This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.

In case you haven’t heard about what’s going on between Walgreens and Express Script, you can read it now.  Express Scripts, a prescription middleman used by a lot of employers and insurance companies, has dropped Walgreens from their pharmacy provider network effective January 1.  Walgreens tried to work out a deal with Express Scripts for the past year, but it still didn’t work.

This means that if your company uses Express Scripts and you have your prescriptions filled at Walgreens, you’ll now have to deal with the hassle of moving all of your family’s prescriptions to another pharmacy.  You can’t even choose the pharmacy you like best, plus you may have to drive further or switch to a pharmacy that isn’t open 24 hours!  (I love Walgreens the most because they have a drive thru, which is especially helpful if you have sick babies in the car and don’t want to go inside to pick up prescriptions.)   Unfortunately, without Walgreens in their network, the Express Scripts charges for prescriptions might even go up.

Prescription customers like me and you might be feeling caught in the middle between their health plan or employer and their favorite pharmacy over this whole dispute because we don’t really have a say.   

Many active duty military members, retired military members, and military spouses who use Tricare are affected by Express Scripts pulling Walgreens out of their network.  Not just military are involved though, and if you use Walgreens or Duane Reade pharmacies in New York City, you’ll need to find out if this includes you.  

How to Tell if You’re Affected

You can tell if your prescription insurance plan is involved in this change by looking at the back of your prescription insurance card.  If the back shows the Express Scripts logo or says the Express Scripts name, you’ll need to talk to your pharmacist and pay special attention to the next section. 

If you’re still not sure if this affects you, talk to your employer’s insurance contact or call your insurance company directly with the 800 number on your insurance card.  Make sure you have your plan number and company ID number available when you call.

What Can You Do If You’re a Walgreens Customer?

If you are linked with Express Scripts through your insurance company’s choice, you may still be able to keep your prescriptions at Walgreens without having the prices go up (or not go up as much).  This will vary depending on what your medications are and if they’re generic or brand name, of course.  The way you will be able to do this is to enroll yourself or your family in the Walgreens Prescription Savings Club.

To help customers with the Express Scripts transition, Walgreens is offering a special discount to enroll your family between now and January 31.  As long as you sign up before the end of this month, the enrollment fee for the whole year will be $5 for one person (normally 20) or $10 for your family (normally $35), which includes you, your spouse, all your dependents under 22 years old, and your pets. 

Being a member of the Prescription Savings Club will let you get discounts on your prescriptions, discounts on flu shots, pet prescriptions, diabetic supplies, and more.  Many of the generic medicines are available for less than $1 a week for a 3 month supply. 

You can get in touch with Walgreens on Twitter or Walgreens on Facebook to tell them what you think about the situation or ask questions.

We’ve got only 9 days left until Christmas and we’ve been swamped with holiday guest posts coming in to Home Ever After! 

We’re trying to get all the Christmas articles posted as soon as possible, so please be patient.  There have been so many great frugal holiday tips coming in this year too.

Want to Guest Post?

We have a super easy new way to submit guest posts right on the site – no more emailing and waiting. Here is our guest post submission form.

If you want to guest post at Home Ever After, please don’t send anything Christmas related! Go ahead and start focusing on new year resolutions and self-improvement topics, as well as Valentine’s Day general articles, project, recipes, or craft projects.

We’ll have a specific call for guest posts coming out soon with the specific columns and series we’re looking for.

Home Ever After Got Remodeled

If you subscribe, you may not have noticed that our site got a complete redesign! Our coupons are prettier, our pictures are bigger, and the site is warmer and more inviting.

We hope you like the new look as much as we do.  Drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you think of the new colors, layout, graphics, etc. 

We’ve got lots of exciting new additions (and editions, hint hint) planned for the new year.  I don’t know if I can keep quiet until 2012!  The only hint I’m going to give is that we’re looking for a few more writers…

I mostly keep in touch with everyone through facebook and twitter now.  This means that back in the early days of my blogging (2007/2008) a lot of the blogger friends I had didn’t choose to go social media.  And so we lost touch…

Recently I’ve been committed to dusting off my old feed reader and getting back in touch with my blogger friends.  Even the people I know on twitter I rarely have time to click through and read one of their blog posts.  There are friends who have had entire pregnancies and babies – at the same time as me – and now I’m finding out about it 9 months later! 

It was shocking and very sad to see today that about 1 out of the 3 blogs maintained by my old blogger friends are now gone.  The domains are empty, the blogs deserted, handed off or sold to strangers, or just plain gone into the night.

Things were much different back on the frugal and mom blogs scene 4 years ago, and it’s hard to believe it’s been that long.  Where have they gone?  The ones with links below still have old articles up which are really worth reading.  The ones with no links are gone, sadly, with all their posts.  If you know where they’ve gone, please leave a link in the comments!

• Miranda at Keeper of the Cheerios – domain is gone
• BeingFrugal.net – my friend Lynnae left this blog she started, you can find her now at Freelance Homeschool Mom
• Mrs. Micah at Finance for a Freelance Life 
• Steward from My Family’s Money
• Shana at Smart Easy Money 
• Kelly at Almost Frugal 
• Tanya at Comical Coupon Cents
• Lavonne at Economic Endeavors 
• Marin at Frugonomics 101 – she left a goodbye post before pulling the posts down
• Life on a Shoestring budget 
• Meredith at Like Merchant Ships – I really miss her.  Her photos are beautiful.
• Little Home in a Little Town, which became Brazo’s Cowgirl, which is now gone
• Carrie at Money Saving Methods
• The Checkout Chicks – domain gone
• Lisa Knight at The Frugal Momma
• Erin at The Thrifty Soaper
• This Wasn’t in the Plan
• Carlie Faulk at Why Ask Why
• Happy to be at home – this was a collaborative project.  I need to ask Toni from Happy Housewife where it went.
• Housewife Hiccups
• Lara Gallagher (The Lazy Organizer)

Goodbye blogs!  I’ll miss you. And I promise to be a better blogfriend in the future.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Puppies vs. Babies. All opinions are 100% mine.

