* * *Giveaway Giveaway Giveaway* * *

I am excited to announce my first giveaway! It's for a $5 Amazon Gift Card Code to be added to your Amazon account and used in any way you choose. This event starts FRIDAY 13th, so get ready!!! Just join this giveaway below!

Heading home... Happy Easter!

Today we are headed back home to Mobile, AL for the Easter holidays with my family.

I have been thinking so much about my blog and where I want to take it that I literally dreamed about it last night. I couldn't go back to sleep when the alarm clock went off at 5 a.m. Why didn't I disable that thing? lol. I'm just so excited so I had to get up to tell y'all!!!

I don't have time to go into all of it now, because we will all be awaking to get ready for today's drive, but I will be working on blogs to update everyone on my plans and how those plan involve my loyal readers.

I do have one update to give y'all today though. I have officially opened my aStore. What is an aStore you ask? It's my online Amazon store where my loyal readers can go and shop on Amazon right from my blog using the sidebar Amazon search feature or use this link: Mel's Amazon aStore that takes you to my aStore. I will go more in depth on how this is important in a future blog. Woohoo!

I have some giveaways in the works also! Who doesn't like a giveaway? I want to give back to my followers! As my readership grows, I'll be able to give away more things! Some giveaways will come right from the Amazon shelves! Can you tell I'm excited yet?

Like I said though, in order to do all of these things, I need to get my readership up. I just started blogging in January so y'all are my foundation here.. I need you! Feel free to share my blog with your friends and their friends! :)

Now on a more serious note.....

I am going home for Easter weekend, which means I won't be around for a few days to tell y'all Happy Easter! As many of you know, this is the holiday on which we celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! This is not something to be sad about on Easter, but something on which we are to CELEBRATE, because He is ALIVE!!!

With that being said, I want to thank my readers for sticking with me, and Happy Easter! He is the reason for the season! :) ♥

Swagbucks

Have you heard about Swagbucks??? It is a reward site that rewards you for doing things you already do online. You can use their search engine to search the internet, watch videos, play games and a host of other things on their site. Each thing you do, you win swagbucks that you can exchange for cold hard cash!

I started in about June of 2011. I had decided I'd just save up for a really long time and cash them in on something BIG! My goal was a gift card for Home Depot or Lowes! There is just so much I can buy in those stores! Anyhow, month after month my total continued to itch higher and higher. When December came I thought about making a clean start with the sites I use to make money!

My daughter needed a new screen for her computer so I ended up making a decision to cash my swagbucks in for Amazon Gift Cards. This is one of the cheapest gift cards Swagbucks offers. It is 450 SB for a $5 (AGC). I did this at the end of December so I could maximize my SB's. When cashing them in, they have a couple of rules. You can not cash in more than 2 of the same gift card per day nor more than 5 of one in a month. This meant I needed to get 5/$5 AGC's over a 3 day period. By the end of December I had all 5 gift cards ordered. Come January, I did it again. I ordered 5/$5 AGC's. After this exchange I still had more swagbucks left over! I decided with my remainder Swagbucks I'd get a PayPal gift card for $25. Here I am on January 13th and Swagbucks has fulfilled all 11 orders I have placed with them for a total of $75! $50 with Amazon and $25 with Paypal! :)

Not only did I get the last AGC today and redeem it, I was able to place an order for my daughters computer screen! She is so happy and I am too!

I have to say that it was really easy to earn Swagbucks. I look forward to working with them the whole year and see how much I make. If you have ANY questions about my review or Swagbucks, please don't hesitate to ask! :) Here is my link if you'd like to join! http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/SwagerDove