Take your #BraveWoman pledge and start off 2012 right! #CBias

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my struggles when I was a young mother living in a bad relationship. If the internet had been around then my life would have been so much easier (yes, there was a time was when the internet was not in every household, believe it or not!)
I have made a pledge to myself every year since getting out of that relationship, that I will be aware of my actions and the actions of others, that may put my happiness in jeopardy. What about you?
You don't have to be involved in a bad relationship to make a pledge to yourself to be happy, to be aware, to be brave.
Go to Brave Woman and make a pledge. Pledge to be brave. Now, that pledge can cover so many areas of your life but the bottom line is, we, as women, have to stand up for ourselves and not anyone push us around, whether it be a man or another female. Domestic violence has found a way into many people's lives, in so many different forms that it is up to us to stand up and not be afraid anymore. I know you can do it. If I can do it, anyone can do it.
How can you be brave this year? And every year......
Please take a minute, after you have made your pledge to be brave, to check out the Facebook and Twitter pages Brave Woman.

We are all #BraveWoman.

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias but all opinions and ideas are my own. #CBias

Such a Sweet Phenomena

I belong to a an online community called Collective Bias where I have met a lot of wonderful people, including the person I'm talking about today. Her name is Tiffany Manley and she is a homeschooling mom with a lot of talents.
Tiffany and her family currently live near Birmingham Alabama after living in Washington state for about 7 years. She has been married for 10 years and has a beautiful daughter she refers to as Babydoll.
She has named her online persona 'Sweet Phenomena' and I can see why. She is sweet. She stumbled into homeschooling because they moved so much when her daughter was going into the second grade and they were having a 'flux' year with moving and getting situated. She struggled the first year but this year she seems to have it figured it all out. Her website has a lot of homeschooling tips and is a place to go for a lot of homeschooling information. It's very organized.
Of course, like everyone else on the planet (well, almost the whole planet) Tiffany has a personal facebook page and one for Sweet Phenomena as well so there are many ways to keep up with her.

I do have to admit, while looking around there is something else I found that totally mesmerized me. She's also an extremely talented cake maker/designer. Take a look at her website called The Sweet Emporium. Just take a look at this cake, isn't it gorgeous??? This is one of many on that website. There are so many beautiful cakes. I'm amazed at the creative talent. Heck, I can't even decorate a cupcake to look pretty, nevermind a 3 tiered cake like this!

 I found this picture on Tiffany's Facebok page and just thought it was so pretty. Simple and sweet.
I've enjoyed getting to know Tiffany a bit better and I hope you will take some time to get to know her a bit more too. Certainly if you homeschool your child, her site is a perfect place to go for all kinds of information.


Merry Christmas to Tiffany and her family, and to you too.

Take a pledge with Brave Woman #CBias #BraveWoman

You know how you can just be surfing the net one day and come across something that you wish you had found 20 years ago? I was recently led to a website called Brave Woman. It's a website to help women get out of violent situations, including domestic violence.

20 years ago I was in such a situation. My 1st husband was an alcoholic, and, let's just say, he was not a happy drunk. I was young and 'stupid' and didn't know how to get out of it at the time so I went through, what felt like, a long time of terrible emotional abuse and some things I just can't talk about 'til this day.

I have to wonder if I had found a website like Brave Woman, if it would have given me a place to turn that I would have felt safe turning to. It's got a community where you can talk to others in situations like yours and can put you in touch with people, in your own community who can help you.
Eventually I did leave him, with a 7 month old and a baby on the way. They are who gave me the strength because I could never imagine them going through these horrible things.

There is a pledge you can take, Facebook page you can sign up for and follow them on Twitter ( @Brave_Woman )too. I'm going to lead my 21 year old daughter to this website too. Although I have brought her up to be strong and never 'take anything' from anyone, this will be another great tool for her. It says 1 in every 4 women experience domestic violence. I don't want her to be one of them...ever.







This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias all opinions are my own.

Teaching my son how important it is to donate, using Coinstar #CBias

This was a very busy for our family. My husband was in a parade, we had grocery shopping to do, we had Christmas shopping to do, and we had to get it all done in one day because my hubby had to work on Sunday. So where, in all of this could we find time to donate any money to any charity? And how could we afford it this time of the year? Well, thanks to Coinstar and all the loose change in buckets and hanging around the house, we found a way.
Before we left the house my son, who is 12 found a bunch of change and looked at the Coinstar website with me to see where the closest one was and we found one in the Walmart we were about to go to. Then we noticed that you could donate your change to different charities. He was immediately drawn to the 'Change Making Change' charity because it was geared toward kids his age, who wanted to make a difference.

