Extra Life and a Giveaway! (GIVEAWAY CLOSED)

Doing Play Live this summer gave me the opportunity to combine two things I really enjoy, playing video games and raising money and awareness for a good cause. And while I still continue to fundraise through Play Live, the atmosphere has changed a bit since the big summer event is over. I was looking for something to get that feeling back, and I found it in Extra Life. Having been a member of the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club for a while now, I was stoked that they had a team participating in Extra Life. I requested to join immediately, and was welcomed with open arms. 

What is Extra Life? Well, its much like Play Live, except this benefits Children's Miracle Network hospitals. And instead of just playing for a general organization, you can actually choose a hospital to support. I was fortunate enough to have one of our local hospitals be a CMN member, so I will be raising money for them. But every girl on Team IGGLES is raising money for a different hospital, and I think that's pretty amazing. The money raised is given to the specific CMN hospital the donor chooses and it is up to that hospital to decide how its used. It can be anything from research to supplies to paying medical costs of patients. 

This year's Extra Life event is October 25th. Its a 24 hour marathon of every type of gaming imaginable. Tabletop gaming has even been encouraged! I will be streaming Hearthstone every day this week in honor of the event, my Twitch account can be found here. 

And while I love a good reason to play games, I can't do this on my own. And that's where you come in, my fabulous readers. I have been lucky enough to partner up with Shawna of Scrawny Girl and Gwen of A Geek and Her Oven to offer one lucky reader some pretty awesome prizes. All you have to do is donate $5 to CMN. Easy peasy, right? In addition to these prizes, Shawna has given all readers a discount code to use in her shops, good until November 7th. Just type in EXTRALIFE for 25% off of your orders. Sweet!

Etsy Storenvy Blog

Storenvy Blog

In addition to these prizes, I will be giving away a copy of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Its gaming themed, and has more pop culture references than you can shake a stick at. Sounds like my kind of book :) Miscellaneous Halloween stickers and stationary will also be coming your way.

All rules regarding this giveaway can be found on the Rafflecopter widget in the Terms and Conditions section, but I'll give you a few basic ones. This giveaway starts today, October 13th and is open internationally!!! Yes! However, to be eligible, you have to donate $5 to Extra Life through my donor page (link in the Rafflecopter widget, also on the sidebar of this blog and right here). This is mandatory. If you lie about donating to open the other options, all of your entries will be disqualified. Giveaway and promo-only accounts are not allowed and all entries associated with them will also be disqualified. Contest ends on October 23, 2014 at Midnight Pacific Daylight Time. The winner will be chosen and notified by email on October 24. Winner then has 48 hours to respond to the email, or a new winner will be chosen. Thank you very much for donating and good luck!!

UPDATE 10/16/14: As announced yesterday on Twitter, if five people donate to Extra Life, a Loot Crate will be added as a prize. I will purchase the Loot Crate, then it will be sent directly to you from Loot Crate. The addition of the Loot Crate will put the prize value of this giveaway at over $60. Donate just $5 for over $60 worth of super awesome prizes. That's a pretty sweet deal. 

UPDATE 10/19/14/; The donating part of the giveaway is no longer mandatory, but is strongly encouraged. The Loot Crate will not be a part of the giveaway prizes unless five (5) people donate to Extra Life. 

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Recently

March was so busy! So this is a recap of what my month was like.

Read:

I spent some time reading Divergent(review here) and Insurgent (review soon). I also read Camp Boyfriend by J.K. Rock, and I have something I think is exciting related to that book coming up soon.Other than that, its just been magazines and comic books :)

Watched: Spongebob Squarepants, Strawberry Shortcake and Pokemon. I let my kids pick most of the shows in March lol. 

Listened To: 

Bastille- Pompeii

That was for the kids, since that song was used in the Mr. Peabody and Sherman trailer, every time they heard it on the radio, we had to listen. And we listened a lot, since four of the five local radio stations I listen to played that song quite a bit lol. 

