Mama Rucci

Win Flowers from #Flowerspot.com

Rachel Ferrucci — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:17:42 +0000

You know Spring has sprung when you see flowers peeking out from their long hibernation. When you see these flowers you know it must be close to Mother’s Day and what mom, wife, sister, grandmother, or friend doesn’t love to get flowers delivered to their home! I was asked to choose an arrangement from Flowerspot.com, review them, and give you the opportunity to receive your own flowers.

I am a flower girl, my grandmother was an amazing gardener and grew every kind of flower and vegetable there was. I know my flowers. I put Flowerspot.com up to the ultimate challenge. After checking the websites vast variety of flowers, I decided to go with the Tulip Time Spring Assortment. Tulips are one of the most difficult flower to ship and they usually bloom within a day, and are gone as fast as they came.

The Arrival- The flowers come (I jump up and down because I love getting packages in the mail) They’re packed with wet paper towels in plastic so the flowers didn’t lose any water, beautiful green organza wrapped the tulips themselves, and the vase was even wrapped in pretty paper, looking like a separate gift. Easy instructions let me get them in my vase in two minutes.

These are truly the most beautiful tulips I’ve received! Now to the best part…. I get to giveaway a $50 gift certificate to one of my readers. Each entry needs a separate comment

To Enter:
1. Go to Flowerspot.com and come back here and tell me what flower arrangement you love.
2. Follow Flowerspot on Facebook and tell them RachelFerrucci sent you (come here and tell me you did this)
3. Follow Flowerspot on Twitter (let me know here your following)
4. Tweet this giveaway ( Win $50 gift certificate from #Flowerspot http://wp.me/prRDI-bY
5. Add this to your favorite sweeps linky – leave link here
6. Subscribe to this blog
7. Follow me on Twitter

Contest Ends 4/30/10. Winner will be posted here and contacted by email. Winner will have 48 hrs to claim prize. The brand will be responsible for mailing out prizes and I am not held responsible for lost or stolen pkgs.

WAIT! Double your chances!! You can visit my friend Connie’s Blog and enter her $50 Flower giveaway too!

And the WINNER is- (per Random.org) 34 Barbara Wright!!!! Congrats and I will be contacting you via email, hope you enjoy your flowers as much as I have!!!

Lisa Davenport’s Speech Gets Rained On

Rachel Ferrucci — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 01:25:26 +0000

I’ve never been much into politics in my 40 plus years. I didn’t know nor care to get involved. It seemed everyone said the same thing, “I Know What’s Best for You”! Since I’ve been blogging, I find it interesting to attend events and hear what candidates have to say, mostly because I want to let my readers have an opportunity to meet them and be able to make a choice for themselves.

If you live in Branford, North Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killlingworth, or Madison, CT, Lisa Davenport may be of interest to you. She’s running for 12th District State Senate. I went to a couple of the sites on her campaign trail to check it out. I was invited by my cousin, who is her campaign manager.

Let me throw in my full disclosure here- Yes she’s my cousin and I love her dearly, however, she did NOT ask me to write, blog, promote, or video. I’m a blogger and that’s what I do. So anything you read here is my own thoughts, opinions, or ideas. Oh, and Lisa Davenport is not running in my city, so I couldn’t vote for her anyway. I suggest you get to know her and make you’re own choice.

Now back to Lisa Davenport, a wife, a mom, and a small business owner who decided to step up and run for an office. I’m a pretty good judge of character and I really liked her in the brief moments we talked. Her smile lit up the crowd, the rain didn’t bring her spirit down, and she had a great sense of humor. She greeted everyone who came as if she hadn’t seen them in years as she introduced herself. The energy she draws from the crowd no matter what the size is in abundance. Her husband Joe stood by her side and you can tell he was very proud of his wife. I’m hoping to get to know her a little better and talk about the issues that face our cities, state, and country. Of course I’ll keep you posted!