Leave it to the people at the Animal Planet channel to ask what we’ve all been thinking: Which is cuter – puppies or babies?

Animal Planet has a new show dedicated to this “feud” between the cuteness factor of man’s best friend and cuddly cooing babies. The show is called Puppies Vs. Babies and it airs on Animal Planet on Saturday night.

The cool part is that they have pictures of both the baby contestants and the puppy contestants on the website. You can go to the Puppies vs. Babies online contest and choose which one you want to vote on first.

I chose babies, then it showed me 35 photos of babies (1 at a time) and I had to rate each baby’s “cuteness” on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 was the lowest and 10 was the highest score a baby could get. After you rate each baby, it shows you the average score from everyone else’s voting on the same child.

You can rate both babies and puppies if you want to. The pictures that get the highest ratings move onto the final round in Puppies vs. Babies. The lucky winner (or winner’s parent or owner) wins $5,000.

Who Do You Think is Cuter: Puppies or Babies?

Since it’s almost Halloween, we’ll be getting some very heartfelt answers about what people think. You can tell the baby people and the puppy people by which one they’d rather dress up in a Halloween costume and pose with for a ridiculous number of pictures!

I have to admit that overall I voted the puppies higher than the babies, even though I choose to be on the Babies Team! I gave the dogs that were wearing outfits and clothes high scores because they looked so adorable.

We all know that babies are cuter than puppies (okay, I have to admit that I’m a little biased since I’ve had 3 little adorable babies myself), but everyone still gets to have their say in the online contest. If my babies were in the contest, I’d rate them all 10s and I’d rate all the puppies 1s (even the ones I thought were cute), just because I’m partial!

My daughter, Seven, flutters her eyelashes and says, “I’m a yay-dee (lady)”. How could any dog ever compete with that?

It surprised me to see the averages for how people voted. Most of the puppies were an average of 5-6. Most of the babies were rated as 2s! Seriously, does everyone really think babies are so un-adorable? Maybe your votes can help drive up the averages for those poor pouty faced newborns!

Have Your Say!

You can go vote in the Puppies Vs. Babies contest now and have your say, just make sure you vote before the end of the contest on November 23rd. Which one is cuter? Which one would you rather dress up in a Halloween costume? Let us know in the comments below which one you’re going to vote for. What’s the craziest thing you’ve dressed your baby or puppy up as for Halloween?

Important Halloween Reminders

Halloween is in 2 days (October 31, 2011)!  I hope you have everything ready that we’ve been talking about for weeks (scary Halloween food for your party, cheap Halloween costumes for your kids, glow sticks and flash lights for safety).

• Creepy Halloween Recipes: Spooky Brain Cupcakes
• Creepy Halloween Recipes: Lifelike Rabid Rats (Twinkies)
• Free Pumpkin-Carving Stencils
• Video: How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin into a Jack o Lantern

This Week at Home Ever After

We’ve been busy around here getting ready for Halloween!  As you may have noticed, we have a lot more coupons, freebies and deals now.  That’s because we absorbed the site AndFreebiesForAll.com, so you’ll be seeing all of their offerings at Home Ever After now!

• Retro Homemaker: Homemaker’s War Guide (1941)
• Myths and Facts About Breast Cancer [Infographic]
• Fantastic Fall Review Lineup: 9 Baking and Cook Books
• Raising a Baby: Splurge vs. Save? [Infographic]
• Take & Make Menu Plan #1: Martha Stewart Dinner Recipes

Best Free Stuff & Coupons This Week

• Philadelphia Cooking Crème $1 off Coupon
• 13 Hot Printable Glade Coupons to Get Your Home Ready for the Holidays
• Cellfire – Get Exclusive Free Grocery Coupons Loaded to Your Shopping Card
• Alice.com 20% Off, Free Shipping and Automatic Coupons
• Free Samples For You: Prilosec OTC Heartburn Medicine
• Coupon For Free Chili’s Chips & Queso Appetizer

Hot Blogs & Websites This Week

In honor of Halloween, here are some of the spookiest articles we found out in the blogworld:

• 10 Ghostly Tours to Take Around the World
• 9 of the Strangest Bone Churches of Europe
• 6 of the Creepiest Castles in the World
• American Paranormal at CBS Baltimore
• Tim Burton Inspired Engagement Photos

Contests / Giveaways

Saturday Giveaways: Give It Away Now This is our weekly linkup where bloggers can list the contests their running (and if you just like to enter contests, come link the best ones you’ve found this week so we can all enter them too!).

Enter the Hass Avocados Recipe Contest to Win a Trip to the Rose Bowl Game!

Win a Trip to Legoland Florida From Atlantic Luggage!

Halloween Reminders

Are you ready for Halloween?  We’re coming to the end of the coupons and sales on Halloween costumes!  Get your Halloween costumes ordered now before it’s too late.  Use our Halloween coupons and discount codes here.

Plan a shopping trip to pick up ingredients for our 11 Scariest Creepy Halloween Food Recipes.  

MAKE IT: Creepy Halloween Recipes: Green Monster Eyeballs (Mini Donuts)

MAKE IT: Creepy Halloween Recipes: How to Make a Scary Watermelon Brain

Then, peruse the many free pumpkin carving stencils so you’ll be ready to make your jack o lantern for the front porch!

This Week at Home Ever After

Did you miss any of these articles this week?  Get caught up now!  (Grab a cup of coffee first and enjoy your morning reading.)

• Picture This: Suburbia on a Rainy Night
• Homespun Touches: Giving Life to Flat Images
• Free Samples For You: Poise Pads
• Family Friday: Mom Tips for When Kids Share Rooms
• Moms – Get Your Body Back After Baby!
• Fantastic Fall Review Lineup: 9 Baking and Cook Books
• Macy’s 1 Day Sale (10/22)

Hot Blogs & Websites This Week

The Survival Doctor: When help is not on the way.  My friend Dr. James Hubbard is the doctor on call at this amazing site that gives clear concise directions for what to do in a medical emergency (how to treat a stab wound, treating injuries during natural disasters, etc.) when there are no medical personnel to help.

Million Dollar Home Conversions: You know I love a good makeover, and home before and after pictures are no exception!

