It's Over Once Again....

Our house is unbelievably quiet considering the commotion of the Thanksgiving Holiday. We had 21 people for dinner and the day and a few for a few nights. We don't entertain too much so I always look forward to hosting my family for one holiday - just once a year. Like many old houses, we have an official dining room complete with my Aunt Jennie's dining set - a big old table, two sideboards, lots of chairs, a chandelier that burns candles and lots of dishes and tableware which were mostly wedding gifts back a few decades ago. I painted the dining room walls with a fanciful vine, flower and animal mural which was so much fun to do and still looks good. Boy, I had a whole bunch of energy back then - now that I think back on it!


For my centerpiece, I purchased a "bread cornucopia" from our friends at 7 South Bakery in Bernardston. If I am lucky, it will last until next year - that is if the mice don't discover it this winter.


As Mom and I were cooking, we were talking about all the stuff brides get when they register for wedding gifts and how sad it is it never gets used but once a year - at least in this house. We were also talking about how times have changed since I got married back in 1984. Does anyone even buy good china or sterling silver anymore? I'm thinking no but maybe some still do. All that stuff that used to seem so important to brides - do they even care anymore?


The normal life of our dining room is a catch-all that I close the door on a lot. I use the giant table as my shipping surface. Normally, there are boxes of books and cards, packing tape, and shipping boxes scattered on every surface. During Farmer's Market season, we keep all our rotating supplies in there too. What about your dining room? Do you even have one? What do you use it for? Do you have Sunday dinner every week like we used to when I grew up? Do you throw fancy dinner parties? Do you cut out quilts on your dining room table?

Now we're back to just the three of us and assorted felines and canines. The critters are definitely happy to have their house back to normal.


It is back to real life and looking forward to the Christmas holidays - especially Julia. It is Christmas music non-stop, every minute she is home. Seeing her as excited as she is reminds me of how much I loved Christmas as a young girl. Oh, the anticipation! Our dining room will be waiting again for another year for its really big day! Good week everyone!

2011 Leyden Glen Farm Calendars - Available exclusively by PDF Downloads

I hope everyone in the States had a Happy Thanksgiving full of turkey, family and fun. We're continuing our Thanksgiving Holiday, spending today at my sister Nancy's in New Hampshire - eating leftover turkey and doing a Christmas craft. Today I want to share with you something I have been working on for a few weeks.

Over the past few years, I have had many requests for calendars made from my photos of our farm. I have hemmed and hawed over it but this year I bit the bullet and spent several days editing photos and building a set of calendars. They are a little different than your normal calendar. They are available EXCLUSIVELY HERE on my blog via PDF Download.

Once you buy the download, a message will be sent to your inbox with Download Instructions. (Make sure you download the calendars within the specified amount of time - otherwise you will have to contact me for further downloads.) Each calendar comes with 12 pages of months, a cover and a back page. When you buy the download, you can print the calendar out as many times as you want - either on your own computer or at an office store. If you are so inclined, you can use the files to make calendar presents for your friends and share a bit of our Animals, Sunflowers, and Domestic Scenes with them. You can keep one at your office and one at your house.

There are 3 calendar versions and each costs $6.50. Each calendar month prints on a standard 8 1/2 x 11" page making it a calendar which would fit nicely in an office cubby or near a phone. The photo is at the top half of the page and the days are on the bottom half of the page:

Animals of Leyden Glen Farm

12 months of sheep and lamb photos following the cycle of the year here at Leyden Glen Farm.

Animals

Sunflowers of Leyden Glen Farm

12 months of sunflowers. I thought this might be fun for you all to gift to friends of yours who could care less about sheep or yarn or wool but who might like to be introduced to our farm and the blog.

Sunflowers

Domestic Scenes of Leyden Glen Farm

12 months of pretty photos. This calendar also includes 2 bonus months - you can choose which image you want for April and September. The bonus months are 2 photos of sheep which are not included in the Sheep Calendar. This calendar also includes two of my favorite cookie recipes.

Domestic Life

Calendar Bundle - Buy all 3 calendars!

You can also purchase a CALENDAR BUNDLE. You will receive all 3 calendar files for $15.00. The email you receive will give you 3 separate download codes so that the file sizes are much smaller than if it was a giant multi-page file.

