My official Blogaversary is Friday, June 25th which makes it five years that I have been writing this blog.  Five years that I have been sharing with you at my little place in the blogisphere.  I know that some weeks I have a lot to share and some, not so much.  But, I also know that it has been great to get to ‘meet’ you all and share in your stories and lives as well.

I love that I have met so many wonderful people in real life through my blog.  If I had never dared myself to do this I would never have met A Crafty Mom, Andrea, Borderline Bonkers, Kami’s Khlopchyk, Secret Agent Josephine or Bethany Actually.  All of whom are just as wonderful in real life as they are on their blogs.

When I first started sharing, I did it as a lark.  I felt like I couldn’t just lurk and read others blogs without contributing a little something back.  Then, I kind of got hooked.  It became like an addiction.  I will be doing something and writing posts in my head.  Not all of them make it to the blog due to time constraints but, I see the posts or hear them while I am out and about.  And that was when I knew I was in it for good.  I can honestly say in five years that I have never thought of stopping and this blog has seen me through some pretty tough times and I am grateful for those of you who commented and helped me through them.  There are also times when things in life don’t go so well and sometimes that it when things go a little quiet here, because believe it or not there are things in my life that I don’t share with the whole world.

As a little thank you I will be giving away a few of my favorite things this week.  The Fifth Anniversary is the Wood anniversary (modern) or the silverware (traditional) since I am sponsoring my giveaways, I will stick with the more modern approach and go with wood.

So the first giveaway will be from Swanky Paper. I love Heather’s personalized notecards.  They are so fun and funky, I wish I had a set of each. The winner of this giveaway will get to choose either a flat notecard set or a folded notecard set from the personlized notecards. All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what is your favorite way to celebrate an Anniversary (and it could be any Anniversary, not necessarily a wedding one).  Contest closes at 6pm Wednesday, June 23rd a winner will be randomly chosen from all the entries.

 Tonight at 5pm, out of the blue our doorbell rang.  When the doorbell rights at that time of night it usually means a door to door salesman of some sort.  I won the draw to answer the door.  And was I ever thankful that I did!  A girlfriend of mine was standing there, with a plate of Chocolate No-Bake Cookies.  She remembered that I told her I loved them when I was a kid.  So, when she made some today she packaged some up for me and dropped them off.

What a wonderfully thoughtful thing to do for me.  It brightened  my day for sure.  They are like little drops of heaven and bring me back to my childhood when we would make them all the time.

I am not sure if this is her recipe or not, but this is the one I grew up making, straight from my Mom’s recipe card. And if you decide to make some, perhaps you should drop a plate off for an unsuspecting friend or colleague just because.

Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

• 2 c. white sugar
• 1/2 c. margerine
• 1/2 c. milk
• 6 tbsp cocoa

Bring above to boil & add

• 3c. oatmeal
• 1 c. coconut
• 1 tsp vanilla

Drop by teaspoon on wax paper.  Refrigerate and Enjoy!

 I am not going to say that Apple totally lost me, but I wasn’t the happiest customer for a little while.  I love, love, love my MacBook Pro, but the day after my one year warranty expired so did my battery.  When I called about it, I was told that my warranty had indeed expired and I would have to buy my own battery.    That was when I wasn’t the happiest customer anymore.

Fast forward a year of being attached to a power cord.  Batteries don’t come cheap and they are not high on the priority list in our , since there are three children to take care of first and we are mostly a one income family. Things like batteries for laptops don’t make it to the grocery list.

Today, after waiting a year to once again be truly wireless (and not have to get to the coffee shop at opening for the one spot with an outlet) I headed downtown to the Apple Store.  I made sure I brought my laptop with me because the last time I was there, I left without a battery because one of the salesmen didn’t believe me that he was trying to sell me the wrong one (it was too small for my laptop).

I explained my tale of woe about the battery dying the day after my warranty ran out to the clerk and could he find me one that fit since there weren’t any on the shelf.  He said he figured he could do one better and ran some diagnostics on my computer (Ok, so the first clerk passed me on to a young guy with an iPod touch who passed me along to the clerk at the counter, but it was seamless and fast).  It would seem that my battery died prematurely, it died before half of it’s life had been used. Of course, when I asked what did that mean for me? I knew by the smile on the clerks face that it meant I didn’t have to pay for another battery.  And indeed I was right.  It would seem that I had a faulty battery and that Apple does love me and wants me to keep buying their product.  It only took a year for me to get things fixed up, but honestly  I had only tried twice.

