#$500BFCash #Giveaway Ends 11/23 Rafflecopter

This Giveaway organized and brought to you by A Well Being and The Busy Woman’s Guide to Surviving Motherhood

Need a Little Extra Spending Money this Holiday Season – How about a LOT? Enter to win $500 Cash (via PayPal). Several Bloggers and Businesses have joined together to make your Black Friday the best yet!

Using the Rafflecopter below – all you have to do is “Like”, Follow, Subscribe and/or tweet as directed. You can do all or just some of the entries. Please note that all entries are subject to verification and must be complete (this especially applies to email subscription – you must confirm your subscription for it to count).

The $500 Black Friday Cash Giveaway starts on Monday November 14^th, 2011 12:01AM EST and ends on Wednesday November 23^rd, 2011 11:59AM EST

Here is a list of all Participating Blogs and Businesses:

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Surviving Motherhood
A Well Being
KidClings
It Works - Jessica Pena
LaMomba
Thrifty Divas
Multitasking – All Day, Everyday…
Sapphire Says It All
Mamalou’s Gems
Sprinkle Me Pink
Indiana Coupon Savers
Debs Dealz
Spilled Milkshake
Learn How to Crochet
Learn How to Make Bows
Debras Dollars
Music and Mommies
Pink Dandy Chatter
A Traveling Thought
Sweet Peas & Buddies
Newly Wed, Newly Bred
It Works! - Desirea Garcia
Burning Moon

Best of Luck! Open Internationally – all you need is a PayPal ID to receive payment!

Travel Journal - 1

One of the places I've always wanted to visit was Canada. I had so many opportunities to visit when I lived on the east coast but never went. So I think my first "big" vacation will be to Canada. I've been doing some research and I found that I think I would like to visit Calgary.

I did some research online and located some images and it reminds me so much of the east coast. I also wanted to find some places where you can rent a place instead of a hotel. One site I came upon was Rent Calgary. At first I thought it was what I was looking for but it was more for finding a home. I still looked though and found that a lot of the homes for rent or purchase in Calgary are not badly priced. Looking at the site made me wonder how easy it would be for me to just move to another country.

Travel Journals

I've decided to start a travel journal here on my blog. I've always enjoyed travleing but ever since I moved to the west coast, I haven't traveled much. So each week I'm going to feature someplace I would like to visit some day. It may be somewhere in the United States but it may also be somewhere abroad. I hope someday I will be able to visit most of these places on my list. Tonight will be my first travel journal. I hope you enjoy :-)

Cooking

The Author of this post is Solomon Dejesus

Cooking is my favorite hobby. I learned to cook when I was a little girl by watching my mom and grandma cook family dinners. When I went to college, my roommates and I would have dinner parties at our apartment and I would do all of the cooking. When I got married, my husband gained 25 pounds and he blamed it on my cooking. I love watching Food Network to learn new recipes. We recently got satellite internet from http://www.wildbluedeals.com/satellite-internet/california/s/, so I recently started looking up recipes online. I have a large cookbook of recipes I have tried and liked. I can honestly say that there are only a handful of recipes that I disliked over the years. My favorite thing to cook is dessert. I guess you could say that baking is my forte. Whenever we got to a family event where we have to bring something, I am always asked to bring dessert. I really like making cupcakes and it is a dream of mine to open up a bakery, but for now I will continue to cook for my family.

De-Stressing...

For the past few weeks I've been trying to find some simple and inexpensive ways to relieve some stress. I've been so busy at work that I have gone days without eating lunch. Not because I don't get the time to take my lunch but because I have so many things on my mind and so many things that I am working on the time goes by and I forget to eat. So each day I have been coming home and trying to find different ways to de-stress as I call it. I realized that I needed to do something when I heard my 5 year old say he was so stressed out while playing with his toys.

In the past I would drink tea, preferably ginger or lemon tea. Recently I found a new tea that I absolutely love. It's a white blueberry tea by Lipton. I'm not a Lipton tea drinker but I LOVE this tea. I also listen to calming music sometimes. Another way I have been doing it is surfing the Internet. That of course takes up a lot of my nighttime rituals but I have found that it has been helping. I'm doing something mindless and not thinking about work. I also find that reading something funny helps quite a bit. The other night I drank some milk before bed and slept like a baby. Not once did I dream about work while sleeping. Of course, there's also getting a massage but that can get expensive. Instead I find that a nice inexpensive pedicure works as well.

What are some of your tricks to relieve stress?

Shopping...In Store or Online

I have always enjoyed shopping. Well, for most things. I can look at clothing, electronics, gadgets, makeup, books and shoes all day long. There have been times when I think I may need an intervention when it comes to how much I enjoy shopping. I haven't been shopping as much lately but I often browse on the internet for different places to shop. I often look at shoes or books because for me those are the easiest for me to shop for online or to just window shop for. I came upon this wonderful website that has everything in one place. Who wouldn't want to buy everything they need in one place from the comfort of their home.

The site I found is www.become.com. This site is online shopping at its finest or power shopping at your fingertips. You can shop for anyone and everyone in your family. With the holidays coming This may be a grand idea. What's even better is that the site has giveaways, gift ideas and shopping tips.

For those who work on their feet a lot or just like to wear shoes with a lot of comfort, www.become.com has a great selection. I was checking around and found a number of pages of reasonably priced Easy Spirit shoes. For style, quality and comfort at some prices lower than in store, I found Clarks. There are lots of people I know who swear by the comfort of Clarks shoes and the life-span of their shoes. For some of us who likes to bring out the cowgirl in us there are some FABULOUS cowgirl shoes on the site. I especially like the pink one.  

Brought to you by your friends at www.become.com

Wow...

Wow...today I realized that I am maturing as a parent and I didn't even know it. My only child started Kindergarten today and it feels like I was just pregnant. The last 5 years went by so quickly. Needless to say, I was in a bit of a panic for about two months. I was concerned about how he will adjust, what he will eat, will he be emotional, will he listen to his teachers, what will I pack him for lunch. Down to the wire I was yesterday (Yoda much...LOL). I hadn't bought anything to even begin to prepare lunch for him. Then I began worrying about his shoes being too big. Of all the things and times to have to worry about those two things the day before school begins and having errands to run after work. Well, I made it happen but not effectively I must say. First off, I sent my husband on a hunt for either insoles for my son's shoes or something to tide him over until maybe December. He came back with something really cute but he let him wear it out of the store which means it was scuffed and he paid too much for it. While he did tat, I went to the grocery store. I had no clue what I wanted to get.

Lesson learned after yesterday: Never go to the grocery store without an idea of what you want. You will walk out with items you do not want or need. Never wait until the last minute to plan or organize a milestone event in your life