Almost forgot!

Hey, if this is your first time here, subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I have giveaway winners and awards to post, both of which fall under the “These Put Me In a Good Mood” category. So now that I have totally bummed everyone out, which I really hate doing, here’s some good news.

Winner of the Yoplait Kids yogurt prize pack:

Jessica at http://momforhim.blogspot.com/

Congrats, Jessica! Keep an eye out for an email from me so you can send me your mailing address.

Winners for the Cocoa Puffs Combos cereal coupons (good for one free box)…I have a surprise for this one. Since there were only 7 entries and one of those entries won the Yoplait Kids prize pack, that left 6 other entries. I only had 4 coupons to give away BUT…because the people from Cocoa Puffs Combos (specifically Amanda from their PR firm) are so awesome, they’re throwing in 2 more coupons. So that means that everyone who didn’t win the Yoplait prize pack gets a free box of Cocoa Puffs Combos! (Be ready to buy another box. The kids and I were practically fighting over who got the last bowl.)

So congrats to Mariana, Jessica, Janet F, Mary, Karin, and “Fruitbearer”. And thanks to Amanda and Cocoa Puffs Combos!

I’ll be sending emails to all of you to get your mailing address but if you see this before I get around to it, feel free to just send it to me at ThatCrazyMom at Gmail dot com.

First from Apple Blossom Designs who passed the Brillante Blog Award on to me

And from Lydia at On The Verge, an award I’ve hoped to get for a really long time because I think its totally cute

Another one from one of my favorite bloggers, MammaDawg

I always have a tough time picking people to pass these on to so I’m going to try something a little different. I want to pass these on to everyone who subscribes to my blog, either by email or feed, because you are “brillante” and you do rock! So I want all of my subscribers to grab these awards, post them on your own blog (or save them on your computer in case you ever do start a blog since I know some of you don’t have one yet) and leave me a comment with a link to your blog.

Your ad here, right now: $0

And the award goes to….

I’ve been a bit busy lately and have kinda neglected my blog. Now I have some extra free time and even though I’ve totally lost interest in everything and all I want to do is crawl into a cave and just disappear, I owe it to my friends to catch up on some awards and stuff. They thought enough of me to pass them on and for that I am grateful. I’m at a point in my life where I’m trying to hang on to every ounce of gratitude I can muster up so this helps.

First, from Dette at Mamma Dawg:

The Brillante Blog Award – I don’t know if that’s Spanish or Italian but I think it means I’m brilliant, or at least my blog is.

Brillante Blog Award

Once an award is received, the rules are as follows:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate at least seven other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

(I also received this one from “Mommy Ruby” at MoMeMo and from another friend who you can read about later in this post.)

I’m passing this one on to: Cindi, Willow, Daisy, Kim, Alyssa, Carrie, and Aurelia

Also from Dette, the award I briefly mentioned in another post:

• Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are “Kick Ass Bloggers”
• Let ‘em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they’ve received an award
• Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
• Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

This one’s going to “The Bloggess” Jenny, my son Bubba, Jason at Gorilla Sushi, Chelle the Offended Blogger, Lori the Cowboy’s Wife, and “Dad” at Dad or Bust who just welcome his first child into the world recently and is probably way too busy and sleep-deprived to see this.

And from my dear friend Cindi a/k/a Moomette’s Gram:

The Beary Best Award is given to those people who we want to know we care… just because.

The rules are simple. Click on the cute picture and it should take you to NYC Watchdog’s post and the creator of this sweet award.

I want to give this one to the same people I gave the Brillante Award to and to a few other people: Regina, my new friend Lydia at On The Verge, Tricia, Tishia Lee, and my friend Faye who doesn’t have a blog (yet!) but she reads and comments on mine and we chat on Twitter when she has a chance to get online.

(Cindi also passed the Kick Ass Blogger award to me even though she knew I had one already. So now I kick twice as much ass.)

And then from one of my new blogger friends, Lydia at On The Verge who I really want to give a special “shout out” to because she’s a new blogger and I’d like everyone to visit her site and welcome her to the blogosphere. She’s a SAHM to 4 beautiful girls and she’s just trying to stay sane too. She also passed the Brillante Award to me.

