Another fabulous Blog Blast - this one is sponsored by Harper Collins’ new title, “The Little Black Book of Style” by Nina Garcia (ELLE fashion director and Project Runway judge!).

[This is my very first campaign for PBN and I'm so excited! Watch for it at Glamorous Geek!]

Surely all moms have at least one item in their closets that really should have been donated (or trashed) years ago. Share how your style has deteriorated over the years and provide some photographic evidence - a picture of the most hideous item that’s still darkening your closet - and ‘fess up to why it’s still in there!

Why should you embarrass yourself in this manner? Because you could win a $250 Coach gift certificate! Face it, a great bag can make any schlumpy mom outfit look better.

How to participate?

1) On Friday, September 7, before midnight PST, write a post about your style - or lack thereof - and include a picture of the item(s) in your closet that most desperately need to be donated. Title it creatively and descriptively.

2) In the text of your post, link to PBN (http://blog.parentbloggers.com) and Harper Collins ( http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061234903/The_Little_Black_Book_of_Style/index.aspx)

3) Send the link to your post (email to ).

PBN will round up the entries and draw one winner at random (really, at random - http://www.random.org) who’ll get a $250 Coach gift certificate. Do you have a Coach bag? I don’t! And even if you do, can you really have too many Coach bags? I doubt it!

Looking forward to seeing the contents of your closets on Friday!

I am so excited about this Blog Blast! I have so much shit-ilious clothing that should have been dumped years ago… my post is going to be HUGE!

Everyone can participate, so you better get your camera ready and show us your hideous clothes!

Dearest Malie;

I am anti-mini van. I hate mini vans.

Yes, their economical and wonderfully spacious and can handle so much cargo and pack those ankle bitters in, but they’re just not for me. I cringe at the thought of considering a mini van an upgrade.

Growing up, that’s all my mom drove. Well, aside from the big brown beast which was a 70’s Buick Regal; we had a Chrysler sometimes or other, and then a GMC Safari; the one I learned to drive in. The one I loathed with every fiber of my being. Sure. Safe, yadda, yadda, yadda. I hated it.

I can’t even really touch on what part of a mini van I detest so very much, I just do. Because. I said so.

I think driving around town in a big ol’ mini van in my teens really scared me, since then, I’ve vowed that I will never have one.

So, when Carter came along, our little Saturn just wasn’t enough, and our Jeep was on the outs. We sold that poor Jeep (RIP Jeepy - creative eh?) and got our you, our dear Malibu Maxx. Mike had no argument, as he is just as adamant we will not own a van, and there was no question we needed a station wagon. Thought about the Volkswagen, which quickly was passed up when the salesman was a complete dick; test drove some other styles, but quickly realized that what we were looking for was pretty well out of our price range.

Until, you came along. You answered our prayers (if your prayers are like “Dammit, we need a new fucking car! Now!”) when you were waiting ever so patiently in the showroom for our arrival; first look I knew you would be mine.

I can’t say enough about you. I totally heart you. I am head over heels in heart with you! Love!

[It's a hatch back Malibu with room to spare. The back seat can move back and forth to accommodate taller passengers so they need not have their knees to to their chin. Bonus! Full loaded, including DVD player in the back. Excellent sound system - which gets plenty of use when I am alone belting out the lyrics to every Pearl Jam song I know. Loud enough to tune me out. And! Tinted windows and wicked chrome rims. Which I polish for Mike and he lurvs!]

You’re the complete package, my beautiful Malibu. Thank you for being my car even when I drive you like a maniac through Toronto’s rush hour traffic and make you speed up and down Hwy. 400… you never fail me. You make me look like a cool mom, not the computer geeky mom I really am! Which is totally awesome!

Love,

The Bat Outta Hell Crazy Driver

:::

And here I never thought I would have a blog post dedicated to my car; completely gushing about it, but they made me do it!

This post is brought to you by The Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast! and AskPatty.com’s new service CarBlabber! Create an open letter to your car anytime before midnight PST on Friday, August 24.

FIVE winners at random to receive a handmade Circle Bag, made from recycled tire inner tubes (which would have otherwise been headed for the landfill) and trimmed in pink or red. (Each bag valued at $160.)

PLUS - CarBlabber is holding their own giveaway among those who sign up and complete a profile on the site. They’ll be giving away twelve CarMD diagnostic tools (valued at $90 each), along with a grand prize - an original Seat Belt Bag from Harveys, valued at more than $200. So click through, sign up, and blab about your car!

This world is too fast. Days are a blur and before I know it, my cuddly and lovable toddler with separation anxiety with be a teenager; so full of angst and hatred for his parents (because honestly, who does hate their parents at some time?). Sooner then later he will be in school, high school, college, married.

It’s all too fast.

Modern day life is all about status. How much you have, how much you work and what you can show for it. Life has inevitably become live to work; instead work to live. With not enough hours in the day, we are forced to work earlier, commute longer and spend less time together. Family time in then reserved for the weekend, provided they are not filled with other obligations.

Mike and I both work in the very demanding field of construction. Be it, different parts, it’s the same industry. An industry that doesn’t quit, doesn’t slow and definitely doesn’t put family first. But. We do. We try. We were are not people to let our career choices dictate our personal lives. We are not afraid to speak up and refuse work that will take us away for months, we will do what we have to for our family unit.

Work is just that. Work.

It’s not love, it’s not memories, it’s not family. It will never in any way, shape or form, replace the warmth and love of seeing a smile form on my son’s face or hearing his hearty belly laugh.

And though we spend our days away from each other and even some nights; nights were work has worn us thin and all we want to do is be alone, we are family. We are love. We are constant.

Weekends have become cherished jewels in the midst of the hectic rat race. Weekends are our only time to get lost in each other; for the world’s pace to slow, for us to drink in everything that’s been missed over the proceeding five days.

Weekends are ours.

Should it be time spent completing errands, family trips or lazying around the house, we do it together. Lazing around the backyard or tipping our umpteenth Lego building while we relax in our pajamas, we do it together.

Weekends are about our little family.

Yet, some don’t understand. They don’t understand our wants, our needs, for our family time. They take it upon themselves to guilt us into obligations we don’t want. They guilt us for not spending time with them while demanding that we can always have family time and we should be out and having fun. Granted, being out sans children can be exhilarating sometimes, it’s not without guilt. The guilt that sticks like honey. The guilt that your child has spent so many hours in a daycare, without his parents, eats away at practically all hope of enjoying an evening.

The math of a 5 day work week is stifling.

55 out of 120 hours Carter is in daycare.

15 hours we spend together from Monday to Friday.

Fifteen hours. That’s it. Of course I want my weekends to be with my family.

:::

This post is brought to you in conjunction with Parent Bloggers Network’s Blog Blast! & EA’s Wii-Boogie, a family gaming experience. Shake it. Sing it. Create it.

What are your favorite family activities and how do you find the quality family time?
And if you don’t have quality family time, how do you make up for it? What challenges do you face?
Write your post on the topic above on Friday, August 10 (anytime before midnight PST) and make sure to link back to Parent Bloggers Network as well as Wii-Boogie for your chance to be entered in the draw for a Nintendo Wii and a copy of the new game “Boggie”.

** Cross posted at Viable Vixen **