Welcome to the Great Chili’s Gift Card Giveaway!

In In the Kitchen With KP and Stuck at Home Mom have joined with a great group of bloggers to share this super tasty opportunity just for you!
Is there anyone that wouln’t jump at the chance to go out and enjoy a free meal in this economy? I’m sure you’d be hard pressed to find one.
So to make your day a little brighter, and your wallet a little heavier, Stuck at Home Mom and In the Kitchen With KP sponsored not one, but TWO $25.00 gift cards from Chili’s to giveaway.
That means your chances to win just doubled instantly!
Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below!

This gift card giveaway starts May 12 at 12:01 AM EST and ends May 27 at 11:59 PM EST.
Open to the US only.
Must be at least 18 years old to be eligible.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Much thanks to the following for hosting.
Jenny at Dapperhouse Been There Done That with Kat Ms Angela’s Finds DonnasDealsAndMore Two Girls and Some Coupons SmartySaver annies home All About the Mommies Dr. Pepper Diva Gustosa Giveaways Crazy About Deals Deals, Teens and MMA SaraLee Earegood Love2EncourageYou I Luv 2 Save Mami’s 3 Little Monkeys The Lucky Ladybug The Lucky Ladybug Jennifer’s Deals Literary Winner Faerotic Prose a delicious obsession B^3 Just Married Mom of 3 Beautifully BellaFaith Pittsburgh Frugal Mom Plum Crazy About Coupons J4C Home The Ordinary aunt Health, Beauty, Children and Family Earth’s Delights MyCouportiera Giveaway Gator Coupons are Genius Scattered Musings of A Creative Mind Christys Reviews And More Just Jennifer Talking VickieB’s Ramblings Frugal-Shopping Family Savings Center Figuring Out the Small Stuff KATHY DONAHUE Momma On A Dime How To Survive in College Yummy Boy Mummy The Dollar Monger Super Mommy Of One Nana Roberta Cha Ching Queen Blog Booty Frugal Experiments The Review Wire Couponing With Integrity Scattered Musings of A Creative Mind

No purchase necessary.
You must be 18 or older and a resident of the U.S. to enter. No PO Boxes.
Mandatory Entries must be completed or all optional entries will be rendered invalid.
The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning.
By entering, you are giving StuckatHomeMom.com and InTheKitchenWithKP.com permission to use your email to contact you in regards to prizes.
Your information will be protected and never shared.

Winner will be selected in a random drawing.
Winner will be notified by email, and have 48 hours to respond with shipping information.
If no response after 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.

Giveaway ends 5/27/12 midnight EST
The winner of this contest will be announced within 7 days after the contest end date.

This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or in associated with Twitter, Facebook or any other entity unless otherwise specified. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.
Please feel free to contact http://stuckathomemom.com/contact-lil-ol-me or Karen@InTheKitchenWithKP.com for further information.

I have no attention span – this makes me an awesome parent!

I’m good with puzzles – those hold me attention, anything that’s a challenge – that holds me attention – Perfect Programmer Mentality.

But this means that my mind is always looking for it’s next stimulation fix. I’ve started documenting our Stimulation Fixes in hopes that they will help others.

Coloring Flowers

Carnations
Food coloring
Every jar in your home
Water

Put water in jar.
Dump entire container of 1 color of Food Coloring into water – it’s faster this way
Stick Carnations in Colored Water
Go to Bed.

This doesn’t work with daisies.

Darker colors will show a little by morning. 2 or 3 days later you have funky colored flowers.

Hopscotch Inside

1 old sheet
11 or more Iron on transfers
I used Scrapbooking Elements I fond on the web
Photo editor software
Obviously Color Printer

I used the cheapest version of Photshop and digital scrap booking elements to create each hop scotch square. Each took about 5 minutes.
I printed the squares on to iron on transfer paper and ironed them on to the sheet
If you don’t have carpeting, make sure you use some kind of sticky runner under the sheet to keep it in place.
We used a rolled up sock as our “rock”

Planting stuff that you assume your kids will drowned

Plants take forever, so speed it up by a factor of 100 by soaking the seeds in TeraCycle over night.
All this stuff we got at Walmart for under $20 – worth it!!

Kids Choice Fruit Dinner
Great excuse for putting off grocery shopping as long as possible. “I couldn’t go shopping while the kids were in school, it’s ‘Kids Choice Fruit Dinner’ night, Hun. They have to be with me to pick out their fruit.”

