Time just slips by

I have about 100 pictures on my camera to blog about but do I prioritize my time to post here? Apparently not! And now that more of my local friends (and family) read this blog I have been getting gentle nudges to update. I have been so busy! Gardening tops the list. I have lots of before and after shots. My husband and I took last week off and stayed home during the most perfect spring weather to get a few home tasks completed. It was the best vacation ever!

And this weekend I am hosting a Handmade Open House at my home. Eight lovely ladies who either craft or run a home business will gather with their items to sell their wares. I am pretty excited about it. My friend put together this same event just before Xmas of last year and it was a huge success. And then she graciously volunteered my home for the next one! We figured some date before Mother's Day would work well. And here I am feverishly getting the house in order and driving Jeff nuts. :)

I also decided to reupholster this couch rather than make the slip cover. I read about upholstery and spoke with a lady who gave me some great tips to get started. With the clean lines of the sofa and relatively simple shape I am going to dive in and go for it. I also finally found the upholstery fabric. Now I just need to get started... I may need a few rainy days to justify the time spent indoors.

24 inches of snow

We are snowed in again! It's been a long time since I've seen this much snow. Even the snow we got in Dec was peanuts compared to this. We tried to get the cars out today but no luck. Having a long driveway is awesome 98% of the time. This is not one of those times. Hopefully our drive will be plowed tonight and then we'll see if we can get the Prius up the hill. *crossing fingers*

But since we couldn't go anywhere I sewed up my only V-day decoration. Made completely with scraps it was quick and easy. I was testing how it would hang before I sewed on the homemade bias tape. I guesstimated the measurements so I was pleased when it actually worked out.

I was alsot creative in the kitchen when making my own decaf herbal tea which included fresh orange zest, fresh ginger, cardamon, and lemon grass.

I cleaned up the counters and set up a collection of vintage glass made exclusively from the small towns dotting southern NJ. (Well, all except the small clear bud vase.)

And my amaryllis planted Christmas Day is in full bloom! I love fresh flowers in the house!

Playing Hookie

This Wednesday both Jeff and I were ready to leave for work, keys in hand, when we both looked at each other and said we didn't want to go to work. So for the first time ever (at least for me) we played hookie from work last minute. We didn't have anything exciting planned. We just felt that this sunny August day was perfect to spend with each other. And since we are sans kiddo's we better take advantage of our spontaneity while we can!

We ran a few fun errands like picking up peaches at a local farmers stand, hitting up a thrift store, and then day dreaming about our new house. This awesome news is only a partial excuse for my absence online. The other part is laziness. Sewing hasn't ceased but taking the time to photograph and write about it has.

But let's not dwell on that. Let's talk about the new house! We are first time home buyers and I can't tell you how exciting this whole process has been. We've been saving for what seems like forever and started to look this spring online. The worst/best part about waiting and saving is that we got to spend a lot of time deciding what we liked and didn't like. So we were quick to say no to many properties that came on the market. But time was on our side and patience paid off. We ended up getting many of the priority items on our wish list. Newer home in the country with land surrounded by farms. And its less than 10 minutes from Jeff's work. Amazing!

Hopefully, this will be the last time we move for a very long time. I am so ready to plant roots.

Long lane leading up to the house. We plan to plant fruit trees in the front yard.

View from the mudroom through the kitchen into the living room. Check out all the natural light!

View from the breakfast room which we are just going to use as our dining room.

Dining room

We take possession in 9 days. Our actual moving date is 2 weeks later. Between Labor Day and out of state work trips it works out better that way. We have our rental til the end of Sept so there is really no rush. I can clean the new house before we move in, get settled, then have time to clean our rental. :)

This weekend in photos

Tiny mushroom found on a visit to a state forrest. It was my first geocashing adventure!

I had all intentions of actually sewing up this shirt pattern Saturday morning, but I caught Critter making it into a frumbled mess. Such a bad kitty. I did get it cut out. Now it's at a stands still again.