Craft a World: Beautiful Farah in Pakistan shows off her wonderful ceramics – perfect for creating a fabulous home.

• A Vision to Remember
• Cancer-stricken mom chooses baby’s life over hers
• Couple Married 72 Years Dies Holding Hands
• Moms of Faith
• Patrick Swayze’s Widow Recreates Dirty Dancing Scene With His Wax Statue

Cool in Social Media

• My Family is Killing My Klout Score

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you back around the watercooler next Saturday!

Halloween Reminders

Halloween is sneaking up on us faster than you might realize!  With Halloween carnivals, parties, and trick or treating just around the corner, it’s time to make sure that you’re prepared for the holiday.

Halloween party: Have you sent out invitations for your Halloween party yet?  Get a tentative head count right away so that you know how much food to make for your little boys and ghouls.  If you need some ideas and recipes for scary party munchies, try our 11 Scariest Creepy Halloween Food Recipes.  Start packing the goodie bags for your attendees, too.

Trick or treating: Make sure you have all the necessary supplies before you send your kids out for tricks or treats.  You’ll want flashlights or glow sticks, reflective items to put on their costumes, trick or treat baskets or pumpkins, and of course, Halloween costumes for everyone venturing out!

Did you volunteer for the school Halloween carnival (or did your son or daughter volunteer your crafty services)?  Make sure you book out plenty of time to help out so that it doesn’t interfere with your own Halloween festivities.

If you’re really in the mood to get ready, here are a few more Halloween reads:

• Top 10 Halloween pumpkin jack o lantern designs
• Halloween pumpkin patch Oreo chocolate cake
• Halloween Directory: Free Halloween Crafts, Coloring Pages & Projects
• Video: How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin into a Jack o Lantern

This Week in Alaska

You may remember that our office is located in Fairbanks, Alaska.  We’ve never had a Halloween without snow in my lifetime, and it looks like this year is no exception since it’s been snowing since Wednesday!

I realize that most people in the rest of the country are still enjoying autumn weather and changing leaves, but we’ve catapulted into winter already.  Our kids have been bundled up in their winter gear for close to 2 weeks already!

Hot Blogs & Websites This Week

• How to Sell Your House When It’s Vacant at eHow
• Simply Being Mommy
• Decorating on a Dime with Chalkboard Paint at Beauty and Bedlam
• Be ye kind, one to another… at A Young Wife’s Tale

Now you’re officially caught up and ready to tackle the weekend in the know!  What news do you have to share around the watercooler?  Let us know in the comments below.

Danelle

Huggies strikes again with their cool printed designer diapers, and this time it’s for a great cause!

For a short time, people can help Huggies provide needy military families with diapers in Operation Homefront (which gives emergency assistance to the families of service members and wounded warriors), and you can help for free. 

Home Ever After is a huge fan of our military families, who make huge sacrifices for the security of our whole country.  Helping with this diaper donation is free and it only takes a minute of your time!  Here’s how to help:

• Go to HuggiesCamo.com and make a camo card, which is a postcard telling about your appreciation for our military men and women.
• Huggies will donate a diaper to a military family for each camo card made on their site.

The other way to help Huggies donate diapers to military families is to buy the limited edition Huggies  camo diapers at Walmart (which are adorable).  For each camo diaper purchased, Huggies will donate one diaper to Operation Homefront up to 500,000 diapers!

Go make your camo card now to help our military families!

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, this article has material connections.  IS World Media (ISWM) was compensated with products for the publication.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about Huggies’ camo diapers campaign.

Important Reminders & News

• Super Bowl: The super bowl is on February 6th, 2011, and if you’re having a party this year, it’s time to start preparations.  Do you have your munchies menu planned yet?
• Valentine’s Day: We hope you’ve got your Christmas decorations packed away and replace with Valentine’s Day décor.  If not, this weekend is the perfect time to tackle the project! Get started on your Valentine craft projects with this free crafts book.

New at Home Ever After

Did you miss these recent articles?

• 2 Free Valentine’s Day Crafts Books
• Current Free DVD Rental Redbox Promo Codes – Updated 1/21/11
• Truett’s Prayer- TGIF for Toddlers?
• The Shows I Was Allowed to Watch as a Kid Terrify Me!
• How to Make Cupcakes in Ice Cream Cones (Video)
• Cut Down the Plastic Grocery Bag Clutter
• Clean This Today: The Garage
• How to Tie a Tie – The Windsor Knot (Video)
• Frugal Home Buying: We Saved Cash For Our Down Payment
• Clean This Today: The Coffee Maker
• Cooking with Toddlers: Making Jello Jigglers
• Homemaker Basics: What is a Trivet?
• Extreme Couponing – What’s All the Hubbub?
• Recipe: Creamy Mushroom Soup
• Half Off Tickets to Disney on Ice from Kraft Singles

Hot Blogs & Websites This Week

Food Your Way has a fantastic printable (and you know how I love my printables!) for the life expectancy dates of frozen foods.  Check out the Freezer Storage Dates Printable Cheat Sheet here.

Contests

Remember to head over to And Freebies For All every Saturday morning to post your giveaways in our Mister Linky and to sign up for some fantastic contests as well!

Danelle

Disclaimer: This article has no material connections.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about helpful events going on in which our readers may be interested.

In my normal course of business as a problogger and brand advocate, I do a lot of work with corporations, and that includes corporate PR (public relations).  My last trip from October 7-9, 2010, was no exception as I flew down to Chicago, Illinois. 

My time was spent at the Kraft Foods kitchens examining their new products and recipes.  Below is a picture of me with Kraft Foods Vice President, Lisa Mann, taken on this trip.

While at the Kraft kitchens, I got to try out exclusive recipes and new top secret products that aren’t even available in stores yet.  The most exciting news is that Kraft’s chefs are now going to be creating fantastic recipes for Home Ever After recipes!

Below is a photo of me (center front) with the mom blogger crew from Delicious Byte. 

I can’t wait to share some of the recipes and videos from my last trip to Kraft.  For more information about my relationship with Kraft Foods, please see the Corporate Relationships Disclosure. 

