regifting: my first {giveaway}

{So Say} I am having my Very First Giveaway!!!

I was a very lucky girl for Christmas this year, and besides my onesie I got some awesome presents and I have some leftovers that I am going to REGIFT.

Now before you go leaving my giveaway already at the sight of that "R" word, I should say that unlike my extended family, I do not regift expired restaurant gift cards, Hello Kitty socks, or the like.

I promise, it's good!

This giveaway includes a $20ish gift card to H&M and a $25ish gift card to lululemon athletica.

With $20 at H&M you can practically buy a whole new wardrobe! And at lululemon you can find workout pants guaranteed to make your ass look fabulous, though to be fair with $25 you may be able to buy a scrunchie. Just saying.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
 
Since I feel a teensy weensy bit guilty about not specifically 'getting' anything for my giveaway, I'm also including something extra special.

It's Made in Seattle.
It's Made in Seattle by friends of ours... friends who are expecting their first baby TODAY!
It's our most favorite Shampoo and Conditioner.

It's Duffy's Brew Beer Shampoo and Conditioner!

From the Duffy's Brew website:

Duffy’s Brew Original Beer Shampoo and Conditioner use the nourishing benefits from Elysian Brewing Company’s Dragonstooth Stout to strengthen and revitalize your hair and scalp. The bitter Cascade & Centennial hops, roasted barley, and rich chocolate malt found in this beer provide a restorative coat of vitamin B, proteins, and minerals to each strand, adding volume and body to your hair.

But that doesn't matter. All you need to know is that Duffy's Brew is the best thing since sliced bread. It smells incredible and it does wonders for your hair. You will be in love. And you will be supporting some awesome people and a local Seattle brewery to boot!

So that's it.  My first {giveaway} includes:

♥ $20 H&M giftcard
♥ $25 lululemon gift card
♥ Duffy's Brew Shampoo
♥ Duffy's Brew Conditioner

Here's how you can WIN:

1. Follow my blog or let me know you're a follower and leave me a comment letting me know which of my Misters featured on the right sidebar is the cutest... there is no wrong answer :-)
2. Follow me on Twitter (which I really never use for anything but giveaway entries) @Jenny_DB 
3. Follow Duffy's Brew on Twitter @DuffysBrew
4. Tweet about this giveaway and tag @DuffysBrew and @Jenny_DB
5. Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link (5 entries)
6. Put my giveaway button (above) in your sidebar... just right click and grab the image!
7. Like Duffy's Brew on Facebook

That's 11 possible entries!

No need to leave a comment for each entry... Just let me know what you've done in your comment and I'll figure it out. I'm good like that.

You must enter by Monday, February 21, 11:59 PST.

One more thing... If you don't win, you can always find Duffy's Brew Shampoo and Conditioner on Amazon and use coupon code DUFFYS82 for a limited time insider discount!

You're welcome :-)

merry christmas (don't kill wolves!)

If you hang around these parts, you probably know I'm a huge animal lover. Well, awhile back I made the mistake of making a small donation to one of my favorite charities, Defenders of Wildlife.  They apparently sold my information to every NPO from here to Djibouti (thanks for that) and now my mailbox overflows with a plethora of junk from every conceivable organization.

Most of it goes straight into the fireplace while I consider the irony of all the resources these (mostly) environmental organizations waste in their solicitations. But the other night I held onto an offer for personalized Holiday cards featuring endangered wolves.

The Gray Wolf is like my kindred spirit.
(Don't laugh. I love them.)

So I was pretty pretty devastated when I learned that wolf hunting was legalized in Idaho and Montana in 2009.

It was a controversial topic of conversation during visits to Idaho with the boyfriend. His friends and family had mixed opinions, but I knew it would be bad... and it was. It decimated the wolf population and thankfully this year they are back on the protected list.

No more hunting wolves!!!

Anyway, I talked with the boyfriend and he was super excited about the prospect of sending Save the Wolves holiday cards out to all his friends and family in Idaho.

I kid... I kid. He thought it was not very *in the holiday spirit* and suggested I look for something else.

Well the Universe must be on his side, because the very next day I stumbled upon this post by Miss DSS. Apparently, Shutterfly is doing a fabulous promotion giving away 50 free holiday cards to bloggers! Seriously.