I also wanted to thank Regina and Cindi for voting for my Fall Fashion Trend to help me win the Flip video camera. Lori at A Cowboy’s Wife got way ahead on the first day so I decided not to crawl on my knees and beg spend time on soliciting more votes.

And I also wanted to thank a few people for their support recently during some conversations on Twitter.

Grant Griffiths, Carrie, Daisy, Gingerken, and Angela.

Thanks to everyone. You really have no idea how important it was to me to write this post and acknowledge the people who I consider friends.

Your ad here, right now: $0

We’re all mad here

So I check my email this morning and amongst all of the spam was a trackback to one of my posts telling me this:

Wow. How cool is that? Especially since it came from Jenny a/k/a/ The Bloggess who I think is really cool and I wanna, like, hang out with her whose blog I really enjoy.

Anyway I was reading some of the other featured posts and found a few that really struck a chord with me. I love reading blogs by people who face some of the same obstacles that I do. Not in a “misery loves company” kind of way but in a comforting “you’re not alone” kind of way.

‘Alice in Wonderland’ is one of my all-time favorite stories (and Disney movies). I love the Cheshire Cat so much I almost had him tattooed on my shoulder. And one of the best lines in the whole movie is “We’re all MAD here.”

Ain’t that the truth?

But while most people are afraid of the madness, I embrace it.

The first post I felt compelled to comment on was ‘Manic Depression’ by NakedJen. She writes:

I remember looking at him with a very strange curiosity.  And then thinking to myself, honestly, that my mother had put him up to this.  That the two of them were in cahoots and that this was just her way of controlling me further.  That I was, in fact, perfectly fine.  In my mind, a person with mental illness is not the Valedictorian.  She did not graduate Summa Cum Laude from college.  She didn’t get straight A’s.  She didn’t win national playwriting awards.  A person with mental illness lived in a box.  And drank vodka straight from a bottle to keep the demons at bay.  She didn’t function in every day society.

See, I’m one of those people who truly believes there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Einstein was crazy. Charles Manson was brilliant. No, that’s not an insult to Albert or a compliment to ol’ Chuck. Its true that they were both highly intelligent as well as mentally ill. They both walked that fine line and fell off of it onto opposite sides.

That fine line scares me though. What is it that seperates a brilliant philosopher from the crazy cat lady? If you’ve been reading my blog and following me on Twitter, you’ve probably already safely assumed that I will be falling into the latter category.

Anyway, then there’s this from a woman who calls herself Sugar that wrote this post:

I once had a daughter that was spirited and willful, too. Life was so difficult. Every little thing turned into some huge catastrophe that was impossibly insurmountable. We screamed our hatred and loathing at each other with reckless abandon. How had flesh of my flesh become so hurtful and cruel? How had I become the monster that would yell so many ugly words back at her? I couldn’t handle the chaos any longer and thought that her father could take over. In giving her the space I thought she needed, I’ve allowed a wider gap to grow. In a time when I thought we’d understand one another, I am instead experiencing her cold silence. We have not spoken in nearly six months. I call… I text… I email… to no avail. What does she want from me? I’ve cried that to the night sky so many times lately.

I know the feeling. Sissy and I butted heads for years. Our relationship went from one extreme to the other. We were always either really close to the point where she considered me her best friend and had me in her Number One spot on her MySpace friends list (hey, if you have teenagers, you know that’s a HUGE deal!) or we were screaming at each other with threats coming from me to kick her out and threats coming from her to run away. Then back in February she carried hers out, even though she blamed me and told anyone who would listen – including Princess’ dad and Bubba’s dad – that I kicked her out.

Just a few days ago she told me to fuck off because I told her I don’t have her W-2 forms. Nice, huh? Yet when she sent me a text a couple days later apologizing, my response was not “Yeah, me too. It was “What do you want?”

And then Sugar ends her post with this:

My heart and prayers go out to all the parents that have this heaviness to bear. Remember, though, no matter how difficult your “spirited” child may be, a life without that precious one is immeasurably more painful. Seek assistance in any way, I implore you. Love your child through it all and they will grow and love you back… eventually.

Ouch.

Screw it, I’m gonna go talk to my cats.

