The Great 2010 Sweeps Wrap-Up...

I think I finally hit "critical mass" in the Sweeps-&-Contest Department.

For several years, I, the Sweeps & Contest Queen of Landgraff, West Virginia, figured that if I entered enough of them, eventually I'd hit "critical mass" and the wins would start pouring in, and it look like that finally occurred! This blog-post is a love poem and a great, big Thank You! to all the great companies and blogs that host fabulous sweepstakes and contests!

Our gorgeous Aspinal Wine Collar!

Internet sweeps and contests seemed more lucrative to me than midnight computer solitaire, and they gradually became more and more addictive... Much more so after I won that first "big one"- a fabulous long weekend at the Golden Door Spa at the Boulders in Arizona- complete with plane tickets and spa treatments!- in an Oil of Olay contest ("my most romantic summer"), back in 2002. Since then, I've kind of become a "sweeper", and basically enter anything and everything- as long as it's:

1.) for a prize I truly want to win, and

2.) if the prize is a trip, it's for 2 and comes with plane tickets.

(I have these rules now as I've won stuff like a case of condoms, and several trips for one and land-package-only prizes that we couldn't use, and those were bummers).

My excellent Ergonomic Ball Chair!

My gorgeous AuraLee bracelet!

The LeCreuset (we picked Flame Red!) I won in a Brickfish contest!

My Fabulous Santana "shooties" from Princess Dominique's Blog!

Last year was pretty fabulous, what with our Feb. trip to San Diego (thanks to winning GameStop's "World At War" Sweeps www.gamestop.com ), the totally magnificent $525 Mary Norton www.marynorton.com fur-&-Swarovski crystal pumps from the FABULOUS http://www.shuzsociety.com/ weekly sweeps (which yes, I wore in San Diego...), a set of great Hamilton Beach pots and pans for Chef Dan (which arrived while we were in San Diego!), and then a truly incredible guitar signed by everyone at the Country Music Awards, in the TurboTax www.turbotax.com "super status" contest on Facebook!

But this year started with a bang and never let up!

On Jan 1st I won a gorgeous Aspinal sterling silver wine collar (that we use All the time at the Elkhorn Inn- silly as it may seem, it's really practical as well as elegant- the velvet lining really does stop wine from dribbling all over the table!) in a poetry contest (my winning entry: "Ode to a Wine Collar") on The Examiner's Wine Blog.

My hand, wearing my gorgeous Auralee pearl bracelet!

Then I won a pair of fab $250 Santana "shooties" in a sweeps on Princess Dominique's excellent fashion blog: http://www.princessdominique.com/fashionblog/

And them came THE biggie: Dan won us my dream: 2 tickets to Israel from Ben Gurion University of the Negev! http://web.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Home/ (And yes, we're going!)

I love to enter contests on www.brickfish.com, for although they are often rather time consuming to enter, they're interesting and fun, and this year I won a  Remington Hairdryer, a check for $400, and a magnificent $350 LeCreuset Dutch Oven for Chef Dan!

Me in my Fab Santana "shooties"!

Right after I got out of the hospital this fall I won a gorgeous silver and pearl AuraLee bracelet from http://www.auralee-company.com/ in their Facebook sweeps, which cheered me up immensely!

My other wins this year included a hilarious tee-shirt from www.CheapStingyBargains.com on Facebook; Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil from the Burp! Where Food Happens Blog www.eatatburp.com for Chef Dan; for a friend: TriLash Eyelash Serum from the BusyWorkingMama blog www.busyworkingmama.com; a sample of Phytomer Skincare from www.healinglifestyles.com; and a lovely sampler set of Jaime Earl skin care products (that I REALLY like) from www.JaimeEarl.com on one of the "mommy blogs" that's linked right here on my blog!

Just in time for Hanukkah, I won 2 great gift certificates: 

$250 at Buckle www.buckle.com (got incredible jeans with "angel wings" embroidered on the butt, sky-high peep-toe "gladiator" heels, and two "way cool" tops), and $100 at Tilly's www.tillys.com  in the "Levi's & Tilly's Front Flips & the Vegas Strip Sweepstakes" (got a pair of great, warm Aussie Dogs winter boots, a totally cuckoo shredded "bondage" dress, & a pair of "jeggings") - a wardrobe of young, fun clothes that I'd NEVER own if I hadn't won them!

I also won a wonderful book during a delightful Lubavitch (www.lubavitch.com  and www.chabad.org)
Hanukkah #FrumChat on Twitter: Victory of Light, a Chassidic discourse by Rabbi Menachem Schneerson!

And to wrap up 2010 I won a $20 gift cert. for a Maidenform www.maidenform.com bra from Elle Magazine on-line: http://www.elle.com/- and I'm going to go find myself a bra Right Now!!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!

The downside is, of course, that I have to go thru and delte 1000+ emails a day...

The upside is that, among other things, I get to, B"H, take Dan home to Israel! 

So, like, yeah, you should enter! :-)

Shooties, Wine, Railfan Throwdown, Bling-Bling, & SERIOUS Weather!

As readers of this blog know, Dan and I are planning two very special events at the Elkhorn Inn for May: our "WV Wine-tasting Weekend" May 14-16, and our "Dueling Dining-Car Chefs" Weekend May 28-30 with railroad historian and author of "From the Dining Car" & "Dining By Rail" James Porterfield! I've spent most of this last week working on both, researching wineries and sourcing foods, and asking our "fans" on Facebook and Twitter (Tweet us @elkhorninn) for wine reccomendations. (A desert of West Virginia port with WV chili-chocolate was the lastest & greatest!) Dan and Jim have been working up their menus for our "Railfan Gourmet Throwdown", and we'll post the menu under "Events" on the Elkhorn Inn's Facebook fan page: http://wvurl.com/dOX as soon as it's finalized!

We had a great & busy week at the Elkhorn Inn: guests all week, and grand guests they were! Teachers, photographers, and railfans! Chef Dan outdid himself this week, making several truly smashing dinners, including his signature herb-stuffed Cornish Game Hens & tortellini with our homemade pesto, but the REAL glories were his homemde pumpkin pasta with sage & pinenuts, almond-crusted pan-fried trout, and seared buffalo steaks with a balsamic reduction and figs! And then he made me proscuitto & figs! And now he's gone and whipped up- literally, in the blender- Margaritas- in our souvenier Royal Caribbean cruise glasses! (Ask me again why I can't lose that 25lbs...)

As readers of this blog Also know, last week I won a pair of fabulous Santana shooties (shoe-booties) on Princess Dominique's fashion blog. I follow her "tweets" on Twitter, too (http://www.twitter.com/): @MissPrincessDom
They arrived today, & I must say that they Are pretty damn fabulous, and WAY better in real life than the photos! I have a tendency to buy "classic" clothes and shoes, i.e. things that are either never going to go out of style (cashmere sweaters & Ferragamo pumps, for example), or things that are SO "out there" (1940 & 1950 vintage dresses, for example, or nutty stuff like Vivienne Westwood shoes with plastic hearts on them, or 5" spike-heeled sneakers) that they CAN'T go out of style. But these shooties, with their hidden platform & punched leather patchwork, I thought of as Trendy (& maybe a tad jejune, too...), and thus probably not something I would have otherwise bought for myself. And I was wrong- they are really & truly Great- and I'll be wearing them with jeans, a cashmere sweater, & a leather jacket (and big, dark sunglasses, of course!) as long as they last! And when I finally have The Outfit all put together I shall post more pix!   (The proof that my husband Truly loves me is that he seriously suggested I wear them with the pair of Miley Cyrus leopard leggings he brought home from WalMart last week. That, at 50, I have a husband who buys me Miley Cyrus leopard leggings (okay, they were on sale for $2.00, but still...) is proof enough, I grant you, but that he actually thought I would wear them outside the house (much less with these shooties) was the icing on the cake. Yeah- I am blessed. The man is blind. :-)

My 51st birthday is coming up (April Fool!), and so I've been thinking about what with which to treat myself.
Louboutins on eBay? But inevitably we come back, of course, to Blig-Bling, and my quest for a ring to replace the engagement ring I lost doing laundry. So I again went to DiamondNexus and spent a bit of time perusing their great (and affordable) stuff.  As I've made clear, I'm a lover of Big Rocks, but Boo-Boo wants a big REAL Rock, & if she can't (afford to) have that, she wants a TRULY REAL-LOOKING big rock! LOL
And so on my Big Rock Quest I found:

Virtuoso with Champagne & Chocolate
which is Just my thing! (I love colored diamonds far more than clear ones. And I've always felt that diamonds were rather a rip-off, as the mark-up is ludicrous & the supply is controlled to keep the price up...)