6 layer rainbow cake – great rainy day project

Painting the walls.

My father tells me that this teaches children to paint on the walls – SERIOUSLY!?!?!
This is my daughter’s 6 birthday. By 6 she sure as hell better know the difference between painting on paper lined walls and painting on the actual walls and if she doesn’t she sure as hell will if she tries it.

Don’t be STUPID! This does not teach kids to point on walls. Even my Autistic kid, age 2 in the picture, NEVER drew on the walls or painted on the walls after doing this.
(of course now we have a 15 ½ food chalk board lining the wall beside the one in the picture, she draws on that all the time, with chalk, just like she‘s supposed to)

This is how to setup and install buttons into the Atahualpa WordPress Theme – which just for the record: I hate that stupid theme!

Here are the rules:
1) If you use this technique you are REQUIRED to post a comment telling me just how cool I am.
2) In that comment you are REQUIRED to post a link to show off the cool buttons that I helped you install. I LOVE to see what people create with my How To’s.

I created the button for you to use for practice – you know how it is, if you stretch the button images it screws up the corners so I chopped it up and you can just fit it back together to the size you need. Button Download

Let’s pretend you have all your buttons created and now you need to get them uploaded/FTP‘d, into a file, folder, made into links blah blah blah ….. Remember, we’re doing this quick and dirty.

Open a “Post” and upload an image.
Then insert the image into the post.

You don’t need all that extra crap, so get rid of it.

Highlight and copy the link

Now head over to Appearance > Menu

Create a new Menu, add the page you want and save it – see the image.

Note: When I did this originally I had a “POST” tab open and a “MENU” tab open.
I uploaded all the buttons I wanted to use when I did this originally, but to keep this example simple I’m only doing 1 button. If you can’t figure it out from this example – Hire Me!

…… and this is where it gets all squirrely.

a) Theme Locations, make that your Menu Name.

b) You MUST tick “Automatically add new top-level page” or it won’t add it to your home page

c) Where it reads ‘Navigation Label’ paste the link we uploaded

d) And where it reads “Title Attribute“ post the name of the button

e) Click “Save Menu”

In this example the Buttons is bigger then all hell! But it’s an EXAMPLE – don’t make your buttons so freak’n large.

Of course that didn’t stop me from making BIG BUTTONS!

Don’t Forget the Requirements:

1) If you use this technique you are REQUIRED to post a comment telling me just how cool I am.
2) In that comment you are REQUIRED to post a link to show off the cool buttons that I helped you install. I LOVE to see what people create with my How To’s.

I am without a doubt Triberr’s Biggest Fan and Harshest Critic.

You’ll get no argument that when I’m pissed I go after Triberr with a vengeance. My saving grace is that I would defend them with my dieing breath.

I have written some of the most bizarre code, linking crazy WP plugins together, forgot to close a loop and fed it all in to Triberr* – and every morning I am absolutely SHOCKED to wake and find that Daniel Cristo has not tracked me down and taken garden shears to my internet connection.

There have been days where I have made it my sole purpose to recreate the same error over and over in order to figure out what was causing a particular Triberr issue.

And I can guarantee that more than once there has been a Monitor with their mouse hovering over the REMOVE button beside my name.

But this isn’t about how much Triberr loves me! It’s about what Triberr has done to my PR RANK.

I joined Triberr Aug 30 2011. My blog had a PR of …. if I remember correctly 1 (one).

Today my PR is now 4!!!!
FOUR!!! I’m a PR 4!!

THANK YOU TRIBERR, DANO AND DINO!!!
AND THANKS TO ALL MY TRIBE MATES – I LOVE YOU GUYS!!

*PS By the way – that whole bizarre code linking looping it to Triberr was a complete accident. I didn’t realized you could actually Burnout WordPress plugins like that. I have now completely removed the Triberr plugin from my test site :)
And ….. I’m sure it didn’t do any permanent damage ….. I mean nothing broke after I hit post … You know really it’s their fault, that plugin needs some serious security ….. You know and ….. Ok, but ummm …. It’s been deleted now so no harm, no ………

Oh and one more thing I kinda stole the logo for this post ….. I hope they don’t mind.

My dearest friend has an ability to open any kitchen cabinet and in seconds pull out the ingredients for a four course meal including desert. Where I can walk into the local market and not find anything for dinner.

