It’s Up to *You!*

This is a jumble of upcoming well… stuff and a question – or questions – posed to you.

First of all, my next post on Tuesday, will be the “start” of my monthly “Guest Author & A Giveaway” spots. First up is Alexandra Hawkins, and three books will be given away. However because Ms. Hawkins won’t actually be doing a guest post, I also got the wonderful Marie Force to stop by on the 15th. I erm “interviewed” her – and there will be a total of four books being given away that day. (Ms. Force’s day is unfortunately busy, but she’ll try to stop by that evening, or in the following days if you have questions.)

Second… along those lines – I’m debating on how long to keep each contest open. Draw a winner and post it Thursday, have him or her contact me by Saturday? Or post a winner by Saturday, which leaves the contest open for 4-5 days? Or… post the winner in a week? So… guest on Tuesday, name drawn the Tuesday after?

Then, how long should the winner have to respond? 24 hours seems short… 48? No more than 72… so what’s your preference? After all, y’all are the ones who are going to be winning these books/various other prizes.

Lastly… what do you look for in a blog? Random blather? A friend was nice enough to call my pondering posts “editorials” – she’s so sweet 😉

I have to tell you though, my current pet project is…. feeding Shannon Stacey, as it were. It seems she’s an incredibly picky eater. Her family possibly even more so. So much that I’m not entirely sure what it is she doesn’t eat. Pretty much everything is on the “will not touch” list, it seems. I know chicken is safe. That’s… actually about it. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts…with O_o Lipton seasoning I think?

Anyway, I’m determined to come up with a recipe for her that she and her family will like. I hope the rest of you will too. And of course it’s going to be simple since it seems Shannon loathes cooking. I hope I’m up to the challenge. Are any of you interested in recipes or stories of valor and defeat in the kitchen?

And how do you like this for filler? 😉 Although in all seriousness, I would like answers to all those questions. Oh and come February, I’ll be scheduling posts to go live at 12:03 AM EST, instead of 11:03 AM EST. Cuz. I know you early morning crowd are all eager to read this blog before work ;P

p.s. – the ironic thing is… no idea if the Stacey family eats bell peppers. Anyone wanna take bets? Personally I’m going with no. 😛

0 thoughts on “It’s Up to *You!*

  1. Jaci Burton

    Shan eats chicken. And hot dogs. I think that’s about it. Maybe hamburgers and a roast.

    Good luck with getting her to eat anything else. And for God’s sake don’t offer up tomatoes, anything mushy, anything with onions in it or any seafood. 😉

    It would be easier to get her list of what she WILL eat, which is a much shorter list than the list of what she won’t eat.

    And she knows I love her madly which is why she allows me to make fun of her.

    I can’t wait to see her at the RWA conference this year where I’ll take her to lunch and eat all kinds of vile and gross things in front of her. Like vegetables. And tomatoes. And seafood. Maybe even liver. :p

    Reply
    1. Limecello Post author

      Jaci, you’d think if Shannon is willing to eat hot dogs, she’d be willing to eat a lot more things. 😉 As for eating liver in front of her… that’s kinda cruel. But might I suggest going to an Italian place, getting the fried calamari as an appetizer, and maybe a margherita pizza for an entree? O;-)

      Also, yes, Shannon is delightful. Which is why I’m determined to feed her! Even though trying to get what she will/won’t eat out of her is like pulling teeth. Aish!

      Reply
  2. Stacie

    I think you should draw a winner on Thursday & post it. If they don’t respond by Saturday they forfeit the prize. You shouldn’t have to email them that they have won.

    As for picky eaters, well, I’m married to one. Or, at least, he won’t eat my favorite foods. The only time he is an adventurous eater is when he is on a business trip overseas. When he is home he eats the SAME food over and over. Never willing to try anthing new at our favorite restaurants. Good luck with your Herculean task!

    Stacie
    GeishasMom73

    Reply
    1. Limecello Post author

      Hey Stacie – thanks for the feedback 😀 As you’re the only one who has responded thus far it seems your word’ll be law! 😉 [Oh and I definitely wasn’t planning on hunting people down… I’m mean like that.]
      As for the food aspect… heh. Thanks! 😀

      Reply
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  4. gamistress66

    I think posting a winner either Thurs or Sat works, but I prefer a little more time to respond. 2 or 3 days isn’t much as sometimes people go out of town, work issues or such keep them away from the “fun” internet items. I know many of my vacations are long weekend trips (3-5 days) and I don’t want have to lug the laptop with me and have no other access to the internet. Over Christmas, I took my laptop w/ me but ended up w/ a bug/malware problem & was down for a couple days till I got back & my IT guy @ work fixed it.