If you missed part 1 of my AMD trip story, go read it first here: AMD Mom Blogger Summit part 1.  I had a lot of activity packed into a few short days during my work at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

After publishing part 1 of the AMD trip, I realized a lot of people were asking, “Just what is AMD and what are you doing for them?”  Good question! I should have addressed that in the first article, but here goes. 

According to our friends at Wikipedia, AMD is a “company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets.  AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture and also one of the largest supplier of graphics processing units.”

What does that all mean in plain English?  It means that AMD’s computer parts make some lean, mean,  computing machines!  In fact, I was at their Lonestar Campus in Austin, Texas, with 5 other tech bloggers to get my hands on their new components released in the VISION Technology from AMD line.  I got to play around with (and bring home) a new Toshiba Satellite T235 laptop filled with AMD hardware.  Namely, the AMD VISION Premium is what filled the red notebook.  VISION Premium is the 2nd tier in a 4 tier system, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  Back to the trip!

When I first arrived in Austin, I had an extra night before we got started with our work session.  All the other ladies trickled in from the airport and we all met up at the spa in between our appointments for massages, pedicures, manicures, and seaweed wraps.  The other bloggers were Meredith Sinclair of Hoo De Hoo, Michele McGraw of Scraps of My Geek Life, Leticia Barr of Tech Savvy Mama, Kris Cain of Little Tech Girl, and Tiffany Dockery of Living as Mom.

Of course we got a photo of all of our pedicures except for mine (see photo at right).  I was taking the photo and happened to be the only one not wearing sandals!  When I go back to AMD in spring for the SXSW festival, I’ll be more appropriately dressed for Texas weather!

The spa was heavenly and the staff at the Barton Creek Spa was fantastic.  I even got to sit in the pedicure chair with Michele McGraw, a blogging friend of mine whom I actually got to meet in real life last year at the BlogHer conference.  We talked tech, blogging, and got our toenails done at the same time- is there an afternoon more perfect than that?!

That night, we hit an Austin hotspot called Lambert’s for live music and dinner.  Here we are rolling in our limousine (we had great service from the Clean Air Limo company).

This is what it looks like when you go to any kind of blogger event; even when we’re in transit, we’re all working.  Notice that everyone is working from their phones in the limo?! So did I- that’s why I took the photo!

Kris Cain was nuts- she had 3 different phones with her.

We hit AMD the next morning for breakfast and some intensive sessions with Leslie Sobon, AMD’s corporate vice president of product marketing.  See us all lined up outside the training center with the PR ladies below. 

The AMD campus was any geek’s dream: everywhere I went, I was surrounded by computers!  Check out these awesome displays for gaming machines and more:

The AMD home theater simulation room was unreal.  You can see the home theater room at right (and the camera man taking a picture of me taking a picture of the setup; that made me laugh!).

Bob Grim, AMD’s director or client product marketing (pictured below in the blue shirt), walked us through one of the tech display rooms and showed off the new toys.

After our work session was finished, it was time for touring and dining.  Our tour of the city was called Austin in 80 minutes.  I can’t help but plug the tour driver, since he was also the owner of the tour company, not to mention that his phone number and website are plastered all over the tour van in the photo!

Strangely, the van driver kept trying to get us all to go to a bar for drinks after our dinner (not with him, just in general).  Even stranger, we all wanted to go back to the hotel and get some sleep!  The sights were nice and we scored some great pics from the moving tour van.  

The Tex-Mex restaurant, Corazon at Castle Hill, had delicious queso and some wicked cool dia de los muertos (day of the dead) skeletons next to our tables (shown below).  That restaurant was a lot quieter than the night before, and we got to have some great conversations with Kristie Taylor, AMD’s public relations manager, about the direction AMD is headed. 

As I packed up my hotel room to head home from the AMD Mom Blogger Summit, I had to snap a picture of the chair.  Yes, it was covered with a real cow skin and a leather bottom.  The cow hide was so scratchy that I had to cover it with a towel during my stay!

Only in Texas!  Well, you know what they say:

Stay tuned for the final part of this series as I bring you the low down on buying frugal but powerful laptops from the new VISION technology by AMD line.

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has material connections.  IS World Media (ISWM) received no fees for the writing or publication.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about the VISION Technology from AMD product line.  Danelle Ice was provided with the following gifts by AMD free of charge: Toshiba laptop, Logitech wireless mouse, Nuo laptop case, Flip HD Cam, all-expense paid trip to Austin, accommodations, and spa treatments.  ISWM does not endorse the company mentioned above.

I’m so glad I finally had time to sort through the pictures from my AMD trip so I can share the story of my adventure during the AMD Mom Blogger Summit! 

I had a great time at AMD’s first ever blogger event and was very grateful to be 1 of the 6 women chosen to travel to AMD’s campus in Austin, Texas.  I’ll also be working with AMD in spring 2011 at the SXSW conference.

As I looked back through the photos from this trip, I wondered how it is that I’m always very pregnant when I travel.  That was when I remembered – I’m always pregnant!  Thanks to my wonderful husband for taking time off so that I could go on this trip.

You can see us all standing in front of the limo in the photo below (I’m 2nd from the left, wearing sunglasses (which I forgot to take off for the photo!)): 

AMD chose 6 tech bloggers to come to Texas and test out their new line of components called VISION Technology from AMD.  While we were were there we not only got to have play time (yes, we went to the spa and rode around Austin in limousines), but we did a lot of work too. 

We put the new line of VISION Technology from AMD processors to the test with video editing of HD video clips, which we shot on our new HD Flip Cams.  I want to say a big thanks to AMD for providing me with the following equipment: I received a Toshiba Satellite laptop configured with the AMD Vision Premium setup as well as a Flip HD video camera, Logitech wireless mouse, as well as a Nuo laptop case by designer Chloe Dao.

Did I mention that I got to meet Chloe Dao?!  There I am in the picture with her below (Chloe is in the middle).  She was the winner of the TV show Project Runway 2 and now has an exclusive line of NUO tech luggage and clothing sold on QVC. 

