Subway Is Going to Give $50 Gift Certificates to 10 Facebook Fans a Week

Love to eat at Subway?  I love Subway sandwiches, but I don’t eat them very often as we are a family that celebrates with pizza and eats at home the rest of the time!

However, even our small town manages to have a Subway, so I jumped right on top of the new Facebook promotion Subway is sponsoring.

In honor of their Facebook fan page, ever Monday Subway is going to draw 10 fans to win a $50 Subway gift certificate to help them jump start 2010 with healthier eating habits.

Official Link to Facebook Fan Page and Sweepstakes Portal for Subway

Getting Organized for the New Year

2009 contained a lot of new opportunities for me.  I began to freelance write in a big way (for me) across multiple web-sites.  My husband soon joined me in this and is now doing very well for himself in the home improvement writing arena.

Our book business has dwindled somewhat but still does okay, and definitely still consumes the larger part of functional space available in our home.

I have also began to blog a lot.  I have six separate blogs under my MiscMayzee umbrella and three others to develop under separate headings as venues for other freelance writing ventures.  My book review blog has especially began to bring in a flood of new materials into my home.

I receive a lot of free merchandise (mostly prizes and samples) and magazines every month now, and I did not go into these new ventures planning that they would develop so swiftly.  When they did, I hit a major organizational road block, but I vowed to get ahead and have begun to take action.

I tossed any and all 2009 magazines with the exception of Elle which I have to read cover to cover, and Elle Decor and Metropolitan Home (both of which I consider trade publications for my husband).  Any new magazines that come in will only be opened and filed when the previous monthly issue is in the recycling bin.

I like to use totes and other baggies to organize my life, so I can pick them up and move to another room with a project if I desire.  My photo illustrates this process.  The tote bag with the trucks on it contains the family magazines for the current month.  The second bag is an Ecorations gift wrap which is holding the paper paraphernalia assorted with any products I want to review on my blog.  The third bag is actually a Pouchee which I recently won at a twitter part from Organize with Sandy.  The Pouchee came in very handy for helping me organize the desk materials I like to keep portable and even take on the road.

My other picture is the magazines I am tossing.  Most of them I have read the best articles in, but I am an avid reader and try to hold on them until I read them cover to cover.  Not anymore – if it isn’t done in thirty days, Mayzee, chances are it will never get done!  The bag is trash from my desk!

I plan on implementing even more order into our lives this year, because it makes it so much easier to have fun and relax as a family when you know everything is in its place and everything is taken care of.

Store Brand Infant Formula Is As Good As National Brands

Breastfeeding is best for babies.  Even Consumer Reports backs up this statement that mothers have known was true for years.  However, not everyone wants to breastfeed, and there are women who can’t breastfeed for varied reasons. 

When infant formula is used as baby’s primary source of food instead of breastfeeding, the cost of buying national brands can add up to approximately $2,000 during baby’s first year of life. 

Until recently, many people felt like they had to shell out the extra money (to the tune of approximately $600 extra!) for national brands because they were presumed to be healthier than generic or store brand products. 
This is not the case.  As the 2009 Best Baby Products Consumer Report states:

Is the store brand formula as good as the national brand?  It has to be.  According to the FDA, all formula marketed in the U.S. must meet the same nutrient specifications, which are set at levels to fulfill the needs of infants.  Although infant-formula manufacturers may have their own proprietary formulations, brand-name and store-brand formula must contain at least the minimum levels of all nutrients specified in FDA regulations without exceeding maximum levels, where those are specified.

On December 2, 2009, PBM products released a press report on the court decision against Mead Johnson, owner of Enfamil.  The headline? “Store-brand formulas found in federal court to be nutritionally equivalent to and confer the same developmental benefits as the more expensive national brands.

The full release is available at PBMproducts.com and is definitely recommended reading for all expecting mothers.  The Consumer Reports Best Baby Products 10th Edition also contains a wealth of information on the benefits of breastfeeding and discusses different types of formula when it is used instead.

Thanks to MomSelect.com  for providing me with the Consumer Reports Best Baby Products book – 10th Edition to aid in sharing this important information with my readers.