If you would like to connect with Lisa and get to know her, ask her a question, or support her, go to:
http://facebook.com/lisadavenport2010

http://lisadavenport2010.com

Hear what Lisa had to say at her announcement

Wordless Wednesday – My Niece

Rachel Ferrucci — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:35:34 +0000

It’s the little things in life that children appreciate!

For more Wordless Wednesday, head on over to 5 Minutes for Mom

and the Wordless Wednesday headquarters.

Children on a Hunt in MY YARD

Rachel Ferrucci — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:17:52 +0000

My husband started a tradition of having an annual Easter Egg Hunt at our house. Since we don’t have little kids, it’s our way to still see the joy of children’s faces hunting for eggs, candy, and prizes along the way! We invite family, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, and anyone else who wants to join.

Hubby prepares the front yard, making sure everything is perfect. He then scatters the candy, bubbles, gum, plastic eggs filled with more candy and pennies, and this year we added Hershey’s pre-packed eggs. We have little stuffed animals or toys for the babies (cause they need something too).

He lines them up- Get Ready, Get Set, GO!!!!!

Off they go, running, grabbing, and scooping up their goodies. The little ones are best to watch because they’re very particular of what goes into their basket. One little girl did NOT want the plastic eggs but was going for the candy only. When mom helped her, she simply took the eggs out of her basket and threw them back on the ground. Another little boy woo hoo’d for every piece of candy he picked up and another needed to show mom each piece she found.

We were asked Why we do this. When you have this cute little person saying thank you, your welcome, thank you- 100 times because she was so excited….That’s Why!

Hope you enjoy the pictures of our visitors for the day!

Disney Came to My House

Rachel Ferrucci — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:17:20 +0000

My kids are grown but that doesn’t stop me from having kid parties! I’m lucky to have friends and family with children of all ages. I was asked if I’d like to throw a Disney Celebration Party….ok I’m the Biggest Disney fan EVAH!! I’m the adult that skips down Main St and runs to Mickey and other characters to hug them and get their autographs. I still watch all the Disney movies, I AM a Princess and I’m married to my Prince Charming. A total kid at heart! I think if you don’t have fun at Disney you need to go move to the highest mountain and just be by yourself! With all that said, of course I want to have a Disney Party!

Nobody was surprised when I called them to invite them to my party. We had a total of nine kids ranging from 1 yr- 10 yr. I had the table set with all the goodies from my Big Red Box. One child asked who’s birthday it was…haha. No birthday, just a way to celebrate the gorgeous weather….. The kids kinda looked at me as if I had three eyes…no birthday yet we’re having a party?…whatever, bring on the FUN! They just don’t get it, but they will! We had Mickey
/Minnie Mouse ears, coloring books, bingo, magnetic characters, match games, trivia, and much more. OH and of course we had balloons…Mickey balloons, which let me just say it’s very hard to get the ears blown up right. Wondering how they do it at Disney. I thought it appropriate to have on the Disney channel. There was enough attention spans to watch a whole movie. The kids got so excited with all the party stuff- everything was flying…EVERYWHERE.

Balloons were being tossed, passed, sat on, popped, and even the dog was made to join the party. They ran from room to room color, dance, watch the TV(for 10 seconds), to stopping to have a brief conversation with another child to let them know why their favorite character was the best!

My fave….. Captain Hook… I know he’s a bad guy. I met him when I was nine at Walt DisneyLand. He was coming down Main Street in the parade and he grabbed me off the curb and danced with me, twirled me, and took me with him down the street (my mom followed on the side) I was a part of the parade- it was the Coolest thing in the world. Captain Hook and I stole the show…well that’s at least what my mom said.

Disney loves to give back to the community and now has a program where you can volunteer and receive a free ticket for the park. How awesome is that? You can go to www.DisneyParks.com for more information about the project. My nephew who is 11 years old just volunteered by making a blanket and donating it. He now has one FREE ticket to Disney. What a great lesson to teach our children!

