I had the honor of hosting* the Glade Fresh Night Out event in Denver last week. It was a night of socializing with local mom bloggers while enjoying some yummy appetizers and drinks at the Warwick hotel.

Part of the evening’s festivities including making gift baskets with a decorate it yourself mug, a chenille throw blanket, a jar of homemade chocolate mix (which included marshmallows and chocolate chips), a satin sleep eyeshade, and some Glade Sense & Spray products. (The blanket and basket are from IKEA, so what’s not to love.)

I’ve been using Glade Sense & Spray products in my home and love them. I’m usually into scented candles, but after leaving the house only to come home and find out that I left them burning, I’ve tried to find an alternative like Glade Sense & Spray Automatic Freshener. Heck anything that can cover up the scent of my indoor electric composter while not setting the house on fire is my favorite thing.

How you can get a Glade Fresh Night Out gift basket

I’m giving away one of the gift baskets I made. (The other one went home with me.) This would be a nice housewarming gift. Or you can give the mug, pens and homemade hot chocolate as a teacher appreciation gift, the blanket and eyeshade to your mother-in-law and the basket to someone else. Or you can keep it all for yourself!

Whatever you decide to do, here’s how to enter my giveaway:

1. Leave your name, email address, and blog address (if you have one) in the comments below for ONE entry.
2. If you have a blog, post about this contest for ONE additional entry.
3. Sign up for my RSS feed for ONE entry. If you signed up for my RSS feed previously, just let me know and I’ll count it.
4. Follow me on Twitter.
5. Tweet about the contest using the URL of this post. (Shortening it with TinyURL or another service is OK.)
6. If you have signed up for my RSS feed, followed me on Twitter, and/or posted about my contest on your blog or Twitter, leave a comment telling me what you did. I will be checking! (Also, if you have signed up for my RSS or Twitter feed before for another contest, just let me know and I’ll count it in this contest, too.)
7. Maximum amount of entries at A Mama’s Rant is FIVE – leaving a comment here (1), posting about it on your blog (1), posting about it on Twitter (1), signing up for my RSS feed (1), and following me on Twitter (1).
8. You have until midnight MT November 20, 2009 to enter.

Note: You must be willing to send me your full name and mailing address so I can send it to Edelman who sponsored the event and are mailing out the gift box. If you do not feel comfortable giving us your information, please do not enter this giveaway.

Winning Announcement: I will announce the winner here on this blog. I will not share your mailing info with the public, just your name (first name and last initial), blog and/or Twitter account.

Legal: Open to legal residents of the United States 18 years of age and older only. ONE prize valued at $40 or less. No purchase required. Up to FIVE entries per person. Void where prohibited by law. By submitting your name and email address, you agree to receive relevant promotional emails and contest follow up communications from A Mama’s Rant in compliance with our privacy policy and giveaway rules.

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*Full disclosure: I was paid by Edelman to help host the event. I was not required to blog about the event or make a basket to give away. I chose to do so as a service to my readers.

Plus you’ll also receive a $10 Reward Card to use on your next purchase! 

The only thing you have to pay for shipping and handling charges of $6.95. (Total value is $21.99) There is a limit of one free sample per customer. Also, this offer will only be good until November 20, 2009 at 11:59pm EST.

This would make a great teacher appreciation or hostess gift. You can go to www.cherylandco.com/free to get the free cookies or go to www.cherylandco.com to see what else Cheryl & Co. has to offer like these Hanukkah gifts or these Thanksgiving goodies.

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Full disclosure: I did not receive compensation for this post. But I do have a good friend whose husband works at Cheryl & Co., and she says the cookies are delicious!

But learning how takes time, you know? So when Mom Central asked me to check out Microsoft Office Live, I thought maybe I’d learn something and find a better way to do things.

Office Live for Small Business

Microsoft Office Live has two sections: Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Microsoft Office Live for Small Business. Microsoft Office Live for Small Business gives you the opportunity to create a small, customizable website and email account. This would be a great way to quickly and cheaply create an online presence. I’ll have to play around with it more before I recommend it to my writing clients though, since I usually find that most people need a blog and not a static website. However, if this is something you may be interested in you can learn more or check out their FAQs or Community and Support.

Why I need Office Live Workspace

What I was interested in was discovering if Microsoft Office Live Workspace would make camping and other trip planning easier. When I go to conferences, I’d forward a slew of documents and email to a special Gmail account I keep for this purpose so I have access to the information and files.

However, there are times you can’t get Internet access even with a smart phone. So, I’d print out a bunch of emails from airlines and hotels for both myself and my family. (One to take along and one to keep at home.) I’d also print out pages of emails from people I was planning to meet up with, and cut and paste the conference lineup into a Word document and print that out, too. Finally, I’d also print out maps if I had to go to several places over the course of one trip. Bottom line: while I believe in hard copy backup, I hated killing a few trees every time I left the house.

