This giveaway is closed. Congratulations to the winner, comment #75 from Judy Brittle.

The Popcorn Factory, a leading gourmet popcorn and edible gifts company, is celebrating 30 years of delicious, fun gifts that delight families, friends, children and business customers. In honor of its 30th anniversary and National Popcorn Month, The Popcorn Factory has launched a “30 Gift Giveaway” sweepstakes. The sweepstakes, which runs now through November 23, 2009, will provide one lucky grand prize winner with 30 gifts for their friends and family (up to a $6,000 value) just in time for the holiday season.

To introduce me to their product, The Popcorn Factory sent the MomReviews family a two gallon Falling Leaves tin with their 3-way mix of butter, cheese, and caramel popcorn. It is totally addictive!  I would have never guessed that a piece of cheese popcorn and a piece of caramel popcorn would taste so good together, but they totally do.  In addition to flavored popcorn, The Popcorn Factory’s products include cookies, candies, and chocolate.  There are samplers sized for a few people, towers and baskets for larger groups. Whatever your occasion, there’s sure to be a Popcorn Factory product to fit!

30 Gift Giveaway Sweepstakes:

In honor of its 30th anniversary and National Popcorn Month, The Popcorn Factory has launched a “30 Gift Giveaway” sweepstakes. The sweepstakes, which runs now through November 23, 2009, will provide one lucky grand prize winner with 30 gifts for their friends and family (up to a $6,000 value) just in time for the holiday season. 30 second place winners will win a 2-gallon 3-way Peace Love and Popcorn tin and a Peace Love and Popcorn t-shirt. 30 third place winners will win a Peace Love and Popcorn t-shirt.  Enter by Nov. 23, 2009.

WIN IT: The Popcorn Factory will send one lucky MomReviews reader a 2-gallon tin of their 3-way popcorn, a $24.99 value.  For your main entry, you must visit  The Popcorn Factory, browse the site, then come back here and tell me which product you would like to give someone (or yourself!) for a gift this holiday season.  This must be done before you can earn any additional entries. Enter by Nov. 23, 2009 at 12:00 PM EST. Open to U.S. mailing addresses only.

BONUS ENTRIES: Leave a separate comment for each of the following that you do or have done-

• Enter The Popcorn Factory  “30 Gift Giveaway” sweepstakes
• Become a fan of The Popcorn Factory on Facebook
• Become a fan of MomReviews on Facebook
• Follow @MomReviews on Twitter
• Tweet this:  Win a 2 gallon tin of popcorn from The Popcorn Factory and @MomReviews, enter by Nov. 23rd http://bit.ly/3hVBh3 You can retweet this once per day, leave a separate comment for each. For easier tweeting, click the twitter icon under “Bookmark this post” at the end of the post.
• Post either the regular MomReviews button or the MomReviews Holiday Gift Guide button on your blog by grabbing the code(s) in the sidebar. Leave your URL in your comment
• Stumble the post, add it to digg, mixx, reddit, propellor, or any other social bookmarking site. For easier bookmarking, use the icons at the end of the post under “Book mark this post”.
• Blog about this giveaway in a post or add the link to the giveaway to a contest round-up. Leave the URL in your comment

The winner of the giveaway will receive a 2-gallon tin with three kinds of popcorn. The tin will have a seasonal and festive design. Thanks for entering and good luck everybody!

Bookmark This Post:

Last night on his way home from work, which is 40 miles away, my husband’s car stopped working. As in, he was on the highway and his car STOPPED. It’s a miracle he wasn’t rear-ended, as heavy as the traffic is where he works. He had it towed to a nearby Chevy dealership and the kids and I went and picked him up. Today, he heard from the dealership’s service department- it needs a new fuel pump, for which they want to charge us $800.00. $400 of which is the price they pay for the fuel pump, a part you can buy yourself at an auto parts store for around $220. Nice markup.

He called around and found a relatively new fuel pump at a junkyard for $70, but now we have to pay to get the car from the dealership (they charge EIGHTY DOLLARS for their “diagnostic exam” which takes two minutes), pay to have it towed to another repair place, pay for the used fuel pump, and pay someone to install it. GAH.

So is it any wonder that when I looked in the bathroom mirror a few minutes ago, I saw two deep frown lines on my forehead right between my eyebrows? Seriously, they are like train tracks. I’m going to need to order some nu skin wrinkle cream or something. All this scowling I’m doing is sure not doing my skin any favors.

Bookmark This Post:

*deep breath*

I need $100 by Thursday.  I had been counting on my monthly payout from Linkworth for the text ads I run on Table for Five, but they don’t payout unless you earn $100, and I only earned $95.00. The money will get added to my payout for next month, but I leave for BlogHer on Thursday morning.

The money will be spent on gas for the car I’m driving there and back (I’m taking 2 other people down and 3 people back, but once the tank of gas the car is delivered with is gone, we’ll have to chip in to refill it),  lunch on the way there and back, tips for the doorman and any necessary cab rides, and if I have enough, a souvenir BlogHer t-shirt which they’ve never had before.

$100 might not even be enough but I feel bad enough asking for help as it is. I’d also like to point out that while I do have five sites listed under “Sponsor Sites”, those were one-time payments made at the beginning of the ad term and unfortunately that money was already spent.

