Blogging

Cadbury Chocolate Giveaway

by Veronica on June 2, 2013

I’m fortunate enough to get to work with Cadbury on a regular basis, so when they unveiled their new range of chocolate featuring whole nuts, I eagerly accepted a gift pack in the mail. AND IT WAS AWESOME. I prefer the whole nuts. I think they taste better.

Yay, chocolate.

Cadbury

Because Cadbury like to spread their message and we all like chocolate, I have 5 Cadbury gift packs to giveaway, including 2 x each new block of chocolate, in both plain and nut varieties. Pretty sure that is eight blocks of chocolate in each gift pack.

To enter, leave a comment below letting me know what your favourite way to eat chocolate is.

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The fine print:

Entry is open to Australian postal addresses only. One entry per household – I will be checking IP addresses. Winners will be picked using random.org. Competition closes June 9th 8pm AEST.

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WINNERS:

winners

Jenny, Chloe, Terese, Lightening and Anna, I will be in touch shortly.

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Tyre Safety is important. Really. #sponsored

by Veronica on May 31, 2013

in Sponsored Posts

This article is sponsored by Tyreright.

We bought a new car recently. Well, okay, not new. It’s old, and the interior needs upholstery shampoo, but it’s a bigger car and I can easily fit three children and the grocery shopping inside it. My children aren’t all stuck together, elbows and knees attacking each other. Although Amy has been known to poke Isaac in the back of the head, so maybe it’s not all sunshine and roses.

I hate car shopping. Hate. In fact, I hate pretty much everything to do with cars. This time, instead of going with Nathan and wandering around pretending to care, I sent him with his brother and told him that whatever he chose was fine with me. Feminism: It’s the art of getting to choose which things I don’t want to have anything to do with.

He found a car, I told him it was great and we moved on. Yay, us.

But you see, the problem with buying a second hand car is that car yards will scrimp on some things when they’re looking to resell. Things like tyres. (See what I did there? Bringing the entire article around to my point? I AM AWESOME)

Tyreright offered me a free set of tyres, in exchange for a review of their services. And I said Hell Yeah, because having to pay for tyres comes under my God I Hate Cars And All Their Expenses banner, which includes everything, pretty much.

Tyreright are all about safety in tyres. They’re all about keeping us safe, which I got first hand knowledge of when they refused to fit the set of tyres I’d purchased online, because they were the wrong type. No, it wasn’t my fault – the car dealership we bought from had fitted the wrong tyres and I’d then bought the same kind ASSUMING that other people know what they’re doing. Other people are idiots.

My husband took the car in for the tyres and I stayed at home with sick children. Frankly, he got the better end of that deal. The guys in the Hobart store were professional and polite as they explained to Nathan about wrong size tyres and come back tomorrow and we’ll have the right kind of tyres for you. Because SAFETY.

The next day, Nathan took the car back into the city, while I stayed home (yet again) with three sick children. Tyreright fitted the tyres that I’m told are of very good quality, and did the wheel alignment thing that is important and Nathan got to drink coffee and sit in a park alone. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Frankly, it was all much easier than the last time I had to buy brand new tyres. From buying online (AWESOME), to the fitting, it was relatively stress free and I liked it so much I’ll do it again next time when I don’t have a freebie code. Yep, it was that good. Prices seem stock standard – but they’re tyres. You’re not exactly going bargain hunting, are you?

Tyreright will do all your tyre related car things for you, making sure that the rubber holding your car up is actually going to continue working in the manner it is supposed to. I’d say that’s pretty important.

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Evelyn gets a tooth. Also, I’m not really here.

by Veronica on May 30, 2013

in Blogging, Evelyn

You guys. I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. The plague that struck down my children has hit me and I have headaches and chills and cold feet and a serious need for someone to pet me on the head and bring me chicken soup. Instead, I’m writing blog posts and articles for The Shake and trying to work out how Evelyn took a chunk out of my nipple.

Except it’s not really a mystery. She got A TOOTH. I know. Big news. My baby is now all nippy and toothy and I can’t let her gum on my fingers anymore for fear of having her break the skin and turn into a tiny little vampire. Or something. I’m a little feverish and probably not making any sense. BUT A TOOTH.

My baby is growing up.

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LOOK AT HOW BIG THEY ARE.

In other news: I have been writing at The Shake, A LOT. Here’s some of my articles you might have missed and that I think you will enjoy.

Women are expected to be attractive. “As far as feminism has come, it seems that women are still expected to try and be attractive to others. From being asked by a man to smile (why do I owe you any sort of facial expression?) to the implied expectation that we all wear makeup, shave our bodies and have hair that looks normal.”

Rape Culture and our penchant for Victim Blaming. “I am a sitting here as a woman, existing in a world of rape culture and every bit of news reporting serves to show me how very unsafe I am. I am uncomfortably aware of how, to a percentage of people, my ownership of my own body can be overruled by the desire for someone else to see me used.”

How to raise engaged children. “I was an engaged child, growing up in the nineties. Of course, by “engaged” I mean, constantly engaged in chores and household work and activity, a fact which I bitterly resented when aged ten, I found myself standing down the bush throwing rocks at a tree angrily rather than collecting sticks.”

Female viagra will lead to crazed binges of infidelity; societal splintering. “Lock up your wives and daughters. Female “viagra” is set to cause widespread infidelity of unparalleled proportions. All those tired lines about female nymphomaniacs preying on the poor poor men are going to play out. No one will be able to stop the rampaging vaginas in the street as women tear off their clothes screaming “take me, take me now!””

