A Winner and Some Random Thoughts

It’s that time of year again.

The hours are long. The time to write almost non-existent.

As such, I’ve failed to post my winner for the My Memories Suite!

Without further ado, and with thanks to Random.org, let’s pick a winner, shall we?

 

Congratulations, Elizabeth! I’ll be in touch!

In other news, the kids are back in school. My Christmas tree is still up. (Probably should be dealing with that instead of writing a post with no real point to it, huh? Professional procrastination.

Those of you who have prayed for us, for our challenges with our son,  thank you. Please don’t stop. It’s still very up and down. These next few months, always a challenging time anyway, could be even more so. We’re still working on it all, and it provides me a great deal of peace to know you all are out there thinking of us.

It’s late, and I’m struggling to stay awake at this point, so I’m going to call it a night! Have a wonderful week.

My Memories

I have really great intentions. I have boxes of paper, special scissors, cute little corner things. Dozens of prints, waiting to be trimmed, framed, embellished.
In my mind, I create beautiful scrapbook pages. My kids’ pictures are perfectly cropped with detailed edges and immaculately aligned mats. Journaling is color-coordinated in flawless handwriting, with nary a scribble in sight.
In real life? I have a couple different scrapbooks that I MIGHT have finished two or three pages in. The edges are crooked. The mats don’t match up quite right. Journaling? Yeah, I’m not sure my kids didn’t write those simple paragraphs.
I’m full of brilliant ideas, but not so good with execution. Add into the mix that my life is a digital one – I blog, I tweet, I Facebook. I use a digital camera or my cell phone to take pictures. I rarely print any of them. As such, the idea of a digital solution appeals to me!
I was given the opportunity to use MyMemories Digital Scrapbooking Software. People? I can do this. See!?

I did this as a 5x7 page, and could have totally used it as a Christmas Card!  (Except, I took to long. But now I’m ON it for next year!)
And now I’m envisioning birthday invitations… fun post-vacation postcards… And oh.my.word, first day of school postcards to the grandparents? The kids could share their own little stories of the first day, and that photo we always take? The happy grandparent gushing of it all…
There are great premade templates to get you started, and literally hundreds of pieces to build your own layouts within the MyMemories Suite, plus tons of great additional packages. The scrapbook software itself is very user-friendly, with several export options, allowing for sharing in print or online. You can even make video montages of your favorite pages. (What a great idea for a wedding or baby’s first birthday!)
I might even get around to doing something like a baby book for each of my kids, since pretty much every picture of them ever is digital. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
I’ve had a blast playing with frames, photos and embellishments, and I want YOU to get to play along! The great folks at MyMemories are going to let me give one of YOU a copy of their MyMemories  Suite v3 - a $40 value!
So, here’s how to enter:
1. Leave me a comment telling me what your FIRST project would be – a montage of the kiddies? A beautiful image from your wedding? A photo of grandpa with that trophy fish? Share that memory!
2. Head over to the My Memories site and poke around, then tell me what scrap pack you’re in love with – I’m eyeing this Winter Fantasy 3 pack! Be sure to leave it in a separate comment!

3. Tweet about it! You can say what you’d like, but be sure to include @MyMemoriesSuite , @TaxMegan, and a link to this giveaway! Here’s an easy copy-paste for you, if that will help! 

I want to win @MyMemoriesSuite scrapbook software from @TaxMegan at http://bit.ly/sZH56J

Once you’ve tweeted, shoot me a link to your tweet as a separate comment here!
You’ve got three possible entries for an endless collection of memories – what a great way to start the New Year! Entries will close at 11:59pm Eastern on Thursday, January 5, 2012.
Don’t want to wait? Ask me how to save $10 on your purchase of the My Memories Suite!

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of the My Memories Suite at no cost to review, as well as a copy to give to one of you. All opinions here are my own. At the close of the entry period, the winner will be selected using random.org to identify the “winning” comment. Any questions regarding this giveaway should be submitted by email to me at allabunchofmomsense (at) gmail (dot) com.

Exploring the Pieces

Every comment.

The tweets of support.

Each time I’ve read the words that I wrote.

You guys, the tears have been pretty prevalent. Those were hard to write. It was REALLY hard to hit publish. What I put here? These are my memories. This place is my journal, where I can record my life. My kids’ childhood. The things I WANT to remember, to see? I want them to be the happy things.

But real life isn’t always happy. And I promised myself when I started this that I was going to be real.

The pain? The anger?

It’s real. It’s more real than I could ever imagine.

 

 

Knowing that it was time to put it here meant it was time to find other answers too. It was not something that I was going to be able to fix.

That was hard, too.

I’m his mom. I should be able to fix it. And I failed.

Ouch.

I did, however, take advantage of some resources. I’ve had a couple of conversations, he’s had a conversation. Not with each other, not about this, not yet. But we’re working on it, and we have help with it.

So, thank you. Thank you for understanding, for supporting, for encouraging, for praying. Don’t stop yet, we’ve got a long way to go, and it comforts me to know that you’re out there pulling for us.