I had a pretty intense session with Chloe and Ty Rarick, the vice president of NUO, breaking down the exact features I wanted added to her line of bags that would be useful for tech-savvy moms on the go.  The best part about her bags is that they’re all designed to hold laptops, iPads, iPhones and other cell phones, Kindles, etc., so you can be functional and fashionable at the same time. 

The spring line of her bags hits the shelves in a few months (which has the pink print I’m dying for), and that’s the new luggage set I’ll be grabbing for my 2011 travel circuit.  I know you’re wondering if I gave her input for a tech diaper bag… You know I did! 

Stay tuned tomorrow for more pictures and details from my trip in AMD Mom Blogger Summit Part 2, including the spa treatments, the 80 minute Austin tour, the Day of the Dead skeletons in the restaurant, and more.  Later this week I’ll be posting about the tech specifics of my work at AMD, as well as some videos I took about soon-to-be released AMD technology, on our site MommyBlogger.me.

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has material connections.  IS World Media (ISWM) received no fees for the writing or publication.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about the VISION Technology from AMD product line.  Danelle Ice was provided with the following gifts by AMD free of charge: Toshiba laptop, Logitech wireless mouse, Nuo laptop case, Flip HD Cam, all-expense paid trip to Austin, accommodations, and spa treatments.  ISWM does not endorse the company mentioned above.

New & Noteworthy

You may know I spent part of last week in Austin, Texas, working with AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), the company that powers many bloggers’ computers today.  I can’t wait to share pictures and stories from my trip later this week!

Hottest Freebies

Have you requested all these free items from our other site, And Freebies For All?

•  Get 10 Free Dr. Seuss Lorax Activity Books
• Free Gain Dish Soap at Rite Aid 8/29-9/4
• Free Music Download Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
• Free Samples of Kotex U Tampons
• Free Samples of Playtex Sport Tampons
• Free Samples of Emergen-C Vitamin D and Calcium Drink
• Free Samples of Cheetos Mighty Zingers Chips
• Free Sample of Grandma Bowser’s Dog Treats

Blast From the Past at Home Ever After

Remember these articles from August last year?

• Kitchen Tip: Wet Erase Markers for Your Refrigerator Contents
• Unexpected Guests? How to Stretch a Meal at the Last Minute
• 13 Cleaning Tasks That Take Less Than 1 Minute
• How to Clean a Coffee Maker
• Taco Casserole Recipe
• Newborns: How to Treat Cradle Cap
• Family Friday: Fun Chores For Toddlers (Part 1)

Want more great blasts from the past? Click here to see our August 2009 articles.

Hot & Happening This Week

Fairbanks, Alaska residents can now check out the city’s first one-room schoolhouse.  If you have fond memories of the school in Little House on the Prairie, this may just be the schooling choice for your children. 

Northern Lights Academy is now enrolling students of all ages for their second year in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.  Their semester officially starts today, so if you’re interested in finding out more, give teacher Janice Trumbull a call at 474-0310 or visit NorthernLightsAcademy.org.

Do you have something new or noteworthy that you’d like mentioned in The Watercooler? Let us know at tips(at)HomeEverAfter.com.

Danelle

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has no material connections.  This post is not paid content and no fee was received for the mention of any of the above links or events.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about helpful events going on in which our readers may be interested.  IS World Media does not endorse and is not affiliated with any companies mentioned above.

Can you imagine how good it will look on your resume, about page, or advertising page to say you were featured in Fast Company magazine?  Hurry: the deadline is August 15, 2010.  That means there are only 3 days left!

Click here to be featured in Fast Company magazine now.

I’m talking about the Fast Company Influence Project.  They are trying to find the most influential people online and everyone who registers WILL be in the magazine.  The more influential you are, the bigger your picture will be!

Even if you don’t want to be in the magazine, you can help me by clicking the link to help me get a better placement in the project. 

I’m going to be featured in Fast Company magazine in November and I want you to be there with me!  You can check out my picture from the Fast Company website below.  I’m currently in the 95th percentile and #1,415 out or 29,801.  Hurry up and get your place! 

How to Be in Fast Company Magazine for the Influence Project

1.  Click this link to be taken to the Fast Company Influence Project page.

2.  Once you click on the link, you’ll arrive at the Fast Company site.  It will take a minute for the page to load. 

3.  Once it does, click on the “Get Started” link in the top right corner and fill in your information as you want it to appear in the magazine.

4.  Upload the photo you want to appear in the November Fast Company magazine.

5.  Send out your link to friends and family.

Good luck to everyone participating in the Fast Company Influence Project!  If you want to leave a  comment below after you sign up, we’ll all know to look for your picture in the magazine. 

You deserve to spend the 1 minute it will take to get yourself in the magazine.  Your career will thank you and you’ll be glad you did.  And please- send this article to all your blogger friends, twitter friends, Facebook friends, etc, so they can all get into the magazine too.  We can all help each other to benefit from this once in a lifetime opportunity.  From one blogger to another, I hope to see you all there with me!

Coming Soon

We’ve been working on so many projects lately, it’s been a struggle to get them all posted!  If you love before and after photos like me, you’ll be excited to know that we have lots of home DIY makeover before and after pictures coming up in the next few weeks. 

We’ll also finally get to share the exciting conclusion to the disaster bathroom remodel that began nearly a year ago.  It’s finally come together and the completed room is stunning – pictures coming soon.

Important Reminders & News

• Nashville flooding: Please keep our Nashville friends in mind and pray for their safety during the recent extreme flooding in their town.  My friend BusyMom lives in Nashville and took some startling videos and photos of the flood from her house.
• Summer reading: Check your local libraries and Barnes & Noble stores to sign your kids up for their summer reading programs.
• Memorial Day weekend: If you haven’t made plans for Memorial Day weekend yet, it’s time to get started.  See if you can get out of the house with your family over the weekend, even if only for an afternoon, to spend some quality time together.  We’re planning a Chena Lakes trip with some families from church.  Are you in Fairbanks, Alaska, and would like to join us?  Leave a comment below for more info!

Do you have something new or noteworthy that you’d like mentioned in The Watercooler? Let us know at tips(at)HomeEverAfter.com.