Leyden Glen Farm 3-Calendar Special Offer


I went to Staples and had them print them out for me so that I could show you how they look if an "office store" does the printing for you. The Sunflower Calendar (below right) is spiral bound and included a clear plastic cover, a punched hole and a cardboard cover. Here it is next to my telephone (below right). My version of "The Animals of Leyden Glen Farm" Calendar uses an office clip and I have it hanging on the door of my computer cabinet (below left). It is easy to un-do, change the month, and re-hang. My version of "Domestic Scenes of Leyden Glen Farm" is put together with my Julia Yarn (center). I punched two holes in the same spot on each page and then threaded the yarn through all the pages. It is easy to flip the pages on this one too.


In order to preview the calendars, I made up some little videos of the images. Sort of like the back of a calendar that you look at in a store but via video on your computer with music! Check them out!

The Sunflowers of Leyden Glen Farm Calendar:



The Animals of Leyden Glen Farm Calendar:



The Domestic Scenes of Leyden Glen Farm Calendar:



The Farmer, Julia and I sincerely thank you for your support of our farm and creative pursuits. It is a pleasure to share glimpses of our life on our sheep farm with all of you throughout the blogosphere.

p.s. If you don't do Paypal or order on the web, you can fill out the order form on my shop page here and send a check to my PO Box. I will then e-mail you the files. (Please make sure you send your email address on your order form!)

Happy Thanksgiving

As Americans throughout our continent and throughout our world celebrate Thanksgiving, I wish you and yours, the very yummiest of days. As a Thanksgiving tradition at our dinner table, we go around the entire table and everyone, young or old, shares with the rest of the family what they are thankful for. It is always a lot of fun - some of our family members' thoughts are very serious and some are very funny. I especially love to hear what the kids have to say.

So today, on the morning of Thanksgiving, I want to say to you all that I am incredibly thankful for all of you out there who encourage me by reading and commenting on my blog. This blog has become a very special part of my life - way more important to me than I every thought it would or could become. You all give me a reason to remain motivated to create new projects, develop new knitting and stitching patterns, and to compile and write books. You all are helping to support our farm and for that my family and I are very grateful. Many of you have participated in our "Getting Stitched On The Farm Classes" which is really a dream come true for me. To put it out there in the universe and to actually have knitters come to our farm is something I never could have imagined would ever happen here when we bought this old farmhouse and abandoned orchard back in 1998.

Through this blog, I have stretched my artistic boundaries. You have encouraged my photography immensely - another thing that I could never have envisioned happening. Never before would I have taken the time to walk around for hours through the fields and along our road capturing the little bits of beauty before me. Never would I have thought so much about how much nature inspires my sense of color - nor documented it so often.

For those of you who often write to me for advice on how to begin a career in knitwear, (or for those who are itching to write but perhaps can't find the time) - all I can say is "just do it." You never know until you try what failure or success you will have -- but you will learn something none the less.

And so Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Our best from all of us at Leyden Glen Farm for a wonderful day!

Turnips for Thanksgiving

Tomorrow we are having 21 people for Thanksgiving - most of them family but we have added a few friends to the mix. I love Thanksgiving and our farm is the perfect place to celebrate. We make it an old-fashioned day - taking a hayride through the hills and then eating, eating, and eating some more. My sister Lynn and my Mom have been here helping to get ready but as usual, we are doing more talking than anything. Tonight we'll be cooking up a storm in preparation for the big day.

I love the Thanksgiving Holiday more than any other. No pressure except for a lot of cooking which I don't mind at all. I always make turnips for Thanksgiving. It began when I asked The Farmer what his family traditionally ate for Thanksgiving and what he would really miss, knowing my family's culinary traditions. He said "turnips." I was stymied because I had never, ever eaten a turnip - never at all. I told my Mom on one of our first married Thanksgivings when we would brave the hoards of other people heading to New Jersey to celebrate with family. (Thank goodness we don't do that anymore!) She said "okay - you make them." That led me on one of my culinary adventures which continues to this day.

When we moved to the farm and I started to become more interested in sourcing local food and growing it, I discovered something called the "Gilfeather Turnip." I grew them a few times, getting the seeds from somewhere that I can't remember. Now I get my Gilfeathers from my friends at Coyote Hill Farm. I don't know what the difference really is in the taste of the Gilfeathers but whenever I cook them, everyone loves them. It should be noted that many vegetable farmers around here are now also growing a quick maturing turnip which they call "salad turnips." These are sliced and eaten raw in the spring and early summer.