We’re going to get there, though. Because I won’t fail completely. There are too many people out there ready to help carry me.

Broken

It just makes me want to cry.

He’s so angry – at me, at his dad.

I don’t know why. It’s not new, either. We go through phases where it’s better, then it is worse again. Mood swings. Violent, turbulent swings.

It’s been this way for a long time. I kept thinking that it would get better, but it isn’t. Not at all.

I want to fix it. I want to make it better. I’m his mom, it’s my job.

But I don’t know how.

I’m not sure how to fix it when I don’t know for sure why it’s broken. Or even what is actually broken.

But it is.

And it’s breaking my heart.

Oh, HI! Remember me?

Oops.

Not so good at this blogging thing sometimes! It’s been three weeks since I’ve posted, and it’s not even tax season!

We’ve been keeping busy, doing a little this and a little that.

I joined the Pinterest craze. I would LOVE to tell you that I haven’t blogged because I’ve been pinning, but roughly 80% of the time I try to use Pinterest, it doesn’t work, so I quit. Even still, I’ve found some fun things to pin.

My husband won a pair of Colts tickets from Jim Irsay on twitter. (I’d tell you to follow my husband, but it would be a wasted effort. He doesn’t tweet, except to Irsay. That potential social media addiction is lost to him – it would interfere with his online poker.) It wasn’t the amazing, multi-post worthy experience I had back in January, but I’m all about any chance I can get to see my Colts play in person. If you follow the NFL at ALL, you know that the consistently amazing Colts team is … not so amazing this year. We’ve not won a single game yet. Rough.

You know that saying about lemons and making lemonade?

When you’re having a really bad year, the bandwagon fans who have tickets to games are willing to sell them really cheap.

I jumped on StubHub, and we had the chance to take our sons to their very first Colts / NFL game. Totally surprised them with their tickets, took our time after the game just wandering around Lucas Oil, took lots of pictures, and while we still lost the game, we won the day.

 

(Eli in our seats; Jeep in our seats; My Guys in front of LOS; Jeep & Eli in front of the field & window in Lucas Oil.)

We had a wonderful time, and a fresh round of thanks to Jim Irsay and the Colts organization for helping make it all possible!

I think that will do it for tonight!

A little follow-up

I must extend my thanks to the folks over at BlogFrog -

I tweeted to them, crushed, when voting closed early on the Hero Mom Contest. It was, however, the weekend, and they weren’t on hand immediately.

In the meantime, a kind soul stepped up and offered to cover the cost for Colette’s trip.

Tonight, I was contacted by a representative at BlogFrog.

They acknowledged that an error had, in fact, taken place. Time zone issues, changes from the norm, human error. It happens.

They obviously couldn’t give me that last 30 minutes, couldn’t put me into that top five spot.

They did, however, graciously and humbly apologize, and offer up a $100 gift card, which would have been our “guaranteed” prize for being in the top 5.

That card is, of course, going to be sent to Colette & Tammy, for Colette to use as spending money while in Nova Scotia. (That was our “back-up” plan anyway, just in case we didn’t win the whole enchilada.)

So, while that $2,500 would have been great, and having that nice, big donation for the folks over at Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation would have been AWESOME, we’re so blessed. Blessed. Colette’s trip is paid for, she has some spending money, we’ve raised some awareness for pediatric cancer.

Thank you again  to all of you who put up with all my tweets and such begging for your votes, and special thanks to each of you who voted and shared!

Losing. And Winning.

I went to bed crushed. Broken hearted.

Feeling cheated.

After all the tweets, the Facebook posts, the blog posts, I was watching the Hero Mom contest like a hawk. I knew the end time. I watched as we started out down 11 votes for that coveted fifth place spot. I saw the votes roaring up, and we grabbed it, leading by as many as 23 votes.

Then, in the last couple of hours, that sixth place person started sneaking back up.

And up.

And up.

With half an hour left until the 11:59 pm Central time deadline, we were down 2 votes. I went to resend the link and realized the page was… different.

Locked.

It was over. It wasn’t supposed to be, but the top five spots were locked in, and we missed it by two votes.

My Hero Mom wasn’t going to get a $100 gift card. She wasn’t going to be in the running for the $2,500.

Sixth place. By two votes.

I was sad, and truth told, I was angry. Angry that we didn’t get that last half hour. I felt cheated. I felt my Hero Mom had been cheated.

This morning was a little better. I was still sad, disappointed. Hurt. I tweeted with several people, Facebooked with others. I shared what happened, was comforted and supported.

My Hero Mom posted these words:

Honey, it's ok :) your friendship and care is worth more than money to me! ♥ I'm sure the money will come through for us, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, after all :)

People? At that very moment, as those words were being written, God was providing.

I was contacted. The money for Colette’s trip?

Covered.

In full.

I’ve cried an awful lot this morning. I’ll probably have a sinus infection, because I am the world’s snottiest crier, but the happy tears? I can shed them over and over again.

For all of  you who voted, shared, tweeted, facebooked, and generally tolerated my internet harassment, thank you.

And for YOU?

There are not thanks enough.