Danelle

It was a fun weekend, and I got to meet some new ladies (whom I hope to be able to persuade to contribute their expertise here at Home Ever After), as well as spend time with my blog friend in real life, Barb Chasteen of The Forever Neighbor.  Barb is a great Christian homeschool mom who knew me from this site before she ever moved to Alaska.  I’m glad to have found her in real life as well, and happy that we can share the same church family!

Yes, Our Site was Hacked

If you visited the site last week and got warnings from your antivirus, we apologize.  We were hit with two hacks through our hosting company, GoDaddy, along with thousands of other sites over the past few weeks.  They have no idea how or why it is happening, and they’re still in investigation mode to hunt down the perpetrators. 

Some people say to never admit when you get hacked.  I can’t agree with that philosophy – I’m all about honesty.  We recommend that you do a full antivirus scan on your machine if you visited our site in the last week, to find any lurking malware that may have jumped on board.  Better safe than sorry.

We’ll be continuing to clean and do preventive maintenance every day until GoDaddy assures us it won’t happen again.  Thank you for you patience and, as always, we’re so glad to have you with us as our readers!

Happy Mother’s Day to all You Ladies!

Welcome to Home Ever After from the Ultimate Blog Party 2010!   Home Ever After is the most comprehensive home and how to magazine online. 

We hope you’ll subscribe to our RSS feed or email updates  to get all of our newest article sent to you daily.

If this is your first time here, check out our beginner’s guide.

My church’s mission team is headed to Burma just after Christmas to take supplies to the orphanages and refugee camps there.  The winter weather in Burma gets down around 30 degrees F, and the people are not prepared with warm gear to handle those temperatures.

We have 2 families from Friends Church that live in Thailand and work with the displaced people of Burma all year long, and now more friends are going over to take supplies to help the orphans through the colder winter months.  See the Alaska Team’s photos and info on their blog.

How Can You Help? Send in a $1 Pair of Gloves!

It’s short notice, but you can still help the Burma team round up supplies for the orphanage and refugee camp!  They are looking for the following basic items before they leave December 27th, 2009:

• Stretchy knit gloves that fit either adults or kids
• Stretchy knit hats
• Socks for either adults or kids

Items can be new or gently used, just as long as they’re washed (the team won’t have time to launder items before they leave).  They’re also taking cash donations to buy larger supplies once they get there (sweatshirts, blankets, etc.).

Where to Send Your Items for the Orphans

• Drop Off:  If you’re local to Fairbanks, bring your donations to the Friends Church foyer at 1485 30th Ave, Fairbanks, Alaska.
• Mail In:  Mail your donation items to arrive on or before December 27th to Friends Church, Attn: Partners Burma Trip, 1485 30th Ave, Fairbanks, Alaska 99701.
• Send $:  To send a cash donation for the Burma mission, please click this link and in “donation category”, choose “Missions” and specify “Partners Burma trip”.

More Info about What to Send

“The Alaska Team 2009 requests your help for the following donations for their January mission-team trip to be distributed to refugees and hill-tribes villagers:

1. Knit hats, knit gloves, and socks in both adult and childrens’ sizes. (Slightly used, clean items are acceptable).

2. Cash donations to purchase sweatshirts, jackets and blankets (in Thailand) to distribute to orphans ($5.00 will provide one per child).

3. Cash donations to purchase 250 towels (in Thailand) as gifts for refugees who will be baptized at a huge celebration on January 2nd (approximately $4 per towel).

4. Bears for Burma: a simple pattern to pre-sew (in about and hour or less) to allow an easy craft for a refugee toddler. Contact Jocelyn at koolmartins(at)yahoo(dot)com for the pattern and instructions.” – Jocelyn Martin    

More About the Partners Mission

The mission program, called Partners, lets us help people in need and think about those less fortunate this holiday season and all year long.  For more info about Partners or how to help, email koolmartins(at)yahoo(dot)com or info(at)friendschurch(dot)org. 

Just a fun side point – hot pink is a very popular color for men and boys in Burma!  Feel free to send in any colors of hats/gloves/socks you wish.  Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has no material connections.  IS World Media (ISWM) received no fees for the writing or publication.  This article is a free public service donated to Friends Church to help gather supplies for the Partners Mission team.

On my trip to the Oscar Mayer / Kraft Foods headquarters this summer, I was able to enjoy fantastic Deli Fresh gourmet sandwiches made with fresh veggies, great condiments, cheeses of all kinds, and – of course- Deli Fresh lunch meats by Oscar Mayer.  The sandwiches were delicious and building them was fun, too.

As parents, we worry about our kids having healthy ingredients in their lunches, but do we go to the same lengths for ourselves?  Are we really taking healthy lunches to work, or do we think it takes too much time?

After spending time at the Kraft Kitchens, I realized that making healthy sandwiches with fresh ingredients wasn’t as much work as I made it out to be in my mind.  By creating a “sandwich drawer” in my refrigerator, which I’ve stocked with all the necessary sandwich fixings, I’ve made it convenient for my family to make healthy sandwiches for lunches or snacks.

Keeping this idea going:  Oscar Mayer asked me to share the healthy sandwich good news by having a sandwich building party with my friends at the University of Alaska’s Office of Information Technology (OIT)!

Running the technology department for a university is a demanding job, and the men and women in the department don’t have a lot of free time to go hunt down the pieces of a healthy lunch during their lunch break.  That’s why we brought the fresh, healthy ingredients to them!

The perfect ingredients (shown at right):  fresh baked French bread, Kraft Miracle Whip, Deli Fresh Swiss cheese, baby spinach, Kraft Singles low fat American cheese, and a variety of new flavors of Oscar Mayer’s Deli Fresh lunch meats.

Here is a sandwich one of the computer techs made (yes, we actually got a photo before it was eaten) sitting in front of an iMac monitor!

The hungry techs descended upon the Deli Fresh table as soon as we set it up…

and my husband built a Deli Fresh turkey and pepperjack cheese sandwich for himself to enjoy!

My thanks go out to James Elieff for allowing Oscar Mayer to provide the OIT staff with a healthy, Deli Fresh sandwich lunch, courtesy of Kraft Foods!  

The Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh logo is used with permission from Kraft Foods.

–

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has material connections.  This post is not paid content and no fee was received for the writing or publication.  An American Express gift card and coupons for free Oscar Mayer products were provided to IS World Media (ISWM) at no cost by Kraft Foods to cover the cost of purchasing the ingredients for a lunch party.

We’re getting ready to enter the heavy-duty holiday season, which means a packed editorial schedule for us and tons of great holiday-focused articles for you!  A lot of holiday topics (like crafts, kids’ projects, cooking and recipes, family traditions, templates and printables, planners, calendars and more) cross over into the topic of family anyway.

With this in mind, we thought it would be best to put the Family Friday Mr. Linky carnival on hold until after New Years.  This will give us time to focus on all the holiday and home DIY articles that you love so much. 

We hope you’ll join us for Family Friday again in January 2010, and until then, we’d love your support by linking to our holiday articles you think your readers will like.  Thank you!

Halloween Links

• Free Halloween Recipes Cookbook
• Free Halloween Crafts, Coloring Pages & Projects
• Scary Halloween Treats from Nessa’s Kitchen
• Creepy Halloween food recipes are some of our favorites, and here’s a new recipe:  Apple Bites.
• More scary Halloween food recipes.
• Kid friendly Halloween decorations that are fun to make and look at!
• Free printable pumpkin carving stencils.
• How to decorate a pumpkin in less than 30 minutes.
• A good way to move Halloween costumes out of your house so they don’t become clutter is to use eBay, Kijiji, your local consignment shop, newspaper classifieds, or Craigslist to sell or trade them.  You can even donate old costumes to your church for their plays or trunk or treat event next year.
• Facebook users can play the Trick or Treat Me app that allows users to send cute trick or treat gifts to friends and family.
• Cellufun has downloadable Halloween games for cell phones.  You can  gives dress up your avatar, go trick-or-treating, pick pumpkins, or carve jack-o-lanterns. Check out their Hallofun games here. 

Hot Blogs & Websites This Week

•  The Green Team from eBay offers green tips for reusing and repurposing items.

Contests

• Care.com has a contest going in November to celebrate National Family Caregiver Month. They need stories about people who go above and beyond to care for the people they love or work for.  You can nominate your hero on their Facebook page for their chance to win a $500 prize pack!

Twitter Parties

• Pete Bils is hosting a Twitter party on Monday, 11-2-09 from 4:00-6:00 CT to talk about sleep, immunity, and swine flu. Tweet @SleepGeekPete to ask questions or use the #SleepGeek hashtag.

News

• October is National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) awareness month.  While there are many tips thought to reduce the risk factors of SIDS, a study last fall by the Archives of Pediatrics found that the use of a fan might help lower the risk by 72%.  Thanks to Hunter Fans for sending us the heads up on this potentially life-saving survey.

Do you have something new or noteworthy that you’d like mentioned in The Watercooler? Let us know at tips(at)HomeEverAfter.com.

Danelle

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has no material connections.  This post is not paid content and no fee was received for the mention of any of the above links or events.  This article is an informative public relations post written by Danelle Ice about helpful events going on in which our readers may be interested.  IS World Media does not endorse and is not affiliated with any companies mentioned above.

It’s my pleasure to join Blog Action Day for the second year in a row and help further the global conversation for change and awareness!  This year’s Blog Action Day is climate change, which I feel I have a unique perspective on since I live in Alaska. 

I was reading through a Top 100 list of the effects of global warming which really brought things into a tangible sphere.  There are 100 specific things listed that will disappear if the climate change keeps going at its current rate.  In the first page, I saw several changes that had to do with Alaska and other cold weather locations, such as polar bears that become cannibals and eat each other when the lack of cold & ice keeps them from their regular food supply!

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, right in the interior of the state, and arguably one of the coldest places to live in the world.  It’s not unusual for us to see temperatures of –60 to –70 degree Fahrenheit, and that’s before you figure in a windchill factor.  That’s the straight-up temperature showing on the thermometer.  One of the most fun things about the harsh cold is to drive by a store with a digital thermometer sign that shows the time and temperature and take a picture of it at extremely cold temperatures.  I wish I had one to share right now!

Here’s an interesting fact about thermometers, while we’re on the subject: many thermometers don’t go below –70 degrees F.  If you’re unlucky enough to have one of these not-intended-for-Alaskans-thermometers hanging on your porch and it’s a particularly cold day, your cold-gauge may get to the bottom and stop! 

Looking back on our weather history as a life-long Alaskan, I can remember winters in my childhood and even 20s during which the cold weather was more frequent,  longer in duration, and more extreme.  My senior year in high school I had to go outside between every class and start my car to make sure it would still run when school was over for the day so I could drive to work.  The –50 and colder temperatures for that particular cold snap lasted longer than 2 weeks straight.

Now, while we still have extreme temperatures here in Fairbanks, they’re not as frequent or as long-lasting.  I’d love to give extra tidbits about the strange adjustments we make to everyday life having to deal with the extremely cold weather in winter, but that’s for another post on another day.

Our summers have also seen noticeable changes.  In years past, our summers were warm and comfortable, but didn’t reach the level of heat that would require sustained use of air conditioning in my home.  However, the highs have seemed to be trending upward and the 90 degree weather in Alaska seems to be here to stay in the summers now.

Let’s talk about the freak weather – check out the photo at right that I took from my front porch of snow falling on April 30, 2008.  This was long after the snow had been melting and spring was almost giving way to summer!  It dumped inches of fresh snow on us that day, and I had to take a picture because it was so out of the ordinary.  

Perhaps the most shocking climate change effect to date for me living in Alaska is happening right now.  Every year, I use October 5th as a guideline for when our winter is officially here.  By that date I can usually count on the snow being here permanently until the following spring.  This year we’ve had a couple snows that only lasted a few hours, but there is no permanent snow on the ground and it is quite visibly Autumn still. 