Thus to the purpose of this post. My sister Laurie suggested I write about turnips. My whole family has come to look forward to eating them once a year but everyone is perplexed at how to cook them and what kind to buy. Tomorrow, we're going to have a little turnip tasting to see which variety wins. Here's the selection of turnips I am cooking.

From left to right: Two Gilfeather turnips, one "Purple Top", One Cape Turnip, and The Farmer's favorite Rutabaga (these are the ones covered with wax that you commonly see at grocery stores and are also known as swedes or yellow turnips)


How I cook them?
1. Peel them.
2. Cut them into chunks about 1". Peel 2 apples and core. Cut the apples into slices.
3. Boil the turnips and apples until soft.
4. Mash them and add a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper.
That's it - what could be easier?

I have also made Mario Batali's Turnip Risotto which I found in one of his cookbooks. Always on the look out for a new way to cook turnips, I was wary of this one. But my oh my - it is awesome. I will try to do this recipe again during December now that the days are short and I have more time to cook. Trolling the web, these special Gilfeather recipes also look like they should be on my list to try! But they don't have the correct photo of "Gilfeathers" at the top of the page - those are just common purple top turnips.

Purple top turnips are commonly used for livestock feed. The Farmer is always talking about growing a field of turnips for the sheep although we have yet to get there yet. Here you can read about how important turnips are for sheep feed in the UK when the grass has stopped growing. I am pretty sure farmers in the west grow turnips to graze their sheep on in the fall.

I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you live.

And the Winner is!

Boy - you guys are great! I had 390 people enter the November Giveaway Contest. I am still reading through all your hopes and dreams and wishes. It seems that the question really did strike a chord with many of you. I may write a little more about that next week.

The winner is Susan. Now here is the funny thing - when I read her entry, I said to myself "Boy, it would be really great if this woman won." But I don't cheat - I take my contests seriously and use a Random Number Generator.

Here's what she wrote:

I can't even begin to explain how hard this is for me to answer. I'm 27 years old, and I take care of my disabled 66 year old mother alone. My boyfriend lives in California - we've been dating for 2 1/2 years. It's very hard for me to imagine forgetting about familial obligations. I'm from Appalachia, and it's very ingrained in me. I guess my dream would be to first know that my mom was somewhere safe and happy in order for me to feel like I could truly enjoy my own dream. I went to graduate school in the Midwest, and it was very hard for me. My dream would be to own a home near Snowshoe Resort in WV, spending time sleeping late and staying up late pursuing my favorite rejuvenating hobbies: knitting, yoga, and reading. In this dream, of course, the boyfriend will be able to be there, too. Who am I kidding, I would love for my mom to be there, too, but I would mostly just appreciate knowing that I have help and don't have to take care of her alone anymore.

So, Susan - Congratulations to you! I've already emailed you - I hope this makes your weekend.

By the way - My family and I will be selling our lamb meat at The Amherst Farmer's Market on the Common tomorrow from 7:30 to 2:00. Please stop by to say hi if you are in the area. We are really happy that they are letting us be "guest vendors" even if it is going to be freezing and windy! We will be bundled up.

Since it is getting close to the holidays, I thought I would remind you of one of my tutorials to make a "Holiday Birch Village." This is one of the most popular blog posts I have ever done and it gets linked by big sights a lot. Here's one of the houses Julia and I made last year. I already have a date with some good friends of mine - we have made these houses together the last couple of years and we're doing it again in a couple weeks. It's a great afternoon if you want to just relax with friends and do a little crafting.


Here is the link to the tutorial: Holiday Birch House Tutorial here. I've got to get trouncing around in the woods for supplies. I love that! Good weekend everyone!

Swirl and Twirl!

Today, after literally months in the making, I've finally got a new pattern for you. What could take so long you say? Especially when you see how cute and fun this one is.... I guess you could say life gets in the way - and Farmers Markets and sheep and all kinds of other stuff.

This one is called Swirly Twirlies. It is quick, easy, and really fun to knit. In fact, these things are so addicting, I couldn't stop and I kept adding sizes.

