Reading Rainbow (and a Give Away)

Don't you just love give away days?  I j'adore them because it makes me look benevolent and kind and awesome and all that junk.  Well, today is no exception, I'm going to be looking pretty rad when I bestow one lucky commentor a three month subscription to Book Swim.  Pray tell, what is book swim? I'm so glad you asked.  Book Swim is the cure for my shrinking bank account and my increasing amount of laziness (look, I'm cooking an entire human here, it's work).  Book Swim absolves me of all my television watching guilt.  In a word:  Book Swim is awesome.

Book Swim is the Netflix for Books.

Yes, the netflix.  For books.  It's about time, right?

While titles from design heavyweights like Wearstler and Adler are noticeably absent from the Book Swim selection, I did manage to find the above.  (Can you guess which ones are in my queue?)  For the most part, I'm pretty impressed with their selection, about 80% of the titles I searched for were found in their database, including obscure reference books and random collections of short essays.  All and all I'd consider the selection pretty good considering that there must be, like, a gazillion trillion books in the world.

Want to try it out?  Of course you do.  Leave a comment on this post between now and Thursday, 7/1 at 6:00 pm Central time.  The winner will receive a free 3 month subscription to la Swim.  Check back on Friday when I announce the lucky duck.

If you can't wait that long to get your read on, go sign yo self up HERE.

We've Got a Winner For the Wally!

Lots of you loved the Woolly Pocket giveaway, and with good reason -- those little guys are mind bendingly awesome. I plugged your sweet comments into the random number generator and bop bop bing blam ka ching, we have a winner: #6 -- Jyll, come on down! Apparently you did all the right cheerleading stunts, wore an appropriately tacky t-shirt, and screamed until your throat turned hoarse, because Wally is coming home with you. Lucky girl!

For those of you who are crushed by a bitter sense of defeat, turn that frown upside down by ordering your own Wally right here.

Many many thanks to the super nice people at Woolly Pocket, who go above and beyond in their quest for the green life. How so, you may ask? Well, just check out their school garden initiative:

For $1000 schools can order an entire gardening system, complete with a curriculum. I love this idea because it's so important for kids to learn the magical joy that growing things from tiny seeds brings. This in and of itself makes WP uber rad, but they just have to one up themselves by helping to raise money for schools who need it. I think my runty black heart just grew two sizes. If yours did, too, you can go here to vote for Woolly Pocket, which will them a chance to win big bucks from Pepsi for the Woolly School Garden.

But the giving doesn't stop there -- if you go here and tweet Woolly Pocket's message, WP will donate $1 to the Woolly School Garden on your behalf.

Just look at those happy faces!

Ok, dudes, back later with some goings on at Casa Erin... the dust be flying round here.