Get Along Home

Here are some of the contests I’ve entered today. Click on through and make my odds worse! Go ahead! I don’t mind.

• Item of your choice from the DownEast Basics New Arrivals section at A Nut in a Nutshell
• 5 winners will receive Extreme Finance packages of finance software from Consumerism Commentary. Please mention that Cindy @ http://getalonghome.com sent you! (What? You thought I only read mom blogs? I am much deeper than you know, my friend. Cheaper, too.)
• An assortment of spice from McCormick at A Simple Kinda Life
• Your choice of Flirty Apron at Cherry Blossoms Handmade Hair Accessories
• Stacking Rings or a $40 gift certificate to Anastasia Rinaldi Design at Etsy It Up
• A $50 gift card to any store you like from Health, Beauty, Children, and Family
• Kids Robargyle Umbrella at The Funky Monkey
• Simplisse Breast Pump and supplies at Barefoot Mommies

Want Some Muffins? ‘Course ya do!  Try these awesome Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. I adapted the recipe from the banana muffin recipe in All You Magazine’s March 2010 issue. Those were good, but I had some chocolate I needed to use up.

• 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp salt
• 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup milk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips or chopped semi-sweet squares

Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl whisk or sift together the first four ingredients. In another large bowl, mash the bananas, then add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. Add wet mixture to dry, mixing until just combined. Don’t over-stir the batter! Spoon into a greased muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

These muffins are good right out of the oven, but I adapted the recipe to make them more freezable for my husband’s breakfasts. They are even better after they’ve been frozen and thawed! Enjoy!

Here are some of the giveaways I’ve entered today:

• $50 gift card to Milan Maternity at Feisty Frugal & Fabulous
• Your choice of Flirty Apron at Flying Giggles and Lollipops
• One Home and Office Powermat and one Portable Powermat at Barefoot Mommies
• Waterpik Ultra Dental Water Jet at Mama’s Money Savers
• A $20 gift certificate to Pacific Jewelry Designs at Joyful Reviews and Giveaways
• Your choice of Flirty Apron at Guessing All the Way
• General Mills Grains of Goodness Prize Pack at Pessimistically Optimistic Meanderings‘
• $50 gift certificate to Atterdag Kids at Lolidots

That’s it! That’s all I had time for today. Working on some, you know, blog posts. Happy Sunday!

Here are my favorite giveaways from the last couple of days:

• $10 Amazon.com gift code from Peaches’ Reviews and Giveaways
• Flirty Apron of your choice at She Scribes
• 5 piece mixing bowl set from Reduce at Smart and Trendy Moms
• Flirty Apron of your choice at Smart and Trendy Moms
• Simplisse Breast Pump and gift pack at Rockin’ Mama
• Colony Wear Custom Wallet at Sweeps4Bloggers
• $250 Amazon gift card from Life360
• An Automatic Watch from Orient USA at Rave and Review
• $25 e-gift card to The Boy’s Store at Musing Mainiac
• Grains of Goodness prize pack from General Mills at The Five Fish
• Medela Freestyle Breast Pump at babybix blog
• $100 shopping spree to CSN Stores at Good, True, and Beautiful

Here are my favorite giveaways today!:

• Any product you’d like from Yoga-Clothing.com at The B Keeps Us Honest
• Batter Blaster VIP coupons and a t-shirt at A Little of This and a Little of That
• Item of your choice from DownEast Basics’ New Arrivals at Frugal & Fabulous
• A Baking Prize Pack from Wilton at The Bragging Mommy
• Snack Attack gift basket from Asher’s Chocolates at Born 2 Impress
• Sleep Number Maternity Pillow from Select Comfort at The Energizer Bunny’s Mommy Reports
• A watch from Orient Watch USA at The Not-So Blog
• $50 Visa gift card from Goby.com at The Bragging Mommy
• A 24-pack of Cottonelle and a $50 Wal-Mart gift card at Mommy Mandy

One of the things I love about Twitter is the diversity of people who end up becoming “friends” with you. More than blogging or real life, on Twitter I’ve made friends who are unlike me in nearly every way. Obviously, we have enough in common to tweet together, but there are some huge cultural differences between me and a lot of my followers. For the most part all this diversity is wonderful! Sometimes, though, communication becomes impossible. Twitter is just not a great way to explain anything more complicated than your opinion of onion bagels. (Mine: Yum.)

Since it is still a fairly new medium, the rules of etiquette are still being hammered out as we go. I’m noticing, though, a trend that has always been evident in real life (at least among women). There seems to be a taboo against replying to people when you disagree with them. I don’t see a lot of vigorous debate going on in my Twitter stream. Conservatives avoid politics, but not other topics, when speaking to liberals. Bottle-feeding moms keep their sweet heads down when breast-feeding moms start getting catty about their child-rearing choices. We have no trouble talking about those things we agree on, but to disagree seems to be considered rude, no matter how respectful you are.