So here I sit with my newly wireless computer once again.  I am very thankful for the amazing customer service I got today.  Apple was redeemed once again for me and now I have a little something extra in my pocket because I didn’t have to spend it on a battery.

And because Apple was so nice to me I have decided to do a little Pay it Forward.  No, I am not going to give away a battery what good would that do?  But, I am going to give away a $25 gift certificate to one of my readers.

The winner will get to choose from one of three stores. iTunes (in honour of Apple), Starbucks (because I love them) or Amazon .ca or .com (because who couldn’t use a new book to read?).

All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what you use, Mac or PC?  Be sure to leave a valid email address in your comment so I can contact you if you are the winner.

Contest closes Friday, January 8th, 2010 at midnight (EST).  I will randomly draw a winner on Saturday morning.

Not something I talk about here, at all really, but once a week I help out some friends of my Dad’s.  They are a Brother and Sister who are on the elderly side.  I am sure they didn’t plan on spending their latter years hanging out with each other day after day, let alone sharing a house, but such are things that this is the way it worked out for them.  They were both married and have lost their spouses.  The Sister had two sons and lost them as well. So now, they have each other.

Once a week I go over and do the general cleaning, pass a vacuum, clean the bathrooms, a little laundry.  My Dad and my Sister also take turns and do what is needed to keep them in their house.  Which is amazing, that they still live in their house.

A few weeks ago we got to talking about Christmas decorations and how there were some in the basement and wouldn’t it be lovely to put up the tree this year.

Last week, I grabbed my littlest helper and headed over to decorate their tree.

I’m not going to say she was the most help, but it was nice to have a little girl running around their house.  She certainly brightened up their day.

In the basement I found boxes and boxes of these totally retro decorations.

I only used about 1/8th of the decorations they had, but it did the trick and a tree was born.

Not bad for a busy Mom, a little girl and some antique decorations.

Please head over to my Photography Blog for a wonderful Christmas Giveaway.  This is a chance to pay it forward to someone you know, who could really use a boost this Holiday Season.

 Last year, I chose to participate in the CIBC  Run for the Cure.  It was the very least I could do for two of my close friends who were going through treatment for breast cancer.  In two short weeks I was able to raise over $350 in support of finding the cure.

This year, due to my travels and the fact that October 4th is coming faster than I could imagine, I am less prepared than last year.  However, one week from tomorrow morning, I will be running. It was a very emotional run last year, reading all the participants bibs to see who they were running for.  I hope to feel the same emotions next week when I lace on my running shoes and join the other 5,000 or so participants.

Both of my girlfriends are doing well and are now either getting ready or going through their reconstructions.  Both are strong amazing women whom I am proud to call friends.  Their strength this past two years has shown me that we all face different challenges, but we can all get through them.  It is for them that I will run.

Should you find that you too want to do a little something or that you have a little extra pocket money you can donate (by clicking here, I am registered as BeachMama {first name} Anna {last name} in Ottawa-Gatineau).  Or if you live in Ottawa and are already running, let me know I would be happy to run beside you and offer up support for those who can’t.

Thank you.  I hope that by running today, we won’t have to when Apple is my age.

Taken from Random.org the winner is comment #5, Chantal!

Chantal Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:53 am edit

Pretty much the only exercise I do is running. I wonder if those bands might help me incorporate some strength. Thanks Anna!

Congratulations Chantal, you have won this set, I will be contacting you shortly on how to claim your prize.

Random Sequence Generator

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Timestamp: 2009-04-24 14:11:54 UTC

This year the Christmas cookies didn’t all get finished. Both in their decorating (I missed icing on one) and from the tins. Once again, I made cookies for Hubby’s staff at work. And well, this may be the last year for that.

Hubby has 46 employees, at his previous job he had 11. Every Christmas for ten years Hubby would buy boxes of Chocolate for the staff, write them all a card and everyone appreciated it. At least, if they didn’t they never said a word. Which of course it what you would expect when your boss does a little something for you.

The first year at his current job, we pulled together boxes of cookies mostly in one night, when we realized the boxes were huge and would hold way more cookies than we had on hand. While Hubby ran to the store for chocolates and stuff, I baked and baked and baked. By midnight they were ready and the staff was shocked. You see, they had never received anything for Christmas before, so it was a surprise. Last year, we were better prepared and the boxes came together rather quickly with little fuss. I even got a call from one of the staff who wanted to say thanks.

This year. We had to get new boxes, and they were a little smaller. They got the same amount of cookies, just not as much filler. Hubby has had a bit of trouble with some staff lately, nothing big, just small stuff, but stuff that made him wonder if he should give out the boxes. But, since I had a freezer full of cookies and had then baked them all off, I kinda wanted to sway him just a little, if for nothing else my waistline didn’t need a thousand cookies hanging around. He decided to go with it. So we packed them up and away they went. He received a couple of thank you’s and a few, ‘Wow, we didn’t think you would do this this year, with all the stuff going on’ but he also received a few not so nice comments. Stuff that only kids in high school would say. Stuff that any grown person would be embarased by if they actually stopped and listened to themselves. So after all that, we aren’t so sure if we will do it next year. And truthfully, it would be no sweat off my back to not have to make an extra thousand cookies at the busiest time of year. We will just have to wait and see, if the girls and boys play nice in the sandbox this year. If not, that will be the end of the cookie box tradition.

*note: none of the brown sugar fudge made it to the boxes (yes, totally my fault) and there were other cookies, I just can’t find the photos of the rest…

To help ease the pain of missing his Teacher (already) J got to help me perform the draw for  my  Blogiversary.  It was highly scientific, I wrote the names out on paper, cut or ripped them apart, folded them, placed them in a bowl and let J pull one out.  He loved it and quite frankly was ready to keep going, and going and going.  But, alas we have a winner.  Twin Mom Plus One!  Twin Mom is on a bit of a writing hiatus right now, but I am going to link to her blog anyway because she is a great writer.  I happen to know Twin Mom in real life and I believe she made me promise to hand deliver.  I do try to keep my promises so I will have to contact her and set up a date.   Congratulations Twin Mom, I hope you enjoy your photo!  And thank you all again for stopping  by my little place in the blogosphere.  I have really enjoyed the last three years and hope to bring you more fun and antics as time goes by.

 Today was the last day of school for J and it was a bit emotional.  Mostly for him, but I told myself I was not going to cry.  He made it all the way home before the tears started, but when they came it was hard for him to stop.  It was in fact the drawing for the photo that made him cheer up.  Thankfully I had it all ready for him to do when he got home. As a parent who stays home, I could not have asked for a better teacher for J.  She was kind and thoughtful and oh so patient.  I only hope that next year his teacher is just as great, it will be hard to top this first year.  Here’s hoping. And as his French Teacher told them, you have homework to do this summer, “Have Fun”.

Next week on J’s last day of Junior Kindergarten, I will be celebrating my third anniversary in blogging. I was first introduced to blogging by my friend Danigirl, who was a closet blogger (to those of us that knew her in real life) for a little while, then she let it out that she started her blog. Now, Dani is a writer. She should be writing books but, instead spends her days writing for our Government. What they ever did to deserve her talent is a wonder to me. All that aside, I started reading her blog. From there, I found Ann Douglas’s blog (which was a thrill for me because I had all of Ann’s books at the time and loved her even though I didn’t really know her. Now I know her and love her even more) and from Ann, I found Secret Agent Josephine. And I think most of you know that I just love SAJ for her cleverness, craftiness and all around able to pull one out of the hatness (I know that isn’t a word, but it’s my blog story so I can make up a word if I want to).

These three women kept me going through some of my earliest morning wakings with J. What to do at four o’clock in the morning with a two year old??? Answer, TV and a laptop. Then, they kept me going when I just needed to check out for a while. Through their blogs I found countless others and officially became an addict. After a while, I wanted to put something out there to offer back for all those who offered so much to me. But, what do I do? Although I always wanted to write, I never considered myself a writer. What would I write about? My life is so boring. Well, blogging has helped me in both of those areas. Being a Mom is wonderful, but it surely can let you get stale in your thoughts or writing abilities, so blogging has helped keep my mind fresh and skills up to date. It has also helped me find the fun things in our day or if there aren’t enough of them to start making time for some fun things. I have shared with you happy times and sad times and some pretty boring times. So, in light of all of it, I have decided to host my first ever Giveaway.

I have been trying to figure out what to offer. Something sewn, something knit, something to eat??? Then I realized, I should give away one of my photographs. It won’t take me too much time, I already have them printed and sitting on my piano (I wanted to see how they would turn out blown up to an 8×10 size) and I have always wanted to give the gift of photography so here it is. This is your chance.

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me which one of the four photographs you would like. That is it, that is all. Next Wednesday, June 25th on my actual Anniversary of starting this blog, I will put all entrants names into a bowl and draw a winner.

Thank you all for stopping by and spending a little time at the beach. And don’t forget… there is always a little sand in your happy place.

Please note: The photos were slightly cropped when I made the mosaic, you will see a little more of the flowers in the actual photograph.