photo challenges

A missed day yesterday, but I haven’t had much to say recently.

Well, I always have something to say. I just didn’t have much when it comes to the blog. So, today, I’m hitting up a good fallback posting idea — Notes from my noodle!

The beauty of this is I only have a few ideas as I start and we’ll see where it leads.

So, let’s get it underway.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

If you are a blogger, odds are you’ve entered giveaways before. It’s a big thing in the blogging world. I wish I could do more of them here, but I have to keep them a little spread out at this point in time. Plus, when dealing with personal blogs, you have to make sure you give things away that are aimed a bit at a larger audience, not just a certain niche etc.

When I read and follow blogs, I’ll often enter. I never expect to win, especially as many are for some big things and attract thousands upon thousands of entries.

Finding blogs recently through the North East Bloggers Network led me to a giveaway. And it only had a few days left. So, of course, I opted to enter. Basically, you earn entries by following, tweeting, liking, commenting etc. So I went through and did things, found a few new blogs to read and so forth. and that was it.

Until yesterday afternoon, when the site’s owner sent me an e-mail entitled “You’re a winner!”

This, of course, I already knew.

But Rachel apparently meant for the giveaway! Out of 3,692 entries, my name was drawn.

Score!

What did I win? A $50 Target card and a $10 Starbucks card, as well as one month’s worth of ad space on four blogs. I’ve never done blog ads and was curious about them, so hopefully this will help me understand it a bit more. Thanks to Krystal, Courtney, Jamie and Rachel for giving ad space as part of the giveaway!

Either way, I’m obviously quite excited about winning the contest. It’s pretty cool to get notifications like that out of the blue saying you’ve won something.

Brewing, brewing, brewing

If you remember a post I did a week or so ago talking about my next plans in homebrewing, I’ve completed two.

The White House Honey Porter and the Chocolate Maple Porter are now fermenting!

The Honey Porter is the one I brewed first. It was a Northern Brewer kit, so pretty straight forward. In the end, it took about an hour and a half and I had it in the jug and going to town.

The Chocolate Maple Porter, well, that was my first foray into doing things a little more in depth. See, this was a full all-grain setup. The mash, the sparge, the whole nine yards. All told, it was a bit more than three hours to pull this one off. But I liked the process. I liked doing it as the kit, one from Brooklyn Brew Shop, said to do.

This one also has a little local flavor.

At the end of the brew, I needed to add maple syrup to the wort. The syrup is some that was just made this year by Gid, a local and friend. I’m super stoked to see how this one tastes. I have to use more maple syrup when bottling, too, so I’m excited to see what the taste is like.

Speaking of brewing and such, I’ve decided to abandon the labels. I’m going to put smaller labels on the bottles to show what the brews are, but I’ll save the bigger, more elaborate ones for online use on Facebook or Untappd. It’s really just a pain to try and get it all set and everything and then have to worry about getting them all cleaned up and such. I think I also might have to start posting here when new ones are done and ready so I can keep track of them.

But these two fermenting now… I’m really excited for.

Bark, bark, bark

I have no true issues with dogs. But man, why do owners have to allow dogs to stay out when they constantly bark. As I write this, some neighborhood pooch (not sure where as there are many) is out — or at least close to a window/door and has been non-stop barking for a good hour. At least. It’s an ankle-biting dog, too, so it’s that yap, yap, yap bark.

Ugh.

I know I am not the only one who thinks this is annoying. I have a few neighbors with these dogs and most of the time, they are all good about it and make sure the dog is in or something if it barks too much. But this dog has not stopped.

Have some control. Train your dog. My lord. When it starts to annoy people all the time, it’s time to realize your dog needs some training. Enough.

OK, I’ve barked about that long enough…

iMessage

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad or something, iMessage is probably something you wouldn’t care about.

Alas, for those who do…

For some reason, lately, I’ve been having  hard time with it. Sometimes, iMessage works. Other times it doesn’t. At the same time, it will work for one person and not for another.

Annoying.

52-week project

Fifteen weeks are done of this year’s 52-week photo project — the HooHaa 52.

It’s been a fun group so far this year. There have been some fun themes and some really good images. And, for the most part, those who started with us are still going strong. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve been pretty solid so far, but a few weeks gave me fits and I had a hard time figuring what I wanted to do.

We still have a long way to go, but it’s nice to know that people have seemingly made their way through some of the colder months and we are now moving to the warmer months, which hopefully means some more great themes and images.

I know when I see weather like this, I feel like there is more to take photos of and it’s more fun to go out with the camera.

I’m involved with a couple of other photo challenges and I look forward to seeing where they all lead this spring and summer.

Relay fundraiser reminder

I am a little more than a week from the Relay For Life and there’s still time for you to enter the fundraiser for the lap quilt. Don’t miss your chance — this thing is truly amazing!

For the information on how to enter, click here.