Sorry and Thank You

My last post was more inspired by an attack on a friend than on my self. I appreciate all the kind words and the support. I'm not sure what this blogging adventure has done to me. I witnessed a friend being attacked and something in me just snapped. Not snapped really, more like something got fired up in me. I don't like to see people, any people, get picked on. While we are all entitled to our opinions, to outwardly attack one's character and then get others to follow is just wrong. I set myself out on a mission to bring awareness to the individual I was fighting for and help increase his "army" for future battle. I don't think I'm explaining that right, but that's how it felt. As for the immature, negative talking individuals...I can only hope that they get a good colon cleanse to remove whatever it is they have stuck-up-their-butts. In the end, their views and wishes were ignored and the person they were "fighting for" opted to join our side.

Has this happened to you before? I've witnessed a few of these public battles in the past year and this was my first. It was just something I felt like I had to do. Does that even make sense?

Why Drink Wine?

I drink wine because I enjoy the flavor, the complexities of all the different varietals and because I think sharing a bottle of wine with someone is more personal than just sitting down and ordering "drinks". I've been fortunate, through blogging, to meet other like-minded enthusiasts who help further my enjoyment by teaching me more about wine, offering suggestions, and just being fun, nice people who I can enjoy a "virtual" bottle of wine with. I consider myself lucky to be able to call them friends.

As the new (temporary) header suggests, I recently had my first taste of wine snobbery. I had heard that these people exist, but they are so off my radar that I hadn't seen them in action...until now. I am very disappointed in their childish antics and bashing of others they have never met. Wine, to me, is for enjoyment. To be so obsessed that it reflects negatively on one's self totally contradicts my reason for drinking and sharing MY opinions.

These individuals have made me want to drink Margaritas! Are there Marg snobs too? Gosh I hope not.

How to Get Over a Fear of Spiders

1.Wine
2. Kids

Just saying...

I think I may have instilled my dislike for spiders onto my children. I don't like them. When I see one I call for back up or leave the room. I can, however, step up to the plate when needed. I had a friend in High School who was more terrified than I, when she called from atop her bed and insisted I come right over to get the spider in her room I did. She had already trapped it under a jar and we removed it from her bedroom.

Today as the kids were playing in the yard and cruisin' in their Power wheel, I was enjoying a glass of wine and checking in on Facebook. They parked right at the bottom of the porch steps and carried on a conversation. Then it happened. My son jumped out of the power wheel with shear terror on his face, watery eyes, and screamed to his sister "Get Out! There's a spider coming right for you." She, of course, breaks out into tears, scared to death, wailing. I was impressed by his apparent fear for his sister and laughing at the terror they both possessed...due to me.

I ran down, scooped her out of the power wheel, and immediately went after the spider. I would have loved to whack it with a Kettlebell, but a screwdriver was the only thing handy. My dislike for them never had a chance to enter my mind. I was saving my children (from the fear I caused them). It may have been the liquid courage from the couple sips of wine, it may have been my maternal I'll-do-anything-to protect-my children, but I'll never look at a spider the same again. Bring it on.

Barefoot Beach Giveaway~ Winner!!!

Beth W. said...
My favorite beach trip is the coast of Maine - York Harbor. Love it! And, I'm a loyal drinker of Barefoot Merlot!

Congratulations! I need your e-mail to get your address info. You can reach me at Rachelebennett(at)hotmail(dot)com. You'll have until midnight Wednesday (6/24). If I can't get in touch with you I'll have to pick another winner.

Thanks to everyone who signed up for this Awesome Prize. We'll hopefully have more fun giveaways to post about soon.

My Overindulgent Wine Wednesday

Oh me oh my. In case you're not a regular here, Wednesday's are my night to chill out on my own. My MIL picks the kids up at 4:45 and takes them off to choir practice at church. Daddy meets them after work and the house is mine until 8:30. Go ahead and call Solo Slim now. See if they can overnight me a supply because I'm pretty sure my pants wont fit in the morning. The sweats I have on now feel just fine.

Earlier this week I received my VIP card from Domino's and it was for a FREE medium American Legends pizza. I read the descriptions and knew that only I would enjoy any of them so I waited. I ordered the Fiery Hawaiian.

Topped with ham, pineapple, red pepper, bacon, jalapenos and drizzled with Tabasco (which I think they forgot) it was very enjoyable. My standard toppings are ham, pineapple and banana peppers (jalapenos if banana peppers aren't available) so this was right up my alley and a nice change to our usual Friday night pizza (pepperoni) and movie night. There were just slightly too many toppings for me, but it didn't stop me from eating half of it. It was good.

To accompany my pizza, I finished last nights bottle of Barefoot Shiraz.

Barefoot never disappoints and can always be counted on when you want a sure thing.

I decided to watch some recorded TV. I do not normally watch Oprah, but happened to see the trailer for today's show yesterday and it looked good. It was all about miracle children and was as good as expected and a nice break from Sponge Bob. But then they showed this



Which turned me into a bawling mess. I'm now going to compose myself and rejoin my winewednesday friends on twitter. Have a great WineWednesday!

