Erin Condren $25.00 GIVEAWAY!!

Welcome readers!! I am so excited to announce this giveaway! I am a new Erin Condren follower and let me tell you, I'm hooked!! I wrote a whole review about my Life Planner already. You can find it HERE. And I ordered the orange iPhone case just a week ago. See, totally hooked! As if I needed to tell you all this, her products are amazing and top notch. You can simply search for Erin Condren on Twitter or YouTube or Pinterest and watch her customers light up with joy when they talk about her products. ErinCondren.com offers so many different products to choose from -- Life planners, iPhone cases, notebooks, stationary, invitations, address labels, too many things to even list! There is something for everyone. And who doesn't like personalized products??

That's why it's my great honor to present this giveaway to you all!!

GIVEAWAY RULES:

There are some very important things you must do so PAY ATTENTION!! :-)

Please note that you MUST leave a separate comment on THIS blog for each different step you do to get credit for it. Also duplicate entries will be deleted so play fair!

For 1 entry MANDATORY: FOLLOW this blog, leave a comment saying you are a blog follower AND leave your email address so I can contact the winner. If you don't feel comfortable leaving your email address on the blog (I know some people don't like to) you can email it to me at willow162001(at)yahoo(dot)com.

For 1 entry: go to the Erin Condren Facebook page- like it and leave a comment on their page saying that I (Sara) sent you. Then leave a comment here saying you did that. And yes, I will be checking.

For 1 entry: sign up for the Erin Condren newsletter at www.erincondren.com. Then leave a comment here saying you did. You will want the Erin Condren newsletter. She doesn't spam you, but does send good updates and info about new products.
For 1 entry:  TWEET the link about the Giveaway, including @sara0120 and @ErinCondren, then leave a comment with the URL here. Note that you can get 1 entry per day per tweet.

(Of course, if you already do any of those things, like follow this blog or LIKE Erin Condren on FB, just leave that in the comments you leave here)
As always, I will use Random.org to select the winner. The contest will run from today until Friday, September 14th at 12PM EST. The winner will be announced on Saturday, September 15th.

Fine Print: This giveaway is open to US residents 18 and older only. Once a winner is selected, ErinCondren.com will give me the $25 code and I will email the winner. Once the winner responds, I will email them the code. If the winner does not respond to my email in 48 hours, I will select another winner.

I can't wait to see who wins!! Good luck to you all!!

Please note that I was not paid or compensated in any way to host this giveaway.

Must App Mondays!

I'm going to try something new. I've never been a scheduled blogger. But I want to be. And I have so many wonderful apps I want to share with you guys. So every Monday I'm going to write about an iPhone app I have and love! Does anyone have any cool rhyming name ideas? Must App Mondays was the best I could come up with. Kinda like must-have, but less of a tongue twister.


Anyway, the app I'm going to share with you today is actually my newest app. It's called TouchRetouch. I believe it was $.99 in the app store. There is a free/lite version, but it has a watermark on the final product. I refuse to pay more than a buck for any app (with very very very few exceptions). I have quite a few fun photo apps, but this one is very cool. I didnt know this sort of editting was even possible on an iPhone!

Here's the description straight from the App Store:

So here's my before picture:

And here is my after picture!!

I spent a good bit of time fussing around with this app trying to see what I could "erase" and what I couldn't. Small things are erased flawlessly! But sometimes the erased part was very noticable. I tried to erase part of a house just to see what it would do. Needless to say, it was kinda weird. But I have so many pictures from Colorado Springs of amazing mountains - but with a street light or stop light in the shot. These small details were erased without any trouble. I can already tell this will be a go-to app for me!

There is a lovely tutorial when you first open the app. PAY ATTENTION! There's some great information there.

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of the new Must App Mondays!!

Planner Love!!

Have you heard of Erin Condren? A while back I heard about her site and her wonderful planners and stationary. I wasn't in a place where I needed a new planner. But a few months later, only a few weeks ago actually, I was trying to find something similar to the best planner I ever had, which I bought at a Borders, which doesn't exist out here anymore. So I was a bit stumped. But then I overheard a few friends talking about the Erin Condren Life Planners and remembered looking at them a while back. So I bit the bullet and got one. They are so hands on with their personalizing, you can even choose what month you want your calendar to start on!! Since I have a whole new life starting in September, I chose to start my new life planner than month too.

I am a planner person. As much as I try, I will never be able to sync everything into my phone. I know and quite frankly envy people who can keep track of their lives with electronics. But ever since college, I need to be able to see what I need to do. I need to be able to write things down in 2 seconds and mark things off just as quickly. Plus I am very anal about the way my planners / calendars are organized. I thought I would love the planners with the distinct time/hour layout. Boy was I wrong!! I love the Life Planner two page month view. But I am so happy with the weekly view.