I’m lost without a recipe and even with recipe in hand I’m hopeless – Gerbil food is more appealing.

For years I thought I hated cooking because I was bad at it, then figured I was bad at it because I hated it, but in recent months I’ve realized I hate cooking, because I don’t like to eat!

I don’t eat – I snack. A doctor once told me to eat smaller meals more frequently and I took that as a life style choice! But now I am failing Family Meal Time 101.

Our evenings tend to go like this:

After School Snack: This is usually something rather unhealthy in reward for ensuring Mommy isn’t called to the office.
Broccoli: half hour after snack my toddler decides to be a disruptive influence during homework time. Eating chalk is one of her favorites as is climbing the counter tops to get sweets. I refuse to sit on her for a half hour, which would be the only way to get her under control while I do homework with my oldest daughter, and you can never eat enough broccoli!
Juice Box or Chocolate Coconut Milk: My toddler takes medication to help her “GUT”. This must be mixed with something to get it not only into her mouth but to continue down to the before mentioned “GUT”.
Apples or Carrots: Soon after our medicine bribing drinks, I’ll walk into the living room to find the girls eating apples or carrots. I say “You know I‘m planning on starting dinner soon?”
To which my oldest will respond: “I’m not really hungry for dinner, just wanted a little anytime food.”
SIDE NOTE: in the hope of empowering my children to make healthy choices they are allow to eat several “any time foods“, any time, day or night, without asking, even if they did not finish their dinner – which in this case hasn’t been made.
Frozen Veggies: I start preparing for dinner – most evenings this means I have forgotten to thaw something and because by youngest has a restrictive diet I have pulled out many fresh fruits and frozen vegetables and I now have 2 choices either 1) spend the next hour trying not to step on, trip over or screaming at my toddler OR 2) I can start feeding her now. Because unlike most children, the TV isn’t going to do squat to entertain her. There are no games, no activity that will keep her from the kitchen. Short of locking her in her room – which I will Not even consider, she will be under my feet.
As fast as I can microwave veggies, chop cherry tomatoes, cut up grapes, slice apples, slather with sunflower seed butter, my youngest is making it disappear – I can‘t get ahead of it.

By dinner time, every pan is in the sink, dinner is over cooked and tasteless, my youngest has eaten everything in sight, my oldest isn’t hungry and I’m full from the brownie I had 2 hours before. No one ate dinner, everyone is full, and there was no ‘sit down at the table meal’ which is supposed to be the cornerstone of family communication.

The entire dinner is left over. It sits in the fridge for a while, then it goes bad, then it smells, then I remember it’s there.

What is the secret to cooking?

In The Kitchen With KP and Stuck at Home Mom are teaming up to host a fun giveaway and we are looking for your help!

By promoting this giveaway on your blog you’ll gain a FREE spot on the Rafflecopter!

WHAT: TWO $25.oo gift cards for Chili’s

WHEN: Starts May 12 at 12:01 AM EST and ends May 27 at 11:59 PM EST

Event sign up is limited to the first 100 blogs on a first come, first serve basis.

Details are simple

* Share the details of the giveaway on your own blog BEFORE submitting the form. You will need to add a link to the post to be eligible for a spot on the rafflecopter (add your link to the form below).
* You receive one free link Facebook or Twitter (Your Choice) on the rafflecopter form just for sharing the post on your Blog
* Post, HTML and Rafflecopter code will be emailed to you at least 24 hours before the event
* You agree to publish the html in full (with all links intact)
* Your post must be up by noon EST on the 20th or your name will be removed from the RC form.
* You agree to mention the giveaway on Twitter and Facebook at least once after the giveaway has started!
* Last day for blogger sign-up: 05/10/2012 or when 100 bloggers have signed up.
* You can enter to win too, even if you are participating in this event!

Event goes live on May 12 at 12:01 AM EST and May 27 at 11:59 PM EST

Are you ready to create your blog post now and spread the word to your own fans?

Hurry!
Go on!
We’ll wait.

Then come on back and add in your information and link to your promotional post!

My introduction to Triberr was an email from a friend that read “Please join Triberr so I can inbreed. You can quit after.”
So I joined expecting to stay until my friend could inbreed and then she left!

I’ve been in and out of tribes and each has had it’s own rules it governed by.

