courage .. my middle name

Sometimes things are better left unsaid. So with that said today I leave you with some quotes that seem to fit me quite well lately .. :)

Please vote for me to keep me in the Top 25!

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sponsors, sponsors everywhere!

You read that title right! I am seeking sponsors for Real Life Reality Blog. Have a business, a blog or a website? I'd love to have you featured on my blog! At this time I am offering low, low pricing for blog advertisements in order to raise funds for my fitness competition at the NPC Junior Nationals 2013 trip. All funds received from ad placings will go directly into the trip fund, and your company/blog/website will be included in my final competition wrap-up post on my fitness blog nicolemarkovic.com! So basically you are getting double exposure on two blogs! Read below for more details. These rates won't be here long, so get in now! :) My average unique monthly visitors - approx 36,000.
 

OPTION 1 - $15.00

125 X 125 ad placement on Real Life Reality Blog's right sidebar for 3 months. All funds received will be added to my Jr. Nationals trip fund, and your business, website and/or blog will be listed via link on my competition wrap-up page, as well as on my "sponsors" page on nicolemarkovic.com for the entire length of time your ad is up.
 

Option 2 - $25.00

200 x 100 ad placement on Real Life Reality Blog's right sidebar for 3 months. All funds received will be added to my Jr. Nationals trip fund, and your business, website and/or blog will be listed via link on my competition wrap-up page, as well as on my "sponsors" page on nicolemarkovic.com for the entire length of time your ad is up. Also included is one 200 word write-up feature of your company/blog/website you provide to be posted with all other vendors that select this ad space size in a sponsor feature post on Real Life Reality Blog. Feature may include up to 2 photos, and a logo.

OPTION 3 - $45.00

200 X 300 ad placement on Real Life Reality Blog's right sidebar for 3 months. All funds received will be added to my Jr. Nationals trip fund, and your business, website and/or blog will be listed via link on my competition wrap-up page, as well as on my "sponsors" page on nicolemarkovic.com for the entire length of time your ad is up. Also included is one 350 word write-up feature of your company/blog/website you provide to be posted individually, as it's own post on Real Life Reality Blog. Feature may include up to 4 photos, and a logo.

 

 

 

 

Additional Options

$35.00 - Write up feature about your company, written by me, endorsing your product/service/etc. with up to 350 words, 3-4 photos + logo, and 3 linked key words on Real Life Reality Blog.

 

Product review - have a clothing item/supplement/workout item/etc. you want me to review and write a post about? Contact me about your product, to receive my mailing address and I will review your product and write up a review all about it linking back to your website and including photographs.

Ad placement extension - Contact me about the size of the ad you are interested in and we can chat about how long you'd like the placing on my sidebar and I will quote you a price.

Brand sponsorship - I would love to be a brand ambassador for you and endorse your product! Contact me to tell me more about your brand/product/service!

I can't wait to work with you! For any questions feel free to contact me!

a weekend to remember..

Sooo I officially completed my first competition! Read more about it over at my new fitness blog nicolemarkovic.com. Overall everything went great and I had an amazing time. I ended up placing 4th in my class and 9th in Novice. Not too shabby. I'm now qualified for Junior Nationals that are taking place June 14th and 15th in Chicago. Seriously so excited about that :) Whooot! I'll be posting the entire story/experience on my fitness blog mentioned above, so if you want to hear all about it go check it out.

 

Mothers Day was nice and calm. I spent the day with Blake and my family. In the morning I went over to my parent's house, they also kept Blake for the night because of my show, so once I arrived my dad had cooked an amazing breakfast for us - biscuits and sausage homemade gravy, bacon, sweet potato hash browns and eggs. YUM. My dad is seriously such an amazing cook, you will want to lick your plate clean, promise. Ha!

 

Later in the afternoon we headed over to my brother, sister-in-law and nephew's house for dinner. The kids played, and we played with them, ate tacos and just had a great time. It was a nice, relaxing day, just the kind of day I needed after two crazy show days.

 

 

 

I decided to take the day off of work on Monday and spend the day with my little one since I didn't feel like I was able to spend a lot of time with her over the weekend due to my show, and I'm so glad I decided to do that because we had an absolute blast. Bright and early we drove up to a strawberry farm to hand pick strawberries, followed it up with some BBQ and then went home and vegged out on the couch with Dora and some pizza. It was my final cheat day before getting back on the bandwagon, so I lived it up with my food :) Blake absolutely loved picking strawberries, she's a natural. After we picked about a gallon worth we went over to this little store they had on site and ate some homemade strawberry ice cream - mmmmm. I will dream about that stuff. It was so good!!

 

A few photos from strawberry picking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall - successful weekend with family, friends and just good times. A weekend to remember :)

 

 

Please vote for me to keep me in the Top 25!

Click below, then the owl on the left, that's it :) 2 clicks. Thank you!!

 

#SocialPower - healthy fast food

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Social Power. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

I've recently found a new website called Social Power. Basically, in short, this website helps to solve daily issues socially and make a difference in the social media world, which we all know is huge. With every 1000 supporters on your issue, it becomes a social power iniative, so Social Power will then hammer out a resolution for this particular cause! We aren't talking "save the world" here, we're talking every day things that you wish were different.