Sunday Social ~ Random Thoughts

Had a nice surprise this morning. A blogger friend sent me a nice little e-mail to congratulate me on breaking 100,000 in the Alexa rankings. As I told him, just after I broke 150,000 for the first time, I shot back up to almost 200,000 so we'll see if this sticks. it was nice to know that someone else was paying attentions. Thanks Joe.

My FIL has been feeling "under the weather" for several months now. It started with some irregularity issues and has developed into something else...we just don't know what. He doesn't want to go anywhere because he "may have to go". He hasn't even been to church in weeks. Hubby called him this morning and told him to get ready and get to church. When the problem started he took some laxatives to "get regular" and now, 2 months and 20 pounds lighter, we're not sure if it's the weight he's trying to keep off or if it's a bathroom issue. I think if it's the weight he should switch to a diet pill instead of the laxative. The laxative is doing nothing for his bathroom issues and is causing him to be tired all the time. He's been checked out by all his doctors and no one can find anything wrong. We'll just have to wait and see...I guess.

Changed my header. What do you think? I'm still playing around with it so let me know your thoughts.

Look for more wine reviews in the near future and my cork craft project should be coming soon.

Don't forget to click the button above to get in on the Barefoot Beach Giveaway. You have one week left to enter.

Triple Threat and Some Link Love and an Award

I've been sitting on these (some of them) for a while. Call it laziness, call it whatever you want, I just haven't gotten around to it and I'M SORRY. Trust me, I'm as good at this as I was at sending out baby announcements for my 2 kids (suckish) .

I have been given the lovely blog award from several people and to all 3 of my blogs. Since I so cherish this award and the individuals who gave them to me. I am going to post this on all 3 blogs and give credit to each of my senders 3 times. That's how much they mean, even if it took me a while to say thanks. I do appreciate the award and the givers.

So, to More Fun Than Allowed...With Kids, this award was received from Dawn @ Two Pretty Little Skirts and from Chris @ The Mommy Journey. To Wine at Five?, this award was given to me from Stacy @ Married With Boys. To Because Someone Cares the award was received from mee mOe @ When Life Becomes a Book. Thank you so much, I will display this award proudly. (There was one more sender but her post and comment on my blog were deleted so I'm assuming she no longer wanted to play in the blog award fun. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll add you too.)

Oh yeah. Here is my wonderful award

Here are the rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Normally I find it hard to select such a small group of bloggers to give awards to, but I'm going to make an exception. I've recently been blessed with many new friends and would like to recognize them now. Congrats to my chosen 15. Grab and Enjoy your award. FYI: It was hard to pick just 15 and even harder to find 15 that had not already received the award. If you have already received it, here's another anyway, 'cuz your good like that. If you don't do awards, that's cool, just know I appreciate you and your blog!

Sue @ Stay At Home Mom
Sarah @ God's Not Finished With Us Yet
Sandy @ Traveling Suitcase
Russ @ Grampy and You
Evie & Chris' Mommy @ Raising Irish Twins
Kelley @ 30 Something And Searching
Erica @ Parenthood for Me
Sandi @ Nothing Off Limits
Kristen @ All In A Mom's Life
Stephanie @ A Pocket Full Of Buttons
Tracy @ The Crazy Suburban Mom
Carolee @ Working in my jammies and lovin' it
Sherdenise @ A Blog With No Name
Joeshico @ Why Wine Blog
Randy @ The Wine Whore

Trader's Hub Review Contest

I'm taking part in another great contest. All the information is below. Head on over to Big Daddy Richard's place and get signed up to win. More than 25,000 EC's up for grabs. This is a contest you won't want to miss. Put away the diet pills , you don't have to look good for this one, your writing is all were looking at. Go have a Jumbo Marg or a big glass of wine, whatever gives you courage. Get the laptop fired up and get ready to REVIEW.Have an opinion? Here's your chance to share it. You could atually WIN just for sharing.











Traders' Hub's "review me" Entrecard contest has grown bigger and better. The top prize now stands at 23,500 EC's and still growing. But much more than the giveaway prizes, the value of participating in this contest is worth your time and effort as a blogger. Inspired by the success of our Entrecard Droplist, we have decided to turn this contest into another link building/networking activity. Participation in this activity allows you to link to quality sites with higher page ranks and therefore improve your chances of getting a higher page rank yourself. You may participate in three ways now!

• (1) As a contest advertiser (new)
Just post the Contest Badge by copying and pasting the code below anywhere in the sidebar of your blog for the duration of the contest. By posting the contest badge in your blog you will receive 500 EC's plus you get 10 entries to win 10,000 EC's in a raffle to be held at the end of the contest period for all the contest advertisers.( Please do not forget to inform me via a comment on this post once you have posted the badge in your blog to make your entry official.)

MORE ICING FOR THE CAKE!!! BE THE TOP COMMENTATOR OF ANY ONE OF THE CONTEST SPONSORS FROM JUNE 1 TO JUNE 30 AND YOU WILL GET ANOTHER 10 ENTRIES FOR THE 10,000 EC's TO BE RAFFLED OFF!