My green beans are in flower. They did a lot of growing over the past week. My first planting will have some beans to harvest this coming week. I'll be able to pick some cucumbers this week too. And my zucchini is flowering. I want to count how many zucs can grow on one plant. We'll just see if a plant can feed an army!

Sugar snap peas from my local farmers market. I have to grow these next year! I tried a new recipe that steamed these peas and mixed up a dressing that included mint and goat cheese. I am not a fan of mint and peas. I know it's suppose to be a classic combination, but it's just weird.

Rainy Day

Have any of you checked out the website Feed Your Soul: the free art project? I found it recently and it was an answer to my cheap (FREE!) cool artwork woes. Remember all those frames I painted black then hung down my long front hallway? Well they have remained bare with the exception of some really cute bird decals I bought off of Etsy from Vinyl Wall Art.

It took literally no time at all to print these beauties off on some card stock paper, trim, glue stick to some colored card stock I had on hand (I really wanted black paper but I am fresh out.) and affix to the wall with double stick tape. It has been a week and so far they have all stayed up.

This is a temporary solution. Ideally, I plan on purchasing a few free floating glass frames to place inside the black ones. All in good time.

My flowers are taking off. They don't lack water right now. This morning as I was eating my breakfast I was amazed how much my little container garden has grown. So many blossoms.

Playing catch up

I downloaded many pictures off my camera a few days ago, but I can't recall where I put them. I did manage to find two unrelated pictures to share. I've been trying really hard to get back to blogging and I can tell it's going to take a bit more effort.

First, I need to talk about a great swap I had with Christina from This Girl Beads. It came about from a continuous email discussion on the color yellow. So we put together a private swap. I wanted a new yellow necklace and she asked for a new summer bag. Because I was terrible about taking pictures of her gifts to me (forgive me Christina!) and my swap partner is so awesome you can actually see what she sent me here.

Everything she sent was absolutely wonderful and I am one lucky girl. I wear that necklace often and it quickly became a favorite of mine. I did manage to take one quick photo of the bag I made her in the early morning light before I shipped off her package. (The rest seen here.)
She asked for a gray and yellow bag. She likes linen and pleats. I found the mustard velvet ribbon in an amazing fabric shop in Gettysburg, PA. They carry many period fabrics, as well as, modern reproductions. This ribbon may not be vegetable dyed but its an historically accurate color from the civil war era. Come to think of it, I bought the gray fabric there too. This bags looks really great in person.

****************************************************

Remember those mojitos I mentioned last weekend. They were so good! I can't wait til it's weekend again.

No time for photos

Some people take a vacation from blogging, but I need a vacation to blog! Ha!

I got big plans for this weekend. First of all we are not driving anywhere. Just think of all those precious minutes reallocated to my sewing machine. :)

I already visited JoAnn's over my lunch break today. Picked up some $1 patterns and took advantage of the 50% off notions wall. A seamstress can always use more needles and fabric markers!

When I got home I had time to trim back my mint plant. No sense letting any of it go to waste, so I got some minty sun tea brewing on the front porch and I am on my second mojito of the weekend. :P Nice.

I am not going to spend too much time on the computer this evening. I have some house chores to complete (made easier by the mojitos!) so we can enjoy a clean house for the weekend. I just wanted to check in!

Spring Nesting

Every year I get so excited to start another garden. For a few years now I have had to limit my gardening to containers, but I try to find new ways to enhance the experience. This year my Mom graciously lent a hand to get the plants in the soil. There is a mixture of edibles and flowers this year.
Out front I placed a few things. We made a little branch teepee with grape vine to support Sweet Peas once they get growing. At the bottom of the pot are a few trailing plants and a fern. I also have some parsley, cilantro, and basil starting from seeds.

