I have to say thanks to Kate @ My So-Called Blog. She was gracious enough to create the neatest mini-quilt for a friend of mine who is due soon!!

I love homemade gifts, but I am not at all the type of person who can sew. I can’t draw either.

Kate on the other had has mad skills! Look at those details! She even personalized this hanging for me. I’ve tried to encourage her to create her own Etsy shop. Go check out her site and see what else she can do.

It’s in full swing once again. You may remember the spring rendition of this (The Dog Days of Summer) that Rocks In My Dryer put on.

I’m participating again because to be honest I love free stuff! That and it brings a whole lot of traffic to your site. See I am honest. You can enter my contest and go over to the Bloggy Giveaways page to see all the other cool places giving away free stuff!!!

I will use the random number generator and choose two winners on Sunday, November 4th. You have until Saturday, November 3rd to leave a comment telling me how great I am.

KIDDING. Just leave a nice comment.

My giveaway’s this go around are shown below. A ceramic Christmas platter with cute snowmen and a lovely beaded necklace that is perfect for fall.

[DISCLAIMER: The beaded necklace and ceramic Christmas platter were both handmade by someone in China.]

Every fall and every spring I do some house cleaning. Sometimes it involves windows and deep cleaning the carpets, but mostly it involves surveying the gifts I’ve bought over the past year that are stored in our basement.

I love finding deals. Ask anyone who knows me. At Christmas I’ve been known to spill the beans and tell a person that I got their gift on clearance for $3. The bigger the deal, the bigger the thrill!

Most of the time my husband is embarrassed at my announcements to family and friends, but I figure he should be proud. It saves him money.

I’m in charge of the gift buying for this household, which means I buy all the presents for his family as well. This is no easy task people.

You try coming up with interesting gifts for folks who love red tractors, tell the same redneck jokes yearly and laugh like they just heard them for the first time, decorate in “French Country Wal-Mart” and only eat at Applebee’s.

No easy task people!

I admit to purchasing some loser items in the past just because they were such a good deal (that and I ran out of ideas). I also admit to getting a few, “why the hell did you buy me this gift” looks too. You win some, you lose some. Isn’t it the thought that counts?

FOR THE RECORD - I’ve never bought anyone this…

With my husband’s family it’s all about the sell. It wouldn’t matter if I bought them poop on a stick, they’d “oh” and “ah,” then thank us repeatedly. You could give them one walkie talkie and they seriously wouldn’t get it.

When it came time to wrap gifts last year my husband griped (once again) about what I’d purchased for his family members. I recall him saying things like:

“Too many knick-knacks.” AND “What will they do with that?”

So this past year I changed my game.

I’ve only bought a few of items I absolutely could not pass up for gifts this year. None of which are for his family. This year he is on his own. Let him fight the traffic and crowds. Let him find the poop on a stick dipped in gold.

For better or for worse maybe, but no one ever mentioned buying in-laws gifts.

Aside from throwing sunglasses out the window, our vacation went fairly smooth. Except the fact their was another woman traveling with us. My husband was thrilled. Ethan was even pretty excited too. I could have cared less…until we needed her.

When I announced our upcoming vacation I mentioned that as a result of my Detroit trip, GM offered to drop off a 2008 Saturn Outlook in my driveway for the trip. Yes, a brand new SUV for us to test drive. Marketing genius on their part, because I can’t think of a better way to put a family car to the test other than vacation.

We drove over 2,000 miles in 10 days from Indiana to New Orleans and Florida. To say the Outlook handled well is like confirming the Titanic sank. It did!

Both my husband and I were extremely impressed. It combined style and luxury in a well thought out family vehicle. The storage compartments alone were enough to make me drool.

You may already heard that GM introduced the Saturn VUE as a hybrid which can travel up to 585 highway miles on a single tank of gas! Impressive. I’m hoping they may consider making the Outlook into a hybrid model. According to the built in gauge we averaged 19.3 MPG on our trip (which includes a mix of city and interstate driving).

The reason my husband may leave is a woman named Sarah. She was a sweet talking lady who traveled with us on vacation, sitting directly between us in the front seat. Even our son was intrigued by this woman and told me I was jealous.

What’s to be jealous of? If anything I was thankful because she helped us avoid A LOT of arguments on our trip. These heated moments tend to happen when we travel and I say “turn right here” and Nathan turns left. Or when we miss a major turn and he gets directionally challenged trying to get back on the correct interstate and won’t listen to me. Somehow in years past I earned the nickname “Ms. McNally” (because I’m always right).

If we were in the market to buy a new vehicle I would have absolutely no reservations about the Outlook. My 2000 Ford mini-van has about 96,000 miles on it so we’ll probably be looking down that road in a few years. My aunt and uncle vacationed with us in Florida and are currently researching vehicles for an upcoming purchase and fell in love after driving it. The chances are good they will either purchase the Hybrid VUE or Outlook soon.

Our only issue with traveling was the seat belts in the middle captain chairs. If you notice in the picture the belt fastens on the inside of the seat. In most vehicles it is placed along the outside.

The problem was buckling Ethan in his car seat. When we reached over his seat with the belt we couldn’t get it to connect without going up and under his car seat to buckle.

I admit Ethan’s car seat is 3 years old and newer seats may be more contoured to bucket seats such as these. He has probably reached the height to move into a booster seat, but any family with car seats would have found it difficult to latch seat belts in this vehicle. And the design may have something to do with the fact that all the seats fold down, which is a nice feature, but so are seat belts you can reach.

Sarah certainly came in handy driving in downtown New Orleans and helping me locate an outlet mall. Overall she took care of satisfying my husband for me and got us where we needed to go.

Saturn I just have one question. Why is the navigator a woman’s voice? Is it because we truly do read maps and directions better than men?

I’m not sure how woman who are desperately trying to conceive handle all the pressure from the outside world. Even hearing my doctor say it out loud sent shivers down my spine yesterday.

Despite knowing our situation and how many surgeries I’ve endured, I constantly get questioned from people with that dreaded sentence:

“So when are you guys going to have another baby?”

I used to be polite and felt as if it was my responsibility to say things like, “Oh, I’m not sure.”

Now I’m more honest in responding. I figure if you’re going to be blunt and ask personal questions, then you can handle the truthful answer.

Thanks for all the well wishes, good thoughts and e-mails regarding my appointment. The news wasn’t terrible, but the river runs deep with issues. We’ve started with some blood work, a few upcoming tests and scheduled a few consults to get other opinions.

We’ve been pondering whether it is worth the risks to proceed with trying to have another child and in the back of my mind I wonder what fuels this desire. Right before the car accident we had just decided to have another baby. Ethan was turning 2 years old and it was a good point in our lives to add on to our family. But life got interrupted and since then I’ve felt robbed of that chance.

Please don’t get the wrong impression. I feel incredibly blessed having our son. He is amazing in more ways than I can even begin to describe. My heart is more than full with his love.

It’s human nature to always want more though.

Even if our wants aren’t met, our needs already have been.