In all the excitement of this weekend, I forgot that I have four Quaker Oats prize packs to give away! Then I promise I will stop talking about oats and groats and marsey-doats and doesey-dotes. Each prize is a 1 month supply of Quaker’s heart healthy breakfast products – including Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Quaker Oatmeal To Go and Quaker Oatmeal Squares.

To enter, leave a haiku about oatmeal in the comments below by 11:59pm on Saturday, November 15th. A haiku is a three line poem in which the first and third lines contain 5 syllables and the second line contains 7 syllables. Four winners will be drawn randomly, not by the quality of their haikus. However, if it is not a true haiku, you will be disqualified. Count your syllables, people!

To inspire you, here’s a pic of Roni, Mo and me in the taxi on our way to the Quaker Oats headquarters, are faces beaming with thoughts of oatmeal. Let us be your muses!

Win or lose, you can also click this link [...]

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I ditched my 10 year high school reunion this weekend to hang out with my new boyfriend Larry.

We sowed some oats together this weekend in Chicago. Is it weird that he never took off his hat? (Oat-kay, I might be exaggerating, but he is actually nicknamed Larry by the Quaker Oats staff.)

This weekend I had a fantastic time meeting many lovely and lively health and fitness bloggers at the Quaker Oats Living Proof weekend. But let’s speak the truth here: ultimately this weekend came about because Quaker Oats wants to see what the blogosphere and social media can do for them. It’s about commerce. I know it, you know it, Quaker knows it, and now it’s officially out there. I did not go away for the weekend just because Quaker Oats is nice, though they were definitely nice. I got some free swag, free meals, and a free trip and Quaker got people talking about their products and started some relationships that will be to their advantage in the future.

That being said, just because there’s [...]

• Continue reading "Living proof of my Quaker Oats weekend"

I flew from Indianapolis to Chicago today, which is probably as good for my carbon footprint as driving two blocks to the grocery store. While I am grateful for the free plane trip that Quaker Oats provided so I could attend their Living Proof weekend, the practical part of me thinks I should have just taken the bus. When you add all the time it takes to ride the shuttle from long-term parking to the airport, get through security, and ride the train into the city, I doubt I saved any time.

However, I probably wouldn’t have met Rod, the homeless tour guide either. As I was walking on the cold, gloomy streets of Chicago, I ducked between two columns of a bank building to look at my map I’d hastily purchased at Borders on the way out of town. Rod asked if he could help me and then walked me 6 blocks to my hotel. I did not immediately “make” him as a homeless man. He was dressed in jeans, a blue jacket, and a [...]

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I’ll be in Chicago this weekend with several other health and fitness bloggers. As promised we’ve arranged not one, but two meetups. I will definitely be at the brunch on Sunday morning, but I’m not sure if I’ll be at the Saturday night meetup. It will depend on how tired I am and if my headache is bad. I might be there, I might not, but I’ll try to let you know the day of. Here are the details:

Saturday, November 8th

10pm

Hard Rock Hotel Rocks Lounge

230 N. Michigan Ave

Chicago, IL 60601

Sunday, November 9th

9:30am

Panera Bread

635 N. Fairbanks Court

Chicago, IL 60611

Feel free to bring a book if you want it signed. Or just bring yourself. Hope to see you there! I doubt we’ll draw as big of a crowd as Barack Obama did last night, but it should be fun anyway!

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I’m going to be in Chicago eating a lot of oatmeal with 15 other health and fitness bloggers between November 7-9 for a Quaker Oats Living Proof blogger’s conference. It’s always fun to be invited to these things, but it always makes me feel slightly bad talking about it because it seems so elitist. “Look at me flying off for freebies all weekend! I’m so fancy! Whee!” Seriously, who needs that? When I went to the BlogHer blogging conference this summer I remember feeling the same way. There were all these parties going on, in fancy restaurants or in hotel suites, and some of them I was invited to and some of them I was not. Some parties I wouldn’t have gone to even if invited, but being on the outside can be lonely and a little sad.

Which is why I’m glad we’re planning a reader meetup during the weekend. So you all can come by and get some free food too! Yay! Everybody wins. (Except those of you not in the Chicago area. Oops!) [...]

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