My Happy News

I won an iPad Mini on the NaBloPoMo/BlogHer website! Isn’t that excellent news? I feel like I never win anything, though that’s not true.

1. I won the lotto once, though not big. I won $96, which was pretty exciting. Safeway is smart to let you cash in your winning ticket there, because yeah, I spent my money on groceries.
2. I was picked out of the audience at Marine World, Africa U.S.A, when I was in the 5th grade. I was called up front, and got to pet a cheetah, which was pretty awesome. When they picked me, they called on my for my bright yellow (sunflower yellow) sweater. I then decided that was my lucky sweater, and I wore it every day. When it was too full of holes to wear anymore, I just tied it around my waist and wore it that way. I loved that cheetah.
3. I won a contest at work, where the person to give out the most coupons for the hotel restaurant (and have them redeemed) within an allotted period of time, received dinner for 2, or $100 towards dinner for 2, I don’t remember which. I won that one over and over again, because I loved the restaurant, so I was good at selling it.
4. I won Employee of the Month (twice), while at the hotel. That was great, because the prize was $100 cash, plus a nice lunch to honor all of the nominees.
5. Several years ago, in the heyday of blogging (or perhaps, MY heyday of blogging), I was picked as a Top 100 Mom Blogger, which was pretty darned exciting.  I had a little badge on my blog for it, but when I changed my blog theme, it went away.  I don’t do badges anymore.  Not because I don’t respect the thought and effort, but because I’m lazy.  I’m just NOT one of those top 100 mommy bloggers anymore.
6. I won a homemade music CD from Greeblemonkey, which was pretty great, and I really enjoyed being introduced to some of the artists I hadn’t heard of before.
7. I won a book on another blog, but now I can’t even think of what the book was.

I was thinking I’d make this a Thursday 13, but it’s Wednesday, and I can’t think of more things I’ve won, unless you count various blogging awards. Allow me to tell you HOW I won the lovely new iPad Mini. A few weeks ago, I decided to participate in NaBloPoMo. In years past, I have sometimes officially signed up on their website, in the hopes of perhaps luring a few readers over to my blog. I tried this again, and gave my blog title and url at the official website. I haven’t gotten any new readers, but I also haven’t gone over and posted there, I just added my name to their linky list.If you haven’t guessed already, from the picture above, there’s a little contest involved in participating (officially) with NaBloPoMo and BlogHer. There are 2 possible prizes…either tickets to attend the BlogHer conference, or an iPad Mini. Since I don’t really want to go to BlogHer, I don’t have money to fly and pay for hotels, etc., and I don’t currently own an iPad, I was THRILLED and surprised to receive an email saying that I have won an iPad Mini! Yay! I’ve confirmed that it’s valid, and I should be receiving my new iPad Mini any day now. Pretty exciting.

My first thoughts were, who should I give it to for Christmas? I’ll bet Maya would love an iPad Mini. Ted’s been kind of wanting an iPad. But they both have smart phones, which are almost the same thing. So I decided that I’m going to keep it for myself. They can use it, of course, because I’m nice like that.