Each day is separated into three sections, morning, day, and night. This gives most things a little wiggle room, unlike the hourly approach. This is the first real week of my planner so far. I have family coming to help me move back to Arkansas. And you know that was the very first thing I added to my new life planner. Also, there is some blank pages and lined pages at the end of the planner. At first I didnt really know what I would do with them. Until the move hit me face on. I started a list of everything I needed to bring with me to Arkansas. And then another page to keep track of the jobs I'm applying for with passwords to accounts I need to check the status of jobs on. I know that I will have that planner with me all the time, I might as well use it to the best of it's ability!!

Plus the shipping is just spot on! It came packaged so beautifully! You know someone took time and care in shipping this planner. Like I said before, ErinCondren.com is still a hands on business. I'll warn you right now that it takes a while to make and ship their products, but the end result is completely worth it. And the website does a very good job at updating you so you know where your planner is when you stalk your account daily to see if it's been printed or invoiced. :-)

And even though they dont have to, the company throws in lots of different labels and gift stickers for FREE!

From what I understand this is the 2nd year the company has been making planners (could be more than that, but I think it's only the 2nd year) and the company listened to their customers and made some alterations to this year's model. First thing I want to mention is the aluminum coil bounding. At first I was slightly annoyed by the way the ends were bent. They kept sticking in a hole on the covers and I couldn't fold the planner back on itself to write in. But once I showed Joe, he grabbed a pair of plyers and fixed it in about 60 seconds. If the coil was plastic as it was last year, I wouldn't have been able to alter it. It's perfect now. If you are having a similar problem, simply bend the ends into the coil more. A very easy fix. I was also worried that the plastic pocket in the back would be too thick. But nope, it's the perfect size. When I write on the planner, I cant even tell it's there. Plus it's handy for all of the extra stickers.

But now the hard part... figuring out what my next purchase will be since the company also sends a $10 off code with the planner. There are so many things I want! But take a look at this iPhone cover and then at the theme of my blog and tell me this isnt perfect!! It's a little pricey, so I need to wait until I have a job or at least until I know how much the APA editor will cost me, but this will  definitely be my newest iPhone cover!

And these acrylic blocks are just too cute! Can you imagine that on my (new) desk (when I get a job). Sara Sutliff, M.A.!!!! Can we say daydreaming?

If you have a few bucks to part with and you need a new awesome planner or cool stationary of any kind, I greatly recommend that you look at ErinCondren.com. If you need any more recommendations, just look on Twitter or watch some of the videos on YouTube. When was the last time someone liked a planner enough to blog / vlog about it?? 

Even crazy dreams come true...

Yesterday was brought to you in part by the song Crazy Dreams from the Smash soundtrack. After having an AWESOME final oral defense, I got in my car and popped in my iPod and what came on as if on cue.......


Hello, you longshots, you dark horse runners
Hairbrush singers, dashboard drummers
Hello, you wild magnolias just waitin’ to bloom
There's a little bit of all that inside of me and you
Thank God, even crazy dreams come true

I stood at the bottom of some walls I thought I couldn't climb
I felt like Cinderella at the ball just runnin’ out of time
So I know how it feels to be afraid
And think that it's all gonna slip away
Hold on, hold on

Here's to you free souls, you firefly chasers
Tree climbers, porch swingers, air guitar players
Here's to you fearless dancers, shakin’ walls in your bedrooms
There's a lot of wonder left inside of me and you
Thank God, even crazy dreams come true

Never let a bad day be enough
To go and talk you into givin’ up
Sometimes everybody feels like you
Oh, feels like you, just like you
Thank God, even crazy dreams come true
Thank God, even crazy dreams come... true

[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/crazy-dreams-lyrics-smash.html ]

Final Oral Defense!!

After emailing my chair every day for 2 weeks, I finally have a date for my final oral defense for my thesis. It's next Wednesday if anyone wants to send some good vibes my way. I'm sure I'll be freaking out on Twitter about it all next week.

So basically the final oral defense is just a big presentation with a powerpoint where I present all of the results of my study. I think I was more nervous about the preliminary oral defense, where I had to pitch my idea after 4 months of HARD work! Thankfully, everyone loved my idea and I didnt have to start all over. But this one seems easier, I'm presenting just the facts (ma'am). And that's easy. Plus I reserved a room where I've done two other smaller presentations for classes so I'm used to the equipment and the room and the board where there powerpoint will be displayed. That wasn't an accident.

After I **pass** the final oral defense, I have to send the whole thesis to an APA editor and pay her per hour to edit it for publishing. Let me tell you, if you can be certified as an APA editor, there's some good money in it!

Then I submit it all to the school and the publisher.

Then I'm a graduate!!

And yes, I fully intend on being that obnoxious person who puts MA at the end of my name EVERYWHERE!! I have freaking earned it!!

Twitter >> sara0120 MA  :)

Okay, probably not Twitter. But definitely on LinkedIn.

AND I applied to 2 jobs today. And I am SOOOOOO excited about one of them. It's just perfect. However, I dont have any experience. But surely they can look past all that and see how passionate I am about this particular topic. Have you ever read about a company and position and just **know** you would be a perfect match? Hey Sara, try not to get your hopes up too much! ;-) I woke up in a cold sweat at 3am this morning in a panic worrying that I wont get a job. So today was a good day to start applying.