You can have your own in-home celebration and enjoy these themed activities and recipes for your celebrations year round by going to http://momselect.com/mickeymomsclub/

Have you been to Disney or do you plan on going there on a vacation? Tell us your thoughts below in the comments, we want to hear what you’ll be celebrating!

Bringing Shells Home from the Beach

Rachel Ferrucci — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:06:03 +0000

Summer for us meant spending days at the beach. We packed up our chairs, lunch, towels, sunblock, pails, shovels, and all the other beach toys that we could carry. Building sand castles, looking for hermit crabs, and collecting all the beautiful shells made the day fly by. When it was time to go home, I ‘d have to talk the kids into letting the crabs go (you know they wanted to bring them home with us). They would place their shells that they worked so hard to find, into their pails and off we’d go.

I kept the shells each year, until I had pails and bags full. There was no way I was throwing away these little artifacts that were reminders of the days at the beach, vacations, and short walks I would take with my children. When we bought our house I found the Perfect place for them. I planted a small decorative tree, placed blocks around it, and made it “My Shell Museum“. We would also collect sand from the beaches we went to on vacation, this was also put in my museum.

To this day if we go to the beach, a shell is found, brought home, and placed in our museum. It will be a place my grandchildren can add their treasured finds and it will be there forever!

Tell me in the comments how you keep your little treasures.

Mom It Forward Marching for Babies

Rachel Ferrucci — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:01:42 +0000

Mom It Forward Northeast Chapter will be Marching for Babies on April 25, 2010 at Lighthouse Point in New Haven, CT. This is a great opportunity for moms, dads, and families to unite for a great cause. We’ve been stuck in the house all winter, time to breathe in some fresh air. Grab your sneakers and walk with us at the historic Lighthouse Point.

Why should you walk?

When you walk in March for Babies, you give hope to the more than half a million babies born too soon each year. The money we raise supports programs in our community that help moms have healthy, full-term pregnancies. And it funds research to find answers to the problems that threaten our babies. March of Dimes has been walking since 1970 and have raised an incredible $1.8 billion to benefit all babies.

Join our team here -Team Mom It Forward

If you can’t walk with us, you can still help by making a donation. We’ve made it easy- simply click our donation link on our home page or go here

Please help us spread the word and help the Northeast Chapter of Mom It Forward to reach it’s goal of $1500.

Questions? Please contact me by email Touchd (at) sbcglobal (dot) net

or Twitter @RachelFerrucci

Hope to see you there!!!!!!

<3Rachel

Quit Smoking- Second Times the Charm

Rachel Ferrucci — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:46:46 +0000

Last month I wrote two posts- One about how I was about to quit smoking and the second about how I was smoke free for a week. I was doing really really good, and figured I kicked the habit! Yay Me!! I haven’t written about it since because I was ashamed and didn’t want to let those down around me who were cheering me on and supporting me. I didn’t want my readers to think I was a weak loser with no will power.

I’ve seen two people in family put the cigarettes down and never pick them up again. I measured myself against them….why couldn’t I be like that?? I’m here to admit that I didn’t do it, I had a couple things happen in my personal life (I won’t get into now) that pushed me over the edge. I said screw it and picked up that old friend who consoled me, calmed me, and made everything feel better for a little while. I know this is NO excuse- but the fact is- Nicotine is not the only addiction, it’s the whole act that you’re addicted to.

I still had it in my head that I would quit again, but this time it was a little scarier because now I knew just how hard it was. Then today I received a comment on my HotMess post and she told me I had given her hope….imagine that…ME…giving someone else hope. She made me see that it’s hard for others too. I want to take her hand and walk beside her, share our stories about our “old friend” who we need to sever this toxic relationship with. It turns out that she has given hope back to me!

I did get the starter pack of Chantix AGAIN and I will be joining my new friend Cindy and start my journey again. Tomorrow morning I take my first step to a “smoke free” life.

