Barking Mad

Special Delivery...I am PUBLISHED!

My complimentary copies of the October 2010 (it's the first of two editions, my feature appears in the first edition for October), Woman's Day magazine in which something I wrote appears.

I went through the roof with excitement when I heard the package hit the back porch and realized what it was.  Then I immediately wanted to kick our UPS guy in the junk because I didn't want MY copies bent or misshapen in any way!  I felt like running after the big brown truck and yelling, "HEY DUDE!  I'M IN THIS MAGAZINE DAMMIT!  DON'T JUST THROW STUFF AROUND LIKE THAT!!!!!"

But I didn't, because frankly my hands were shaking and I was too excited about tearing into the package and getting my very first glimpse of my own writing in publication.

I understand that for a lot of bloggers out there, especially those in the intellectually elite crowd, that being published in a major magazine might not seem like much, or it might even be something they're used to and have experienced multiple times.  But for me?  This is HUGE!  All I have ever wanted to do my entire life is write.  It's the one thing I am most passionate about next to my husband and children.

I opened up the package, hands shaking, feet moving constantly against the hardwood floor, teeth biting down on my lower lip.  I pulled out the two copies of the magazine.  So fresh from the presses.  Glossy and smooth.  I took extra care in turning each page so as not to crack the spine (something I can NEVER manage to NOT do with paperback books, whereas my husband has NEVER cracked a paperback spine in his entire life!) and found the pages that my feature was on, along with the other two bloggers who were featured (I'd link to them, and will eventually, but I'm not not sure how much I'm supposed to share from an advance copy of a magazine that is not available for purchase until 8/31/10) and ran my hands along the pages.

There were my words.  In all their black and white glory.  I was a bit taken back by the photo that accompanied the story, because to me, it appeared like, when they cropped the image I gave them to use, it added 20lbs to my face.  It didn't take away from the words...MY words.  I hated the appearance of the photo but I loved the beauty of my words appearing in print, for the first time ever.

To put it succinctly, while the subject matter is very emotional and I share my actual weight (oh dear God, did I really do that, in a nationally circulated magazine????), I'm proud of myself for taking the opportunity I was blessed with to tell part of my story, in my own words.

I.AM.PROUD.OF.MYSELF.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've uttered those words.  Far too few.   Here's to be being published for the first time and to hearing those words a lot more from here on out!

Are We Ever Going to Get Tired of Sexy Vampires? NEW MOON GIVEAWAY!

 

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED!!!

The winners are...

Jenn from Three Pugs and  a Baby

and

Brooke from Txting Mr. Darcy

LADIES....Get in touch with me ASAP so I can instruct Borders where to send your DVD's!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS Jenn and Brooke!!!

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I'm going to keep this short and simple.

Tweet about this contest and be sure to include @Barking_Mad in the body of your tweet.

Leave a comment on this post.

I'll draw two winners on Wednesday 3/17/10 at 10PM EST.   The DVD's will be shipped out from the vendor (Borders - because of the awesome Borders-only goodies!) directly to you. 

Now, as far as my question...Yeah, I'm ready for vampires to be the bad guys again - as long as their drop-dead gorgeous.   I'm growing tired of the glittery disco-ball vampires.  Give me an eternally damned blood sucker, one that keeps me up at night and sends shivers down my spine. 

Sorry RPatz...I'm over the shiny-Volvo-driving-woodland-creature-dining-emo-vampire.  

THE FINE PRINT: Void where prohibited...which really is just my fancy way of saying that if I've had sex with you,  you gave birth to me, if I gave birth to you,  if you are a sibling (rivalrous or not), or in any, way, shape, or form related to me, nanny nanny boo boo, you can't enter the contest. Dear FCC, no one paid me or compensated me for this post, or the movies. They were self-provided!

 

Winter Weekends in Maine

This past weekend saw us make the 6 hour drive back to Maine to check on the house, clean out the fridge and the chest freezer and make some decisions about the monumental pile of crap that's stacked to the ceiling of our large two-car garage.

OK who am I kidding?  When we actually got there, we managed to spend a total of maybe 4 hours back at the house and the rest of the time at the waters edge, throwing glacially cold pebbles and rocks into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.  Alright alright...you've caught me again!  Gaby and Gareth stood around throwing rocks into the water whilst I had my camera aimed at just about everything in my line of sight. But at least I wasn't the only idiot outside, in subzero temps, cursing at the cold and the havoc it was wreaking with my shutter speed...

