Baby It's Cold Outside

The Weather Channel threatened us with ice and snow flurries. I told the kids to go home and think snow last night. I put some of that book the Secret to work but it failed to produce any results. Then again, perhaps the kids forgot to do their homework or the dog ate their homework. You see although it was very chilly this morning there was not a speck of snow on the ground. Ah the good old days back up in Maryland where there was a lot of snow and you got the day off. I can’t cry too much though because we will get a couple of days off for Valentine’s Day to make up for the fact that we haven’t taken any snow days.

Speaking of snow days back in Maryland, I see that my birthplace, DC has passed a mandate requiring that drivers clean the ice from their car. You receive a citation but no fine if you fail to do so. The law takes effect immediately and will be in place for 90 days.

I received an interesting call today from someone at Kroger. She said she received my letter and she checked out my blog. She is sending it on to others. I told her about my idea about doing a series of blogs about shopping at Kroger. She's going to send me the information about who to speak to, now that's exciting. Wish me luck

I received a winning email today. I won Daily Prize: Tower of Treats (ARV $39.95).

Here are the blog contests I've entered today:

Win yummy Valentines day cookies for you or a loved one! The Cookie Boutique's cookies aren't only yummy, they are pretty!

Win a 32ct. box of chocolate bon bons from Pikes Peak Bon Bons! Just in time for Valentine's Day.

win a valentine dog bandana

Prize: Product Red iPod Nano and two SOAPnet/ABC Hot Guys calendars.

Prizes (2): Valentine's Day box of dark and "milk" chocolate hearts.

Prize: Set of cupcake charms

Prize: Shea Whipp and Cupcake Soap.

Prize: Copy of Angels in the ER by Dr. Robert Lesslie, M.D.

5 Winners will each get the new Strawberry Shortcake DVD.

A Sign Of The Times

Years ago when I was in college I remember the recession that happened after the stock market collapse in 1987 (October 1987). The stock collapse of unprecedented size lopped twenty-five percent off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The collapse, larger than that of 1929, was handled well by the economy and the stock market began to quickly recover. However the lumbering savings and loans were beginning to collapse, putting the savings of millions of Americans in jeopardy. Sound familiar?

People often think of DC as almost recession proof yet they were difficult times. I remember a new convention center/upscale hotel was getting ready to open and they were having a job fair. At the time I was a cocktail waitress and going to college. I felt I could make more money working there and it was a lot closer to home than where I was working. The day of the job fair there were lines almost wrapping around the building of people with college degrees applying for jobs like hostess, grounds keeper, etc. I remember feeling so very frightened about the future.

My parents and grandparents had lived through the depression and I was already on welfare trying to work my way off of it. I was going to college for a better life. I didn’t want to be the sixty year old woman waiting tables at Denny’s on the night shift. You might say I was short sighted in this because I honestly didn’t see how we would come out of this.

Now I’m seeing shades of this again. Long lines of people applying for few jobs each desperately wanting a chance to support their families, what jobs would there be now that American’s don’t want to do? In Miami today 750 applicants showed up to apply for a position as a Miami firefighter. There are 35 openings that we have," he said. "We will accept 750 qualified applications who will compete for those 35 positions."

Need more proof about just how bad it is? In Canton, Ohio people came from as far as New York City in hopes of improving their lives by insuring others. Liberty National Insurance began spreading the word last week that it plans to open a new Canton branch with about 100 new jobs. Applicants were told they could make $80,000 per year or more, depending on how motivated they were to sell insurance. They had so many applicants that it ran out of applications just minutes after the job fair began. In Austin, Texas before the city went on a hiring freeze there was a part-time position open for a person to do shelving, and more than 200 people applied.

These are scary times. One of the teachers in my department was told he didn't have enough completers in his program. Remember when I said I felt like I was in the movie the Lottery. I believe he is the first cast drawn. He told me tha the was told that the principals already told him that they are looking at where to make cutbacks and his program doesn't have enough completers.

Today was a red letter mail day. I received the free Valentine Cards I ordered, the free calendar I ordered from Snapfish, and I received the cutest Koala Bear from a contest I won. It even has an autographed card from the race card driver. Very cute.

I also won another blog contest. It turns out I won some doggie Valentine Cards. Speaking of doggies, I won't be getting the puppy I talked about. We decided it would be too traumatic on my dogs to get a new younger dog.

The Grand Slam Is On

Today's they day. You can get a FREE Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny's. Check www.thriftymaven.com for information.

A Guest Blogger

It's hard to believe but I will have a guest blogger on my thrifty maven site. One of the women from online-sweepstakes is going sent me a story for my blog. Now that's really great. I'm trying to drive traffic to my site and I hear this is one way to do it.