There have been times on Twitter when I’ve seen something said that was just too hard to ignore, countered it, and then found the recipient of my (yes, polite) disagreement has unfollowed me. When someone disagrees with me—well, they usually just do some passive-aggressive crap where they tweet about people like me in general, but never just @ me and get it over with. Or they unfollow me. Either way, I don’t see how this is more polite than just voicing your disagreement and moving on with your day.

There are some insanely stupid opinions going through my feed every day, several times an hour. Normally, I let them go by without a peep–um–tweet. I really don’t care that much what a given person thinks of Sarah Palin, for instance. But once in a while I’ll be in a suffer-no-fools kind of mood, and I’ll see a tweet that is so misguided that I just have to say something.

Nine times out of ten, I write my rebuttal and then delete it. It is truly not worth the effort most of the time. If people are going to make fun of a woman’s baby’s handicaps because of her political affiliation, then their hearts are probably too hard to be softened in that way, anyway. (This is a hypothetical. Haven’t actually seen that happen, yet.) But sometimes I hit “enter”, instead of deleting it. Because people really ought to know better.

Invariably, the person I reply to becomes defensive. People (including me) tend to get flustered when caught saying something they didn’t think they’d have to defend. Their initial defense is quickly followed by “Well, I have a right to my opinion!”. Well, sure you do. But didn’t you put that tweet out there for conversation? Do you really think you’re so wrong that you can’t stand up to a dumb hillbilly on Twitter?

If I’m wrong (happens daily) I’d like to think I’ll be grown-up enough to admit it, no matter how embarrassing it is to be caught in the wrong. I hate being wrong, but I’d rather change my opinion to the correct one than be comfortable with myself, frankly. Growth is hard! But I can’t do that if people don’t feel free to disagree with me. I may not always come around to another person’s way of thinking, but I certainly don’t see the harm in letting them try to persuade me. I guess most folks don’t feel that way.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less if I tried how many followers I have, or who they are. I tweet like I blog: when I feel like it, about whatever I please, whenever I like.

I’ve accepted that people are going to disagree with me. That’s something you’d better be prepared to accept when you’re as far outside the mainstream as I am.  Some people are going to get sick of my out-loud Christianity, or my politics, or my contest tweets. I’m OK with that. It takes all kinds, and not everybody is going to just love me.

But I don’t think I’ve ever unfollowed an individual (not talking companies here) for saying things I disagree with. I have let them know what I think, of course, which wins you no friends when you’re speaking to people who just want to live in an echo-chamber (read: most females). But I’ve never  unfollowed someone for daring to disagree with me. I’d like to think most people are that way, but I’m starting to wonder.

So how about you? Do you unfollow people who tweet things you disagree with? Do you respectfully dissent or keep your mouth shut when people assert things that you know to be wrong or untrue? Are there certain issues you’ll tweet about, even debate about, even if it means offending someone and losing a follower? Or is Twitter such a horrible medium for real conversation that only a fool would even attempt it?

You can follow me @getalonghome if you like. I follow back! I won’t ever unfollow you for anything less offensive than pron or outright name-calling or threats. Or unfollowing me. I’ll unfollow you for that.

Look at all the beautiful people I supposedly look like:

Before I ever ran the thing, I knew Brad Pitt would be on there. Not sure how I knew that. Or what the resemblance is… That was fun. Now on with my day.

Thanks, Mom Most Traveled, for the link.

Here are my favorite giveaways today!:

• Atari Flashback 2 Game Console at The Energizer Bunny’s Mommy Reports
• Montreal Pan from GreenPan at Organic Girl
• General Mills Grains of Goodness prize pack at Rockin’ Mama
• Happy Green Bee chemise or long sleeve tee at Organic Girl
• Automatic watch from Orient Watch USA at The Mom Buzz
• Crisco Olive Oil gift basket at The Art of Random Willy-Nillyness

Some great contests in the blog world today! I’m fiddling around with the idea of turning this blog into something entirely different, so instead of linking each giveaway in its own post, I’m going to go back to an end of the day posting of all the giveaways I’ve entered that day, or would like to share with you. I may go back to my old way of doing things later.

• Turkish Bamboo Towel Set from Pluma Down at Mommy PR.
• Atari Flashback2 Plug and Play Console at “Deal”icious Mom.
• Your choice of any kit from Creativity for Kids at Ladybug Soup.
• A medium Baby Bunch Bouquet at What Happened to My House.
• Charmeuse South Sea Pearl Sterling Silver Earrings from Realisation Creations at Mint Green with Envy
• A pair of Polliwalks at Toddler Mama
• Two winners will win 2 vouchers each for free Aunt Jemima Frozen Pancakes at Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House
• Your choice of apron from Flirty Aprons at Nicole’s Nickels.
• Your choice from 3 adorable vintage lockets from Penelope’s Porch at The Online Nanny Diaries.
• Evenflo Comfort Select Dual Breast Pump at The Mommy Files.
• $100 gift certificate to ShopZoolu.com at The Shopping Mama.