Comment Contest – Winner

Prize won: custom-made superkid cape

Comment:LauraC says: G is for Groover (that’s our last name but there are two little boys who would share this!) because they are great brothers!

List of all participants: AM, Amanda A, Amber Proctor, Anara, Annie, Annie, Annie, Carl, Christie, Cindy, Cricket Saunders, Cricket Saunders, Cricket Saunders, Cricket Saunders, Cyndi S, DEBIJOT, DEBIJOT, DEBIJOT, Deborah, Deborah, Desiree, Desiree, Desiree, Emily, Emily, Emily, Erin D, G, G, G, Heather, Jaime, Jaime, Jodi F, Judy B, Justine McD., Justine McD., Kathi Crosby, Kathi Crosby, Kathi Crosby, Kathi Crosby, Katie, Kim, Kim, Kimberly, Kristie, LauraC, Leigh, Libby, Libby, Libby, Lily Kwan, Lily Kwan, Lindsey, Lizzie, Lizzie, mary, Mary Preston, melanie, Melissa M., Meredith, michelle frame, michelle frame, michelle frame, Miss Spoken, Miss Spoken, Mommy2Bears, Mommy2Bears, Monique Rizzo, nan lara, Paula Michele, Paula Michele, Paula Michele, Samantha, Samantha, Samantha, Samantha, sarah, shannon Baas, Sharon, Sharon, Shelby, Shelby, Shelby, Shelley C, shenais, shenais, SoDucky, SoDucky, SoDucky, SoDucky, Teisa Linscott, very married, Wehaf

i’m pretty proud of myself. i used a widget called “comment contest” to select the winner. slowly but surely, i am learning. congrats, laurac. i’ll be contacting you shortly to get your address.

if you didn’t win this givaway, never fear. you can purchase a cape from jessa’s etsy store, happily home sewn, for just $14. she’ll even custom make it for you with your super kid’s initial and ship it to you for free.

you can also enter another giveaway for jessa’s wares on her blog, happily home sewn. she’ll announce the winner of this market bag/purse on mother’s day morning.

i remember reading in a counseling textbook at some point during my divinity school education that women are particularly drawn toward mentors — other women who are modeling the kind of lives we want to lead. the theory is that in order to make up for a part of ourselves that is not yet fully realized, we integrate others into our identities by our associations with them. we perceive these others to have gifts in the areas where we have deficits. mentors are like the lily pads or resting places that can usher us into the kind of self-improvement that we seek.

i was struck by yesterday’s “mother of invention,” lindsey, who remarked that she’s been looking for “an everything mentor” for some time now. lindsey’s everything mentor would essentially be someone whose life is eerily similar to lindsey’s life, only the mentor would have all of the secrets to the holy grails of balance and wholeness. since, as lindsey laments, this “everything mentor” doesn’t seem to exist, she has resorted to filling her life with a variety of positive people and following her own instincts when it comes to shaping a life for herself.

i too searched my external world for models of balanced motherhood that were custom-made for the parameters of my life. in the absence of this model, i decided to start this blog by way of constructing my own. secretly i hoped that interviewing women of various backgrounds and circumstances would lead me to my “everything mentor,” and help others to find theirs too. but what i’ve learned is what lindsey has also learned: at some point, we just have to trust our own instincts and shape the best lives for ourselves that we can. though there are little gems in each “mothers of invention” feature that can help enhance a mother’s quality of life, it seems that the real inspiration comes when we read about someone who is living comfortably in their own authenticity, and we are inspired to find this self-acceptance and a new level of being real. i love connecting with all of the “mothers of invention” because i am doing what lindsey is doing — surrounding myself with positive people as i walk my particular path.

but enough of this waxing philosophic. let’s have a giveaway! my dear friend, jessa, over at happily home sewn has agreed to make a precious superkid cape for the lucky winner of this contest.

as you can see, the capes jessa sells in her etsy store are custom-made with the initial of the superkid in question and with fabric that fits the personality of said superkid. i love the idea of kids powering through life as they imagine their own heroic potential instead of that of spiderman or superwoman. below are instructions for entering the contest but if you don’t win, don’t fret! jessa has offered to waive the cost of shipping for MakeShift revolution readers who purchase capes from her site. you can take advantage of this discount by using this link to her store.

[update: winner posted here.]

 for one chance to win a custom-made superkid cape:

•  post a comment below, and include the initial of a super kid in your life and what makes him/her super. for example, my super kid, M, has the climbing powers of a monkey!

for additional chances to win a custom-made superkid cape:

• link to this giveaway from your blog (tell me you’ve done so in a comment below)
• subscribe to my blog via rss or email (tell me you’ve done so in a comment below)
• follow themsrevolution on twitter (leave your twitterID in a comment below)
• follow my blog on google friend connect, which is located on the sidebar and WAAAY down to the right (tell me you’ve done so in a comment below)

be sure to include your email address in your comment (will not be published) so that i can contact the winner. the contest will end at midnight on tuesday, may 4th.

thanks so much to everyone who commented on the giveaway post, followed me on twitter, subscribed via rss, blogged about themsrevolution.com, and became a google friend of the MakeShift revolution. i especially appreciate all of the MakeShift moments you relayed and the ideas for future posts you shared. thanks to you, i’m full of inspiration for new blog content.

i’m new to this giveaway thing, and i’ve learned quite a bit about how it works. next time, i’ll be making sure that people who enter in several ways will do so with several comments. that way, i can choose the winner using that trusty “random number integer generator” tool that seems to be all the rage. my process, which was MAKESHIFT (of course), involved dividing comments into numbered entries,

creating and piling numbers in a really cute bowl,

closing my eyes, and selecting a tiny slip of paper, which in this case, was bearing the number 12.

after consulting my trusty list of comments and numbers, i discerned that number 12 is attributed to…

jessa… who said, “I’m going to give props to The MS Revolution on my blog.”

as it would happen, jessa and i are members of a two-person mutual adoration society, which i realize, could cause you to question the validity of the winner selection process. but i assure you that i went to ridiculously time-consuming lengths to make sure that this was a fair contest.

jessa, here are the fabrics that will soon be fashioned into your very own billboard bag:

i’ll be contacting you soon for your address!

[update: check out this post, which reveals the winner of the billboard bag! http://www.themsrevolution.com/2010/04/05/billboard-bag-winner/]

our little revolution turned one month old yesterday! isn’t she just the cutest thing? sure, she still wakes me in the early morning like all newborns do but i don’t mind. there are just so many things to celebrate!

…or shall i say people?

i’m new to this bloggy thing but it seems to me that this would be a good time for a giveaway. one lucky winner will score “the billboard bag!”

here’s the story on the billboard bag. i recently purchased some jeans from a fancy little boutique in memphis. the first pair ripped when i leaned down to pick up the bird during a trip to the botanic gardens (yes, this was mortifying). the second pair made it home with the alarm thingy still attached. the third pair unzipped themselves fiftyleven times while the boys and i were at the zoo. the fourth pair are excellent! ANYWAY, since i returned to the boutique four times in two weeks, i had ample time to eye, admire, and finally, photograph a cute little spring bag. i was already thinking about how i could construct one of these for myself when i noticed the bag on a billboard advertisement for yet another fancy little boutique. i made a simple pattern, and much to my delight, the bag turned out great!

the bag pictured above is my new purse/diaper bag/briefcase/mobile disaster preparedness kit. but i will happily make a similar bag for one lucky winner. here’s how to enter:

for one chance to win:

•  post a comment below, and include either your own favorite makeshift moment -or- an idea for a future themsrevolution.com post.

for additional chances to win:

• link to this giveaway from your blog (tell me you’ve done so in a comment below)
• subscribe to my blog via rss or email
• follow themsrevolution on twitter (leave your twitterID in a comment below)
• follow my blog on google friend connect (on the sidebar, WAAAY down to the right)

be sure to include your email address in your comment (will not be published) so that i can contact the winner. the contest will end at midnight on saturday, april 3rd.