I spent a lot of the last of March listening to Skylar Astin's Mr. Roboto/Counting Stars Glee performance on my IPod. Love him.

Happenings:  The children and I all celebrated our birthdays, mostly happily. The kids had great birthdays and great parties. My birthday was meh, and the night of my birthday dinner, my mother in law decided to tell me all kinds of horrible things about myself. I still haven't forgiven her, I won't. She has said a lot of evil stuff in the past, and I'm just tired of it. But anyway, besides all our birthdays and parties, I also volunteered to work a consignment sale. It wasn't all selfless. I was selling stuff at the sale, and the owner of the sale gives you a higher percentage back on your sales if you work the event. My sister and niece also came to visit for a week. They live out of state now, and my niece was on her Spring Break. It was really nice to see them, and my whole family even took a day trip to the beach as part of their visit, which was nice (its always nice to get out of town, and I haven't been able to do that lately. My husband has, for airsoft games and other airsoft related stuff, but I don't go with him to those things.). March was also filled with crappy allergies, a lot of doctor appointments, and the flu. Oh! And the IGGPPC birthday, that resulted in lots of Happy Mail! One day soon, I am seriously going to do a massive mail post. I have so much stuff to share with you guys :) I also completed one of my Renaissance Project goals, which was to have four blog giveaways. The Stickers! Giveaway made number five, so while I technically hit that milestone with the House GlaDOS Giveaway, I didn't realize it until giveaway #5 (because I am spacey like that). Busy, busy month indeed.

Happy Birthday IGGPPC! An Interview and a Giveaway! (CLOSED)

If you've been reading along these past few months, I'm sure you've seen me talk about International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club on more than one occasion. So imagine my great surprise to find out that they are celebrating their first birthday just a few days after my 30th! March is a great month for birthdays, what can I say? Emily Farquharson, co-founder of IGGPPC, recently took the time to answer some questions about the group- where they started, where they want to go, and do guys really sign up for pen pals? Read on to find out!

1.This has been a busy time for IGGPPC! A new site, a first birthday...When you started IGGPPC, what did you hope would come from it?

It's crazy busy at HQ, we are nonstop with the planning for the birthday and beyond! When we very first started Leslie and I really just wanted candy! We never thought it would become this amazing, versatile community that it has become at the time. The best things are those you aren't expecting to happen! -F

2. Do you feel like the response from geeky girls/guys has been largely positive, or have there been some Negative Nellies in regard to IGGPPC and its community? 

You know, we are so lucky, the response to the project has been resoundingly positive and there has been no negativity within our ranks. We've nurtured an environment of support and acceptance that is universally embraced across our members, which just makes IGGPPC a fantastic community to be involved with. There have been a few people who have tried to goad us into petty arguments on twitter but we don't rise to the bait. Internet survival 101: don't feed the trolls! 

3. And speaking of guys... are there any that actually sign up for pen pals?

Yes! They are definitely in the minority but their numbers are steadily growing!

4. Is there anything you'd like to achieve with IGGPPC that you have yet to?

So much! We joke a lot about one day being able to have a proper IGGPPC convention with all the trimmings; like comic con but with more stationery and Lisa Frank stickers. 

5. There are so many fun things going on to celebrate your birthday; a week of giveaways, a birthday video and a House competition. Regarding the House competition, I am stuck between two Houses. I will be House GlaDOS until March 13th, then its onto House Organa. Should I post my awesomeness to both houses or how does that work?

Hot damn that is tricky, as leader of house GlaDOS I am inclined to say stay with us until after the comp because switching teams half way a game is just not cricket. The amount of people who are so generously giving their time and products to help us celebrate our first year has blown us all away. A lot of the prizes for the week of giveaways have come from shops owned by our members which just makes it even more special! 

6. Anything else you'd like to say about the community that we didn't touch on?

I do not have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to express my love for all aspects of IGGPPC. Where would I even start? The beautiful friendships that have blossomed; the candies, mix tapes and postcards swapped; the healthy twitter debates about everything and anything; the generous nature of our staff and members who give up chunks of time to organise, plan and promote the club; the list goes on and on. If I dwell on it too much it kicks me right in the feels because I cannot wrap my wee pea brain around the fact that a project we started on a whim has turned into this magnificent beast! 