I will keep telling myself, I am a NON-Smoker! To those of you who cheered for, stood by me, and prayed for me…please don’t stop. I won’t be afraid to fall and I will look for your hand to help me up! Please add Cindy in your prayers as well. Then we will all celebrate together. Although I won’t be able to drink for a while as they go hand in hand

Italian Women are Short and Plump

Rachel Ferrucci — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:25:52 +0000

Most people think an Italian woman is short with olive skin, dark hair and pleasantly plump. Doing a lot of cooking, keeping quiet when it comes to her husband’s business, gardening, and taking care of the kids. Let me be the one to burst your bubble….that’s not how it is in today’s world.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my grandfather ever changed a diaper in his life. My daughter was the first baby he fed baby food. Once we were old enough to eat pasta (maybe 6months) he would happily put some on our highchair, along with a meatball (cut up) and a slice of Italian bread and talk to us about how great a cook grandma (Nonna) was!

Today, some of us are blonde (I’m mixed Northern and Sicilian), I would think I’m not round, and I’m 5’8″..OK so I’m 5’3″…..yeah I’m short…whatever…that one stands…and so is every one of the girls in my family. I like to think of myself as vertically challenged.

We Italian women do love to feed our family and friends, the more the merrier. We love our fresh basil, parsley, and veges from the garden to make the sauce. We do however, hold full time jobs and our husbands DO help with all aspects of raising the kids…..including changing diapers. If we stay home while raising children, sure we’ll do most of the work…but today it’s a team effort!

Our families are loud, they fight, they love each other and there’s certain traditions you need to keep. At holidays it would be blasphemy not to have at least 5 courses (Trust me, I’ve tried) Tell your mother you’re JUST going to make lasagna... she show up with 8 courses to go along with it and say she was cooking it anyway and made too much!

Line at Pepe's

Another tradition is going to the Italian Festivals (ah vest). One is in June on Wooster St in New Haven, CT. This is our Little Italy. I’ve been going for as long as I can remember. I’m sure you heard of Pepe’s or Sally’s Apizza.. Old Blue Eyes used to come to get pizza here. Everyone was related to someone on Wooster St. I would always visit the Sacco’s (Tony and Lucille’s). Maria or Sandy (Sacco) would call me over to give me fried dough…..they always made the BEST. I would stop in the club and poppy would hand me a couple bucks so I could complete the night with a Libby’s Italian Ice………..I felt like royalty. Today, Wooster St is still apart of lives and if you should ever come to CT…it’s a MUST DO!

We learn young to be loyal, give people respect, keep the family dirt in the family, always back your friends, but don’t take no crap! It’s still a no-no to live with someone or have a baby without being married. You will hear about it…with a pointed finger, a mama mia, and a glance up to God, but once the initial shock is gone…they will stand behind you!!!

We are not all “connected” with the MOB and if someone was they wouldn’t tell you. We are hard working, law abiding American citizens! Most important if you’re a good friend, you become family!

Ciao!!

Vivi bene, Ridi spesso, Ama molto

Big Y Family Meets Bloggers

Rachel Ferrucci — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:44:11 +0000

This past Friday I met with Big Y along with other bloggers and Peeps from Collective Bias. I was hired as a consultant to explain in layman’s terms, what blogging is, why I blog, and what the benefits of social media are. When speaking to someone who spends their day hopping from Twitter, Facebook, Whrrl, Friendfeed, and many blogs, the lingo flows and we understand each-other. When you think about it, it’s a foreign language. When I speak to family and friends who don’t understand, it can be frustrating. Now we have three hours to break this down into the ABC’s. How will we ever do this? Attending many meetings with corporate execs from my past jobs, I knew some of them could be arrogant asses and would never admit to “not getting it” but rather delegate to some poor soul under them and have the ol’ set up for failure…better them than me. I left corporate America and now I’m meeting with them….do I really want to do this? ………….Of course I do! I have that internal “Help Button“.

