Let your heart dream big

Front and Center, my new Popcorn Popper!

posted by Melissa Baumgart
The uncool part of Sweepstakes Month:

This company, if you can call it that, sends me several emails a day.  Each one more desperate than the next.  In the email account I set up for all my sweepstakes entries, the inbox looks like PCH is my best friend.  An insecure, lying and cheating best friend.  The kind that says you can borrow her beautiful cashmere sweater, and then changes her mind when you show up wearing nothing but your dingy white wife beater.  I have never had a friend like that and I don't even want one.  So, I am dumping PCH, if I can figure out how to get off of their subscription list.

I keep hoping to find an email from someone else in my inbox.  Someone telling me I won the set of pots and pans.  Someone telling me I won the trip to a tropical island.  Or even the simple sweepstakes entry for a book.  One book, come one...we're giving away four!

The coolest thing about sweepstakes month so far is this:

I have received so many "winnings" this month.  I have put out there to the universe the things that I want/need in life and they keep coming.  Just like Amy's rice cooker she was gifted by her friends, mine are also coming from unexpected sources.  Here is a list of all the things I have "won" this month...totally without PCH, thank you very much!

• A popcorn popper!  Hallelujah.  Except maybe I shouldn't be eating it every night.
• A new set of chairs for my dining room table!  Gorgeous antiqued copper metal chairs.  
• A check-up for our van, that is way long overdue.  
• The gift of dental health.  Not only from my daily flossing, but also by getting a cleaning from a real live dentist!
• An external hard drive to back up all my data.  (I have put this off, and bought groceries and paid bills instead, for way too long.)

Life is magical and beautiful things happen all the time.  I am so grateful to those that made these things possible in our life.  It has offered me a chance to see that life is full of sweepstakes...our communities and families and friends are always in a sublime dance of giving and receiving.  Just remember that each side of that equation is valuable.  It is important to be able to receive.  And to always remember to give, even when perceive your self with little to nothing, give nonetheless.  It doesn't take much to offer someone the gift of a helping hand or an open ear and a hug.  Which can be just as valuable as a new bedroom set.  (OK, so a new bedroom set is what I have been busy pinning on Pinterest, when I should be doing homework...or lending a helping hand.)

I encourage you all to make a list of the things you want/need, tangible and not.  Material and non-material.  Just let your heart dream big and see what comes back.

-Melissa

Publisher's Clearing House is the WORST

May hope rise in you, like the sun
on this beautiful January day.

posted by Melissa Baumgart
I am starting to agree with Amy.  Although I do win at least one dollar, two dollars, even up to twelve dollars on the scratch-offs often, I am not landing any sweepstakes wins.  I get emails from them every day, alerting me to all the winnings that are imminent if I just do X, Y and Z.

Publisher's Clearing House is the WORST!  Every single day I get multiple emails from them, asking me to use their search engine to be entered into some new, awesome, huge sweepstakes.  One day it was because my initials we MB, and someone with those initials was going to win big.  Today I received this exciting news:

Dear Melissa Baumgart,

When you search today, you will be assigned a SuperPrize® Number in the winner selection range! 

Only a SuperPrize Number in the winner selection range can win a life-changing Publishers Clearing House fortune, awarded by the Prize Patrol on February 29th!

Search now to enter and ensure conveyance of a SuperPrize Number in the winner selection range to YOU, Melissa Baumgart.

Plus, when you search you could even win a PCHSearch&Win instant cash prize. Melissa, your prompt action could win you cash on the spot! 

Time is of the essence because Publishers Clearing House will soon be taking a "Special Early Look" for a SuperPrize winner from Giveaway No. 1830. You could Win $1 Million Every Year For Life in just weeks, but in order to be in the running, it's imperative that you enter. Waste no time, search now. 

Good luck!

They lay it on pretty thick; a FORTUNE,  CASH ON THE SPOT, IMPERATIVE.  I feel swindled and lied to, their graphics alone tell me that nobody is winning anything.  And I didn't even give them any money or buy any of the damn magazine subscriptions they inundate you with when you enter, and still I feel like they got the best of me.  Like I am a rat on the wheel of their money making scheme.

I can't help but think I have better things to spend my time on than clicking to win, filling out long surveys for a chance to win $1,000 or more (or less), and searching endlessly online for more things to win.  I really had high hopes for this month, and I am reminded again of my idealistic nature.  I always assume that I will win, that I will succeed and prevail.  So far, that is rarely true (poker, bowling, trapeze).  In the end, I am thankful that I still maintain a positive and hopeful outlook every month.

And 'til the end of January, I will also maintain my sweepstakes entering.  You never know, right? (here I go again.)  They have to show up at someone's door!  When I am not wasting my time filling out entries, you better believe I'll be in front of the mirror freshening up for my big TV debut.  Good thing I have been flossing, so when I smile from ear to ear with my huge check in my hand, I won't have spinach from my smoothie all stuck in my teeth.

-Melissa