Search Engine for Giveaway Sites

Hey kids, check this out. I just noticed a new comment on my site about a new place where you can find giveaways from all over the web. And, all these sites are listed in one place. The site is called Giveaway Scout and it's a search engine for giveaways and contests. The nice thing is that you can add your own site and have your giveaways listed along with all the others.

So, what's the catch? From what I can tell, the only thing you've got to do is add a few lines that talk about the site itself. Then, add your site to the list and wait for approval. I decided to do an entire post about the site. Not because I thought I'd have a better chance of getting listed, but because I really think this could be a useful asset to those of us who enjoy getting in on the contest and giveaways circuits.

Normally, I don't keep any of the spam that comes onto the site, but there was just something different about this one. The person who posted the comment, Josh Healy, seemed genuine. He didn't try to hide the URL's in his name or fake a "real" comment in order to get his link out there. He came right out and said who he was and why he was leaving a comment. Honestly goes a long way in my book. Thanks Josh.

Anyway, I invite everyone to at least check the site out. It's kind of like a one-stop-shop for the giveaway world. There's even a widget that can be added to the sidebar of your site for all the latest giveaways listed on the site. I'll be adding it in just a few moments. And whether my site gets added or not, I'll be using this site to find all the latest giveaways.

Social Blog Hop

Hey kids, I just found a new "follow me" type bloggy thing and this one seems a little different from the rest.  I like the concept of this one as instead of just everyone following everyone else, it has to do with social networking.  One week they'll be checking out facebook, the next it might be twitter, and the next who knows.

This week everyone is hanging out at Networked Blogs of Facebook.  I have all my blogs on NB, including this one.  But as of right now, I don't have any followers on there.  :(  Maybe this will fix that and bring me at least a couple more.  The concept behind this "follow me" is pretty much the same in some respects to the others.  You've got to follow the hostesses of this little linky-thing.  The hostesses are:

Chubby Cheeks Thinks
2 Monkeys and a Washtub
And Then There Were 4
The Coupon Challenge 

From there you just add your link as you would any other follow along blog.  I think this is a really cool idea and I can't wait to see what happens before it's done.  At the top of this page you'll find the button for this party.  Just click on the button that says Surfin' Saturday and check it out.  It's going to be a lot of fun.  You might even find some new friends in the process.

August Blog Challenge---Fashionistas

The blog challenge for August (from BloggyMoms) has to do with fashion. Well, I guess that totally leaves me out. I am NOT a fashionista. I don't wear high heels except for maybe once or twice a year. I'm not a "dressy" dresser by any means. I wear what's comfortable, period. Tennis shoes, blue jeans, tank tops or t-shirts and hair up in a pony tail. Yep, that's me.

I did take my daughter shopping last weekend. As a high school student, she's got a little more fashion sense than I do. But, being a country kid, she's not much better at it than I am. We live in the country. We like to look nice, but we much prefer being comfortable over being "hip", (is that even the right term).

My idea of fashion involves a tight pair of jeans, my black leather boots, and a sexy sweater. Yeah I don't go out much, but when I do, I turn the head of every biker/hippy/bar fly in town. Fortunately I'm married so I don't have to worry about any of the above. And, the hubby thinks I look just fine so for me, that's enough.

I wish I was a little more on the fashionable side, but the truth of the matter is that I'm just a country girl who loves her denim and T's. I'll never win any beauty pageants, but I don't care. As long as the hubby's happy, nothing else matters. I love the way I look and the way I feel in my clothes. I'll never be the next Sarah Jessica Parker, but let's see her ride a motorcycle in her mini skirt and pumps.

All By Myself

Holy Cow, I'm all a-scared of myself right now. I went and did something that I had myself convinced that I couldn't do. I just created a button/badge for my other website, Sapheyerblu Review.



I don't have Photoshop or any of those fancy little programs that will slap 2 or 3 hundred of these things out in a day. I do have a photo editing program that came with a printer I got a few years back, but up to this point the only thing I had used it for was to fix red-eye in some of my family pics and maybe do a little resizing.

The only time I really used this program, called Photo Explosion, was about a year ago with my son's Senior pictures. I took all his pictures myself as we just didn't have the $200 sitting fee that all the photographers wanted around here. In fact, I think about half the kids in my son's graduating class did the same thing. The nice thing about Western Nebraska is that there are a lot of beautiful places to take pictures around.

Anyway, I decided to play around with it a little bit today and see what I could come up with. I played around some old coloring pages I've got and created the eye on my photo editing thing, then saved it as a .jpg file. (That's kind of important as I next found out).

Then I went to my favorite banner creating site. If anyone ever wants to put together their own banners, I highly recommend Banner Fans. This has to be the simplest banner making site on the web. I love this site and have created pretty much all my site banners through them. Yes, I'm cheap, I'll admit it. But I'm appreciative too. Thank you to the people who make Banner Fans possible. They let you host your banners and such on their site, but I don't do that. I'll do my part by lessening the bandwidth load a bit. I know my little sites don't do much, but it's my way of thanking them for this service.

Yeah, I'm rambling, I know. But that's why I have this blog. LOL.

My biggest obstacle for not making my own buttons and badges also came in the form of a code. I don't have a problem with code, especially HTML. I taught myself how to do it when I first started playing around with computers in the mid 90's. However, I had no idea how to make one of those cute little text boxes that contain the button code for other bloggers. But, thanks to my sunny little friend, Ruthi, I know how to do that now too. She created the badge for this site, and it's just way too cool. Mine isn't anywhere near that good, but I'm thrilled that I did it.

This is just living proof that even an old dog can learn new tricks. Of course, she'll forget most of them before the end of the day, but at least she can say she learned how to do one more thing.