The Best Meals Happen at Home Giveaway!!!

A busy weeknight doesn’t have to mean fast food for dinner! Publix knows that the best meals happen at home, so they are excited to help you enjoy family mealtime without having to stress about what to prepare or spending hours in the kitchen. Stop by Publix during their “Best Meals Happen at Home” event to find great savings on some of your favorite products. Be sure to visit BestMealsatHome.com to find fantastic recipes, which can be cooked in 30 minutes or less, and your family is sure to love.

Take advantage of great savings on some of your favorite participating brands during the “Best Meals Happen at Home” event at Publix from March 8th through March 14th As of March 8th, look for in-store for coupons that will be valid through March 28th, 2012 Visit BestMealsatHome.com to sign up and receive emails with weekly recipes and coupon offers that will help you save up to $200 this year To kick-off the great savings and enjoy valuable time around the dinner table with your family, Publix invites you to try one of the delicious recipes that you can find at BestMealsatHome.com, which uses Progresso ® Lemon Pepper Crispy Bread Crumbs and Old El Paso® Flour Tortillas to make Lemon Pepper Fish Tacos: Prep time: 20 Min Start to Finish: 20 Min Makes: 5 servings (2 tacos each) Ingredients: Fish 2 tablespoons all purpose flour 1 egg 1 tablespoon water 1 cup Progresso® Lemon Pepper Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs 1 lb white fish fillets (such as tilapia or catfish) 2 tablespoons vegetable oil Tacos 10 Old El Paso® Flour Tortillas for soft tacos & fajitas (6 inch; from 8.2-oz package) 1 medium avocado, pitted, peeled, and chopped 1 medium tomato, seeded, diced 2 teaspoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 1 small jalapeño chile, seeded, finely chopped if desired 2 cups shredded lettuce 1 small lemon, cut into wedges Directions: In shallow dish, place flour. In another shallow dish, beat egg and water. In another shallow dish, place bread crumbs. Coat fish with flour. Dip into egg mixture; coat well with bread crumbs. In 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add fish; cook 6 to 8 minutes, turning once, until fish flakes easily with fork. Cut into 30 bite-size pieces. Meanwhile, heat tortillas as directed on package. In medium bowl, mix avocado, tomato and lemon juice. Stir in cilantro and jalapeño chile. Fill tortillas with fish, avocado mixture and lettuce. Serve with lemon wedges. Oven Method Heat oven to 375°F. Spray 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Follow step 1 above. Place fish in baking dish; drizzle with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Bake uncovered 15 to 20 minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork. Continue as directed in recipe. My readers have a chance to WIN a $25 gift card to Publix just for entering. That way the lucky winner can make Lemon Pepper Fish Tacos on us!! Just enter by commenting and telling me what your favorite fish recipe is!   Enter by 3/15/12 I will announce the winner in 3/16/12 “Disclosure: The Publix gift card, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark.”

Back in the Saddle again!

Well, I have taken a nice break from blogging and now I am back in action. A lot has happened in the last year. My husband deployed. That was actually a HUGE deal and really the reason my blog has suffered to much. Then when he came back we had a lot of adjustments. Then in December we bought a new house. We have decided to stay in Georgia forever! Now I am ready to roll with this blog!

Last month I went through one of the biggest life changing events of my life. I had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, or weight loss surgery. I have lost 25 pounds and have about 67 still to go. This is going to be quite the journey and I am looking forward to it! I am going to do a lot more recipe hunting and more blogging about my journey.

Thanks for reading!

Spring is coming! Shop here for some great deals!

Ever wish there was a place you could do all your shopping in one place? This place http://www.become.com/  has everything from stuff for your vehicle to stuff for your bathroom.

Around this time of year, I do a lot of online shopping. It is starting to feel a little warmer here in Georgia. So I am finding myself looking for Spring-like products. These towels http://home-and-garden.become.com/floral-bath-towels are SO cute and I would love to have some in my guest bath. I love the sweet flower print on them.

If you are looking for furniture, this website has it all. If you are in the market for a new chair, some of these http://home-and-garden.become.com/furniture-chair-sleeper can double as a sleeper for your out of town guests. I know when my family comes down from Michigan, we are always scrambling for a place to sleep for them.

During gardening season, I usually employ my hubby to haul all of my stuff around for me. I am adding one of these carts http://home-and-garden.become.com/garden-cart-tires  to my wish lists this year. It would make life much easier for him and for me!

Xigo Health Giveaway!

Okay readers. It is time for another great giveaway! This time it is Xigo Health. What is Xigo Health you ask?  Xigo Health is a family-focused company that has created a line of products designed to boost your immune system. From daily doses to maximum defense when your body needs it most, Xigo products make the immune system faster, stronger and smarter by detecting challenges in the body, defending against them and deterring repeat offenders. And setting them apart from other similar remedies on the market, Xigo Health products are all-natural and safe for everyday consumption. Post a comment about how SICK of being SICK you are this winter and for extra entries post a link on facebook, tweet or blog about it. Thanks and GOOD luck!!

disclosure-Momselect and Xigo Health sent me a product sample to try and are providing the prize pack to my readers.