These are the Rules for the Tribes I rule.
The Rules were well received by those who don‘t need to worry about them!

1. Absolutely under no circumstances are you to “Approve” any post by any tribe member who is not tweeting your posts.
Hover over each tribe mates avatar – if they are sharing 0 – delete their posts from your tribal stream.
Obviously there is 1 exception – new members! Be Friendly, tweet their stuff. But if you have shared up to 5 tweets and they haven’t returned the favor – Stop and Report the member.

2. For each post which you have sucked into Triberr and you expect to be shared, you must tweet 1 post per tribe mate. That is the LEAST you are allowed share.
So if you write 5 blog posts today and all 5 posts get sucked into Triberr, you need to tweet 5 of your fellow tribe mates posts – that’s 5 per tribe mate.
Now many tribe mates won’t have 5 per day, so you need to tweet nearly everything per tribe mate.

I’m not asking you to tweet a topic that you don’t support. If someone writes a pro-life post and you’re pro-choice, no, don’t do it.
But how often has that come up? Rarely!

3. As always NO BASHING posts.
I live in a great country where we can speak our mind, but before you finalize a post about your belief that all gays are going to hell, REMOVE YOUR FEED from this Tribe or I’ll remove you.

4. You are REQUIRED to report any post in the tribal stream where you believe the general public considers it wrong, email me from my blog.

5. We all have different beliefs, that’s what makes this tribe great.
If you write a strong minded political piece and you’re afraid that tribe mates may feel uncomfortable tweeting it – post a warning.
Something simple like “My latest post is on the Republican Congress. Just letting you know. The title is such and such” Just a friendly warning for those who feel differently than you do.

Fair game: Politicians, Celebrities, Athletes, anyone bringing attention to themselves.
Things that are off limits: white supremacy, intolerance of race, gender, sexual preference.

Some topics are ify, others will get you kicked off the island.
I’ll be SHOCKED if someone doesn’t know the difference.

‘Free Speech’ does not give you the right to taking advantage of unsuspecting tribe mates who are attempting to help you by tweeting your posts.

Thus sayth eDee, Tribal Chief
So let it be written. So let it be done!

Fake Job sites, Fake Survey sites, Fake Rebate sites – I’ve talked about them a few times, Here, Here, Here and Here! Oh and HERE! Just to list a few.

I’m having today’s tantrum over “Get Paid to Try”

Get Paid to Try
Description:
Earn cash for trying things you like. Complete Your Registration and be eligible for a $20 Bonus!

This morning I get my daily email from Logical Media* [which IS a legitimate businesses] And in the email there is a link to Get Paid to Try and they tell me I get $0.75 for each person I get to sign up!

Well, hey, getting paid to try stuff out is pretty cool right? Maybe Apple will send me an iPad to ‘Try Out’ that would be just great!

So I scoot on over to Get Paid to Try and sign right up!

Now lets just see who can follow this. Let me know if you get lost.

I signup for Get Paid to Try.

And low and behold I have to pay to try most of the stuff.

So I pick something that looks like I won’t have to hand over my credit card.

WOW Earnings! Get Paid for Reading Emails. I can read emails.

Ok, I signup for WOW Earnings! and guess what?

They will pay me a whole 25 cents MORE to get people to signup for Get Paid to Try

*Logical Media is a Great Company, it really truly is an honest company.
The problem is companies like Get Paid to Try are legitimate companies – sickening as it is.
Logical Media can’t refuse there business because companies like Get Paid to Try have found loopholes in the governments legislation.

However, Get Paid to Try hasn’t credited my account for signing up for WOW Earnings yet – I have a note into ’Support’ I’ll let you know how it turns out.

There isn’t a day that my daughter goes to preschool where she doesn’t come home with several layers of grossness covering most of her body – food rubbed into her clothing, marker on her hands and face, paint in her hair, crayons in her teeth, and as I pulled my daughter off the bus on Friday, sand some how stuck to her forehead.

Four years ago when my oldest daughter went to (a different) preschool she would come home just as pristine as when I dropped her off.

My youngest daughter has now gone an entire 2 weeks without an incident report that indicated the need for Band-Aids, ice pack or anti-bacterial ointment, caused by scaling walls, body surfing the blacktop or taste testing sparkly glue off the top of safety scissors.
[just to name a few]

My oldest got one note from her preschool teacher which indicated that she didn’t like to share colored pencils.

