Giveaway-Free New “Vintage” Dress from Shabby Apple

One of my most favorite places to drool online is at Shabby Apple. They have the most gorgeous fitting dresses-vintage in style, but modern in cut and in fabric. And-their prices are uber reasonable.

And today, I’m giving away ONE FREE DRESS OF YOUR CHOICE! You can’t beat that with a stick.

If you know anything about me, you know that I love vintage dresses. Take a look at a couple of my favorites:

This one is called “Cut the Cake” and it’s only $84. What?! I would eat cake, icecream and a few other things while wearing this sassy number, believe me.

This little ditty is called “Ever After” and it’s also $84. Yes, I will put you in my closet forever and after. Thank you.

This is called “Moon River” and it’s on sale for only $39. Now, that’s really in my price range. It reminds me of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Audrey Hepburn and all sorts of other romantic things.

So, here’s how you WIN A FREE DRESS. It’s super simple. Just follow the rules via the Rafflecopter below. First, leave a blog comment (which earns you 2 points) by telling me from this list of dresses-which is your favorite:

1)Snapdragon
2)Heart of Me
3)Dressage
4)Grand National
5)Hackney
6)Admiral
7)Cut the Cake
8)At last
9)My vow to you
10)Maid of honor
11)Together forever
12)Ever after
13)Save the date
14)Moon River
15)Ski Bop
16)Tiber

Tell me in the Rafflecopter give-away thingie that you left me a blog comment  and then-earn more points by liking my page on FB, etc. This give away goes until July 22nd at midnight-so tell all your friends, family members and cats.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good LUCK!

What women think men want….

For twelve-plus years, I’ve been married to my best friend, my soul mate and my confidant. However, “Biceps” is still an enigma. He leaves me guessing. He surprises me. He zigs where I most definitely thought he would zag. And, I still don’t quite “get” him.

I could be dressed up like a robot, adorned with crazy make-up, covered in silver paint and topped with a strainer for a hat-and yet-for some reason, Biceps finds me utterly irresistible.I had to get to the bottom of my puzzling man.

I don’t quite fit the mold when it comes to being a supermodel. What made me irresistible to the most attractive man that I know?

My ponderings begged the question-“What exactly do men want from their women?”.

This is what I’m told I should look like. Well, this with a tiny dog, a fancy car, a ridiculously overpriced purse and an attitude.

However, this is me-in a banana costume, at a party with people I don’t know, toilet papering my husband.

Totally normal. Not exactly glamorous, fabulous or with any spared room for an overpriced purse.
And still, Biceps found me irresistible. So, either the magazines are wrong or my husband is crazy. I had to test my theory.

After careful research, a lengthy and dedicated “home-study”, a litmus test with an uncompromised subject group-the results were in.

(Most) Men don’t care if our shoes match our purses. Heck, they don’t even care if our shoes match our outfits. Wear flip-flops with an evening gown. 9 out of 10 men won’t notice.

(Most) Men don’t worry about our style, or if we’re “in it”. They worry about the fact that we still adore them, can’t live without them, and think they are the cat’s meow. They want to be our heroes-nay our superheroes-if we’ll let them. (Most) men hope to be our knight in shining armor, even if we’ve been married 12 plus years. If we are in sweatpants, an oversized Mustang t-shirt and with our hair up in a bun…it doesn’t matter, as long as we look at them with adoration and tell them how we feel about their strong muscles.

So, keep your liposuction, your lip implants, your “I don’t care, but I do” dress. I’ll stick with kissing my husband passionately each day and doing it with my hair in a bun. It’s so much easier, so much cheaper and so much more enjoyable. Just ask Biceps.

It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your…

Today, the high will be a balmy 104-which translated into Tulsa’s humid temperatures, means 110. My poor little garden is persevering through the heat, like a bunch of state champs. However, the brown and crumbly tips of my squash plant cannot go unnoticed.

I have found more than one rotted out, burnt to a crisp little crookneck squash-that had started off with so much pizzaz and promise. It breaks my heart.

And a couple of my lettuce plants had to be put down. We’ve still had more than enough for the two of us to eat huge salads every day-and share with others. But, it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday’s lettuce. You eat some, you loose some.

Fighting the heat and the dang squirrels over my tomatoes is a daily struggle. Cute, furry squirrels can’t get enough of tearing off perfectly green tomatoes, taking ONE bite and then tossing it to the side like a fickle woman shopping for shoes. How wasteful you are, little creatures. If only I had a BB gun. Oh wait, I do. And a heart of stone in order to be able to kill you. Oh wait, I don’t. You can have the tomatoes…

But, if I’m going to endure this heat every day while pampering, clipping, weeding, harvesting-I want to get to this point with my tomatoes. So back off, heat. Back off, squirrels. A girl can only be pushed so far and then she snaps. (Insert BB gun deployment noise).

We wish for freedom.

Happy 4th of July and Independence Day! I personally love the 4th of July. It’s the one holiday where anyone and everyone can be patriotic, without judgement-instead of trying to be a cool hipster who opposes everything the government stands for.

Instead of viewing this holiday as an excuse to drink and not work, let’s take a look at what it really means to celebrate our independence.

Our freedom means young men and women giving up their best years to fight for a country that sometimes doesn’t support them, and even despises them upon their homecoming. Some return with physical and mental scars they care not talk about, memories they wished they could forget and feelings of regret for what they had to do.

Our freedom means wives and daughters seeing the leader of their home in uniform, packing up, saying goodbye for months on end, or maybe even forever.

It means moving on without that man during those months, continuing on with life and trying not to worry every second of every day that something might happen.

My freedom means attending a Veteran’s Church service and seeing men and women with crutches, missing limbs, wheelchair-but standing there praising the Lord. It’s humbling and continues to make me cry.

Our freedom comes with a high price-and if I’m honest, one I’m not sure that I’m willing to pay myself. I am thankful for the men and women of this country who are more selfless than I am-who have risked it all so that I can sit on my back porch, drink my coffee and write about them.

God-please-still bless America.