I created an account with Social Power and my cause is that there are no healthy fast food restaurants. Sure you can go grab a grilled chicken salad or sandwich but that chicken 9 times out 10 is filled with sodium and oil/grease, which is not healthy at all. I'd love to be able to go to a fast food place and order a piece of nicely grilled chicken and a sweet potato (non-buttered). I'd personally be willing to wait the extra few minutes like Steak and Shake asks you to do, because guess what that extra minute I'm waiting, is an extra 5 minutes I'm putting onto my life. :)

 

 

Come support my cause here! Go to Social Power and start supporting, commenting and sharing issues, mine especially. Take a look at their video for some more vital information and to learn a bit more about SocialPower.com.

 

 

well rested after a good night's sleep!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of ZzzQuil. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

Recently I was given the opportunity to try out ZzzQuil, which is a night time sleep-aid that helps you feel incredibly rested and refreshed in the morning. I myself, am not a HUGE sleep-aid person, as I have a heart condition so anything of this sort makes me a tad nervous, but I figured I'd give it a shot, because it seemed like a great product. On top of that I let a friend of mine try the product out as well, because she has a horrible time sleeping and takes other sleep-aid medications, and has been looking to switch to something new.

 

The bottle is in a great package, very easily stored, and the label caught my eye, which might be odd to say, but it's true. They really did a great job designing this product inside and out. :)

 

    My friend that borrowed the product from me wrote me an email they day after she tried it saying the following: "Last night I slept better than I have in months.  Took a swig of the ZzzQuil (right out of the bottle) and was out.  It was awesome. Thanks for letting me try this.  I can’t wait until bedtime tonight!!!". If that's not a rave review I'm not sure what is. Ha! I thoroughly enjoyed the product as well, and did not have any troubles with it. I slept the entire night, soundly and in the morning did not feel drowsy in the slightest, just refreshed. My kind of sleep!    

 

Be sure to follow ZzzQuil on Facebook to keep up to date and to see promotional items and if you get a chance to try out ZzzQuil tweet about your experience with the product using hashtag - #ZzzQuilNight
 

Apps of distraction ..

Are you constantly looking to entertain your kids while you are out at a restaurant while trying to shovel food in your mouth before it gets cold? Ha! I am. I'm always looking for ways to entertain Blake while I'm doing certain tasks / items that I can't be right there with her entertaining. I will say one thing that she LOVES to do is look at my phone, she's downright obsessed with it. So for me the best option for entertaining on the fly is an app, and not just any app, an app that is fun and mind stimulating for her. Solution? PaciFone.

PaciFone is an engaging and educational application that will entertain your child while putting your mind at ease. PaciFone's unique combination of enthralling content and phone locking safety features ensures that your child is both entertained and unable to inadvertently access content outside the application, such as your email. The application currently offers three exciting games from which parents can choose:

• Photo Album: This exciting option allows parents to create a slide show using pictures from their phone’s personal photo album. Parents can even record sounds to accompany each picture. For example, pictures of family members can be accompanied with parents’ voices saying the names of the family members pictured.

• Baby Cam: This option uses the phone’s camera to allow the child to view himself/herself on the phone’s screen, along with fun animations (balloons, water droplets, stars and more!)

• Animals: This option shows fun pictures of animals with accompanying animal noises (mute is available of course!)

• Safety Lock: We also know that children playing with phones have a tendency to find their way into email or may even end up making accidental phone calls. Therefore, PaciFone has a locking feature that prevents children from accessing other parts of the phone! To unlock, a parent must tap the four corners of the screen.

Animals, pictures and a camera .. honestly - probably three of Blake's favorite things. She loves to scroll through my photos, and gets super excited when she can name things in them or who is in them. Then the camera feature is super fun, because not only is she looking at herself (which don't they just love to do?) but she sees stars, balloons, etc. on the screen with herself, and screams with glee each time.

This is a great app that you can safely use for your child in a time of need, and not feel bad about using. :) I definitely suggest you go download it today!

Please vote for me to keep me in the Top 25!

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co-sleeping nix .. day 2

Last night was Day 2 of the big co-cleeping NIX. It was also Day 2 of me sleeping on the floor. Erg. So let's back track over to Day 1. We started off with nap time in the toddler bed. I'd say a good 15 minutes of screaming, tears and just overall unhappiness came, then she eventually laid down and held my hand while I laid on the floor and went to sleep. Success to me! Next up was night time. She went right in, climbed up in her bed and laid down, no tears. I did have to hold her hand while I laid on the floor again, but she slept, and I did too on the floor. Ha! Good stuff right?

 

Well, last night, she climbed right back up in her bed, commented on how pretty her sheets were (I changed them), and laid down. Once again she begged for my hand, but no tears came out. I laid on the floor holding her hand for about 15 minutes before she fell asleep and I slipped out of the room. About 2.5 hours later crying began. By this point I was in my own bed and tried to let her CIO for about 5 minutes then snuck in her room, rubbed her back and again she asked me to hold her hand and told me she was scared. I laid back on the floor, held her hand and within 10 minutes she was asleep so I crept back out. Not even an hour later the crying began again and my butt laid back on the floor and fell asleep again. Even after that another hour later she began to cry again and screamed to lay with me. I failed, and pulled her down onto the floor with me and we slept together on the floor. Sigh. At least we were in her room right?

 

Tonight we will try it again. I think I will let her CIO a little longer, try to at least. Let's hope I can get a few hours in my own bed. Eeek. Wish me luck!

 

Day 1

Please vote for me to keep me in the Top 25!

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