    As for recipes, hard to give ideas with just chicken (there are tons are out there). If she doesn’t like to cook, crockpot recipes might be good — through everything into in the morning & forget about it till dinner.

    couple easy skillet ideas —
    1- cut up boneless breast into bitsize pieces, season to taste and brown in skillet (or use precooked (non-breaded) chicken from the store), add bbq sauce and frozen or drained canned corn, heat thoroughly & serve
    2- brown ground meat in skillet seasoned to taste, drain off any grease. add tomato juice let simmer for little. add pasta (we traditionally use elbow macaroni but any shaped pasta works) that’s been almost fully cooked & drained. Add more juice if needed, should just cover meat/pasta. simmer till pasta fully done (hint: longer simmer, better taste). I don’t like tomatoe juice at all but always loved this, the juice gets absorbed some by the meat/pasta so it doesn’t taste like tomato juice.

    Reply
    1. Limecello Post author

      gamistress66 – thanks for the recipes – I wonder if Shannon is ok with tomato juice – heh going by Jaci’s comment.

      As for how long to allow someone to respond… that’s why I’m trying to pin it down now – I don’t want it to be too short, but I also don’t want to drag it on too long either, especially if another winner has to be chosen. As you said, we’ve all got issues that need to be dealt with 🙂

      Reply
  5. Booklover1335

    I’m always up for a good chicken recipe. I’m going through and reorganizing all of mine so if I come across one that is simple and good I’ll make sure to send it your way for you to share with her.

    As far as the giveaways go. I definitely think you should give 72 hours for the winner to contact you. It’s hard to believe but not everyone has internet at home and do their online browsing while at work (for shame) but it’s true. That way if for some reason you post the winner on a Friday or so, the winner will at least have until Monday to contact you. After that all bets are off. Select a new winner or just don’t giveaway the offered material.

    I kind of do the same thing for giveaway time frames. 24 hours is kind of short considering everyone’s hectic lives. You could go a week, but sometimes that just attracts people scavenging for giveaways, and I try to avoid that whenever possible. I think 3 days or 72 hours is plenty in most cases. If it starts on a Friday you may want to give one or two more days because of the reason stated above but other than that it just gets too hard to keep track of over lengthy periods of time. It’s generous of both you and the authors/guests as it is so don’t make it any more cumbersome than it needs to be.

    The only time I make an exception to the 3 days or 72 hours giveaway time frame is when I am asked to by either the author or the publisher. I’ll shorten it or lengthen it according to their requests.

    In regards to your question about what types of posts to post. I say be true to you. Post things that are of interest to you. I’m a firm believer that a blog should be representative of you as a person. So if you want to raise money for charity, talk books, have guests, share recipes…I say variety is the spice of life, so spice it up 🙂

    Have a good one!

    Reply
  6. Booklover1335

    I have to make an amendment to the above statement about the giveaway time frame. I usually do three days, but I also only post winners once a week…on Sundays. So I will usually leave any giveaways open throughout the week and end them on Saturday. If I start a giveaway too late in the week, like on a Friday then I will usually leave it open until Monday. Then announce the winner on the following Sunday.

    Posting the winners once a week has worked out better for me because my regular blog readers know when to look for that info. I don’t contact winners I just post that they have won and leave the responsibility of contacting me with their mailing info up to them. Even with all of that you will still have people not respond or claim the gifts. It’s inevitable…even if you emailed them. Which is why I don’t spend the time doing that anymore.

    The easiest thing to do is to have them enter via a Google Form and ask them to type in the info that you will need which will make it super easy then to forward on to the author/guest. The only downside to that is that when people visit and enter the giveaway via a form they generally then don’t leave a comment on the post which may lead the author/guest to receive no comment/feedback love from the readers which can be disappointing if the author is willing to respond to comments. That is unless you add a comment field to the giveaway form then forward all of the comments in a file for the author to read at a later date….though not as interactive.

    I know you have issues with scripts and wordpress but you can create the form and just link to it in the post instead of embedding it. Then again WordPress may have a form you can use for this that will store the data.

    It comes down to how much work you are willing to do, and how much dialogue the author would like to have with the readers.

    Reply
    1. Limecello Post author

      Thanks Carrie – I already know how I’m gonna do the contests, was just wondering if people had an opinion/strong preference for time frames 🙂

      Reply
  7. Pingback: Feeding Shannon Stacey « Limecello

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