Site Name: Babes And Kids Review

Site URL: http://www.babesandkidsreview.com/

Prize Description: One winner over at Babes And Kids will receive a 3 month service to Wittlebee. If you have kids, you will definitely want to check out this giveaway! Wittlebee is a clothes delivery service for kids that sends you a new shipment of clothes each month. As your child grows, the sizing of the clothes updates accordingly. A 3 month subscription equals 10 pieces of clothes per month – a $97 value! Parents, check it out!

Entry deadline: 11:59 MST on January 18th

Open to: US Residents

Enter this giveaway here: http://www.babesandkidsreview.com/2011/12/wittlebee-monthly-child-clothing-delivery-giveaway/

Site Name: The Mom Reviews

Site URL: http://themomreviews.com/

Prize Description: Love chocolate? Then you’ll love this giveaway! The Mom Jen at The Mom Reviews is giving away delicious Lindt LINDOR chocolate to one of her readers. This prize consists of premium Lindt LINDOR Truffles in both dark peppermint and milk chocolate flavors – mmmmm! The Lindt LINDOR milk chocolate candies are available year-round, while their Dark Peppermint variety is a limited edition flavor that is only available during the holiday season, so hurry and enter to win before they disappear for the year!

Entry deadline: January 10th, 2012

Open to: US residents

Enter this giveaway here: http://themomreviews.com/2011/12/30/giveaway-lindt-lindor-truffles-smooth-creamy-amazing.html

Site Name: OurFamilyWorld

Site URL: http://www.ourfamilyworld.com/blog

Prize Description: 2 Prize packs

1 Prize pack: 2 bracelets, 1 ring, 1 personalized funny magazine
2 Prize pack: 1 personalized children’s book and 1 animal blankie

Entry deadline: January 2nd, 2012

Open to: US, CANADA, 18+, No PO Boxes

Enter this giveaway here: http://www.ourfamilyworld.com/blog/2011/12/27/new-years-hoppin-eve-event/

The last time I was at a pharmacy to inquire about a prescription, I had a rather amusing experience. As I was waiting at the counter waiting to speak with a pharmacist, I could hear the stereo with music that the employees were playing, as it was broadcasting quite clearly and could be heard by those of us standing in line. As I waited, Eminem’s “Crack a Bottle” came on this stereo and began pumping its beat out to the customers. If you’re familiar with this song (Or Eminem in general), you’ll know that this isn’t exactly something you would expect to hear in an environment such as a pharmacy – I can only imagine what the nice elderly woman behind me would have made of the lyrics! The pharmacist standing at the counter soon began to look embarrassed when she realized what was playing and quickly turned the stereo off.

Yes, the world has changed a lot in recent years – and not just in the music that people listen to. With modern technology revolutionizing how we do everything, innovations like pharmacy automation have become the norm and made the industry very different from how it used to be. These days, pharmacists have complex machines to keep track of prescription information, print labels, and keep inventory of medications. This kind of material handling system has made the job of a pharmacist so much faster and more efficient than it was prior to the 1970s, when the process of dispensing medication was incredibly time-consuming. (The history of pharmacy technology is actually pretty interesting if you want to look it up on Wikipedia – OK, I’m a nerd, I freely admit it. ) These days, an amazing amount of the prescription process is automated. From the factory conveyors that transport boxes of medication to the machines in the pharmacy that count tablets, there is so much new technology being utilized that we now take for granted. Modern pharmacies are very different from their counterparts of yesteryear – if a a pharmacist in the 1950s stepped into a time machine, they would be shocked to walk into a pharmacy in 2011 and see all of the innovations that today’s pharmacists have at their fingertips…and perhaps a little shocked at the choice of music, too.

Google has announced that it is discontinuing the Google Friend Connect service for non-blogger hosted sites (Such as this one) on March 1st, 2012. Over 1,923 of you currently follow Contest Corner with Google Friend Connect, so I thought it was important to give you this heads-up now. I’m unclear what will happen to those who already follow via Google Friend Connect – it’s possible that your subscriptions may stay intact, or my site could disappear from your dashboard altogether. They are encouraging webmasters to create a Google+ page for their site instead, but I’m not sure if there will be a way to migrate over all the Google Friend Connect users – I will keep you posted on that. For now, here are some reliable alternate ways you can follow Contest Corner:

• Subscribing via RSS. Subscribing in an RSS reader is probably the closest approximation to your Google Friend Connect experience – you can use any service you like, from My Yahoo! to Google Reader.
• Subscribing via email. This option will deliver a digest of our updates directly to your inbox each day.
• Become a fan on Facebook. “Liking” Contest Corner on Facebook will provide you with updates as they happen in your newsfeed.
• Follow me on Twitter. Links to all of my blog posts are sent out on Twitter as well, so you can always follow me there to keep up with the latest news. (And I love to interact with my readers, so I always follow back!)