If you have never signed up to get a pen pal, do it! You never know you might be a top 5 geek love away from meeting your new best friend!

For those of you that are not IGGPPC members, Iggles and Miggles are broken up into Houses by their age. House GlaDOS houses the twenties basically, and the House Organa is for the 30+. Currently, House GlaDOS is winning the competition. The House competition started March 3rd and is running through April 3rd, 2014. The giveaways are happening March 13th (Happy Birthday to me!)- March 19th (Happy Birthday IGGPPC), 2014. Every day is a new prize, and they're all pretty awesome.

Now for my giveaway! As my way of saying goodbye to House GlaDOS, I am giving away some Portal gear. If you subscribe to Loot Crate, it may look familiar to you. And it should, as this came from September's (I think) crate :) Also, I am giving away a super cool measuring cup that looks like a beaker and an ice cube tray that resemble a tiny elements chart. Now for the rules:

This is open to US addresses only. Once the giveaway is over, a winner will be contacted by email and has 48 hours to respond to that email. If no response is received within that time frame a new winner will be chosen. No giveaway accounts can be used for entries in this contest. That means, if you do what the widget says and one of your entries is chosen, and I can very obviously tell that you use that FB/IG/Twitter/Tumblr/BlogLovin account for contests only, your winner status will be thrown out and a new winner will be chosen. This contest is not sponsored, and is not affiliated with Loot Crate, Portal, IGGPPC or Target. I purchased everything for this contest.

Good luck!!

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Monday Mix Up #17

Happy March Everyone! Its birthday month here (my children and I are all March babies), so I happen to like this month quite a bit :) My grandma was also born in March (her birthday is the day after mine), so this month is also really hard for me because it just highlights how much I miss her. I also found out that the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club will be celebrating their first birthday this month as well, so its birthdays all around!

*March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.

*Loving this California tee from Stately Type.

*I need this notebook from Denik up in here, up in here.

*Ladies Against Humanity (not for the faint of heart or politically correct)

*Speaking of Tumblr.....KMT is now on it! Follow along if you like :)

*Hot chocolate sounds so good right now. Looks good too.

*A fun St. Patrick's Day care package to be sure you or your loved ones don't get pinched!

*Any excuse to show my age and use a disposable camera.......

Monday Mix Up #16

Happy Monday Everyone! Here's a little mix of things to help procrastinate your way through Monday.

DIY Nerdy Nails 

Justin Timberlake- TKO

 

Justin Bieber's mugshot from Miami. 

He looks way too happy to be in jail.

These Avengers gowns by Kelsey Michele.

Found on GeekxGirls.

Ben Savage and Danielle Fishell answer some questions about Girl Meets World. 

Anyone else hoping it's going to be as great as Boy Meets World?

Super sad that my 49ers didn't make it to the Super Bowl this year.

Enjoy Colin Kaepernick's tattoos as a consolation prize.

Pictures from GQ.

Jimmy Fallon and the guys from Full House. A great combination.

It brought back so many memories lol, I loved that show.

There's a fun article about it here.

Happy Mail- International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club Version 2

I have written about the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club before (you can read it here) and how great I think it is. If you follow me on Instagram though, you may have recently seen me bitch about the swaps that go on through the site. Basically, I've had horrible luck with their swaps- always sending stuff out and rarely receiving anything in return. It was frustrating, especially when all the other Iggles were posting pictures of all the great stuff they were getting. I felt a little hurt and left out. And I almost let those experiences ruin the site for me. Almost. But I've decided that I will probably will just forgo the swap aspect of the site from here on out in favor of all the positives it has to offer. (Also, I'd like to point out that Kara sent me a super sweet surprise Christmas package as a way of making up for my bad luck with the swaps. She didn't have to do that, and that's just the type of greatness that can occur through the site)