My Rosemary plant from last year wintered over and is doing much better outside. This year she has a new neighbor. I placed a purple wave Petuna in the pot with her. Hopefully they will get along and become best friends.
There are some pickles started. Now I realize I may confuse some people with the term "pickles", but these are the smaller prickley cucumbers. These are the variety my family turns into pickles. These will be part of a hanging pot arrangement.

This is the grouping I have out back for now. As the plants mature I will move them around that best suits them. The wooden plant stand was a dumpster dive I found earlier this spring. Also planted is mountain mint, oregano, thyme, camomille, zucchini, lettuce, and tomatoes.

With all this planting I really started to feel the urge to nest. Tomorrow my husband and I are going to attend an estate auction will all intentions of bidding on the house. We had the home inspection on Tuesday, so now we hope we are the high bidder tomorrow! At least my garden is portable if we get it!

Yee-haw!

For the first time (that I am aware of!) I made it on the Etsy front page! Eeee! So exciting! One of my little mason jar pincushions was front and center! Now that we got that out of the way...

I made myself a new spring tote bag. I made a pleated panel tote with a hidden pocket. Lots of linen. Lots of texture. Vintage. Yellow.

The interior has this zipper pocket and two slip pockets made from the vintage yellow rosebud sheeting.

Hidden pocket in action!

In other news, I spotted a heinous public display of a Snuggie. Gross! The culprit was a young high school age girl. The scene was a downtown side walk. The weapon was a maroon Snuggie worn as a jacket. Folks, this is why kids need parental supervision AT ALL TIMES. WTF?

Etsy Update

(Click the photo to go to the direct listing)

This weekend I finally got my butt in gear and reopened my Etsy shop. I mean, who really goes on 'vacation' for 3 months? Anywho, a few new things are listed. More to come, but I have some house cleaning to get done before guests arrive Sunday and can't get all the photo's redone in photoshop today. And I think I am going to stop making my mason jar pincushions for a while. They are getting copied out the ying-yang so I figured I'll move onto other things.

(Clicky the photo)

I did a bit of house cleaning today. Got on the hands and knees and scrubbed grout. (BTW, if I had it my way grout would NOT exist.) I am trying to decide what to make for dinner tomorrow night. This past week I have been on a salad kick and I had a craving for Caesar salad. I noticed a new Bolthouse Farms dressing in the refrigerated isle. Have you tried any of their yogurt based dressings yet? I bought the Caesar Parmigiano flavor with a tiny bit of hesitation but when the serving size was 60% less calories than normal caesar dressing I thought why not? Let me just tell you it is AMAZING. Get up, put your shoes on, and go get some. For lunch today I made a turkey bacon caesar salad with spinach. Well, basically it was any ol' salad with this amazing dressing. It's also amazing as a sauce warmed up and drizzled over salmon filets.

So for dinner tomorrow night... maybe stuffed chicken breasts... with caesar salad. Oh, and one more plug about a Bolthouse Farms product. If you have not tried their mango lemonade, just buy it next time. Don't worry about a coupon. Just get it for yourself. It's too good for kids anyways.

Day 8 of Christmas Vacation

Remember just two weeks ago I was looking forward to spending some much needed time with my sewing machine to finish/start some projects? Well, I haven't touch my machine since I've been on vacation. What kind of sorry sewing sap am I? Nonetheless, I have been spending some time with my house plants. I finally got around to making some felt coasters for all my indoor pots. I just used a thick cream colored felted sweater from my stash and cut out circles (as seen above).

My Mom also helped me in trying to save this crazy tall, lanky palm plant. I rescued this plant when it was just 6'' tall from the $.50 Wal-mart plant clearance display. And now it's towering over 6 feet. But you can definitely tell its history from its stem. Times of darkened apartments during/after college are evident by a wonky slimmer trunk, and more fruitful years by its top heaviness. So we tried a propagation method called Air Layering. I'll keep you updated.