When we got to the Coinstar machine at Walmart 'Change Making Change' was not an option unfortunately, so he chose 'Feeding America'. At his school they were just talking about hunger in America and he was telling me that he was shocked to learn that kids actually live without 3 meals a day. He said it made him feel because he complains about having a peanut butter sandwich before bed instead of a bowl of cereal because we might be out of milk. (funny how kids associate things, isn't it?)
When we got home he looked up Feeding American on the internet. He noticed a banner on the side of the website that said $1 = 8  meals. "Hey mom, we just donated more than 64 meals with the change we had laying around the house. If I find more change can we go back and donate more?"
Amazing, isn't it? How a small thing can change the way someone looks at others, as well as their own lives?
Take a look at our Google+ story about our donation at the Coinstar machine in Walmart.

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias but all the opinions and knowledge gained during this campaign was totally mine, and my sons.

Halloween with #MurphyUSA and #Cbias

I love Halloween, who doesn't, right? On Sunday I had to go and get some Halloween candy for the trick or treaters that will come around so I went off to Walmart and to MurphyUSA to get some. The last time I went to Murphy USA I saw Smarties so I wanted to specifically get some of those. My kids love those too, even though they're too old to go trick or treating now. They get the leftovers though.
So, off we went to Walmart to get some groceries and then to Murphy USA to get some candy. I had already got a little bit of candy from Walmart (mostly some chocolate) and when I got to Murphy USA I found the smarties I'd been after. They were only $.50 each so I got a few of those. I got about 10 bags of various candy and then a bunch of M&M's that were also on sale for $.50 a bag. How awesome is that?? To be honest, I got a few extra M&M's peanuts for myself to munch on so I wouldn't get into the Halloween candy.

I had about 10 kids come to my door this year...a record! The last one let me take his picture. He was a ghost and he became a ghost after drowning, that's why he was blue (lol). I don't know how in the world he saw through the sheet so he did not to bump into things but he was fine. Then again, it was still light outside so maybe that's why. We had a few smarties left over and a few tootsie rolls so I was happy. If there was too much left we'd just eat it all....



Don't forget to look up Murphy USA on Facebook and Twitter too.
Click on the the pumpkin below to see the photos I took on my path to buying all this fun stuff!

Time to make a Boo Bag Surprise #DontBeTheDarkHouse

When I applied to be a part of the group one of the questions was 'who do you want to boo'? Well, that makes sense, right? After all, that is a big part of this. I didn't have to think very hard. This person was my leader in a campaign and really helped me feel comfortable with the Social Fabric group and the campaign that we were taking part in. It's funny to say, but even in an email you could hear her smile at you as she was writing it. Even after the campaign concluded she was still there to help me by explaining things and helping me out if I ever needed anything. She still 'Twitter helps' me to this day.

I do know she has a 'bunch' of kids, some hers by birth, some by marriage, so it's a good thing that she's so organized, she has to be. She's also an animal lover, which I am too.

Today I went to the store myself (well, with hubby but we went our separate ways in the store) and took my time walking around and really seeing what I could find. I always take a list with me so I knew what I was after (Snickers (specifically Snickers Fall Harvest), Milky Way, etc). I did pick up some groceries but was mainly after chocolate and fun orange Halloween stuff. I couldn't find the exact Snickers I was after but I still bought some along with some Milky Way, 3 Musketeers and some new Peanut Butter Snickers.

I had a lot of fun putting the bags together with the chocolate and little extras I put in the bags, including stars and tissue paper. I made 5 little bags, just because I thought they were so cute, rather than making 1 bag. I know she has some younger children in her home and I also put something a little extra in one bag. 1 bag is for her furry family. I do know she has a sick dog right now and that can be heart wrenching on anyone. So I put some dog treats in one bag instead of candy.

I had so much with the shop, likely the most fun I've had yet, and I can't wait to get it sent off and for her to get it. It's going out tomorrow (Monday the 17th) so I'll be watching. I hope she likes the surprise. Everyone loves getting surprised, right?

Take a look below at my This Moment story to see my whole shop or click on this link if the embedded post is not working right.

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias All the photos and opinions are my own. @CollectiveBias