Bruster's Ice Cream!!

I entered into a giveaway not long ago on Bruster's facebook page found here. It was a contest to win a free ice cream cake. YUMMMM! Okay so the contest was that I had to tell my favorite Bruster's story. Well I have quite a few because, come on, who doesn't have fun when they go get ice cream? :) Well in this blog post I am supposed to also tell my favorite story. I have two.

My husband is in the Army, as many of you are aware. We have made so many great friends along this journey. My friend Cindy lived next door to us at our old house. Her husband was deployed so we tried to keep busy doing stuff together so she wouldn't feel so lonely and because I just enjoyed her company so much. One of her favorite things to eat in the whole world is a Nathan's hot dog. So she ventured out to Bruster's to meet us for dinner with her three kids. It was such a nice time and a memory I will take with me the rest of my life. She moved a couple months later and I miss her terribly!! But I have come to love the Nathan's chili cheese dog almost as much as her. :) Mmmmmm. I like going for the hot dogs and the kids like the free ice cream! Who am I kidding, I love the ice cream too!!

Okay my second GREAT memory was with Lauren, my 2 year old. She fell into the couch and busted her lip WIDE open and we had to go to the ER. Well, it was around 10 am so in between meals. If you know anything about the military health care you know that you wait forever. Well, we missed lunch and I didn't have anything I could give to her because her lip was hanging open. Poor little baby. The only thing I could think of that she would be able to eat was ice cream. So I told her we would go get Bruster's ice cream and that would be her lunch that day. She was soooooooo excited that she was very well behaved and patient and only complained a couple times. When we were finished at the hospital, she didn't let me forget what I promised. We picked up the rest of the family and headed off to Bruster's. She was fine and didn't even need stitches. We ordered some "real" (yummy cheese fries!!) food too with the ice cream but she did have ice cream first.

I guess I do have another great story about Bruster's. When I did the Facebook giveaway they sent me a coupon for a free ice cream cake. We used it for Micah's birthday party and it was DELISH!!! It has this delectable whip cream frosting and the thing that surprised me about their ice cream cake is that it is ACTUAL cake on the bottom and ice cream on the top. It was sooooooooooo good. The adults had that cake and the kids got cupcakes. :) I would have to say that was my very favorite thing EVER at Bruster's.

They do quite a few giveaways and such so keep an eye out on their blog for them here. Thanks for reading!! Now go get yourself an icy treat! :)

Disclosure-I was compensated for this blog post with a gift card to Bruster's. The opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Random Acts of ZHU!!!

I was so excited to find out a couple weeks ago that I was going to be participating in a program called Random Acts of Zhu. Cepia, an amazingly generous company, sent 104 Zhu Zhu pets to 100 bloggers to spread a little Christmas joy.

It took me a few days to figure out which charity I wanted to benefit from this. At first I REALLY wanted the Christmas House on Fort Gordon to get them to help military families provide toys for their littles. Unfortunately I was about 2 days too late to donate! Bummer! So I had to think about it. I talked to my pastor and found out there were a few families that he knew of in the community that really needed a little help this year. I gladly gave him quite a few to help. Then I had a bunch more to find new homes for. I decided to take them to the Children's Medical Center at MCG hospital here in Augusta, Georgia. But I didn't really want to do Toys 4 Tots, even though it is a fantastic organization. I really wanted the kids on the floors to get the toys. Today we loaded up the back of the minivan with the remaining Zhu Zhu's and took them in. The nurses and staff were quite amazed at such a generous gift from the company! Having three very healthy children at home, it breaks my heart knowing that those babies in the hospital don't get to be at home for Christmas. As I was walking out of the children's ICU I noticed a mother crying. I cannot imagine having to deal with illness in my children. For those parents to see a smile on their kids faces from something as simple as a little toy hamster, it truly is a gift and a blessing to me. I am so grateful to have been a part of this Random Act of Zhu. Thank you Cepia for the absolutely AWESOME opportunity to put a smile on someones face. (Well LOTS of someones! 104 someones!) :)

If you haven't checked out the Zhu Zhu Pets, I advise you do. My kids can't get enough of them! You can learn a little about them here http://www.zhuniverse.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=24


To learn a little more about how you can help out MCG's Children's Medical Center check out this link here.http://www.mcghealth.org/ways-to-give/DefaultCMC.aspx

And the winner is......

Congrats to Christine for winning a $25 Kroger gift card and some Chex Cereal from Kroger, Chex and MyBlogSpark!!


Make sure to watch for upcoming giveaways!