I was also frustrated that my husband never knew when I was leaving or when I’d be coming back. The problem was that he’d have a printout of my itinerary at home and wouldn’t have a copy at the office. Maybe I should tattoo it on one of the kids’ tushies?

With a family trip coming up – we’re meeting my sister and her family in San Diego next month – maybe Office Live Workspace could help.

Getting started with Office Live Workspace

First, I signed up with Office Live Workspace using a personal email address. I was glad to see that I didn’t have to create and use an MSN Hotmail account, and that it worked with my personal Gmail account.

Then I started to create a new workspace for my project. Since Office Live Workspace comes with standard documents for different types of projects – events, household, job search, meeting, school, sports teams, and travel – so I didn’t have to create documents on my own.

I picked travel workspaces and started to edit the documents. But first I had to download a few programs. Since I wanted to use Word, it had me install the Windows Live Sign-In Assistant plug in with Office Live Update. Now I can use Microsoft Office programs, such as Office, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with my online workspaces. I liked that Office Live Workspace adapted to how I already work. The update also installed quickly and I was shown online how to use it.

Then I set about setting up my itinerary in the form provided. I changed the name “business trip itinerary” to “San Diego itinerary.” Then I clicked on Edit to add the information. Word opened and I was asked to add a .NET Passport to my XP account. After that quickly uploaded, I started to edit the document in Word. When I wanted to save my changes, I used Save As to update the Office Live Workspace document. (If you use Save initially, you may end up with numerous versions of the same document.)

Creating documents in Office Live Spaces

Sometimes it’s easier to cut and paste an email like a flight itinerary or rental car reservation into a new document than typing the info into a form. So how do you create a new document in Office Live Spaces? Easy! You open up a blank document, then go to Save As. A Save As dialog box will popup. Click on My Network Places under Save in. You should see a folder for your Workspace Office Live documents. Double click on the folder, then go to the project your working on and save. (Don’t forget to create a unique file name, too.)

Making collaboration easy

Sharing the workspace is easy. You just click on the Share icon a the top and put in everyone’s email address into the “editor” or “viewer” spaces. (Editors can change and add to documents and viewers are only able to read them.)

When someone receives this request via email, they need to click on the link that was sent them to go to the workspace and view the documents within it. When they click on the link, they’ll need to sign in with their email address as their user name and to create a password, a bit of a pain my my opinion.  Once they’ve done that, they’ll be taken directly to your online workspace so they can view or edit the documents depending on what you’ve allowed them to do.

Now the challenge in doing a trip project is to get family members to contribute documents or add their information to existing ones! Even so, I’m going to continue using Microsoft Office Live Workspace to plan my trips from now on. I know it’ll make life easier for me and I’ll waste less paper using it.

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I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Microsoft Office Live. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

To celebrate, this Wednesday (that’s TOMORROW folks) Mattel is conducting a Virtual Shopping Day and giving everyone 10% off and FREE shipping – just use the code MATTELMOM30.

What are you buying the kids this year?

My husband and I have decided to get the kids only a few big presents instead of a bunch of little stuff – especially since I know my mother-in-law will be getting them a bunch of junk again this year.

But I’m not against getting the whole family games and Mattel has some cool new ones like MINDFLEX™ and Blokus®. There are classics like KERPLUNK™, which was one of my favorites when I was a kid and puzzles, too.

More about MattelShop.com

The MattelShop.com features innovative tools including ShopTogether®, a social shopping tool from DecisionStep® that allows anyone to browse the site together with family and friends regardless of whether they are across town or around the world. The ShopTogether® feature allows shoppers to chat in real time regarding the toys they like most, just like one would do on a shopping trip.

Shop Together is a cool feature to use if you’re shopping online and need to consult with your spouse or another relative on buying toys or games for the kids.

The site includes a complete catalog of Mattel’s popular brands such as Barbie® and Hot Wheels® plus many other toys, games and licensed products from the entire Mattel Brands portfolio which includes favorites such as Matchbox® and Polly Pocket™. Shoppers can choose to shop by age, gender, play preference, or find the hottest new products on the big or small screen from Mattel’s entertainment related portfolio.

You can also fan the MattelShop.com on Facebook to get the inside scoop on what’s hot for the holidays, follow the Mattel Shop on Twitter for updates and special promotions and subscribe to the Mattel Shop YouTube Channel to view product content.

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Full disclosure: I received no compensation for this post. I just wanted to pass along a cool deal to my readers.