What are they you say? They are stashbusting super fun projects for your house, your daughter's house, your friend's house. You get it. I knit mine out of my Julia Yarn but of course you can use any feltable wool in your stash. They make great on-the-go projects. I also like them for miniature color studies. Once you start, you won't be able to stop. Here's what I made..... From little to big.

Coasters - perfect for newlyweds with a nice bottle of wine or set of wine glasses. Oldyweds would like them too.


Potholders - If you don't know already - felted wool makes the absolute best potholder in the world. Another great small holiday gift for anyone on your list.


A bit bigger and they become trivets for your table.


And then a super cute wooly chair pad. I got this idea from a summer visit to Ikea. They had these flat pieces of leather and cowhides all over the place. I thought it was a cool idea for knitters to dress their seats in wool. I've sized it in two sizes - for small chairs.....

and larger chairs.....


and then there is the funky pillow. Just right to plop down on your couch this winter.


The Swirly Twirly Pattern is available on my website here on the shop page. If you want to read about the pattern specifics, check out the Julia Yarn page - which by the way has had a re-design and features a new Julia Color Card and a great new PDF download printable Julia Color Card. (Don't forget to hit re-fresh.)

The Swirly Twirly Pattern is now also available in my BRAND-NEW RAVELRY PATTERN STORE. Check it out! It doesn't matter to me where you buy it.

The pattern is $5.00 and gives specific yardages for each project. There are 8 project photos and 3 extra technique photos.

As always, my family and I sincerely thank you for your support of our sheep farm and creative endeavours. Get knitting - the holidays are not too far away! Yikes.

Lines of Beauty

I am featured on a blog that a friend of mine Louise writes called "Lines of Beauty." She is also a knitwear designer, etsy proprietor, and mom of two lovely girls. It is a blog mostly about women and aging. Here's how she describes it: "Embrace your age, instead of dreading it. Join the conversation."

Check it out here.

Here's What We Did Yesterday!

Our annual "Running of the Sheep" as featured on the cover of today's "Greenfield Recorder." Check it out here! I'll try to post my photos soon. Thanks Geoff Bluh for coming to take the photos!

Kristin's November Giveaway - Beat the Grey Skies!

Tuesday's post has probably left you all thoroughly depressed. All those images of greys, tans, and browns certainly didn't brighten your day. They were beautiful in an odd way - moody and almost eery. Seeing them on the computer screen surely did make me feel chilly - just like it was when I was out hiking around for the photos.

But today, I've got some cheer for you - a lovely basket of brightly colored Julia Yarn sitting in the sun in the studio to brighten up your computer screen.


But wait, there's more. I'm going to take away all that grey November gloom. It's time for the biggest giveaway yet this fall. Here's what I've got for you all. I'm so excited - I wish I could enter!


1. From my friend Gail Callahan (aka The Kangaroo Dyer) an assortment of different colors of her very own hand-dyed yarn.

2. Again, from Gail, an autographed copy of her fabulous book Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece.

3. From me, a copy of Mary Jane Butters' MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook - For the Farmgirl in All of Us
I love this book and I want to share it with one of you. You'll have a great time reading about Mary Jane's farm and how she lives her life in Idaho. It is jam-packed with so many great ideas.

4. From me, an autographed copy of my latest book Color by Kristin.
I love all my books but this one is probably my favorite so far. I was able to fit in pretty much everything I wanted to share with knitters. And the projects are so much fun.

5. From the fine folks at Nashua Handknits, 15 skeins of my soft and colorful JULIA Yarn. This will keep you busy all winter combined with my book Color by Kristin!

Here's what you have to do to enter.....

Answer the following question in the comments section of the blog. Are you ready? I've been working on it for 2 weeks.....

Question: If you could do anything in the next year, absolutely anything, what would you dream about doing? Forget about your job, your familial obligations, your house, your friends, and just do it for yourself? What is that dream?

Contest ends next next Thursday, November 18th at midnight. I can't wait to see what you come up with! Remember to leave an easy way to get a hold of you. Thanks everyone!

November on the Hill

November certainly looks different than October here on our hill. All the green has turned brown, tan, and gray and there are only a few leaves still clinging to the tree branches. Those are rust and toffee colored. The invasive bittersweet vines are now really noticeable. The leaves are a bright yellow and you can see them climbing their way up so many trees. The berries, however beautiful and bright, will be spread by the birds and more vines will grow. It is very hard to get rid of a bittersweet vine once it takes root. Although I love to photograph the berries, I am pretty careful about bringing it into the yard. I'm sure a photograph will crop up soon here on the blog!