I was very excited! Why??? well…… this is where I shop, I really like the store, and I heard they buy from local farmers which impresses me. Another thing that impresses me is the two stores I go to have employees that deliver top-notch customer service. I’m all about customer service, especially since I trained, coached, and evaluated reps. I don’t know the Big Y company very well but I’ll listen intently so I can speak to it for my community both on and offline. It’s important to be able to tell the inside scoop of why They should go shop at their stores.

We met in the lobby to sign in. It was very secure, we had to give our license to be scanned and then received a visitor’s pass. We stayed in the lobby for a bit while we waited for everyone to come. There was a room with comfy couches adjoined to the lobby and it was decorated with what else…Big Y memorabilia, kinda cool, an old cash register what looked like pure gold…..it wasn’t or I’d be writing this from Hawaii…not that I checked. It had old pictures and fake fruit stands that separated the two rooms. Ok enough about the lobby, but I am a nostalgic person and it was cool.

On our way to the conference room we have to walk by all the cubicles of the employees. First check -do they seem happy? This is easy to tell…do they immediately smile when they look at you or, do they smile back if you smile first. As I walked by………everyone smiled and some said hello…this is a good sign! The food everywhere could have had something to do with their smiles. Points!

We now are sitting at the conference table and behind me is coffee, water, and food!- Points scored here, but truthfully I was hoping for some fruit…it’s Big Y…they have awesome fruit! Share some with us!!!

Ok so in come the Big Y peeps… Phil, Karen, Nicole, John, Merles, and Linda. Everyone was very pleasant and we started to go around and introduce ourselves. When they got to Karen and said how long she’s been with the company, I was ready to grab her and interview her so i can create my next Touch’d product. She looked fabulous, not that we exchanged ages, but women have this secret inner sense. I was ready to start a whole new meeting and make it all about ME! Simmerrrrrrrr… i didn’t, I stuck to what we were there for.. to educate. They all sat and listened patiently as we (us bloggers) talked all about ourselves, our blogs and why we loved it…. Passion…at least that’s what started us all. Ok so some of us had more to say and may have even got Shhh’d. Did you expect any less? I like to be thorough.

Phil spoke in between and started telling us Big Y stories. I wanted to stay an extra hour with my pad and pen and take notes. It was an inspiring story how two brothers started Big Y and there were little tid bits in there that were very interesting (you know…….the stuff that captivates you and gets lock in the useless information bank) Did you know Big Y is an actual family owned company? I heard the slogan “to your family from ours”, but when I worked at the post office they called us family…yeah right. You can read about the history of Big Y on their site….wayyyyy at the bottom. There’s no pictures of the family, I checked the whole site (They should really put some…hint hint) Anyway Phil also told about all the testing Big Y does on it’s brand products…again I thought this was cool. I totally want to go to the site and watch the testing….and of course blog about it. I’d like to be taste tester of the bakery department.. HAHA

After the three hours spent there, I can tell you that ALL the Big Y people (family) were very gracious and kept an opened mind as we flooded them with information. We joked and laughed throughout and the mood was very relaxed. If anyone did have jitters, they disappeared after a few minutes. Of course at the end I whipped out my camera and said Pictures! Not everyone was as willing as Phil and John but at least you get to meet them.

In the beginning I told you I was paid to attend this meeting, however, I was NOT paid nor was I asked to write anything about the meeting or Big Y. As bloggers don’t we want to share all??? If i didn’t like Big Y would I have wrote this? You bet! I want you to know when you walk into the store, know a “family” who probably gets together for picnics, fights with one another, and loves each other very much, has grown this company and are running it together.

Do you shop at Big Y? What do you like or dislike about it? Does it make a difference that you now know it’s a family run business? I want to hear your thoughts. Also here’s a link if you like coupons, my friend puts together coupons with their weekly ad to help you save money http://www.wickedcooldeals.com/