 

Personally, I can't throw anything, be it a rock or a ball, to save my life.  Gaby has inherited her daddy's penchant for tossing and skipping stones.   I'm better off with a camera in my hands vs. a pebble or rock...take my word for it.  If you don't believe me, just ask Tammy Davis whose tooth I knocked clean out of her head back in the 2nd grade, with a ... that's right, a rock.  I was aiming at a hill behind her. Need I say more?

When she wasn't flinging stones into the icy indigo depths of the ocean, Gaby was goofing off with her favorite person in the entire world...her daddy!

  

  

Gareth tried, unsuccessfully, to get a picture of her and I together.  Between the freezing blasts of wind coming off the water and Gaby trying to put snow down my back, it just wasn't happening!

 

As always, I tried in vain to get a photograph of Gaby where she was looking directly at me and not off to the side.  One of these days I'll get it through my thick head that whenever she sees me with the camera she does the exact opposite of what I want her to do.  I need to tell her to look at my shoes and maybe she'll look at the camera for once.

I just wanted one little winter 2010 photo.  Just one.  Is that too much to ask?  Apparently, if you're 4, and there are mounds and mounds of freshly fallen, powdery snow to jump into, it is.

"Gaby, can you look right at mommy and give me a pretty smile?"

 

"Ummm, sweets, that's not what mommy had in mind.  I just want a pretty smile, just one."

  

"Errrr, Gabz, that's not what I had in mind. How about a little less tongue, and can you stand up straight? Come on now, look at mommy...look at the camera..." 

  

"OK, well good, you're standing up straight.  You sure do have pretty teeth. Can we take a picture to send to Meggy, and show her what pretty teeth you have?" 

 

"Gaby, baby, sweetheart, just one little smile?  Right at mommy? Pretty please with sugar on top and maybe a pony too?"

  

"Gaby, baby, please, my fingers are losing their feeling.  Do you want mommy's fingers to fall off?  All your school chums will call me 'Nubbins'...do you really want your friends to make fun of your fingerless mommy?  If you just look right at the camera real quick for me, I'll buy you a pony and a rocket!"

  

I think her expression says it all; "This is as good as it gets old lady!"

And now m'dears, I'm off to figure out just where the hell I'm going to keep not just one pony, but two, and to Google NASA and see if I can borrow a rocket.  

 

Barking Mad's Crazy Christmas $300 Target Giftcard Giveaway!

  

CONGRATULATIONS TO...

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Sharla from The Mom Nerd!

I'm sorry it took me forever to post this.  I told Gaby I'd let her draw the name out of the Santa hat and she was bound and determined to NOT get up this morning!  The one morning I don't want to sleep in, she does!  Go figure.

Congratualtions Sharla.  Please email me at iambarkingmad@gmail.com ASAP with your contact details so I can overnight your Target gift card!  Happy Shopping!

Let's get right to the point shall we (before I go completely stark raving mad and pull all of my hair out because all of this packing and the mess and don't even get me started on the dust it's stirring up is going to make me completely CRAZY...hence the giveaway!) because time is of the essence!

Between now and 10PM on December 14th, 2009 you can enter for a chance to win a $300 Target gift card...just in time for Santa's Big Day!

I have been so richly blessed in so many ways.  I think it took some really hard times (not that we're completely through the woods yet, but I think I stand a much better chance of surviving them today than I would have a year ago at this time) to make me realize how truly wealthy I am when it comes to things that can not be quantified or hold no real value in the material world.   One of the things I've come to discover lately is that I have this absolute gift of joy that's been gifted to me.  I'm stressed beyond belief over this short-notice move and all that comes with it, but all I need do is look around me at the smiles that grace my life and I am immediately filled with a sense of joy and gratefulness. 

You must have a blog to enter.  No ifs, ands or buts about it!  Gotta have one.  

Write a post about what brings you joy in your life.  I don't care if it's warm puppy dog noses, pink kitten paws, snuggles in the morning with your kids, or enjoying a hot cup of coffee in the still, small, quiet of the breaking dawn.  If it brings you any measure of joy, write about it and share that joy with us.  Once your post is up, link back here in the MckLinky area so that we can all click over (linky love...tis the season!), and read about it.  At the end of your post make sure you link back here to this post.  Also, display the button below in your post too! Oh and don't forget to leave me a comment...I love comments!

That gets you an initial entry into the giveaway.

For further chances to win, you can do any or all of the following...