Your ad here, right now: $0

Tag! I’m “it”!

I’ve been so busy over the past week or so – ok, I’m always busy but even moreso lately – and I haven’t had much time to get caught up with blog posts. (Do you realize that I have like 429 7 blogs now? This one, the sadly-neglected co-parenting blog, my graphics blog, my VA blog, my “diary”, an anonymous blog, and a group blog I’m launching soon for single WAHMs. Hey, that’s one for every day of the week!)

Anyway, I’ve been tagged a few times lately with a “Random Things About Me” meme. From Diane (another “crazy mom”…we’re planning world domination) at Crazy Mom’s Journal and Cindi at Moomette’s Magnificents tagged me with “6 random things” and Alyssa at Life From My Laptop tagged me with “7 random things”. So I averaged them out and came up with “6.333333 Random Things About Me”.

1) I’m left-handed. I love all of those lefty jokes about only lefties being in their right mind. I even have a left-handed coffee mug that says “Lefties Do It Right”.

2) I’m a Golden Gloves champ and a state gold medalist in boxing. I won the gold medal after knocking a girl out in the second round. My kids have seen me compete. You would think kids wouldn’t be able to tolerate watching their mom get hit but mine were loving it! In fact, they were sitting in the crowd hanging out with the kids of the woman I was competing against. I even went to the Women’s National Golden Gloves in Augusta, GA one year and got my @$$ kicked by lost to a 19 year old girl.

3) I’m also a former rollergirl. I did derby for about a year under the name Raquel Welts and I was the Sponsorship Director for our local league. I even landed us a $3,000 deal with Pabst Blue Ribbon.

4) I’ve lived in Europe twice. My parents were both military so I lived in Germany with my dad and in Spain with my mom. This happens to be the reason I am not allowed to donate blood through the American Red Cross. Something about mad cows….

5) I have a condition called hyperhidrosis. It runs in my family. Some of my relatives had it so bad they had surgery. I just take medication for mine.

6) I have three brothers. Actually, they’re all half-brothers. My dad has twin boys from his second marriage and my mom has a son from her second (and current) marriage. So…if my twin brothers are my half brothers, does that add up to a whole brother? Oh, and they’re both diabetic (and so is my son).

And for that .3333333 random thing about me…(you were wondering how I was going to pull that one off, weren’t ya?):

A link to my last “random things about me” post

Pretty clever, huh? See, since I’ve already posted it, it was almost effortless…it only took about 1/3 the effort.

Ok, so rather than follow the rules – I’m such a rebel – and choose six or seven people to tag, I’m going to open it up to anyone who wants to jump in and take the challenge. I’ve had a LOT of new visitors lately thanks to my giveaways so I’m hoping I gained some new regular readers and I’d love to learn about you if you’re one of those that plans on sticking around. If you DO decide to take the tag, leave me a comment and let me know!

Your ad here, right now: $0

Contest! Prize Package worth OVER $2000.00

This is a GREAT week for giveaways!

Here’s another one, especially for all of you Mompreneurs out there.

Moms United in Business is giving away over $2,000 worth of prizes including:

1 year Moms United in Business Advertising Package ($1872.00 value)

1 Lifetime Listing in the MUIB Business Directory ($15.00 value)

1 Custom Blogger Template provided by Angie Vinez, of www.angelavinez.com ($75.00 value)

Send Out Cards Gift Account provided by Holly Burba ($14.20 value)
16 postcards or
10 greeting cards or
6 customized “Picture Plus” cards or
5 customized “Picture Plus” tri-folds
or a combination package

E-book provided by Terri Seymour of Seymour Products

A custom mommy calling card or business card design. The winner will have their choice of either a mommy calling card or a business card design. They are designed with Vista Print’s specifications provided by Kim of Little Ladybug Designs ($35.00 value)

Lifetime subscription to Dinners in a Flash provided by Julie of Dinners In A Flash, an online dinner planning service that lets busy moms plan, shop and cook dinner quickly and easily. Choose from preset menus, that are completely customizable or create your own perfect menu from an amazing collection of quick and easy dinner recipes. It automatically creates a perfect waste-free grocery list saving you time and money.
($50.00 per year value)

Your ad here, right now: $0