2009 Birthday Giveaway

Aw yeah,  OHC is having another giveaway!  This one just because it’s my birthday and I feel like sharing the love.  Up above is a glimpse at the prize!

The package is made up of some of my very favorite CHOCOLATE items.  Yes, you read that right.  All chocolate yummy things.  You can thank Scott for this because he came up with the chocolate theme.  Isn’t he an awesome fella?  Let’s see what we got, shall we?  From left to right:

• Ghirardelli 60% Cacao squares
• Chocolate Silk Soymilk
• Chocolate Bear Naked Granola
• FoodShouldTasteGood Chocolate Chips
• Chocolate Brownie Zbars
• Dark Chocolate PB

Plus a few other goodies I might toss your way.   And they all come in a reusable Whole Foods tote. 

All you have to do is comment on this post to enter!  Contest starts today and ends Sunday at noon EST.  I will pick a winner by random number and post the winner by Sunday 4pm EST.  You must be willing to check back to see if you’ve won and you must be willing to give me your address so I can send your prize out!  Everyone is eligible, because I’m shipping it so I will send it to you whereever you are.

Want another chance to win?  Post about this contest on your blog (if you have one) and you can comment here again for another chance to win!  Make sure you let me know that you posted about it.

YaY!  Now, who wants some chocolate?

P.S. Sorry for the confusion guys! My actual birthday is Friday (ooo spooky!) but I wanted to get this posted so everyone had a chance to enter!   I’m so excited that you all like the contest!

For those I have to send packages too, I have not forgotten you!  I’m gathering the proper envelopes and labels from the post office, which is what’s taking me so long.  I had some of them already addressed when I realized that apparently there were directions on the envelopes that I did not follow.  Who knew that one had to stand on their head and recite the Declaration of Independence backwards in order for the Post Office Gods to accept a package?!  So I’m sorry that my 9th grade Civics class has failed me and I forgot a passage, thus rendering the packages unmailable (OHC HQ declares this a word.).  I will get the packages out to you soon!

Except for TJ’s, they accepted his straight away.  T, your OHC mail is on its way! 

It's my birthday punks

  Hooray!!!  Today is my Scotty-love’s birthday!!  Yup that hunk of burning love right there was born on this day several moons ago.  In the spirit of Becky, I’m gonna list a whole bunch of stuff that makes my husband teh awesome.

He can raise one eyebrow, just like that, and crack me up every single time he does it.

We’ve been together for over 10 years and he still wants to stick around even though I can be crazy sometimes.

When we were in college, he would drive 7hours to my school every weekend to come visit me.

He handles all the creepies and buggies that make it into the house because he knows I cannot.

He lets me be me 100% and loves me for it.

He’s my little geek lover and has unleashed and nurtured my need for better and newer electronics. (Speaking of, when are we getting that new receiver?  I’m just sayin’.)

He always makes sure there are cold drinks in the “beverage fridge”.

My two boys

He doesn’t tell me I can’t ever do something.

He’s super supportive and always has my back.

But most importantly he’s my little muffin and has shown me what unconditional love really is.

YaY!!

Happy Birthday Scott!!  Love you, hope you had an awesome birthday this year!!

P.S. This is about as mushy as you’re gonna see me get.

Hi guys!  We got about 1/2 an inch of ice (yes, seriously) last night and about a foot of snow today.  Our power has been flickering on and off all day long.  For now we’ve had power for a little while and *fingerscrossed* it stays on.  Needless to say due to the power outage, I’m behind in posts.  I promise that I’ll try to get everything back to normal tomorrow and get my posts up and ready!

Thanks for understanding!

Hi guys! We need to have a chitty-chat about the website.  Grab some coffee or whatever.  I’ll wait.

Okay, settled?  I wanted to run a few things past you and get some feedback on thoughts.  Will you help?  Awesome!

When I first had inklings of starting this blog it was to post recipes and maybe have some food related discussions and that was about the extent of it.  You all know I was introduced into the food blogging world and what an amazing experience that has been.  Because of that my site and ambition for the site has sort of changed.

I love my daily eats section.  I cannot even tell you how much I love talking about little random stuff about my day (which might be boring to some, but it’s a fun thing for me) and about exercise.  Love it!  And I want to bump that up a little more and start doing some fun things and adding in more fitness related discussion.  My heart lies with running and I want to talk about it more.

I also love posting tips and product reviews.  I love tips because it’s fun to learn, isn’t it?  And we can all learn from each other and help make our lives that much easier.  I also love doing food reviews!  That’s probably the most fun for me.  I love trying new products and I feel like my reviews are entertaining but also helpful by providing an honest opinion.  Plus I get to do even more reviews by helping out Cheaplander, double score!  Tips and Reviews will not go away.