I saw the cutest dog today. The National Guard recruiter brought her little Chihuahua, puppy. I understand I can get a puppy myself. The owner is givng them away. I talked to Darryl and he said I could have the puppy but then he reminded me how jealous our big dog would be. Little dog would be mad also. The thing is how often do you have people giving away Chihuahuas?

This morning was a a little cool but not cold. By afternoon the weather was damp and cold. It's supposed to get even colder tommorrow with the possibility of some snow.

Prize: Box of Yummy Mummy Brownies

Prize: Valentines Day Morsel Box with 24 bite-size brownies in Original, Caramel, Chocolate Chip and Walnut flavors from Fairytale Brownies.

Prize: Avon gift basket with heart pendant, Bond Girl 007 fragrance, I'm Loving My Feet pedicure set, heart-shaped candle, heart bath fizzy and Sweet Delicious lip balms

Prize: Four Weddings and a Funeral, 27 Dresses, An Affair to Remember, Princess Bride and Moulin Rouge DVDs.

Prize: Yanni Voices CD/DVD and Godiva Truffles.

Prizes (2): Word World DVD

Thrifty Maven's Got A Giveaway

As some of you know, I'm trying to garner a following for my thrifty maven blog. We are hoping that having a few contests to drive traffic to the site and hopefully they will be interested in coming back again and again. This time we are giving away some headbuds. Those are the things you use to listen to your Ipod. I hope you will come visit and enter the contest

My Fruit Roll-Ups

Beth Moore's Bible Study: "Stepping Up"

"Win $25 Amazon GC"

Chores pad, various desk pads, school years home organizer, desktop day planner in leopard, desktop day planner in faux crocodile and mini daily in leopard from momAgenda

Laura: Starbucks Gift Card (US only)

A Standard Portrait Session and a Basic Digital Media Package - Atlanta area only

$25 gift card to Starbucks!

($250 Keurig Brewer & Coffee)

$10 Starbucks Gift Card

Cute Cheeky Monkey Cloth Grocery Bag

$50 American Greetings Giveaway!

$30 Giftcard to Applebee's

FREE subscription to All You Magazine

free $30.00 Visa Gift Card

$25 TJ Maxx Giftcard

Chili's Guiltless Grill - I'm In!!!

I haven't participated in a bzz campaign in awhile because I've been so busy but this was one I could pass up!!!! The new guiltless Grill contains six delicious entrees that have less than 750 calories each. There are two re-invented favorites, plus four new choices, including Guiltless Carne Asada Steak, Guiltless Cedar Plank Tilapia and a Guiltless Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. Usually when you sign up you get coupons for free meals. Hey if it gets here quickly, that could be Valentine's Day dinner. Yippeee. Be sure to come back and find out how this bzz goes.

Want to become a BzzAgent? You can email me with your email and I will send you an invite. As a BzzAgent, you'll get to: Discover and try new products and services (often for free). Spread sincere word of mouth about them. Have your opinions influence some of the biggest companies and brands around.

If you are afraid you will get on a mailing list then do what I do. I have set up an email account that I use anytime I need to sign up for something like mailing list for coupons, etc. This way, if there is spam then it goes there and doesn't bother your regular address. I have received lots of cool things from Bzz Agent like: Free Nights in Hotels, Free meals at Chilis (a different campaign than this one), three months of free dog food, three sonicare toothbrushes, and more. When you report your bzz you earn points on mypoints to it works really well.

It's Saturday so it's library day. We checked out some more Dallas DVDs. Seems Darryl is ow addicted to it.

If you're a sweeper then you know today is a busy day. I have so many sweepstakes to enter. I hope to tell you more about blog sweepstakes but I can't right now. I will tell you that I will be launching another sweep soon on ThriftyMaven. I'll let you now as soon as I do.

If Kisses Were Wises

I worked on an essay contest for about an hour today sponsored by Hershey Kisses. You had to write an essay of 150 words or less and the essay will be judged on 40% Originality/Creativity, 40% Relevance to theme and 20% how well idea is articulated. I wrote it and edited and edited and finally I was happy with the results. When I went to submit my essay I realized that not all essays would be judged. You see they would be RANDOMLY selecting only three per week, for a prize of a $2,300 Visa Gift Card. So after all that work, my essay may not even see the light of day.

Today was a great day at work because it was birthday cake day. Once a month they buy a sheet cake to celebrate the birthdays for the month. Each month a delicious new flavor. Today's cake was a marble cake with a chocolate icing that tasted like chocolate Cool Whip.

We finished up our first disk of Dallas. Darryl said he didn't realize that Dallas had been on so many seasons. At this rate he said, it would take us almost a year to watch all the shows.


Looking for the blog contests I entered? Here they are:


Prize: SmartShopper automated grocery list organizer and eight Dole Parfait product coupons

Prize: Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe and Hallmark Scrapbook Studio 3.0 Deluxe software.