. But it also means you can’t see either if you can’t remember if you entered it or not. A hint I use, If you enter and want to come back for daily entries or just want to remind yourself you entered, leave a comment in the blog comments of that post like “thanks for the giveaway!” then you’ll be able to see your comment and know you entered.
Here is an example of a Google Doc Form. Again, if you want to practice with this one feel free. No one will see but me and i will not use your info for any purpose:
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Google forms can look differently. They might be right in the post or it might be a link that opens up a new page. They may be plain or designed.
Feel free to practice with any or all of these steps more than once if you like. Maybe you just want to learn the rafflecopter entry. Maybe you never tried a Google Doc entry. Maybe you’re new to entering giveaways and you just want to try it out with no pressure. “Enter” each one as many times as you like to feel comfortable.
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Hi everyone. There were a few people that came back looking for my week 2 results for the Zaggora Hotpants. First off thank you so much for checking back. That really means a lot to me. Secondly, I have a reason I didn’t post right at two weeks. This might be TMI but I think it’s necessary.
The day before the 2 weeks was up was was well “that time of the month” I bloat horribly during that time for several days during as well. I didn’t feel it would be a fair assessment to take measurement at that time. So I waited until that had resolved itself to take accurate measurements. But without further ado, here they are:
Again I took the measurements in the same way, around the same time of day to try to get it as controlled and accurate as possible.
Unfortunately the inch that I lost around my belly returned. I’m back to the 34 inch mark that I started at. Which was a little disappointing. To be fair I wasn’t quite as active as I was the first week, if that makes a difference.
This was the measurement around my butt. Again I gained the 1/2 back that I lost and right back at the 40 inches that I was when I started. Grr.
This is my right thigh measurement. This one was the best one. The initial measurement around was 24 inches. You can see in the picture I’m down to 22 1/2 inches so I lost a whole inch and a 1/2 around my thighs. This I’m happy with as it’s was one thing that was preventing me from wearing some of my shorts. I have noticed a reduction in cellulite in my thigh and bum region too.
As for my weight, I actually gain a pound and a 1/2. My friends kept telling me it was muscle I gained but I’m not completely convinced.
As for the belly and bum measurements I don’t know if it’s possible that I’m still a bit bloated. I don’t feel it now. I can usually feel the difference when I am. As I stated I wasn’t quite as active my 2nd week either. I did wear the Hot Pants several times during the week. 2 days under my scrubs to work and I wore them all day another day and took a walk outside with my son. I also wore them 1/2 a day to clean the house another day. I think If I would have stuck to my first week motivation I would have lost more.
In short I think they work as an enhancer to your workouts.
Don’t forget, if you want to try them for yourself, save yourself some money and use code: ANGIEBEE to get 10 % off your order and free shipping!
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