I also set up a natural light stand for my indoor plants. I found this microwave cart on the curb this summer. The lights that are attached are full spectrum lights so it mimics natural sunlight allowing the plants to fully complete photosynthesis from artificial means. I moved my still living rosemary plant near by and I have hopes to plant some cilantro and basil in small plants to see what they do. I recently watched a PBS gardening show where one women has a similar set up and does many seeded plantings of basil. She said the basil won't get full and robust as it does outside in the summer, but she picks the seedlings and uses them in her winter cooking. I also found 10 Paper White bulbs on clearance at Lowes for $2 that I planted yesterday.

Here's a look at our Fraiser Fur Christmas tree this year. I better put a Christmas tree skirt on my to-do list. I really love this one made by Amanda. You can see what it looks like under her tree here.

Someone please send me some sewing mojo, would you please? :)

Meme

Things you've already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven't done and don't want to - leave in plain font


1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band
4. visited hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to disneyland/world
8. climbed a mountain
9. held a praying mantis- I think they are the coolest of all bugs.
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped
12. visited paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the statue of liberty
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the mona lisa in france
20. slept on an overnight train- from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Russia
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise
33. seen niagara falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. seen an amish community
36. taught yourself a new language
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the leaning tower of pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen michelangelo's david in person
41. sung karaoke
42. seen old faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the sistene chapel in person
50. been to the top of the eiffel tower in paris
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the great wall of china
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold girl scout cookies.
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood- but I can't anymore because I lived in N. Ireland for over 3 months! :(
65. gone sky diving
66. visited a nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a cheque
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the lincoln memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in london
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the grand canyon in person
80. published a book
81. visited the vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible
86. visited the white house
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen the alamo in person.
96. swum in the great salt lake.
97. been involved in a law suit
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee

I am on vacation! The parents arrived a few hours ago. There is still cleaning and laundry sorting to do, but its much more enjoyable when people are here to keep you company. :)

I decided on Prime Rib, mash potatoes, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, biscuits and peach pie for Christmas dinner. Tonight I am making homemade chicken pot pie. I've printed off recipes for homemade pizza crust and sticky buns. Carbs anyone?

I have done some sewing. I tore into my cashmere stash and sewed up some fingerless gloves fashioned from the sleeves. They turned out nice and everyone who received them as gifts really liked them. Now I need to make a pair for myself.

• Let me stop and catch my breath.
• Right.
• I thought I would stop in for a short visit and let you know what I have been up to.
• Xmas gift making is in high gear, which means no pictures.
• It seems I finish most sewing projects around midnight these days. At that time I immediately wrap them up and don't even bother taking photo's.
  
• The sun has forgotten to shine for me. And when it does I am working away from home.
  
• Good news is that Friday is my last day and then I am off until Jan 5. Giddy up!
• I can't decide what my first big sewing projects will be. My red and aqua quilt? My t-shirt project out of my Alabama Stitch book? Attempt clothing again?
• A group of my girl friends decided to do a Christmas present swap and decided the gift had to be either free, thrifted, or handmade. I swear I didn't make the rules, but it works for me! And I got my handmade gift finished this evening. Two days ahead of schedule. :)
• My family is visiting my house during the holidays and I am very excited about that.
  
• Perfect excuse to make really delicious meals. Like peach pie and scones. Pair them with cherry chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk followed with a scoop of ice cream and I'll call that dinner.
  
• I am 99% sure that I will be making prime rib for Christmas dinner. Christmas seems to be the odd holiday when it comes to the menu. I mean, Thanksgiving is always Turkey. Easter is always ham. What are your thoughts on this? What are you having for Christmas?
  

Checking In

I think I clicked on "New Post" four times before I just committed myself to write in here. Here's what's going on:

• The husband is out of town this weekend, so it's just little ol' me and a lot of spare time.
• For the last four weeks I have been scouring Craigslist for a mattress to turn my sewing room into a spare bedroom.
• You heard me. I am GIVING UP MY SEWING ROOM.
  