I’ll be posting reminders as we get closer to the time so that none of my fans who follow this site using Google Friend Connect will be left in the dark after the service is discontinued.

Site Name: Turning the Clock Back

Site URL: http://turning-the-clock-back.blogspot.com/

Prize Description: One reader at Turning the Clock Back will win $20 to spend at King Arthur Flour to pick up baking goodies of your choice! Offering everything from specialty breads to dog biscuit mixes, the lucky winner will be spoiled for choice using their gift code. This giveaway ends TONIGHT, December 30th at 9:01 PM PST, so hurry over and enter before it’s too late!

Entry deadline: December 30th at 9:01 PM PST

Open to: US & Canada, 18+

Enter this giveaway here: http://turning-the-clock-back.blogspot.com/2011/12/giveaway-enter-to-win-20-gift-code-to.html

As a coupon clipper and overall frugalista – they don’t call me “Super Coupon Girl” for nothing! – maintaining a food stockpile is always one of my goals. My bad knees have kept me from doing much of any shopping this year, and my food stockpile is pretty much used up aside from a few items in the freezer, so one of my goals in the New Year is to resume my shopping and build my pantry back up. (I still have a pretty plentiful cleaning supply stockpile so I’m good there!)

There are a number of reasons why people stockpile food. My biggest motivator is to save money – for example, if you normally spend $2 per package on rice, and you find a deal where you can get it for .50 cents with coupons, it makes sense to buy multiple packages to keep on hand and save yourself time and money running out to buy it later. Another popular reason that people stockpile is to keep emergency reserves on hand. Websites like BuyEmergencyFoods.com have become a popular place for people to pick up items for their household that could be used in the event of a catastrophe. But stockpiling isn’t just the forte of survivalists – there are plenty of reasons to have emergency food other than a natural disaster. An emergency stockpile is also a help if you have an unexpected financial expenditure and find yourself short on money, because if you have food already on hand that you can fall back on in hard times, that’s one more expense you can cut when you have a tough month.

So how much should you buy when you’re building a stockpile? It really comes down to your budget and space. I know many people cringe at the thought of stockpiling, because they picture a hoarder’s house filled from top to bottom with junk, but that’s not effective stockpiling. I personally despise clutter, so I’m not going to buy 500,000 cans of soda. If you’re overloaded with your stockpile, it’s time to organize and purge – it should be working for you, not the other way around. And of course, you shouldn’t buy more than you can afford, regardless of the awesome sale price. Another important factor is to keep in mind the shelf life and expiry dates of food. If you’re buying with an eye to stockpile, you need items with a shelf life that will allow you a reasonable amount of time to use them so that they won’t end up going bad and going to waste.

So readers, tell me: Do you stockpile? If so, do you build your pantry slowly as you find great deals (like me)? Or do you use websites like Buy Emergency Foods to stock up on supplies in bulk?

Site Name: Shop With Me Mama

Site URL: http://shopwithmemama.com/

Prize Description: One lucky winner on Shop With Me Mama will receive a HP gift code for printer ink – perfect for saving money on printing costs! Giveaway is hosted on Rafflecopter with a variety of entry methods available. So enter today and you may just save yourself some money in the New Year courtesy HP! Open to residents of the United States 18 years of age and older.

Entry deadline: January 9, 2012

Open to: US, 18+

Enter this giveaway here: http://shopwithmemama.com/2011/12/hp-the-fun-you-can-have-with-print-fun-holiday-printables-and-a-giveaway

Site Name: AIDY Reviews…

Site URL: http://aidyreviews.net

Prize Description: I am giving away the DIGITAL COPY for iTUNES THE LORD OF THE RINGS – Fellowship of the Ring – EXTENDED EDITION.

Entry deadline: January 3, 2012

Open to: US, Canada, Worldwide

Enter this giveaway here: http://aidyreviews.net/peter-jacksons-the-hobbit-trailer-review-and-lotr-fellowship-of-the-rings-giveaway/

Site Name: Grandma’s Guide to Life

Site URL: http://www.grandmasguidetolife.blogspot.com/

Prize Description: Cherry Walls is offering one lucky GG2Life reader their choice of one of three decals (must go to blog to see choices) — and they will ship them for free to anywhere in the world.

Entry deadline: January 17, 2012

Open to: Worldwide, 18+

Enter this giveaway here: http://www.grandmasguidetolife.blogspot.com/2011/12/cherry-walls-vinyl-decals-review.html