While I don't think Shutterfly has any sexy "Save the Wolves" cards, they have something maybe even better: Personalized Christmas Photo Cards!

So instead of showcasing Canis lupis, I think boyfriend and I are going to go with Canis bondi and Canis homie.

Shutterfly has an amazing selection of Christmas Cards to choose from. Two of my favorites:

Of course, photos of these cute little kiddos would be replaced with ones of my *cuter* little pups.

And no worries... if you're Jewish, Muslim, atheist, politically correct, etc. Shutterfly has a wonderful selection of Holiday Cards to choose from as well!

To get 50 free cards from Shutterfly with your own blog, go here.

GO NUTS!

It's been over three weeks since my mom's big 50th birthday party I planned... you know, the one I was going nuts over!

Like I said, I have a new found respect for all of you ladies who have planned your own weddings. Invites, guest list, caterer, tents, heaters, food prep, bar prep, balloons, band, bartenders, kegs, decorations, cake, entertainment... it was almost more than this girl can handle!
 
Just about now, I can finally relax and share the sparkle unicorn awesomeness of the celebration with y'all.

Well I have to say, it went off without a hitch... unless you count the creepy old neighbor who wouldn't stop talking about his "little pecker" and his ex-wife's "stinky pu$$y" in front of my 5th grade teacher (so embarrassing) and me. But I digress...

One of the very last things I arranged for the party was the birthday cake. I did not want it to be BORING, but I was struggling with ideas.

If I lived in New York I would've just called on Miss Summer to come up with something, since *super awesome* is like standard for her cakes. A girl can dream...

So I thought of the Erotic Bakery in Seattle... you know the type of place where bridesmaids and bachelors galore flock to procure tasty desserts flaunting boobies and penises (penii?). However, call me crazy but I didn't think their "big black cock" special would be appropriate for the fifty plus crowd.

When I ran the erotic bakery idea by my dad, he agreed. "Not kosher". But he thought maybe they could do something else funny. Of course he was mum when it came to actually helping in that department.

So I got to brainstorming... and I thought about my mom and her squirrels:

And then I remembered a funny picture I had seen awhile back online:

And then it came to me!!!! A squirrel with NUTS!

Not too tacky... not like a porn-star penis or an old lady vagina... but a cartoon squirrel with large testicles.

I have to say, the girls at the erotic bakery were amazing. They knew just want I wanted. Well pretty much. They didn't know if I wanted a penis on the squirrel... probably because I was unable to answer that question. I hemmed and hawed over this dilemma for a good three minutes.

Penis? No penis? Penis? No penis?

Finally settled on a little penis. Good compromise.

Feeling pretty confident about my decision, I called up my dad and reported to him on the details of the cake. He was not happy, so I had to call up the girls at the shop and instruct them to ix-nay the penis-ay on the squirrel.

She says, "Roger that. No penis. Just large balls."

Well, here is the lovechild of my brain nuggets:

Amazing, no?

Funny story... my mom definitely asked where the penis was. Go figure!

The rest of the party was pretty fabulous also... I mean, besides the cake. My good buddy Jesse was working magic behind a full open bar, and thanks to the fabulous finger foods by Lynn's Bistro, almost everyone was able to keep it together, dancing to the Beatniks and singing karaoke until the early morning hours.

I mean, for a bunch of old fogies, I think my folks and co know how to party!

Wishful Wednesday - Dream Room (i'm biased)

It's time for Wishful Wednesday, courtesy of my IRL lovely friend Miss Kelsey.

'I wish' I could come home to...

this bedroom each and every night!

I LOVE the bamboo construction and funky low profiles. Just my style :-) I would want it with different (maybe Bamboo?) floors and a shaggy white carpet...

I'd have to throw in this "Chiffonier" ... I just learned this word a few months ago and basically refers to really tall dressers like the one above. It would be PERFECT for all my little clothes.. not like pre-college weight, but you know.. socks in top drawer, then undies, then bras, then bikinis, etc. etc.

Okay, okay. Full disclosure: I'm a little biased.

I helped design this furniture!!! 

Yup, our family company makes this bedroom collection and we sell it on Costco.com here.

Plus, I helped develop the flash product demo for it... check it out, but just warning the music get's really annoying. I take responsibility for ensuring the inclusion of a MUTE button :-)

It's my most favorite bedroom collection we sell, and I would totally have it in our little house, if our bedroom was just a teensy bit bigger. Because of the low profile overhangs (which I love) the bed takes up quite a bit of space... maybe in our next house!

Of course, to complete the dream bedroom, the window in the picture would need to look out upon this view, and not the fake skyline we painted for our furniture showroom :-)

 image source.

To play along with Wishful Wednesday next week, head over to Miss Kelsey's blog The Seattle Smith's!

wish i could give all my moola to sarvey!

Disclaimer: If you don't like wild animals or are a fan of Sarah Palin, you probably won't like this post. Actually, you probably won't like me either. Just saying...

I haven't played in a long while, but this week Miss Kelsey my amazing IRL friend who does her thing over at The Seattle Smiths used *my* idea for Wishful Wednesday.. so even though I'm a day late and a dollar short, here goes:

 

"I Wish" I had never ending funds 
to donate to Sarvey Wildlife

Sarvey Wildlife is a wildlife rehabilitation center that takes in injured or orphaned wildlife - from starlings to black bears and everything in between - and cares for them in hopes of ultimately being able to release them back into the wild. It is a small non-profit run exclusively on donations and the hard work of volunteers.

All images from www.sarveywildlife.org

I first learned about Sarvey when I was around 10 years old. My family was in a park when a baby Grey-Horned Owl fell out of a tree. It was going to be attacked by dogs so since it clearly couldn't fly, my mom grabbed a towel and scooped it up. Shortly thereafter the mama owl swooped down and put her talons in my mom's back so needless to say we hurried to the car with the big fluffy basketball baby owl. After several phone calls we made our way 90 minutes north to bring the baby to Sarvey. It was spring time and they were so slammed when we got there, a lady begged us all to help with the babies. What did they have us doing, you ask? Oh, just bottle feeding and "pottying" baby raccoons... a never ending supply of baby raccoons. We later learned the baby owl was released several months later in the same park, and well.. that was the beginning.

When I was in highschool I did my senior project up there, working full time as a volunteer "intern" for a month. Sarvey is a very special kind of place where, in just a few hours, you may be cleaning crow shit from a cage one minute, and hiding food for a bobcat the next. One of my most memorable experiences there happened late one night when it was just Sarvey's founder the late Kaye Baxter and me in the clinic. She was hurriedly working to hydrate and remove bullet fragments from a gorgeous golden eagle that had been shot (who does that?) when a baby deer came in that had been hit by a car. It had a huge gash on its head. The golden eagle obviously took priority, but Kaye told me to fix up the deer... Say Whaa?? I didn't even know where to start! Kaye was very calm (or totally out of her rocker!) and told me it was just like sewing a hem. Well nevermind that I didn't (don't) know how to do that either... I gave it my best effort. It was probably the best sewing I've ever done :-) I don't think that baby deer lived, but in that moment I was so... alive! Anywhooo...

Nowadays I don't have much money, but I still make time to go up to Sarvey to volunteer. Last year my brother turned 13 and started bugging me to bring him. The age minimum is 14 but we fudged a little bit on the volunteer form and now brother and I go up pretty much every week!!! He keeps me company on the long drive and is becoming quite the little caretaker! I love spending time with him working up there, and we have had some amazing, some hilarious, and some not so funny experiences.

• Towel drying river otter pups... they are just like puppies, and you haven't lived until you have seen what otter pups do with a towel!!!
• Surprises when "pottying" baby raccoons. I will just say this: PROJECTILE.
• The time I held the hawk while Gabe tube fed it and somehow the food missed the hawk's throat and went directly into my eyeball.... Not fun.
• Chasing the escape artist squirrels all over the clinic.... It's a fun little game!
• Sneaking a peak at the "off limits" black bear cubs... they couldn't see us, so it was ok :-)
• Chopping up frozen rats... not pleasant!
• Bottle feeding wobbly baby deer... precious!

Gabe and a *fat* river otter pup after bathtime

Gabe's first time 'catching' a bald eagle for meds

So if I am MIA from blogging Wednesday evenings, it's because I'm probably being pooped on by a baby raccoon, sorting through frozen rats to feed the raptors, or maybe stitching up a deer's head!

Disclaimer: They are much more professional now than a decade ago, and they would never just be like.. go sew that deer. But truly, it happened!!

If you can't tell, I'm a major animal lover... and like I said I don't have much money, but I do donate (not my time but my beer fund) to a few other awesome charities as well:

Conservation International
World Wildlife Fund
National Resources Defense Council
American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

and my favorite...

Defenders of Wildlife
because Sarah Palin and her aerial wolf hunting can go to Hell makes me want to vomit.

The only downside of these $10 here $20 there donations? They put you on massive mailing lists and now I get junk mail from every NPO from here to Timbuktu... and address labels. I have a lot of address labels :-)

parenting: fail

From one of my favorite time-killers websites, the Fail Blog:

Parenting: FAIL!!!

image source.

Ridiculous. That is all.

quick thoughts on haiti

There's been a lot of buzz about the earthquake in Haiti... because shit.. it's devastating and sad! But the buzz is bothering me a bit too... and here's why:

Haiti has been raft with devastation for years, no decades, now. This is NOT news. Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, and hundreds upon hundreds of people - men, women, children - die there every day due to poor drinking water, easily preventible and treatable diseases, etc. But the mainstream media is covering the earthquake as if these people's lives have been devastated by this natural disaster, when in reality, their whole lives have been pretty damn destitute, earthquake or not.

A few years back I read this book called Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It is a biography of the incredible Paul Farmer... a doctor who has devoted most of his life to helping the people of Haiti (as well as other disease-ridden impoverished countries).

A quick summary:

"At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results."

It's a good book. You should read it.

Anyway, I'm not sure now what the point of this little rant is. Just sayin' ... the world is an f*d up place... and it's sad and tragic that this happened in Haiti. But Haiti's been sad for a long, long time... I wish there was more awareness (and action) in general, not just in times of "crisis" ... because really, it's a perma-crisis over there.

And don't even get me started on Africa!

in case you had any doubts...

DISCLAIMER: This post probably won't be interesting to anyone except me... just sayin'

I'm obsessed with my dog Bondi. He comes to work with me, and he sit's like a little man in the front seat of my car just about every where I go, he is my perfect little spoon in the evenings, and when it comes to social events, if I can take him, he's coming!! And you never know unless you ask...

Speaking of, did you know you can bring your dog into any Nordstom or Macy's??? It's kinda inconvenient if you're trying lots of stuff on.. especially because Bondi has this bad habit of sticking his nose into other people's changing room stalls.. I imagine that could be somewhat alarming to the unsuspecting nakey person! But for the most part, we just make lots of friends, and sometimes convert dog-scared people to Bondi fans.. that's my favorite!!

Anywayyy... In case you had any doubts that I'm a crazy dog lady "dog person" let me just say... it's true. And I can prove it. Here is a sampling of January from my camera:

Bondi with his beloved bear.

Bondi with Mr. Giraffe and mommy.

Bondi snuggling with *lucky me*

Joe and Bondi... on a walk along Elliott Bay.

New Year's kiss. Had to throw it in there :-)

No, Bondi was not with us, but he did join us later!

Can you tell he's not a fan of his new sweater?

Found it at Value Village for $3.95 (so random) - score!

Chillin' on his dog bed, by Epoch Design

New Years - Bondi and I playing Up the River, Down the River.

Bondi was concentrating cause he hates to drink beer.

My sexy boys, chillin' on New Years Day.

Love.LOVE this pic of Joe :-)

More Up the River, Down the River and Catch Phrase..

at my new favorite bar: Twilight Exit

Cheap drinks, tater tots, pin ball, a photo booth, and *dog-friendly*

Doesn't get much better than that!

Gangsta dress up.

Bondi is such a tolerant little spoon :-)

Love this guy.

Joe and I - clearly enamored with Bondi...

at my new 2nd favorite *dog-friendly* bar: Summit Public House

Bondi's eyes match my shirt!

We like other dogs too. Meet Cooper! ..and Teia... :-)

Precious. Just sayin...

And this is Tanner, the newest addition to the family.

Our girl Sophie is in the background...

...and this crazy-dog lady is my mom.

I don't know where I get it from! :-)