 But THEN I found the ring I think I REALLY want:
a Wisdom of the Heart" ring like Nobility with Champagne (see below for a photo). And these are NOT "big rocks"! But they're hinged, and OPEN UP like lockets, and you can have someting unique engraved inside! This is (to me) a Totally unique concept, and I WANT ONE! I want Dan to engrave something special inside it!! Something sexy and funny and "just us"! Wouldn't that be cool?!

On a closing note, I want to talk about the Weather. We live in what is known as "Four-Seasons Country", and we have Weather. Sometimes we get all four seasons inside a week! Up until about a week ago it looked like White Christmas here, and I was busilly shooting "Pokey-in-the-snow" pix of the Pocahontas railroad chugging by the Inn through the snowflakes, & the cardinals at our feeders backed by drifts , but then, in seemingly an instant, it warmed up to the point that the bulbs sprouted, the pussy willow budded, Dan was out there choppin' wood in only one layer of clothing (!), and the crocus flowered...
And then the rain came tumbling down....
Last night the fog set in so bad it took Dan nearly 3 hours to get home from Bluefield (normally a 30 minute drive), and the rain was coming down in buckets in intermediate spurts. (In between which, our Guests enjoyed the Inn's hot tub!) But it Wasn't raining here this morning, and so I didn't think anything of it... until I learned that Bluefield's flooded, and a friend of ours in Mercer County is literally trapped in his house, the floods having washed away a concrete bridge, roads, his driveway and doors... It's BAD out there!
But not, oddly, here in Landgraff, where Elkhorn Creek- right behind the Inn- isn't even all that high...
I Swear that we live in our own little weather system, trapped, as we are, in a valley between two mountains. What's happening in Bluefield or Welch is usualy VERY different than what's happening at the Elkhorn Inn!

As you may surmise from this long post, we are having a "Lazy Day" today, and after our guests left this morning, filled to the brim with Chef Dan's fresh fruit blender "smoothies", Dan put on his DIY cap & began happily working on repairing a vintage bed! And so the joyous sounds of drill, saw, and various other things bonking together has filled my ears for much of the day! There is Nothing so happy as a workaholic Tool Guy with a Project!

Go- find a project! :-)

Bling-Bling & Shooties!

I just won an amazing pair of shoes- "shooties", actually, as one correctly refers to a shoe-bootie: the Carlos Santana Chula Ankle Boot (pictured above) with a round toe, reptile printed fabric upper, and smooth leather patchwork detailing. These babies will give petite little me 4 inches of height, but, having a 1-inch hidden platform, a moderate 3-inch heel! Woot! I won this incredible pair of shoes on Princess Dominique's fairly fabulous fashion blog, to which I subscribe, and I follow her "tweets" on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/): @MissPrincessDom as well. Last week she started a wonderful weekly shoe giveaway, which I simply HAD to enter, and, incredibly, I won! So now, as the "Imelda Marcos of Landgraff, West Virginia" waits for her fabulous new shooties to arrive, she has to put together an outfit that is "shootie worthy"!

Which brings me to my next point: Bling-Bling! In addition to perusing a lot of fashion sites and blogs, I also frequent a mess of jewelry sites, on the web, Facebook, & Twiitter. My mother is a watercolorist who made her living as a fashion illustrator in NYC, and I thus grew up in the "fashion biz", and fell madly, passionately in love with my first pair of shoes when I was 14. (It was unrequited love. They were Maude Frizon leopard pumps that I couldn't even Dream about affording!) Mostly, as with shoes, my on-line window-shopping for jewelry is a kind of Wishful Thinking and what-I'd-do-if-I-won-the-lotto fantasizing,  but occassionally something really cool (and affordable) catch her eye, and- coincidently!- this week I just happed to find DiamondNexus. I have always liked "big rocks", but Real big rocks are Really Expensive, and Fake Big Rocks usually look, well, Fake. Tacky. But Diamond Nexus uses lab-created gems to create some pretty fabulous Bling that are set in gold and other precious metals exactly like mined gems, and look so amazingly real that even a jeweler can't tell them from the "real McCoy"! (Their lab-created jewels actually adorn the Miss Universe crown!) But the Best thing is that they're actually affordable!  Ever since Suzie Homemaker (Not) lost her diamond engagement ring while doing laundry she's had her heart set on a Great Big Rock... like "Rhaphsody" pictured above. And Diamond Nexus may just be the way she's gonna finally get one...
And wouldn't it look keen with skinny jeans, a leather jacket, those Santana shooties, & some big, dark sunglasses?!