So, my dear readers, I’m asking for your help. I know money is tight for everyone, anything you can donate is greatly appreciated. It used to be commonplace for blogs to have “Tip Jars” but that practice fell out of favor a few years ago. Since I have a PayPal account and a debit card I can use to access the money, I’ve created a PayPal donate button.  You can transfer money from your PayPal account to mine, or pay with a credit card.

When I say any amount is greatly appreciated, I really mean it. If everyone who reads this blog donates $1.00, it would take less than a day for me to have what I need.

OR…you can ask me to DO STUFF FOR MONEY! That’s right, thanks to PayPal, you can send me money BUT I have to agree to do something in exchange.  Click the link, type in your name, my name and the dollar amount,  then fill in your PayPal address and my PayPal address, which is elizabeth(at)table4five(dot)net.

What am I willing to do for your money?  Write posts, review sites, post text link ads or button ads (length of ad would depend on amount paid),  whatever you can come up with that’s appropriate for a family-friendly blog

I’ll answer potentially embarrassing questions, help you with Wordpress problems,  just name it.

I really hope those of you who are regular readers know how hard it was for me to write this and how grateful I will be for any donations.  BlogHer is the most important conference I go to all year, every year I come back having learned something that adds value to my blog and having made new friends and contacts that often turn into long-term relationships. The vendors I meet at this conference could be the giveaway sponsors of next month!

I’ll close this by saying thank you in advance for anything you can do to help.

Bookmark This Post:

Dear MomReviews Readers,

I feel I should apologize for the unplanned-for seven day break I took from updating this blog. I didn’t have posts pre-written and waiting to publish, I didn’t arrange for guest bloggers to fill in. I just…took a break.

Okay, I’ll be honest- I took what I suppose would best be described as a BIG OLE’ MENTAL HEALTH BREAK.

Basically, a week ago I pulled my head out of the clouds and took a look around and realized that my life needed a whole lot more of ME living in it.

I can’t say that taking a week off solved all my problems, but it sure did wonders for my stress level.

So now I am refreshed and ready to dive back in to the world of reviewing products and giving products away and lots of summer surprises!

Thanks for still being here

Bookmark This Post:

I just read a post over at Take 90 West about how she finally did something she had been putting off, only to realize it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as she had built it up in her head.  I’ve been doing the exact same thing!

What I can’t figure out is WHY.  I LOVE writing product reviews and hosting giveaways. I love telling other Moms (and Dads and everyone else who reads MomReviews!) what I think of the latest products. So why have I let my inbox fill up with emails flagged as “reviews to do” and “giveaways to do” instead of just DOING THEM?

Sometimes I really just make no sense.

And then today, when I made myself make a list of how many reviews and giveaways I had to do, it turned out to be not as many as I thought!

I’ve never been a plan-ahead kind of gal, I have always thrived best under pressure. But when it’s me putting pressure ON MYSELF? Well, that’s just dumb.

SO.  Today I made a list, and I’m going to go through it one item at a time until everything is done.  Kaitlyn isn’t feeling well today, so I might get one review and one giveaway posted, or I might do more depending on how she is feeling.  I CAN DO IT!

Also, I was wondering if some of you could do me a big favor? See, my page rank on this blog is not great, I mean at least I HAVE page rank unlike a lot of my fellow product review bloggers who got “rank spanked”, but it’s not great. And according to people who understand these things, it’s because I don’t have enough backlinks.  Which is a fancy way of saying that there aren’t enough links to this blog on OTHER blogs.

But it can’t just be any blogs, it needs to be RELEVANT blogs. Meaning,  blogs that are about the same things as this blog- being a Mom (Dads can link to me too of course!), reviewing products, hosting blogger giveaways.

SO, if you read MomReviews and think your readers would like it too, it would mean a lot to me if you linked to it on your blogroll.  The URL is http://momreviews.net (no www) and of course the name is MomReviews (no space in between).  If you do, please please please let me know, I’ll be starting a “they link to me” blogroll!

THANK YOU!!

Bookmark This Post:

March is the traditional month for Spring Cleaning, and I am taking that to heart in a big way this year.  I will be spending the month of March doing two things- cleaning my house top to bottom, and cleaning out all of my email inboxes top to bottom.

For those of you not familiar with it, I have another blog called Table for Five. I started it in September 2005. As a “brand”, it’s become well known on it’s own, and I can’t even express just how flattering and ego-boosting that is. Companies contact me, ask me to post reviews of their products and host giveaways of more products, and they request Table for Five.

Which is wonderful, except that right now, Table for Five is going back to what it was at the beginning- a personal blog. And MomReviews here, this pretty baby of mine, is putting on her big girl panties and moving up to the big leagues.

The plan is 3 posts a day minimum for the next 30 days.  My goal will also be to have a minimum of one new giveaway starting every week.  The reviews will be heavy on DVDs for the first week as I get a huge backlog caught up.

My Google Calendar will be in the footer, and I’ll be adding to it as I go, so feel free to check it to see when your review/giveaway is scheduled to post.

I’m also looking for a Spring Cleaning schedule of some kind to help me stay on track. If any PR people out there have cleaning products they would like me to review as I clean, and anything I can give away, please email me!

So that’s what’s going on this morning. Thanks for stopping by!

Bookmark This Post: