MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway: The Books!

Look for all of these great books to be reviewed and given away during MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway ... Do you want to win one? Do you want to win them ALL as the grand prize at the end of the month? Here are some important details you'll want to know about before the Reviews and Book Giveaways come your way! And then below, all of the books are listed!

*** TO BE CLEAR: Come back and read about each book every day in March. Choose the books you'd like to win. Enter for any or ALL the books. Each entry will count as an entry toward the grand prize of winning ALL 31+ books at the end of the month. You can win the book of the day and still qualify to win ALL the books at the end of the month!

*You may enter daily, but can only enter one time per day, per book. Please, when you enter, leave a unique and qualifying name so you can be identified as the winner. There may be more than one “Jenn” entering, so use a last name or middle name to be sure you are identified. An email address helps to ensure you as the winner.

*Check back to see if you’ve won the book of the day; winner will be listed at the top of the blog entry for the day in the highlighted area.

*You must contact me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com to claim your book. Send me your full name, address, email address and the name of the book that you won. I will NOT alert winners. If you don’t contact me during the month of MARCH, you will not receive your book.

*You will have two days to enter after I post the giveaway for each book (weekend posts may be allotted more time at my discretion). Entries after the two-day mark will not be considered. I will usually try to leave a comment in the comment thread at the point where entries per book will no longer be qualified.

*Every day you enter will give you another entry to win the grand prize at the end of the month. Enter every day in the month, you will have 31 chances to win the 31 books we’re giving away. The more you enter, the more chances you'll have to win!

*Your book or books will be mailed directly from the author or publisher and may or may not be signed.

*If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com or leave a comment in the comments section and I'll answer them there.

*Sorry, only US and Canadian residents are eligible.

I love all of these authors and their books and cannot wait to share them with you! Thanks to all of them for their generosity and for their beautiful words!

PS ... Before March 1, I'll have one more surprise book to give away that's not on this list, but the author's FIRST book is featured here. You'll just be able to win her second book here too, before the March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway, so be sure to check back.

And now, the featured books ...



 

Chocolate & Vicodin

Book: Chocolate & Vicodin

Author: Jennette Fulda

Winner: HALLY, who said:
Chocolate & vidicon, isn't that the mantra of mothers in labor everywhere? Thanks for the great giveaway Manic!

If your name appears here as the winner, please contact me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com to claim your prize. Send me your full name, address, email address and name of book you have won.



In anticipation of March and the big book event planned, here is a test run of how each day will go, and a little something extra for you all ...

Well, I know March isn't quite here yet, but I'm going to start the

MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway!

with two preview books that debut this week that I have promised dedicated readers. So, here's a review on Chocolate & Vicodin by Jennette Fulda, who I have had the pleasure of meeting in real life. If you'd like to win a copy of Chocolate & Vicodin, simply leave a comment in the comment section. If you sign in as anonymous, just make sure to leave an identifying name and email address. I WON'T be contacting the winner for ANY of these giveaways in March. It will be your responsibility to check back to see if you've won any of the books given away during the month of March, so please come back to see if you've won.

During the official MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway, you must contact me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com to claim your prize. Send me your full name, address, email address and the name of the book that you won. I will NOT alert winners. If you don’t contact me during the month of March, you will not receive your book.

You'll have two days from the time I post each book to enter. The winner's name will be announced at the top of each review/post!

Am very sorry, but only U.S. and Canadian residents can participate.

And here we go, a preview to what will be coming to you every.single.day in March ... a fantastic book for you to win with Chocolate & Vicodin! That means THIRTY-ONE books to read about and possibly win all through the month of March, and you can enter every single day.

Every time you enter, that's one entry toward the grand prize of winning ALL 31 books at the end of the month! (Sidenote: These first two books in February may or may not be included in the March grand prize, but I love them so much, and wanted to share them with you here, so we're kicking off a little early with a couple special books!)

If you have any questions about the Giveaway, please leave them in the comment section or email me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com. Also, every book has been generously donated by the authors themselves.

REVIEW:
When I first found out Jennette Fulda had another book coming out, I thought, “How on earth did she write another book, she just wrote her amazing Half Assed memoir, the book about how she lost 200 pounds through healthy eating and exercise?” Then I saw and fell madly in love with the cover of Chocolate & Vicodin which is simply a picture of a chocolate iced cupcake with pills on top. It’s beautiful.

Bad for me for not keeping up with her very famous blog, Pastaqueen.com, and for not knowing that Jennette had been suffering from a chronic headache. You know, one constant headache that would NOT GO AWAY. Painful. Yeah.

I’ve been kind of on that road, but not to the point of having a headache all day long, every day for more than three years. As a migraine sufferer, I’ve done some of the things Jennette does in her memoir Chocolate & Vicodin: My quest for relief from the headache that wouldn’t go away. But how on earth did she get to take the prescription drug Topomax and LOSE weight with the drug when I take it DAILY for my migraines and all I get is … well, thankfully, no migraines. And some days because of the drug, I can’t find my words, but I’d rather be tongue-tied than holed up in a dark room unable to move all day long. I am thankful the drug works for me. What Jennette has been through has been something I would have not been able to deal with.

Jennette went through MRIs, cat scans, countless doctor visits, prescriptions, prescriptions, prescriptions, a 40-pound weight gain due to self-medicating with mint chocolate chip ice cream, chiropractic, acupuncture, visits to headache clinics. She tried absolutely everything possible to rid her of the constant suffering. She lost days and nights of her life because of a continuous pain in her head which she sometimes referred to as a tiara made of nails. Fun huh?

I’ve wondered if given the choice, would Jennette have chosen to stay 200 pounds heavier and never have had the constant headache or would she have chosen the headache but to have lost the weight?

Whether you’ve had one headache or a million, you’ll enjoy the humor Jennette brings to Chocolate & Vicodin, and you’ll feel her pain, thankfully not literally, and you’ll be happy to know that while not completely healed, she’s able to live comfortably now. Get Chocolate & Vicodin and find out how Jennette got where she is today. And a pint of mint chocolate chip along the way might not be a bad idea either!

This review was previously shared on RealMomsGuide.

MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway!

COMING SOON!

Every day during the month of March a surprise book or set of books will be given away on MaNiC MoMMy ... A Booking with MaNiC Extravaganza!

Authors include (in no particular order):

Jen Lancaster
Kristina Riggle
Allison Winn Scotch
Jess Riley
Sarah Pekkanen
Alisa Bowman
Susan Pohlman
Jenny Nelson
Shana Mahaffey
Maureen Lipinski
Julie Buxbaum
Juliette Fay
Laura Munson
Stacy Morrison
Allie Larkin
Rainbow Rowell
Laura Kasischke
Michelle Toth
Michele Scott
Annette Fix
Jenny Gardiner
Kim Wright
Dawn Meehan
Emily Giffin
Lissa Rankin
Eileen Cook
Catherine McKenzie
Shawn Klomparens
Trish Ryan
Laura Dave
Julie Metz


At the end of the month, one GRAND PRIZE WINNER will receive a

complete set of ALL the books from the month!

So, check back soon for more info leading up to

MaNiC MoMMy'S March Madness Book-A-Day Giveaway!

Are You an Accidental Adult?

WINNER:
Congrats to Lacey In The Sky who has won The Accidental Adult! Lacy, please send me your address!
And big exciting news coming your way on MaNiC MoMMy for the month of March ... please check back soon! BIG BOOK NEWS!


BOOK GIVEAWAY:
The Accidental Adult
By Colin Sokolowski

DEFINITION:

accidental adult (n.): An individual whose age indicates maturity but whose approach to life suggests otherwise.

When's the first time you felt like an adult? The first time you drank alcohol? When you had your first baby? When you wrote out your first mortgage check or drove off the lot in that awesome minivan?

I bet it was a life-changing moment huh?

Colin Sokolowski knows all about becoming an adult and he shares his humorous stories in his book: The Accidental Adult, Essays and Advice for the Reluctantly Responsible and Marginally Mature.

Even if you've yet to accept your inner adult, you'll crack up at Sokolowski’s humor. Essays on the must-have ill-fated minivan, home improvements (everyone has them but no one wants to do them, right?), your hubby’s inner child, hobbies, music (then and now – Wiggles anyone?), beer – beer – beer, entertaining, parenting, athletics, and so much more.

I'm giving away a copy of The Accidental Adult here on MaNiC MoMMy and here's all you have to do to enter:

--leave me a comment telling me when you first felt like a real adult. PLEASE leave your email address here so if you win, I can let you know!
--go to Colin's FB page, LIKE him there, and leave a note there telling him you found him through MaNiC MoMMy.

That's all.

Thanks, and remember, LOTS more book giveaways coming your way!

Next Two coming up in February are:

Jennette Fulda's Chocolate & Vicodin

Sarah Pekkanen's Skipping a Beat

Also, quick personal update:

Sorry there hasn't been much personal blogging going on over here, but we've made it past 8 months living here in this shithole, HA, just kidding, because it's BEAUTIFUL here, and I hope all my friends back home have done OK with the blizzard.

My very close friends from my old neighborhood were out here a couple weeks ago -- nine girlfriends, and we had a blast!

Leaving for Cabo this week to celebrate my dad's 70th with the family. Very much looking forward to that vaca.

If we're not FB friends, please friend me - just let me know you've come there by way of MaNiC. I do a lot of social connecting there these days. 

Finally, I've been blogging over at Real Mom's Guide (you'll have to scroll down if you go over there) so if you've been DYING to read me, there's a ton of stuff over there (although I doubt that's something high on everyone's priority list). I KNOW everyone is busy, I'm just thankful you've stopped by here now!

Come back for more great book giveaways!

PeaCe uP!

~MaNiC MoMMy

Book Giveaway: Arranged by Catherine McKenzie

We have a winner!

CONGRATULATIONS TO NIKKI for winning the copy of ARRANGED! Please stay tuned because next week we will be giving away another great book, The Accidental Adult, by Colin Sokolowski. If you're an adult, this book is for you!
Thanks for reading!

GIVEAWAY!

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!

I just finished reading Arranged by Catherine McKenzie and very rarely do I plow through a book like I did with this one! So much so in fact that I dropped what I was doing. I know, I know, you're laughing thinking, "OK, really, what does SHE have to do!?" But seriously, I grabbed a chair, took my butt outside into the 75-degree weather (sorry folks back home), and read, read, read this awesome book!

Here's a quick premise - I don't want to give too much away, because you've GOT to read it:

Anne Blythe has just broken up with another one of her boyfriends and finds a business card in the street promoting what she thinks is a dating company called, ironically, Blythe & Company. Because of the similarity of the company’s name and her last name, she keeps the card and eventually calls this ‘dating’ company only to discover they really arrange marriages. Tired of picking the wrong men, and after deep contemplation, she agrees to be matched for marriage. Soon, Anne is on her way to Mexico to meet, Jack, the man who’s the perfect match for her, sight unseen.

Based solely on personality scores and psychology testing, Anne and Jack meet, and what unfolds from here will have you turning pages so quickly you’ll want to get to the end, yet you’ll also want to prolong your reading enjoyment. Jack and Anne’s relationship from their very first meeting is so real, so sparked with tenderness and that first sexual tension that you’ll have a difficult time putting ARRANGED down.

And lucky for you guys, you'll have a chance to win a copy here! But you have to do a couple things -

1. I would really like it if you aren't doing so already, could you please "FOLLOW" my blog? I think this will mean that when I update my posts, you'll get notices, so that will be good--you won't have to click on every now and then to see when I update - someone who's more familiar with this, can you let me know if this is true? And there's a button over there on the right where it says FOLLOW so it's really easy to do. I think. If not, let me know.

2. Leave me a comment here on some funny story about a blind date, a matched date you had, since the book is about an arranged marriage - tell me something about what you think about blind dates, match.com, anything of that nature. This is your entry to the contest to win the book. Also, you MUST please leave your email. If you don't leave an email address, I can't include you - it's too hard for me to try to track you down. Use the (a) if you're afraid of spammers. Thanks!

3. Head over to Catherine McKenzie's FB page and "LIKE" her. Avid book fans might also enjoy her other FB project: I Bet We Can Make These Books Best Sellers. She is always giving away a ton of books - currently she's giving away 30 books! (She also has another book SPIN that came out before Arranged, which I haven't read yet, but it was a bestseller in Canada. I will be reviewing and giving that one away too!)

I'll draw a winner soon, and there will be lots more giveaways coming your way! Thanks for reading!

PeaCe uP!

Books, Books and More Books on MANIC!

Hello faithful MaNiC MoMMy readers! Thank you all so much for sticking by me and reading for this long! In 2011 I am going to be bringing some fabulous reviews and giveaways to you courtesy of some great authors and publishers and here is a sneak peek of what you can expect in the coming weeks and months!

I’ll be telling you about these authors and their great books and you can expect many giveaways as well! I’m hoping to do a review and/or giveaway at least every other week, but one thing we can count on with MaNiC MoMMy is that we can’t count on her very much! But here are some of the great authors we have lined up for future features!

Kristina Riggle – The Life We Imagined

Juliette Faye – Deep Down True, her follow up to Shelter Me, which I loved!

Caroline Leavitt – Pictures of You. I read Caroline’s book, Girls in Trouble a very long time ago and fell in love with her writing, so when I heard she had a new one coming out, I had to get her on this list!

Eileen Cook – Eileen’s a friend in real life. Her newest YA is The Education of Hailey Kendrick. We’ll also be talking about Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood – she’s got some fun youtube videos starring Lauren Wood too! Do a search and check them out.

Jennette Fulda – I am reading Chocolate & Vicodin right now – as a fellow headache sufferer, I can somewhat relate, but Jennette has had the SAME headache for several years and has written an amazing book about her tireless and painful efforts to (UNFORTUNATELY as of this posting) unsuccessfully rid herself of it! Jennette's first memoir was a hit called Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir, the story about how she successfully lost half of herself through diet and exercise, another terrific book to check out!

Jenny Gardiner – Author of Sleeping with Ward Cleaver (she’s gonna kill me because I’ve yet to read it, but man, I sleep with him EVERY night! Hahah, kidding HONEY!), the memoir Winging It, about her ‘lovable’ (OK, vengeful) parrot, and Slim to None. She’ll have a story out later this year with a bunch of other famous authors writing about man’s best friend.

Catherine McKenzie – who’s book ARRANGED I am currently reading and LOVING!! It’s got a ton of OMG moments, and I’ve only cracked the surface!

Shana Mahaffey – Sounds Like Crazy. I read a review on Facebook and had to have it. 'Nuff said. The power of the internet!

Shawn Klomparens – Two books by Shawn - Jessica Z and Two Years, No Rain – both I’m dying to dive into.

Angela Balcita – Moonface: a Memoir – Angela received a kidney from her soulmate and shares the amazing story. I love memoirs and this one will sure to be a great one.

Sarah Pekkanen – Skipping a Beat, the follow-up to her incredible first book, The Opposite of Me! I’ve already read, and you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one.

Stacy Morrison – Falling Apart in One Piece, the paperback edition. An amazing memoir about how she held it together amidst a divorce she didn’t ask for or see coming.

Colin Sokolowski – The Accidental Adult – fab book of essays on become an adult when you least expect to. So, so funny. And totally relatable on all accounts.

Kim Wiley – Love in Midair – a hardcover hit, will soon be in paperback. And I’ll have it to share with you!

Laura Dave – The First Husband – Laura’s third book. Her first two were AMAZING: London is the Best City in America and The Divorce Party. Read The Divorce Party and you will NEVER look at Red Velvet Cake the same again. I promise you.

Jen Lancaster – You can bet I’ll be bringing you her very first novel: If You Were Here. Can’t wait to read the stuff she makes up if the stuff that’s REAL is so freakin’ funny!

More books coming your way include:

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

Haunting Jasmine by Anjali Banerjee

Paris Was Ours by Penelope Rowlands

Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald

Friday’s Daughter by Patricia Sprinkle

There are even more authors than what I have listed here coming to MaNiC and I hope you’ll stick around for it! Thanks for hanging out this long! So many great books and I can’t wait to share them with you, but not to worry, I’ll still be sharing the other mind-numbing, mopey whiny, gripey stuff I’m so good at too. Whether you like it or not!

PeaCe uP!

~MaNiC MoMMy

Kids Are Resilient My Ass

Kids Are Resilient.

I used to believe that. I truly did. They bounce back from injuries like that. All three of my kids have had their tonsils out and the very next day they were eating meatloaf or chicken nuggets as if they hadn’t just gone under the knife. Kids break bones and come away from painful mishaps as if it were no big deal. They’re like rubber bands that snap back into place.

When we moved to Scottsdale seven months ago, everyone assured me that my kids would be fine.

“They’ll make new friends.”

“They’ll love their new school.”

“Everything will be fine.”

Yeah, some of it has been great.

But some, not so great.

They really miss their friends back home. Terribly.

They actually miss the snow. A lot.

They miss Chicago. I don’t know if they miss the city of Chicago or the idea of Chicago, but they miss it. A ton.

All of this, as a mother really, really sucks. Because this is something I can’t put a band-aid over. I can’t make this one better for them.

The other night, my Tukey came into my bed at 11 o’clock telling me he couldn’t turn his mind off. I brought him into bed with me. You know why he couldn’t turn his mind off? Because he is NOT resilient. I let him sleep with Mr. Manic and me. I will let him sleep with me all the days of his life that he needs to because I am his mom and that is my job. He’s my baby. That’s what I’m here for. To take care of him, and if he needs me at 11 at night, that’s what I’ll do for him.

Last night, when I was tucking Diva into bed, she began to cry. She said to me, “I know home is where the heart is, but I think I left my heart in Chicago.” No lie, this is exactly what she said. Does THAT sound like resiliency to you? Nope. That sounds like a kid with a broken heart who is missing all the things she was used to back home. That broke MY heart. I can’t put a band-aid over that injury. When will THAT pain go away?

Someone reminded me of the quote the other day, “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” This is the truest statement I’ve ever heard. Moms can only be as happy as their least happy child. And sadly, mine are still finding their way here, and they’re not resilient, and they’re going through hard times, and it makes me mad that adults brush off kids by saying they’re resilient, just because they are kids. They’re little people, with big, huge feelings that should never, ever be discounted, and I love my kids to pieces and I want them to know how much I never take them for granted and how I want them to be so happy in their lives.

And they’re not right now. Some days yes, they are, but on the days they’re not, they are really, really sucky. And that’s what’s been on my mind lately. So that’s why I’m telling it here. On my blog. Because it feels good to share it here. Because it feels like there’s nowhere else to say it.

If you could stomach this, you might also like, What's Your Joy of Motherhood?