I love signing up for Rounds- I've met some really great ladies through them. Their blog, +5 Charisma, has a variety of topics that suit every type of geek interest, and the forums are equally as varied as well as active. The IGGPPC has recently moved to a new site- just in time for Round 10 of pen pal sign ups- and its amazing! Along with a redesign, they've added something I think is totally cool- achievements! They're kinda like the achievements in WoW (and I'm a huge achievement whore), but a little more difficult to find. I think the achievements add a little something extra (those Chief Iggles were channeling their inner Elle Woods) to the Iggle experience, and it might awaken the competitive giant in some of us ladies. Sign ups for Round 10 (with a cute Monsters theme) begin tomorrow, but if you just can't wait- you can donate $5 to the site for VIP registration that allows you access to the sign ups now! I hope you'll join me for Round 10 and see you around the IGGPPC site! And make sure to tell Kimberlee congratulations on her Ninja status with the Iggles. You may remember her as a contributor to the BlizzCon 2013 recap post and she was also my very first WoW player profile.

 A

PS Don't forget to enter my Datevitation giveaway! Or visit the Datevitation website and use code MISSTELLS for $10 off your order and free shipping.

Happy Mail- International Geek Girls Pen Pal Club

So I think my Monday Mix Ups will be on hold for a little bit. I don't have as much time to search the Internet for awesome things right now, but once I do, MM will be back in action.

Something I want to share with all of you is the International Geek Girls Pen Pal Club, or IGGPPC. I found them back in June, and I was so thrilled. I love pen pals. When I was younger, I used to find my pen pals through a magazine called Girls Life. To be published in the magazine, you had to have a PO Box (which I didn't), but you didn't have to have one to start writing to the girls. They had new girls every issue, so it was nice way to constantly find new pen pal prospects. While most of my pen pals only sent a few letters before I got the regrettable "I just got too many responses so I have to choose and its not you" letters, I did make one friend. We were pen pals from about eighth grade until....about a year ago (so, that's about 12 years). I missed the thrill of getting letters (being an adult now, all my mail is bills and sometimes magazines), but didn't know how to get pen pals again. Finding IGGPPC was like a dream come true. Not only was it a place to find pen pals, but nerdy pen pals! My heart rejoiced.

I have already made one pen friend through the rounds (more on that in a sec), and I've been able to join some groups that do their own swaps and things. Its a pretty sweet deal. Round Six opened registration on August 15th and open until.....the end of the month I believe. Each round has a theme, and you are matched with someone based on the nerdy loves you list during your registration process. You register every round, so you can change your nerdy loves, email address, whatever you need to chance with each round. After you're matched, they send you and your match an email, and its your responsibility to respond and exchange mailing info. I am having so much fun with this group and I feel really lucky to have found it. If you think you'd like to give the ancient art of writing an actual letter and sending it through snail mail, then I encourage you to sign up today. You won't regret it!

Monday Mix Up #5

Now that the craziness of July is over, my posting schedule should get back to normal. Anyway, here's a small little list of links to help you procrastinate the start of another week.

*This Shark Week post from Kaelah Bee. It has lots of awesome food and games ideas if you want to throw a Shark Week party. Check it out!

*International Geek Girls Pen Pal Club! I will be writing a post about them soon, but I love the community so much. I love having pen pals, and this is a great place to get some and to celebrate all things nerdy. Next round of signups is in about two weeks.

*Hello Apparel. I really want a Hello sweatshirt for myself and those splatter leggings for my daughter. And not only are their designs cute, but they are a business with heart. When Oklahoma was ravished by the tornado earlier this year, they made a special tank top, and the proceeds from that tank went to American Red Cross relief efforts for the area. 

*SOELive and VidCon. Two conventions I found out about too late lol. I'm always on the lookout for a good convention to attend.

*Netflix temporarily pulled a Star Trek movie for incorrect subtitles.It wasn't Spanish or French though, it was Klingon and Vulcan! Nerds know their languages....even invented ones.