The mature ewes are way up at the top of the hill. They are reclaiming a field that our neighbors used to keep their dairy cows on. It has been several years since there have been animals on this site. It was so overgrown with wild roses, goldenrod, brambles and small trees. The Farmer went in with his tractor and brush-hog and cleared a way so that he could set up the fence. The sheep have been grazing this spot for over a week now. They are covered with burrs and not too photogenic at the moment.


As the sheep graze and pick away at whatever vegetative matter is there, they fertilize the land with their manure. By next spring, this field will start to look better - certainly more fertile and green. Grazing sheep are amazing! As are Border Collies....


When I got the photo below onto my computer it was almost black. I took the photo very late in the day when the sun was gone. I did a little fiddling with Photoshop (I love the highlight/shadow command) and was amazed that the colors below were lurking amongst all the black.


The house at the top of the hill has been abandoned for decades. It stands as a reminder of what once was. I don't know anything about who built it or lived in it. I must look into that. Although there are power lines going to the old house, there is no power available. Every year more of the house rots away. Kind of sad but nice to photograph.


By the time I got done taking these photos, the sun was almost gone. I think the colors and the eery look to the sky pretty much sums up November.


It is really difficult to get used to the sun being gone by 4:30 in the afternoon. This first week after Daylight Savings Time is such an adjustment.

Hope you all will adjust soon too!

Going.....

Going......


Going, going.......


Going, going, going.......


GONE!


November has arrived here on our road.

More about Stitches + Take a Look.....

On Saturday during a booksigning at Stitches East my phone rang. I excused myself to pick it up - my phone never rings so it had to be something important.

The voice: "Hi Kristin. It's Debbie."

Me: "Oh, Hi Debbie," I said non-chalantly. Meanwhile it my little old head I'm saying "Oh my god, it's Debbie Macomber calling me! OMG, OMG, OMG!"

Debbie wanted to meet me and I wanted to meet her. We made a plan to meet at 3 p.m. and let me tell you, this girl who is ALWAYS late was 5 minutes early! I waited the littlest bit and then met up with Debbie and her lovely assistant Renata. I thought we were going to have some coffee but they hadn't yet eaten lunch. We whooshed off to the very nice hotel restaurant to meet up with Christina Skye.

Oh geez - I sat there all flummoxed and tongue-tied, not really knowing what to talk about. You know, when you meet someone new and you are just getting to know them. Too bad I didn't order myself a glass of wine. After a few awkward minutes we settled in. I was fascinated to hear about the romance novel business. It's a far cry from writing knitting books, let's just say. Debbie has over 100 books in print! Christina has over 30. They are both on the NYT Bestseller list. Debbie has an assistant and staff. (wow, I certainly would love that, I think. Here's the story about my staff). She has a writing office on the third floor of a building that also houses her yarn store - A Good Yarn Shop - and her staff.

But here's the thing.... these women were incredibly nice and mostly just wanted to talk about knitting. They were there like all the rest of us at Stitches - passionate about their craft, learning about knitting techniques and generally just loving yarn. (Well, I guess they really aren't exactly like the rest of us - they are writing books for romance novel publishers - It's a really big business!) Debbie was there to promote her new line of yarn which she has done with Universal Yarns. It is lovely - I had a peek at it in the Universal booth and Janet from The WoolPack told me how well Debbie's sock yarn Petals (that has just a touch of angora in it) is doing for her. (She says it is great for baby projects.)

And then Julia arrived - my friends who she was hanging out with had to leave and so she joined us. She ordered a chocolate confection. I was a bit nervous about having my 12 year old daughter joining in but the women were so incredibly gracious. Julia asked Debbie so many great questions. She was especially interested to learn about how Debbie's books are turned into movies - the process, the input Debbie has, who starred in them and more. Julia had a great time.

