Whooo-hoooo! Another $20 Amazon gift card is up for grabs!

The rules: Post your favorite silly picture this week, link it back to this blog and leave a comment on this post.

On Sunday, I’ll pick a winner randomly from all the entries. The purpose of this one? Well, I like to share and I love your photos–let’s just have some fun!

Carrie gathered the most votes for her Sunshine post (and adorable picture!). I don’t know how you all chose between all those posts, but I do hope you were as happy to look through the entries as I was. Carrie, I’m sending the gift certificate to your email. Everyone else, thank you SO much for entering

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And now, for something completely different…I wanted to make you aware of Kimberly-Clark’s Room-A-Day Giveaway.  In order to give a few of moms a chance to “relax, restore and renew,” KC is planning to award 16 winners from January 28 through February 15 (all announced on The View) $25,000 to renovate any room in their houses. The last winner will be  announced March 21 on the Room-a-Day Giveaway website. If you’re like me, you’ll be clicking on over to their website to enter!

Right now, I think I’d happily demo my kitchen with my bare hands to get things started.  The vinyl flooring is losing its luster and showing the evidence of too many accidents and the cabinets have sadly sagging shelves…not that they were designed to hold much, anyway.  When the house was built in 1979, I’ll bet the owners did exactly what they did with so many other things–they got the cheapest available supplies.  We’ve improved the kitchen a little with some tin tiles to cover up the drywall where we needed a backsplash, and we added a new laminate countertop and sink (the sink was a necessity since the original sink had a HOLE in it).  Oh, and lots and lots of paint, but still, the kitchen could use a little do-over.  Ideally, we’d add on when we did this so that the space between the counters was more than three feet, but new cabinets and flooring would be wonderful without the extra space.  After all, preparing a meal is really fast when everything is in arm’s reach :)

I’m SO excited for this week.  It always starts out great with Best Shot Monday, but not only did I get all my backed-up grading done this weekend, but I’ve there’s also all this great stuff going on in blogland.  Please, read on!

First, I want to remind you of my little contest going on this week.  If you want to take part, make sure you get your post up by this Friday at 8 p.m CST.  Oh, and remember to link back to me–it will get a few more people involved and help spread the sunshine even further!   And speaking of the contest–would you all try to help me test the poll to the left?  It’s a test run of the plugin so that I know that it’ll be working when the poll phase of the contest is up.

Second, I remember that a few of you were interested in participating in Karen’s postcard swap last August when I mentioned that I was getting mine ready.  Well, she’s doing it again.  Postcard Swap 2008:  The Love Edition is in the planning stages, so get your heinie over to Chookooloonks and sign up by Wednesday, January 16.

Finally, I’m taking part in a Pay It Forward exchange that Starfish turned me on to.  (Starfish, by the way, is the one of the nicest bloggers I know–J frequently sports the coolest hat she knitted to keep his then-bald little head covered.)   If you’d like to take part, be one of the first three to comment mentioning that you’re signing up for the PIF exchange.  You’ll have to agree to the this pledge:

I, [insert your name here] will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange, and who make the same pledge on their own blogs.

Did you say it aloud?  Come on, put your hand over your heart and say it like you mean it!

I’m not quite sure exactly what your gift will be, but right now I’m leaning toward a set of notecards (so, technically not handmade, but originals).  Oh, and you won’t get stuck with something with my son anywhere on it.  I swear!

And C, I’m getting to you later this week, I swear!  Note to self:  work on avoiding repetition.

Winter. There’s something special about all that snow and ice, but that specialness wears off sometime after the holidays when there’s nothing but small celebrations like Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s days to look forward to. The gloom can settle in, making it hard to see what’s just so special about the everyday.

Us snowbound folk can’t claim to be the only ones who have predictable periods of gloom in our lives. Sometimes the clouds gather not in the sky but in our heads even in the sunniest weather.

And sometimes we’re lucky. Sometimes we notice a sparkle of light and sun in the most mundane moment, and it beats the gloom into submission. For me, sometimes it’s a student’s silly comment or the sight of T bringing me a special, unexpected treat. It could be a sky of beautiful stars, or if I’m lucky, a startling northern lights display. Maybe it’s just the breathless giggle of a very happy and very ticklish little boy.

What brings out your inner sunshine when the gloom takes over?

First, write a post about your sunshine or take a picture of it and provide us with a caption.

Then, when you’re finished, link the entry to this blog and leave a comment on this post by 8 p.m. CST on Friday, January 18.

On Friday, I’ll post links to all your entries and ask readers to visit your blogs. Everyone will get a chance to vote for a favorite entry through a poll like the one on the left through 8 p.m. on Tuesday, January 23. The blogger with the most popular entry according to my very unscientific poll gets a measly $20 Amazon gift certificate.

And, at the end of this, I think we’ll all be winners :) Good luck!

**EDIT**

After thinking about it, I shifted the dates just a little bit so that I didn’t interfere with Stacy’s Thursday theme, which happens to be winter. So, comment and post by Friday, January 18; voting is over by Tuesday, January 23.