Don't be bashful, y'all know you deserve it

So I got this email the other day from Tiny Prints, and they were like, "If you wanna do up a post about our Christmas Cards, we'd really appreciate it since you're a big time blogger with like, tens of followers, and even though most of them are family members and friends you've conned into "following" you, we still wanna offer you a discount on your Christmas cards this year. Thaaaaaaaanks." Actually, I think it might have been slightly less sarcastic than that. Maybe. But if there's one thing I love thinking about at Halloween, it's Christmas. I mean, seriously, how can you even avoid those thoughts if you leave your house and travel into society on a regular basis? (And hey, let it be known that I actually do that, despite my regular jaunts to the Mennonite market.) The PX here didn't even give me a proper amount of time to scavenge for clearanced summer merchandise that I don't need before they started hanging lights and blowing fake snow all over the place. But you know what? If people wanna start celebrating Baby Jesus' birth in September, I will not stand in their way.

At first, when I got the ego-inflating email from Tiny Prints, I was like, "Oh *skim, skim, skim* when is the cut-off date? Because obviously I will do my post with something like 3 hours remaining on the deadline." (Takes me back to my college days; makes me feel young again. And skinny. But mostly stressed out.) So lo and behold, strange things happen when you actually READ something in its entirety. (This really could have changed a few of my grades, I realize this now.) In the email, they VERY CASUALLY mention that "Oh hey, if you wanna give away FIFTY FREE DOLLARS to one of your readers that you claim to have, then you can do that too. No biggie." Seriously?! So obviously I think that y'all need rewarding, what with all the posts I make you read about poop and puke and diaper rashes and how much I love cake yet how much I need to lose those last 30lbs of baby weight and wine and dead birds and such. Yes, I think y'all deserve a little something.

I've never given anything away before (except for those two times when I gave away my body for these cute cling-ons I've got), but y'all seem like a deserving bunch. I can write about anything and y'all always come through with some uplifting words or jokes or relatable stories and some of you even SENT ME CHOCOLATE and let's not get into how hard I'll hug you when we finally meet. (Because you gave me your return address on those packages, so yes. We'll hang out soon. Creepy!)

So I have attempted to create a Rafflecopter. All of the cool, big-time bloggers use this for their giveaways. They also have approximately a frillion more followers than me and do things like make their own layouts from scratch, but I'm trying not to focus on details here. Some of the ways you can earn entries for this giveaway: (You know I can't do this without over-explaining the thing to death.)

1. Answer a question. Pretty simple. Even I can handle this.

2. Follow me on twitter. I usually just upload cute pictures of my kids and/or dog poop from instagram, but I like having new people to follow, so basically this is just my way of finding you because I cannot figure out the twitter.

3. Tweet about the giveaway. I swear to Moses, the one thing I truly hate about twitter is all of these tweets about "Oh I just LOVE the new Depends underwear! So comfortable and discreet! Enter to win a $6 million dollar prize pack from so-and-so at her big-time blog, such-and-such.com!"
I'm sure people want tweets like this to give them exposure or what have you. (This could be why I'm not so proficient at gaining followers or understanding twitter.) But whenever I see one like that, my eyes glaze over and I totally ignore whatever that person is tweeting. So please don't do that for my giveaway. We don't need our eyes glazing over any more than usual. Make your tweet funny and original and then just include the link to this post at the end. Because I love nothing more than a funny tweet (except chocolate). It's basically the only reason I check twitter at all.
Example: "My dog farted 47 times today! Smelled like a pumpkin spice latte EVERY TIME! (link to this post)"
See how easy that is? And how much more fun that would be to read than the regular ol' giveaway tweets? Ok, so let's make that happen.

4. Follow the blog. I know I've got some creepers out there. You read, but you don't follow. And that's ok. But if you wanna win this prize-money you're gonna have to de-lurkify yourself. Don't be embarrassed to let people know you read here. I'm pretty sure there's a way to make yourself anonymous if it bothers you that much. I am not into "growing my numbers" or hitting some significant number of followers. I write these thoughts that pop into my head and usually the same 20ish of you leave me sweet, heartfelt comments. I don't wanna be one of those people that has eleventy billion followers and averages two random responses for every post I churn out. I prefer quality over quantity. And I feel like I've got that right now. Athankyouverymuch. Also, I love y'all.


a Rafflecopter giveaway