And then yesterday a package arrived addressed to Julia. In it were two of Debbie's first books - The Matchmaker and Fairy Tale Weddings. How sweet was that? Julia is thrilled. Somehow we're going to have to see if we can watch the new Debbie Macomber movie "Call Me Mrs. Miracle." It's coming up November 27. And look for the upcoming (April 2011) new book called "The Knitting Diaries" which is co-authored by Debbie, Christina and another author friend of theirs Susan Mallery. More knitting in books - it is sure to bring in more knitters into the fold - let's hope!

Thank you Debbie, Christina, and Renata for being charming lunch dates and giving me a look into your world. It sure was fun to meet you!

Here are some things for you to look at on the web this weekend...
Debbie Macomber has a Knitting Club on-line here.
Christina Skye has a knitting page here on her website.
Look at this lovely new self-published book.
And this self-published magazine.
And the cover in particular of this new sock book.

Good weekend everyone. There will be a great contest next week. Come back to see what I've got for you now!

Impressions of Fall

Have been out walking our road for many hours through the changing of the season. At all different times of the day - morning, noon, early evening, dusk.


Have taken a whole lot of photos of the trees and their incredible colors. None of them seemed to speak to me. And then I thought, what is it about the fall that makes it so beautiful. For me, it is the overall impression of the different colors and how they make layers and patches within a particular landscape or frame in my head.


And so for a few days, I decided to set my camera to manual focus and to blur the photos on purpose. This exercise was so much fun because the way the colors were recorded on my camera was actually how I thought they were looking in my head.


And then I started thinking about Monet as he lost his eyesight at the end of his life and painted his waterlily series at Giverny. Would he have painted that landmark series of great art like that if his eyesight had not been going? And how would he have painted leaves changing in autumn in New England?


What do animals see in the wild as they are whizzing down a hill in pursuit of something? What does a person with limited vision see?


When I took an oil painting class about a decade ago, the teacher always told us to squint - to see what we were getting with the paint - to not get lost in the details. I think this is what these photos do - they show the sheer beauty of the layers of color. All of the different color values of the leaves on an individual tree build together to make a single image or impression.


If I were to take these same photos today, they would be grey and brown as all the leaves are falling off the trees.

We will have rain for the next few days and November will surely be upon us. Boy, I will miss the color. I will get be looking to feed the color addiction with my knitting and hopefully some painting and other creating.


As I was driving here to the Town Hall to post these photos, I started thinking about my knitting and in particular felting and how that technique also softens an intense colorful Fair Isle pattern and mutes it down and makes it lovely and impressionistic.


Something for you all to ponder as you go about your day.

Loving the Studio Space and a New Winner!

It is finally getting cold here in western Massachusetts. We had our first really hard frost and everything was coated with ice outside this morning. Must find the mittens and hats! I'm busy right now working on some new projects that I will announce here on the blog in a couple of weeks. And best of all, I have been using my new studio space and totally loving it. The light is beautiful. It is a great spot for photography. Best of all, I can keep things set up and noone will bother them! It is such a huge luxury and makes working with messy things like paint much easier. I keep pinching myself!

One more addition to the studio which I couldn't live without now is a heat source. I took the recommendation of someone who does heating installation for a living and purchased a Monitor Heater. It is one of those "on demand" units where you hit a few buttons and it turns on. It is fueled by propane so I had to have someone add an extra propane tank and there were certain regulations that had to be followed. I turned it on finally last week and it works great. The room is heated in a matter of minutes. I also had a ceiling fan put in so that it would circulate the heat. We'll see how it does this winter in the sheer freezing weather but so far, so good.


The winner of October Giveaway #4 is...... Karen V. She wrote:
"Kristin, I have been reading your blog for quite awhile and feel especially compelled to comment, not only for the great giveaway, but to say that your Gram and my Dad share the same birthday, he would have been 92 today. He was a great inspiration to me and will always be a hero in my book! I am a novice knitter, so my experience is limited, but most of the free patterns I have tried have been accurate. I rely on magazines, blogs and Ravelry for obtaining most of my patterns. With so much available on the Internet now, I don't visit my LYS as much as I used to. Thanks for keeping me inspired with your blog, photographs and beautiful knitting!"

I want to thank you all for entering and writing so eloquently about how, why, and where you purchase knitting patterns and books. It has given me insight into how my readers think, purchase and feel about patterns. I hope to use it to continue to develop new products.

I've got one more incredibly awesome giveaway coming up in a few days. Check back. You won't want to miss this one!