Want Not

I don’t expect this will come as much of a surprise, but I sat down with my daughter this weekend to ask her to pick a winner for the kajeet contest based upon your comments, and she said “that one sounds good” or “maybe her” a couple of times, right up until we got to this:

April says:
Wow, where to begin? I write this for our newest member of our family. My 11 year old niece just came to live with us on Monday. Her mother is an alcoholic who drank away their rent money and proceeded to get them evicted from their apartment. My niece was homeless for 2 days before we could get her down to us. Her story got worse last when at the dinner table we laid a few ground rules and found that that my sister abused her by slapping her around and pulling her hair. This child has never had anything nice or anything to call her own. Birthday money was spent by her mother for items her mother wanted or at the bar. I think she deserves a cell phone because it would be something that is all hers and she would not have to share it with anyone. Also because we would love to show her than we think she is responsible and mature enough to have one and not the useless thing her mother would make her feel like she was. I’m EXTREMELY happy to say that we’re prepared to have her live with us until she’s 18 and a cell phone would be a great start at showing her that we trust her.

“Mom, you have to give it to her,” she said, immediately. (I did talk her into listening to the other entries, but she stood firm in her decision. And I have to say that I concur.) Congratulations, April! Your niece is getting a kajeet cell phone and $20 worth of prepaid minutes. It sounds like the bigger bargain is getting you, but I hope she’ll enjoy the phone, too!

Thanks to everyone who played, and a huge thank-you to kajeet for providing the prize!

Wowza, you people really want some free food. The drawing for Oh Mama! bars received 161 entries, which sort of makes me want to whip y’all up some snacks right now, because who knew so many of you were so hungry? Not me.

Unfortunately, I only have 5 boxes to give away, so 156 are you are going to continue to be malnourished. I’m sorry.

My children took turns picking numbers (it was so cute… sort of like a midget auction… “84! 35!”) and in no time at all we had our five winners. I have already emailed these folks, so if you see your name but don’t have an email, maybe someone else shares your name.

Our winners are: Mel, Missy, Alicia, Heidi (there were at least 3 Heidis, much to my surprise) and Kel. Happy snacking to all of you, and thanks to the kind folks at Oh Mama! for making this contest possible.

It’s contest day here at Want Not, apparently. First you had a chance to win some Oh Mama! bars and now, well, this one is going to be just a smidgen harder.

If you’ve somehow not heard of kajeet, they’re a new pay-as-you-go cell phone service designed specifically for savvy kids. The phones are fully-functioned (does your kid refer to Migos and Fireflies as “baby phones?” Mine does!) but still customizable by the parents—plus the paying ahead means you never get socked with a huge overage bill. When Junior’s out of minutes, too bad. Parents can set how/when the phones can be used and block/allow phone numbers as desired. It’s just a smart way to manage a cell phone for a kid.

One lucky Want Not reader is going to receive a LG 225 phone and $20 of prepaid minutes from kajeet. This prize has a retail value of $90, not to mention the bazillion Cool Mom Points you’ll get from your kid for finally providing him with a cell phone.

Interested? Leave a comment on this post by 11:59 pm on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 telling me why your child needs/deserves/wants a cell phone. I shall interrupt my daughter’s wailing over the injustice of how she‘s not getting a cell phone to allow her to select whom she feels should receive the phone and the minutes. The winner will be announced on Monday, September 24th, 2007. Go!

I’m having a very busy day over here, but I just wanted to let y’all know that I’ll be back with another contest this afternoon—this one with a significantly higher retail value to the prize.

Sit tight and check back later for details.

Pregnant? Nursing? Just plain hungry? The very pretty people over at Oh Mama! Bars have graciously offered to give away 6-packs of their yummy, award-winning nutrition bars to to five lucky Want Not readers. Each winner will receive two bars of each flavor (chocolate peanut butter, frosted white lemon, and frosted white raspberry).

They’re low in fat, high in protein, and full of vitamins and something called DHA which is really important for making sure your baby doesn’t have five heads. (Okay, I may have made up the five heads part. But not the DHA part! Pinky swear!) Creator Beth Vincent is a health care professional and mother of three and presumably has, you know, taste buds, so these are not only optimum nutrition-on-the-run but probably taste pretty good.

The bars normally retail for $2.50 apiece, so for the math-impaired, that means you stand to win $15 worth of yumminess. How do you win? You leave a comment on this entry by 11:59 pm on Friday, September 21st. I will tally up the number of entries and then let my kids pick 5 numbers which will then correspond to the winning commenters. One comment per person, please, and do me a favor and don’t enter if you won a t-shirt in the last contest (let’s spread the winning around). You have a day and a half to get in on the action. And with five winners to be had, there’s an excellent chance one of them will be you. Go!