I’ve half-joked and half-wished for many years that it would still be fall on Halloween so we could take our kids trick or treating door to door.  (Last year it was so cold that we had to drive from house to house, bundle the kids up in their winter gear, run to the door, run back, and repeat.  It was so cold that the baby only got to do 2 houses then had to stay in the car.)  Now here it is, October 15th, and the yellow and orange leaves on the trees are still falling to a crinkly, but not white, ground.  It’s Fall time in mid-October, which I’ve never seen in Alaska in all my life.  I’m starting to think we may get our snowless Halloween trick or treating after all!

What’s next – snowless Christmas in Alaska?!

We can all do our part to help fight climate change and lead a life that’s just a little greener than the year before.  The ideas for quick, easy ways to make a difference are endless: walk to the library instead of driving, take the bus to work, set up a carpool for your kids.  You can even add your name to a petition for President Obama to lead the way on climate change initiatives for us.

Thanks for joining me for my thoughts on how climate change is visible and very much here in Alaska.  Feel free to leave comments about your experiences and observations in the comments.  There’s still time to participate in Blog Action Day as well:  check them out online now!

12/4/08 Frugal Christmas Tips for the Housewife on a Budget at The Happy Housewife

1/28/09 5 Tips to Get Your Blog Earning at The Happy Housewife

2/15/09  Patriotic Presidents’ Day Kids’ Breakfast Foods at Penny Pinching Diva

3/16/09 6 Truths about Pregnancy & Motherhood that Nobody Tells You at The Mom Crowd

3/17/09 6 MORE Truths about Pregnancy & Motherhood that Nobody Tells You at The Mom Crowd

4/8/09 4 Ways to Get the Customer Service You Deserve at Mommy Brain Reports

4/10/09 5 Tips to Plan a Shopping Day with Kids at Mommy Brain Reports

4/17/09 Tips for Automating and Multitasking to Balance Work and Home Life for Oscar Mayer

7/8/09  Romance on a Budget: Is it Possible? at Money Saving Mom

I’m proud to announce the launch of our newest blog:

Mommy Blogger .me!

Fall is always a busy time for us, during which we roll out our new websites before holiday season starts up.  This year is no exception, as you may remember we launched a new site 2 weeks ago called And Freebies For All.

We get so many questions about blogging from readers and bloggers that we figured it was about time to start making blogging how to information available to the public. I’ll be writing at MommyBlogger.me, giving away tons of my secrets and helpful hints for how to get the edge in this growing new media world.

You may be familiar with the sites on blogging that are available now, and all the top ones are run by – you guessed it – men!  Now they are my blogging counterparts and some are even my friends, but I felt it was about time there was a blogging site specifically for women.  Hence, MommyBlogger.me was born!

What Qualifies Me to Write about How to be a Problogger?

I’ve been a problogger and new media publisher for several years, right since blogging was starting to catch on.  I’ve been involved with some pretty high-profile companies, such as Oscar Mayer, Walmart, Purex Insiders, Macy’s, and many more, and have built a moderate blogging empire which continues to grow.

I’m a modest person which is why I make our site statistics and analytics private.   While I won’t hand out specific numbers, I will tell you that our sites rank very well for our keywords in SERPS and they rank fast.  We have incredible reach in Twitter (recently surpassing Sarah Palin in Twitter rank for Alaskans), our SEO is up there with the best of the best, and our site launches show what we can do very quickly. 

For example, our freebies site, which is now only 14 days old, hit the 1st page of Google today for one of our keywords.  That’s pretty amazing to me, and I’m grateful for the success, but I also believe that anyone can do what I do if they know my helpful blogging tips.

Whether you’re a beginner at blogging or if you’d just like to take your blogging to a new level, you owe it to yourself to visit our new problogging site, MommyBlogger.me.  It offers help with social media, blogging best practices, how to monetize your blog, and more. 

I hope some of what I’ve learned the hard way, through good old trial and error, will come to you more easily by reading all the free information on our site!

You can subscribe to MommyBlogger.me now to get the articles daily:

get the RSS feed here or the email subscription here (both are free).

I get almost giddy when we launch a new website, and it is painful for me to wait to announce it!  I’m happy to let you all know that our newest blog was launched over the weekend:

And Freebies For All 

It’s our freebies, free samples, and coupons division at IS World Media and will allow us to bring you the best free offers as they become available. That’s right – no more waiting!  I’m very happy to move the freebies off of Home Ever After, because they don’t really fit in our home and how to magazine.  I got so tired of having to delete all the wonderful free offers and not being able to bring them to our readers in a time frame that made sense.  That’s all fixed now!

Check out the site here: And Freebies For All. 

Also, subscribe to the freebies RSS feed or freebies email updates so you get these time-sensitive freebies delivered (for free, of course!).

Over the years, I’ve been collecting some funny Google searches for Barbi.  It’s funny how certain search words can lead to your website that you NEVER guessed would!  Some people find our site after searching for the strangest things…

If you’ve never heard of the Barbi Twins (and I’m going to guess for most of our readers, they haven’t), they are two twin nude models that happen to have the last name “Barbi”… As you can guess, this means we get searches for:

• Barbi top
• Barbi naked
• Barbi’s jugs (I really like that one – it makes me laugh.  I imagine the person’s face when they’re expecting to see naked you-know-whats and instead a picture shows up of my empty plastic milk jugs!)
• Barbi hot
• Barbi twins (because I showed a Wordless Wednesday photo of “twins” – a double-yolked egg)
• Jugs de barbi
• and many more that are too dirty to print

Who’s the Wise Guy Searching for Me Naked?!

It also never occurred to me until my husband mentioned one day that he supposed people were searching for pictures of me naked. I told him he was crazy, and we set out to check Google and settle the matter.  Sure enough, there are a lot of people searching for “Danelle Ice naked” and “Danelle Ice nude”.  So thanks to my husband for bringing to light that rather disturbing fact!  *sigh* 

So for all the people arriving at this site when looking for naked ladies, I’m afraid they’re not going to find what they’re looking for here!  But in the meantime, maybe they’ll pick up some frugal living tips or household hints!

If those gave you a good laugh, a hilarious list of strange searches leading to Ashley’s website, Young Wife’s Tale, is here.  Have you posted a list of your strangest searches?  Let us know in the comments.

Originally published June 28, 2008.