Bark Bark, Disclosure Time

This policy is valid from 25 February 2010 (That means from here on)

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact  mailcybergwen@gmail.com. (This means that I do this all by my little old self. If it sucks, my bad.)

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. (This means that, like many bloggers, I use affiliate links. They cost you nada and make me a penny or two)

The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements. (This means that those really obvious ads that you see are indeed ads and that I am not under the influence. I could be, but not right at this moment.)

The owner of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.  (This means that someone may be paying for my time, but they can’t shut me up. They can give me a book, but they can’t make me like it. They can take our land, but they can’t take our freedom. Oh, that was a movie. I am always honest with my opinion. If you smell bad, I am not going to tell you that you smell like roses, for example.)

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest. (This might technically untrue. I should be doing laundry or cleaning right now and I am not. I call that a conflict of interest, it just isn’t your interest.)

And so readers, this ends this little post to make the FTC happy and tells you how I go about keeping the lights at MurphyGrace Home. Move right along………

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

blogger Tags: Disclosure

Blogging About Blogging #2

You just knew that there had to be a follow up to the first Blogging About Blogging.

I am still a woman confused, baffled, bedazzled and wonky about my bloggy plan. I look like this..

Linocut, girl, who feels confused,  pumpurum’s shop, $14.90

First off, do you listen to podcasts? I didn’t until I stumbled on Sister Diane at CraftyPod. Usually, I pass podcasts up because it is way too easy for me to tune them out, but if you blog, you owe it to yourself to listen to CraftyPod #93: Craft Blogging. (note:you don’t need an ipod or anything to listen to these, just click play on the page)

Sister Diane made it all clear to me. I am doing this all wrong. I am not writing about things that I am passionate about, so it often seems like a chore. I am busy trying to craft a post that is a how to, fits a meme, or just plain piggy backs on others ideas. I hate it. It isn’t me. I don’t wanna do it anymore.

See, I am learning that I am more of a show & tell person, not a teacher. Being a teacher implies that you have patience and a plan. Newsflash-I have no patience and there is never a plan.

I can’t show you how I went from point A to point B and finally ended up at point C with a project. I have no idea how I got there, how am I going to draw you a map? THIS. ISN’T. ME.

So, what does all this mean? How can I stop hiding behind this mask so often?

Peacock Confusion in Viridian and Violet Faecourt Masquerade Original Watercolor, by Carapace, $25

• I need to find my passion, perhaps before I really figure out my niche.
• I need to identify my weaknesses and try to learn to use them in my favor.

How can I do that, unmask myself, & not scare all of you away in the process? Do you think that you would still like me if I looked more like this?

A Little Confused 8X10 Print, by Ellie J. Wilson, $18.

Are you still with me?

What are your passions?

What are your strengths?

Are their aspects of blogging that make it feel like a chore or a bore for you?

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to go listen to CraftyPod #93 and tell us how you feel about blogging and your blog. There are some other helpful links on that page too.

Note: This accompaning art gallery was brought to you by etsy.com, but inspired by Struggling to Be Stylish and her Art Chaos.

Technorati Tags: blogging,passion

House Hunting Day 1

This week we decided that it was time to start looking for a house to buy. Yeah us!

If you haven’t been here, you can see that we found out that our rental is basically killing me and we have put off doing anything about it for long enough. That, and we are tired of throwing money out the window, not being able to go total DIY crazy, and it is just time to put down some serious roots in our relationship lives.

Long story short, we went and looked at this charmer today.

Beach cottage, right price, 3/2, pretty good views of the bay, nice lot, yada yada yada. I was really thrilled to looked at it. That is, until we walked in and were over-powered by the stench of cat urine!

OMG! It was awful. Seriously, my nose was all plugged up from allergies and I was still gagging. The agent tried to play it off, “Yeah, I think they had a cat…”  Ya think? They should have been handing out gas masks at the door!

So not the way that I wanted to start this serious house buying adventure. We will keep looking and live to search another day.

Have you ever looked inside a house and been scared? I wonder how those people lived like that?

Excuse the Dust this Thrifty Thursday

 

I am in the midst of doing an overhaul and have no clue what I am doing, so if things go wonky, forgive me. I am the kind of person goes along with the flow as opposed to making the plan first.

 

I will keep it simple since my brain is full of HTML.

I bought 2 of these plastic fence post toppers for a whopping $1 at ReStore. Stay tuned for some fabulous book end transformations.

Picked up yet another jewelry box for 50 cents.

Can’t remember if I have shown this before….I paid a couple of bucks.

Sort of a lackluster week for thrifty finds, but the sun has been out & it was too beautiful to be shopping.

NOTE: When at the beach, don’t let your dog fall asleep on your leg. I have a silhouette of Murphy Grace’s head on mine. Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘tan line’. 

Blogging About Blogging

I have spent a lot of time asking myself questions lately. You know, those basic questions that I probably should have answered a long time ago, but I am a super late bloomer.

Here are some of the things that are zinging through my brain at all hours:

• What do I want to be when I grow up?
• What are my passions?
• What sort of time commitment do these passions take?
• How do I organize and compartmentalize all of it?
• What sort of $$ do they suck up?
• What are my goals for my blogs, yes, I have two and they are on totally different subjects. MurphyGrace Home and Chew & Digest Books
• Then, I have tried to figure out how much time and energy I can devote to all that up there and keep my family happy and my health in check.
• Lastly, I have been trying to determine what I want to achieve with blogging , especially doing it split in two, like I have been doing. (One Creative Blog and One on Books)

I haven’t come up with most of the answers yet, but until I do, I am going to continue to be kicking it up a notch in both facets of my life until I either explode or decide to merge the two and hope that everyone can get a long.

All of the Blissdom hoopla really made a few of us realize that we want to aim higher with our blogs. Monica, from Monica Wants it , Christy, from Embellished Bayou and I really want to go to Blissdom ‘11. We want to go from D List bloggers to B List bloggers. Perhaps go to

I am hoping that by setting this goal, we we get out of our pants without zippers and step up to the plate.

My tools in this goal so far is a copy of Blogging For Bliss by Tara Frey and all of the great resources found at Sneaky Momma Blog Design, and ProBlogger.

I am still pretty fuddled with frankly, I suck at making goals, so please excuse my dust and crazy antics until I learn just where I fit in around here!

 

Do you have goals for your blog? What sort of goals are they or is your blog totally for pleasure, marketing your crafts, etc?

Please, pretty please, help a blogger out! I will share some of this fabulous Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake with lemon, chocolate and fresh strawberry icing with you:)

 

I am out of the Dog House and over at Embellished Bayou!

I am off doing a jewelry guest post for Christy over at Embellished Bayou, so head on over there and see what we are up to!

She is a blast to work with and always so ready to lend this newbie blogger a hand.

What are ya waiting for?? Don’t you want to see some my dazzling necklaces???

Can You Rock Brownies?

 

I came across this today and was inspired

Betty Crocker-Indulgent Brownie Torte

I thought, we are out of cookies, I have like 6 boxes of brownie mix and a tub of frosting, I can do this.

Of course, I have an aversion to following directions and my sheet of brownies ended up totally lopsided as well as sticking to the pan. I blame the oven.

I had to get creative and it ended up like this

Voila, three mini brownie tortes with baby brownie chunks around them!

What have you had to get creative and rescue lately?

Disclaimer: I totally left out the part where I dropped the knife covered in frosting and it managed to land inside my UGG boot. EWW and I am still not sure how it landed in the BACK of my boot!

We Have a Winner and a Group Hug!

 

I feel like the winner in all of this because you all gave me the warm fuzzies.

Anyway, on to the winner of the Great Doggie Giveaway. I had to put on my big girl pants with zippers and not only use Random.org for the first time, but figure out how to take a screenshot and crop it. Here goes…..

Who was lucky commenter number 1?

Christy from Embellished Bayou!

She is a lucky girl because her Saints just won the Super Bowl too.

I must thank CSN Stores again for being able to do this and I hope to do more giveaways again in the future. Until then, back to creating, living, cooking without burning and posting more often!

Doggie Giveaway

 

 

The great thing about giveaways is that wonderful happy dance I do when I open my mailbox to find the prize in there. Why do I dance? It isn’t because of the prize, it is because I feel like I am getting a virtual hug from a blogger that I have never met.

Thanks to CSN Stores and http://www.toysandgamesonline.com/, I get to send you a virtual hug if you win!

Keeping with my Murphy Grace theme and remembering how much fun it was to play board games with the girls over the holidays, this is what I chose…..

 

Look at how cute the game pieces are!

How to Enter:

1.) Become a follower of my blog and leave me a comment telling me so. (If you already follow, just leave me a comment telling me you are a follower.) I swear, I won’t bite.

Extra Chances:
2.) Blog about this giveaway over on your blog and leave me a comment with the link to your blog post.

3.) Tweet a link to this blog post. Make sure to include me (@MurpyGraceHome) and make sure to post a link to your tweet in the comments section.

So many rules, where was I? Dates!

Entries will close on Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 11:59PM PST. I will pick the winner when I crawl out of bed on Monday morning, February 8th and post the winner.

So, are you game?

Ode to Nancy Reagan and Her Campaign Against Drugs

 

This is Murphy Grace.

This is Murphy Grace on a picnic table.

Any questions?

Where is my Xanax? It is a like having my own circus around here.