What Makes a Great School?
One where the kid comes home with irrefutable proof that they DID Something that day.

By my description you’re probably thinking that my youngest may need a ‘special’ preschool, possibly one where they stick close by the ’special’ kids – well, She Is!
And the thing I like best about the special preschool is that the play ground is not encased in bubble wrap. Kids are allowed to climb on things and hang off stuff, it’s safe, but not boring.

Several weeks ago, my oldest daughter (now in 2nd grade) fell on the playground at her school and required several band-aids. I received a call from the school nurse telling me that my little angle had slipped on loose dirt and that it would be removed.

At my youngest daughters preschool you get a note, unless they can’t stop the bleeding.

I know if I were more hysterical about falls my youngest daughter’s preschool would call me more often and don’t get me wrong I LOVE both the schools my children attend. But with all the high fences, security, 1 to 1 staff and ‘special needs’ status of my youngest daughters preschool, they have figured out something that other schools are not allowed to acknowledge – Kids fall down, get dirty and eat bugs.

No one wants their child to get hurt, but the world is made of loose dirt.

An important side note:
I want to mention that I absolutely adore the teachers in my youngest daughters classroom. I have complete confidence in her teachers. As much as I know that accidents happen, I also know my daughter will be hugged and snuggled just as if I were there. I know that every decision the teachers make for my daughter throughout the day is in my daughters best interest. And I don’t tell them nearly enough how much I truly love and appreciate them.

This is Not me.
Web Developers/Coders wear jeans and t-shirts even to meetings with the most important clients. If we’re not comfortable, we’re not creative.
And quite frankly would you really want this person working on your website? I don’t see a tissue, pocket protector or antihistamine anywhere in the image – what kind of geek is she?

I write code. Usually at my kitchen table when my kids are in school and after they go to bed. I write code while watching TV, burning dinner and on vacation. camelCaseIsASecondLanguage. As is HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. People don’t “get” me.

I never stop learning. I study scripting languages constantly, there is always something new to learn. If I stop learning I fail my customers. The only way to start and continue in this business is to start with a early realization that you will be studying for the rests of your career.

I design and build websites. But mostly I take a pre-existing website structures called templates and sculpt it in to an internet masterpiece. This is called ‘hacking’ not to be confused with “Anonymous” type hacking. What I do is legal. What Anonymous does is to expose those who are doing things which are illegal or unethical.
Think of it like sewing a dress from scratch. Thou you could come up with your own pattern every time, you usually use pattern someone has created and make it your own.

To have a functional website you need a domain. That is the address to your website.

Unlike buying a house, most people purchase their websites address before they purchase where it’s going to live. The 2 do not go hand in hand. You can own a web address (domain) for many years before ever building your internet house.

Your website lives on a server, we call ‘hosting’ – it is a term that a geek came up with to describe where your website resides. To build a REAL website you must have a domain and hosting. Websites live on servers which are located in large temperature controlled warehouses, where they a pampered and maintained by guys and gals with thick glasses and expensive degrees.

Cyber space is not Outer space. Cyber space is not a real place, except for when it is.

Your web design is the structure of your website, it’s what your website looks like, but it also has a lot to do with the way a website functions.
Cluttered and unorganized websites make for leaping traffic. If a customer or visitor can’t find what they are looking for quickly, they will find it some place else. The design of your website is extremely important.

Branding – think Pepsi.
Like ranchers brand cattle, you should brand your site, business, style, who you are on the web. On the web you need to be remembered. Websites are a dime a dozen, you must do something that stands out to keep people coming back.

Marketing is not advertising – well, it’s not ONLY advertising. Marketing is communicating with potential customers and luring them in. Marketing is not flashing banners or Yelling at people.
Marketing is social media, ads, branding, service, everything you do, everything you allow your customers, clients or visitors see.
Target Marketing is Profiling. We all know about profiling and in the business word, profiling is your best friends. There is a reason why candy bars are kid level and why they are at the check out. You never see the peppermint gum placed below your belt, there is a reason it’s on the other side of the counter, it’s so you’ll see it while you’re putting items on the belt.

Marketing is getting the people you want to visit your site – TO your site.
It’s giveaways, it’s information, interesting content, everything you do with your site/product is marketing. From the way your site is laid out to the easy of purchasing an items – it’s all marketing.