• I seriously take up too much of this house. I feel very glutenous about it. Sooo...
• I have been reorganizing and redistributing my sewing stuff into my work office room.
• Now we will be able to accommodate guests comfortably. :) (Everyone come and visit me!)
• Wednesday we picked up a 6 month old, in perfect condition, Serta Queen Mattress for $50 (found through craigslist)! Wife had back problems and they had to get a new bed. I cleaned the fabric today and tomorrow I will purchase a mattress pad for it.
  
• I just finished cleaning out my wardrobe closet. My closet is normally an all season closet, but I decided it was time to weed through some things and I have packed up all my summer clothes. It looks neater.
• Tomorrow I hit the thrift stores to find a bed frame and new-to-me fall clothes.
• After cleaning my closet I discovered I only love 5 things. Depressing.
• I need to pick up spray paint to paint some various frames to coordinate.
• Last thought: One of the greatest exercises in creativity is working with what you have!
  

Carrie, the blog author of Ruffled Feathers, is currently hosting a contest to win some very fall scarflette's. Not sure what a scarflette is? Better click the contest link to find out! There is one small catch to have a chance at winning one of her knitted scarf's. You need to take a picture of your feet. I gave her two photo's. One very well rested set of feet. And one oh-so-tired set of feet.

The women behind Mint Basil...

has a real job. But today I really just wanted to spend 8 hours in that mess I call a sewing room.

The morning light was so nice on the bare, rented, white walls. I can't wait till we get a house and can paint. I did take my spiral bound idea book with me today. Not that I had a chance to open it. But still it was like having a 'creative blanket' with me as I worked. I've been so analytical at work that I am contemplating taking Friday off to be inspired. I don't know about you, but I find I do my best at my career job when I exercise the right and left side of my brain.

Grasshopper or ant?

Grasshopper: 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labor and toil?'

Tis the season for food preservation. I started this evening by freezing some fresh crushed tomatoes in quart bags for later use in stews. Tomorrow I am picking up a bushel of peaches for canning on Thursday with help from a neighbor. She'll come over to help with the prep and canning and we'll split everything. The time goes by faster and it's half the work! Saturday I hope to freeze a bushel of green beans.

I was sewn before the canning season started!

I am doing a bit of record keeping this summer season. I plan on recording the amount of fresh produce purchased, cost of fresh produce, variety if known, how much it yielded, and eventually how long said preserved produce lasted us during the winter season. Hopefully these details will help in future years to remember what varieties we liked best and if we stored too much/ too little.

Linen top, scrap of white eyelet, hand stitched vintage crochet trim, vintage button closure.

A few weeks ago I started harvesting my fresh herbs. This year after I washed everything I let all the leaves air dry for 24 hours. Then I wrapped them up in a dry paper towel and placed in freezer bags. I checked the basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and sage yesterday and they are all looking excellent. In fact upon reopening the plastic bags I was surprised how aromatic the herbs were. We'll see how they look in 6 more months.

Which this reminds me... someone requested I give my recipe for the rosemary/lavender hair rinse. (Sorry, I forgot about that!) There are more recipes than you can count out there including some that have you seep the herbs in water for 3-4 weeks in a sunny window sill. Over kill maybe? In the end I decided to do it this way:

1. I took one water bottle (about 16 oz size) with a sports cap and filled it with water.
   
2. I put that measured amount of water into a small sauce pan and brought it to a simmer.
3. I added about 3/4 cup of rosemary leaves and 1 heaping tablespoon of dried lavender buds in water and let it seep for 15 min and strained the liquid from solids.
   
4. Once the liquid was cool I put it back into water bottle.
5. I took this bottle into the shower with me. It lasted 2 rinses.

I really loved the results! I have dark, long, thick hair. Rosemary is suppose to help darken hair over a period of time and has properties to prevent dander. After my normal shampooing I for-goed conditioner and just used the rinse. Amazing my hair was tangle free, had a wonderful fragrance, and was super shiny the next day. I used this recipe multiple times with great results. More recently I switched the rosemary out for mint and absolutely loved the smell of that. That scent lingered into the next day and I got the thumbs up from the husband.