India declares dolphins to be “Non-Human Persons”. “Humans are arrogant, as a species. We’d like to think that we’ve got the jump on all other creatures; that our society is the most developed because we have science and technology. What if we’re wrong?”

Amongst other things. Wow. I have been writing a lot.

How are you?

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On Leukaemia and shaving my head.

by Veronica on February 10, 2013

in Blogging, Cancer

When I was in hospital with Evelyn a few months back, I spent some time in the parents room, hastily drinking a too weak cup of tea while she slept the deep sleep of a baby traumatised by needles and seizures. I met a lot of parents in that room, all of us with that same look on our faces, part hope, part despair.

I remember one mother, her almost four year old son had just been diagnosed with Leukaemia. She’d had to move down to Hobart from Burnie, leaving the rest of her family behind, so that her son could have the treatment he needed to survive.

It’s for families like hers that I am shaving my head. The Leukaemia Foundation helped her find housing and are supporting her through her family’s journey.

When I was in Primary school, one of my best friends was diagnosed with Leukaemia, which she went on to beat. Blood cancers impact on so very many Australian families and the Leukaemia Foundation does their best to support them.

In another month, I won’t have very much hair left. It’s a small price to pay to help raise money for families who need the help that your donations will provide.

I urge you, please donate. Even if you can only afford $2 – that $2 might buy a mother a cup of coffee when she needs it most. It will provide help, support and counselling. It will provide financial assistance. It will be useful.

If you can’t afford anything (and trust me, we’ve all been there) then you can support the Leukaemia Foundation by sharing my page, by promoting this, or by signing up to shave your own head, or colour your hair.

See? My hair is long and shaving it is scary! Make it worth my while and donate. DONATE. Please.

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Photo by Amy, who did a great job.

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Handing over the reins for a bit

by Veronica on December 10, 2012

in Guest Posts

Today I have a guest post from the ever-amazing Caitlyn Nicholas. I can’t remember how I stumbled onto her blog a few years ago (gosh, time flies) but my envy of her warm weather and her blooming garden hooked me and her writing and personality kept me returning.

I do suspect that she is superwoman though, because she has published not one, but two books in the last few weeks. I know. I KNOW.

I am honoured to have her on my blog today to talk about herself and promote her two new books.

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Hey Lovely Veronica!

Thanks for having me on your blog. I am a huge fan of yours and I’m really excited about being here today.

Through November I watched with interest as you progressed through Nanowrimo. Huge congrats by the way for making it through to the end! It’s not easy. I know. It’s how I wrote my first book.

I’m a terrible pregnant person. I get very morning sick, in fact I could give Kate Middleton a run for her money (though neither of us would be up to much running!!) When I was pregnant with my second child I needed something to take my mind off hurling every six seconds, and so started to write a ‘Mills and Boon.’ It was the best decision I ever made. I loved having something to focus on that wasn’t about babies or how I’d get to the shops and back without puking. When I got to about 10,000 words we arrived at November and a chance post on the Romance Australia loop alerted me to the existence of Nanowrimo.

I dived in. Finished the book, submitted it to Mills and Boon (who rejected it in world record time!) edited it, subbed it to a competition (it came 4th) rewrote it, and then submitted it to Samhain Publishing. My Miss Nearly 7 was born two weeks later and I received my first book contract a couple of weeks after that!

I just don’t think I’d have finished the manuscript (named Running Scared) without nano. If you’re curious about that story it’s still available via all your usual e-sellers in print and e-versions.

I’ve had a few more books published since then, and, in the last couple of months have had two new releases.

The first, a rip roaring romantic suspense called Drive Me To Distraction came out in November.

Sometimes life or death decisions are easy. Alex Radford has a choice – borrow the money to treat her mother’s rare and aggressive cancer from sleazy moneylender Hamish MacCameron. Or do nothing and watch her die.

MacCameron has an agenda. He wants Alex in his bed, and he wants her to help him exact revenge on his sworn enemy, Robert Dryden. He is only too happy to lend her what she needs, but the strings attached form a tangled web from which Alex has little hope of escape.

It’s not all bad. Since she was a girl Alex has had one dream: to become a Formula 1 driver and show the boys how to drive a race car. MacCameron’s money gives her a shot at fame, and in a move that scandalizes the F1 racing fraternity she becomes the new driver for Rob Dryden’s struggling F1 team, Prometheus.

Alex tries to keep her distance from Rob, knowing that one day she will need to betray one of the few people who ever had faith in her. But things begin to unravel when Hamish MacCameron is murdered and she and Rob are the top suspects on the list …

Amazon | iBookstore | Kobo | Goodreads

And the second, a romantic suspense novella called The Danger Game, came out in mid – December.

Flick likes computers. She’s good with them, and they do what she tells them, mostly. People, however, are more of a challenge.

But when a terrifyingly dangerous program is stolen, and her mentor killed, Flick finds herself on the run. The police are convinced she’s committed murder, and a sinister weapons developer will stop at nothing to force her to work for him.

In Ben’s line of work being suspicious keeps you alive. So when Flick turns to him, he quickly realises that she’s up to her neck in trouble and hasn’t fully grasped the danger she is in.

First he has to keep her safe, and then, together, they have to figure out how to save the world from an epic meltdown.

Amazon | Amazon UK | Kobo | iBookstore | Goodreads

I hope that your story, and the stories of all nano participants make their way out into the publishing world. There has never been a better time to be a writer. The opportunities are huge and chances of getting a publishing contract are never better. I’m always happy to lend help and advice where I can. Stop by my blog and leave me a comment if there’s something I might be able to help with…

Huge thanks for having me.