<a href="http://bigdaddyrichard-swirlingthoughts.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5567/13790139431.jpg" border="0" width="125" height="125" alt="Powered by BannerFans.com" /></a>

• (2) As a contest participant
All you need to do is make an honest to goodness review of Traders' Hub and post it in your site. The review must at least be 150 words long and must contain a link to this site (paste the required code link below) plus another link to any of the contest sponsors. Once you have posted your review go over to Trader's Hub and post a comment via the comment link below the blog contest post. Please include the exact URL of your post in your comment. Every entry wins you 500 EC's automatically. The best five reviews will be chosen by bigdaddy in consensus with the other sponsors, and the top prize will be awarded to the winner who will be chosen using random.org. The four other non-winning qualifiers will get an additional 1,000 ECs each. The contest will run until June 30, 2009. Winners will be announced on the same day.

<a href="http://bigdaddyrichard-swirlingthoughts.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/4556/13790127686.jpg" border="0" width="125" height="125" alt="Traders' Hub" /></a><br />

• (3) contest sponsor You just need to add up at least 500 EC's to the top prize. As contest sponsor you get your badge posted in in my site as well as in the sites of the other sponsors. On top of that, a participant will be required to link to any one or all of the contest sponsors of his/her choice. To be a sponsor, simply send me an email via entrecard stating the amount of EC's you wish to sponsor.

CONTEST ADVERTISERS

(Sites Where you find the contest badge.)

CONTEST SPONSORS
Traders' Hub - 10,000 EC's plus all the residual prizes!
Zorlone - 5,000 EC's
Femme Power - 2,000 EC's
Mature Not Senile - 1,000 EC's And 1 Month Placement of your 125X125 Button on her site
My Freedom Wall - 2,000 EC's + 1 tweeter follower
Everyday Conversations Through A Mom Blog - 2,000 EC's
Singaporean In London - 1,500 EC's
Gadget Freaks - 1,500 EC's
Wine At Five - 3,000 EC's

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• Make A Review Of This Site And Win 10,000 EC Credits (EC Contest) (bigdaddyrichard-swirlingthoughts.blogspot.com)

Barefoot Beach Giveaway

I've mentioned on several occasions that I am a HUGE fan of Barefoot Wines. I also did a review on their Bubbly here, which, not being champagne drinker other than special occasions, changed my mind about drinking champagne...just because. Their wines have won several awards at the California Wine Festival and deserve each one. I'm a SAHM with a limited budget. Barefoot allows me to drink great wines without feeling guilty about what I spend.


Thanks to Lauren and the other Great people over at Barefoot Wines, one of my lucky readers will receive this fun beach tote. Included are a fluffy beach towel, a wine opener, a stemless Barefoot Wine glass, and a tote to carry it all in. How Fun!





With every contest there are rules, I want to make this as easy as possible, so here there are:


Mandatory: You must sign up at Barefoot Republic (it'll take 20 seconds) and leave me a comment with your Barefooter name. You can use my barefooter name as your referral (but don't have to) I'm MommyMerlot. (1 entry)



Extra Entries:

1) Leave a comment and tell me about your favorite beach trip, or one you would like to take. Not a fan of the beach...tell me your favorite Barefoot wine (1 entry)


2) Follow me on twitter. If you already are, even better. Just leave me your twitter name in a comment (1 entry)


3) Tweet about this contest and copy and paste tweet here in a comment (1 entry each tweet)Come back each time you tweet about it.


4) Blog about this contest and put the url to post in a comment (3 entries)



Contest entry deadline : June 21, midnight EST

Drawing will be done by random integer on June 22



Now go sign up at Barefoot Republic and check out all the other cool stuff they have going on over there.

Great Things I Love About Blogging

It's been a year.
Yep, a year ago I decided to start myself a little blog and I never looked back. I have currently have 3 that are regularly updated but they have been all over the blogosphere. Domain changes, fleeing today.com, self hosted, it's mind numbing all the information I've gained and yet I know that I still have a long way to go.
So I sit here reflecting on the past year, all the friends I've made, the laughs I've had and the sorrows I've witnessed others go through. It's a world all it's own and one I am grateful to be a part of. It doesn't take an office with fancy office furniture , it only requires some way to connect to the Internet and a willingness to give of yourself and share with others.

Enough about me. It's time to thank the individuals who think enough about me (and/or this blog) to regularly stop by and to the really special people who take the time to sit around and chat.

The EntreCarders who stopped to drop the most

Family Health Avenue
Jean sQuared
Symphony of Love
Silver Sachet
Split Rock Ranch
Grampy and You!
Frugal Healthy Choices
First Time
The Matthias Chronicles
Photograph by KML

And the people who were kind enough to engage in conversation

The Wine Whore (aka Randy Watson)
joeshico from Why Wine Blog
Sandi from Nothing Off Limits
Sandy from Traveling Suitcase
Grampy from Grampy and You
Kelly from 30 Something And Searching
Lynne from The Sewing Mom
Michele Cameron Drew from By Any Other Name

I appreciate everyone who visits and just wanted to say Thank You. Blogging Rocks!