You know you want one too!

I stopped in JoAnn's this week for a few supplies.and took a few extra minutes to walk down a few isles I never spend time in. This past week they restocked their organization section and my eyes were immediately drawn to this basket.
Upon closer inspection I realized this basket was made out of woven recycled newspapers! Japanese newspapers no less! How cool is that?! And it was 50% off. I had been looking for something to hold my patterns. Originally I thought I would make a fabric basket, but this is so much better. The bottom is just a tad too narrow to hold magazines. (Which is too bad because my Japanese crafting magazine would have matched!)
And I want to share something really odd with you. But its OK because your all my friends right? This week I had a freckle fall off my face. You heard me. For as long as I can remember I had a freckle right on the tip of my nose. When I got back from Panama I noticed it had gotten a lot darker. A few days later my nose was itchy and I checked it out in the mirror. One more finger scratch and I watched this freckle fall off my face and gently float to the bathroom floor. Isn't that the oddest thing you have ever heard? I wouldn't have believed it if it didn't happen to me.

Cash-mere

Even though I haven't found a waffle iron that's been on my thrifting list for quite a few months, I have been fortunate enough to find my fair share of cashmere sweaters. I have grand plans to make a large cuddly cashmere blanket. A few days ago (as part of the big sewing room clean up event) I decided to sort through all these thrifted sweaters I have been accumulating.

Cashmere on the left, felted wool on the right.

My cashmere pile is catching up to my wool pile. I am having the hardest time picturing how this cashmere blanket will look like. I know I don't want it to be all crazy quilt-ish, but I have such a wide variety of colors I am not being inspired for a finished project. It's just not coming together for me. I need someone who is good with color combos to come over and help me.

Just for the record there are 14 cashmere sweaters in that pile. All purchased for under $4 a piece. I found an additional 3 sweaters, but two fit me and one fit my sister. Can't beat that!

There is a baby blue cashmere sweater in the pile I want to turn into some sort of scarf for myself. I wear a black pea coat for work and I think the blue would brighten everything up.

In the mean time, I may just keep the pile on display and pet it every once in a while. :)

TAGGED- 5 things

$8 yard sale bookcase with a bad blue paint job. Hopefully 2 cans of chocolate brown spray paint will give it a face lift. We need something to house all our cookbooks!

Ann-Margret tagged me to answer the following questions.... Maybe you'll learn something.

What was I doing ten years ago?

1. I was getting ready to begin my senior year of high school!
2. I had just purchased my first vehicle- 1992 Nissan pick up with a wooden tailgate.
   
3. Attending my last county fair before I started college. I won grand champion steer and lamb.
4. I started writing over 150 applications for grants and scholarships.
5. I was throwing thousands upon thousands of hay bales. I was a good stacker. :)
   

What are 5 (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?

1. Order my wedding photos. Hush. So what it was almost 2 years ago?
2. Make peanut butter cookies.
3. Write a blog posting.
4. Cut fabric for a pattern.
5. Find Critter's collar.
   

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Ice cream
2. Peanut butter and jelly crackers
3. Bagel chips
4. Dark chocolate
5. Iced mocha coffee
   

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Tithe
2. Give my family financial security
3. Buy a farm
4. Buy animals to live on farm
5. Invest in my community
   

Five places I've lived:

1. State College, PA
2. Moscow, Russia
3. Hillsborough, Northern Ireland
4. Novi, Michigan
5. Chambersburg, PA

Five Jobs I've Had:

1. Paid no mind on the farm
   
2. Student technician for Penn States Livestock Ultrasound Lab
3. Regional Representative for Farm Bureau
4. Sales Rep for SYSCO Foods
5. Pharmaceutical Sales
   

Tomorrow evening I will be drawing a name for this bag! If you missed the give-a-way, head on over and sign up. There will probably be another give-a-way next week too!