Cooking will always and forever be something I do.  And I will not stop posting recipes because that’s why this site got launched.  However, I have found trying to keep a schedule and posting recipes to fit the season/holiday/celebration/whatever stresses me out like you cannot even imagine.  Because I don’t function that way.  I would rather post stuff as I make it (if it’s something that worked! :p ).  I tend to just make whatever floats my boat that day and what fits with our meal plan (as our days sort of go meat/veggie/meat/veggie…).  Right now I feel like I’m in a situation where I’ve made something, but hold off on posting it because maybe it fits summer grilling season better.  Or there’s this dish we eat and it really fits some other occasion so I’ll make it then! Which leaves me feeling like I have to make something just so I can post about it for that specific occasion. And I don’t like feeling forced to have to make and eat something just because.  That leaves me a little cranky and this blog is about fun and food, crankiness should not be involved at all.

To sum up, nothing is going to go away.  But pump up other areas and post recipes as I go along.  What do you all think of that?  Are you cool with more fitness and fun related posts?  Are you cool with me posting recipes whenever?

And another thing.   I try to make my site as user friendly as possible because that’s how I like sites to be.  But sometimes I wonder since my Daily Eats section is a whole other area entirely, if people are just not seeing it.  I have links to it all over the place but it tends to get overlooked and I want people to be able to see all this site has to offer.  I’m working on a site redesign but that is going to be a little while before I feel it’s ready to use (plus I need a logo!).  For the time being should I move my Daily Eats stuff to the front page?  Would that make the site a little more user friendly?

Wow, what a year it has been around these parts.  OHC HQ has definitely seen some things, shared some things, and just lived some things.

I had the idea for this blog for some time and started putting things into action around May-ish.  It took months because I rely on my husband for coding and website related things.  Plus, I wanted my site to work a specific way which he then had to tweak and create plugins so that it would happen.

September 1st my little site was born and it became more than I thought it would.  My original idea was to just post recipes and things I created in the kitchen.  During the months of site prep, I stumbled into the world of food blogging.  I don’t mean recipe sites, I mean food blogging.  People living healthy, real lives and enjoying it and taking pictures along the way for the rest of us to see.  And when I say “real lives” I mean it.  These are people who exercise and eat real honest food which includes wine, cheese, chocolate and so on.  You can live a healthy lifestyle and still have those things.  This appealed to me so much because I can’t stand diets and feel that all of them are bogus, set about only to make someone else money off of someone else’s insecurities.  I decided that I was going to adopt this method of taking pictures of what I eat for every meal.  Daily eats was born.

Then I thought I have more to share than just recipes and food pictures.  Which is how Tuesday Tips and Flashback Fridays came to be.

And then I thought, “Andrea you try a lot of products and sometimes you love them and sometimes you hate them.  Maybe people would be interested in that as well.”  And so we have the Review section.

That’s a lot of stuff for my wee little blog who has only been around for 4 months.

In October I became a FoodBuzz member and was also accepted into their featured publisher program.  Wow!  Little me now has a title, business cards, and my little blog generates some extra cash.  I’m still kind of amazed by that.

I also was provided the opportunity to work with Bryan and his wife, Linda, on their Cheaplander site. Occasionally I write food reviews for them which is an opportunity I am grateful to be a part of.

I’ve met lots of people through food blogging and am really appreciative of the support from Bobbi, Lindsay, and Erin who took the time to read my blog at its start and gave me the motivation to keep moving forward.  If you are at all interested in food blogging, please check these ladies out.

And there’s the support from old friends, like Heather, Brenda, Monica, Becky, and CamTim who have been with me for a long time.  From my personal blog which is gone into the ether, to my newest adventure of making OHC the best it can be.

Sometimes blogging can seem lonely because you have days where you feel like you are just talking to yourself.   But when you have people who comment and support you, it makes things run that much smoother.

Of course I can’t go without mentioning my husband who supports me more than anyone else and always has my back.  And who is responsible for getting this site up and running the way I had envisioned it.

I am really grateful for everything this site has taught me and it’s been a lot.

Site related, my goals for 2009 are:

• A new site design.
• Better planning for recipes and articles.
• Get my office in order so planning and organizing become easier, allowing me to think more clearly.
• Make the site the best it can be.
• Make navigation easier so people can access all the sections ( I don’t think people realize the daily blog exists even though I mention it a lot).
• Post more recipes!

I am ready to tackle the new year head-on and put more energy and focus into this blog of mine.  Feedback is welcome, if there is something you would like to see or if there is more of something you would like to see, just let me know.  I take everything into consideration.

If your interested, I have a list of more personal goals (diet and exercise related) over here.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year and thank you so much for taking the time to read my little home on the web.  Looking forward to 2009 and all it has to offer!

Cheers!