Tweet about the giveaway and be sure to link to this post in the body of the tweet and include @Barking_Mad in the tweet as well.

Display the button, below (I'll put the code up by 11PM tonight), on the sidebar of your blog...THIS WILL GET YOU TWO ADDITIONAL ENTRIES!

For a chance to get an additional possible SIX entries you'll need to do some sleuthing around the asylum.  Answer the following six questions by digging through my archives and EMAIL the answers to me at iambarkingmad@gmail.com .  For each correct answer you'll get another entry into the giveaway. DO NOT ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS IN THE COMMENTS!  Any comments with the answers to the following questions will be DELETED!

1.  What did I do that caused me to loose most of my eyelashes? 

2.  What are the names of our four cats?

3.  I have certain "Mad Skillz"...what might those be?

4.  What part of my body did I glue to what part of my automobile?

5.  Gaby said something really naughty once upon a time and I got a video of it.  What did she say?

6.  What was the name of the lead singer in what band that I had a mad crush on and then found out he   was actually kinda creepy in real life?

There you go! Easy as that.  You have a chance for your name to go in the pot a total of 10 times.

THE FINE PRINT: Void where prohibited...which really is just my fancy way of saying that if I've had sex with you,  you gave birth to me, if I gave birth to you,  if you are a sibling (rivalrous or not), or in any, way, shape, or form related to me, nanny nanny boo boo, you can't enter the contest. Dear FCC, no one paid me or compensated me for this post, or the gift cards. They were self-provided!

 

code for the above button is below

<a href="http://www.iambarkingmad.com/spotted_dick_and_other_mu/2009/12/barking-mads-crazy-christmas-300-target-giftcard-giveaway-.html"><img src="http://www.iambarkingmad.com/christmas09giveawaybutton.jpg" border="0"></a>

GOOD LUCK!!!!

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED! 

THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING AND CHECK IN TOMORROW MORNING AT 8A.M. EST  WHEN THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED!

 

The EASIEST Cookies You Will Ever Bake

I know, I've gone all "Julia Child" on you guys!  In all honesty, Julia Child is probably rolling over in her grave that I've associated her name with something that is probably closer to Redneck/WhiteTrash cooking than anything else. 

I do have another post I'm working on, about a fart...but that's all I'm saying about that right now.  It was a special fart because...well because it brought Meaghan and I closer.  Oh wait, I wasn't going to say anything more about that, was I?

Where was I?  Oh yeah, these cookies.  They are so stinkin' easy that Gaby could have made them.  They are so easy that your neighbor who is not only hard of hearing but so blind they had to take his driver's license away, could bake them!  These amazing cookies that are incredibly tasty are so easy to make that the chimpanzee you saw last week at the zoo - the one who was flinging poo at his reflection in the glass (or that could have been at you...I'm being nice.), could make these.  Yes m'dears, they are indeed that easy.

Meaghan has been begging me to make these for her and she reasoned that I should make them tonight because my blog was "all pink and shit" and these cookies are pink.  Well, kind of.   There is no denying that there is a lot of pink in the cookies.

You know the craziest thing about these cookies?  They don't have to be pink.  They can be lemon, or baby-barf brown.  They can be Funfettilicscious. They can also be plain old boring white.  In the end, it's still the same cookie, well except it's not.  But we'll get to that point in a minute.

So let's make these together...or if that isn't going to happen, you can just sit there and scroll and I'll show you the pretty pictures I took of my oft beloved, Cherry Chip Cookies.  And seriously folks, these are the easiest cookies you will ever bake!

Here's what you'll need...

 

*not pictured - 1/3 cup of water 

Ingredients

I box of any cake mix (hence the reason they can be any kind of cookie you want)

1 egg

1/3 cup oil

1/3 cup water 

Preheat oven to 350F degrees

And now, here's what you're going to do with the above ingredients...

 

  

 

 

Bake for 15-17 minutes

 

You don't have to ice them.  Sometimes I just sprinkle with a little powdered sugar and call it good.  Tonight I went a little crazy with the icing and drizzled half with vanilla and the other half with chocolate icing.

 

  

See?  I told you they were easy. 

You should make these.  I bet you have a box of cake mix just sitting in your cupboard.  G'on, go have a look.  I'll be right here enjoying my cookies...

 

 

Don't forget, during the entire month of October, to support the fight against breast cancer, Barking Mad is in the pink!  For every comment left on each post, we'll donate a certain amount to Susan G. Komen for the Cure®.  Read more about it here!