Blogiversary Giveaway Results!

I know you've all been waiting anxiously for the results of the giveaway drawing! Before we get to that, let's recap what's up for grabs:
First place:

First place will receive a purple Roma baby pad, a pair of these floral brushing boots in full size, a Lettia baseball cap that matches the half pad, a navy C4 belt with matching buckle, and a custom bracelet stack made by me.

The bracelet stack will be made after the drawing so I can be sure it will fit you. It will be similar to this above, but you can pick the color.

Second place:

Second place will receive a neon green C4 belt with matching buckle, a Lettia ball cap, a pair of floral brushing boots in size full, and a wrap bracelet from Noble Outfitters.

Third Place:

Third place will receive a navy C4 belt with matching buckle.

To make it as fair as possible, I wrote all of the eligible entries on one of these labels:

I next cut them apart so they were individual tags, folded them in half, and put them into this adorable knit basket my mom made me for Valentine's Day.

I mixed them up REALLY well and gave it a few shakes. And finally I started drawing the winners. As promised I drew them in reverse order. So without further ado, here are your winners (in reverse order):

Third place:

Autumn H!

Second Place:

Love, Laugh, Ride

And the grand prize winner is....

Confessions of A Dressage Barbie!

Wooohooo! Congrats everyone! Please private message me on Facebook with your full name and mailing address. Leah, please measure your wrist so I know what size to make your bracelet, and also let me know if you prefer gold tone or silver tone hardware.
Prizes will be mailed out NEXT Saturday April 14th. Sorry for the delay, but I can only get to the post office on the weekends.

Blogiversary Giveaway!

It's taken me a little time to get my act together, but I'm finally ready for my first ever giveaway! There are three prizes:
First place:

First place will receive a purple Roma baby pad, a pair of these floral brushing boots in full size, a Lettia baseball cap that matches the half pad, a navy C4 belt with matching buckle, and a custom bracelet stack made by me.

The bracelet stack will be made after the drawing so I can be sure it will fit you. It will be similar to this above, but you can pick the color.

Second place:

Second place will receive a neon green C4 belt with matching buckle, a Lettia ball cap, a pair of floral brushing boots in size full, and a wrap bracelet from Noble Outfitters.

Third Place:

Third place will receive a navy C4 belt with matching buckle.

So now that you know what's up for grabs, you're probably wondering how to enter. Well. I'm an old woman, and probably couldn't work rafflecopter if I tried. So I'm going to keep it simple. It would be awesome if you meandered over to Facebook and gave Amateur at Large a like. It would also be fun and make me happy if you followed me on Instagram. But those aren't required. The only ACTUAL requirement is that you comment on this post. In your comment, let me know what color bracelet stack you'd want if you won. I'll keep the contest open until April 1st. I will put everyone's name who comments in a hat and draw the winners in reverse order.

I'll do a separate post with who the winners are, and then can figure out shipping and what not from there. Good luck everyone!

Truthful Tuesday: Blogiversary Edition

Hey guys! Today is my Blogiversary! It's been FIVE years since I claimed this little space on the interwebs, and boy how things have changed along the way!

My confession today, is that I had no idea where blogging would take me. I didn't really think anyone would read it. I didn't do much promoting of it, because I was a little apprehensive about it. I was worried what my friends might think. Even now, I'm not sure too many of my non blogging friends pop over here or even really know about my blog. Trainer doesn't know about it either... I don't think anyway. But I'm actually pretty proud of my little spot here on the www. I've "met" some great people, and I feel like I've made friends. Though it's still weird to refer to someone I only know on the internet as a friend. Maybe that's because I'm old? Must be an age thing...

Anyway, I thought we could take a quick look around and see how far Amateur At Large has come! First some analytics (but not a lot, because I'm not that savvy).
-This here is my 809th post.
-I have right this second (which will change by the time this is posted hopefully, but whatever) 106,995 all time views. But this counts my own so it's probably like half that. Whatevs.
-Two of my top three most viewed posts are not horse related. First place goes to a review of a bead subscription box, second place is from a Golden Tote clothing reveal, and third place goes to my comparison of my TuffRider Regal Boots and my Parlanti boots. (Takeaway here: people like to read reviews)
-This blog has been viewed from 10 different countries, though I wonder how many of those views were by bots? Looking at you Russia and China...

My first post was an introduction to what my blog would be about. Makes sense. And apparently I used to blog quite a bit about shopping and nail art.

I guess that's only sort of changed since I do still share a lot of the ridiculous things I've bought. But now the focus is more horse related. And definitely much less running related. Hopefully that will find its way back here though. Also, can't remember the last time I painted my own nails.

Current situation: needs a nail file and some moisturizer. STAT.

Way back, five years ago, I had three horses in the barn:

Rio

Jampy

Ducky

 I'm thinking about giving each of the horses their own little about me tabs on here. I should do that!
Since then we've said hello to these guys:

Romey

Badger

And then goodbye to Romey. Maybe this year will have another hello in store.
Five years ago I was running half marathons and getting PR's. (HAHAHA, that won't be happening anymore!)

Plus I was horse showing somewhat regularly.

 Seems like way more than just five years ago. It was also about thirty lbs ago... perhaps time to get back to that half marathon running?

Rio got really sick a few years ago, and there were several posts documenting that. They start here if you want to relive that. Thankfully he semi recovered and is still around today!

Five years ago, I just had P, and Artie joined the family not too long after. They haven't changed too much, other than being a little grayer and a little chubbier... But hey, me too!

Ok, maybe Artie is a lot thicker... Don't judge him!

So that's where Amateur at Large has been. I can't wait to see what the next five years bring!

I have a few things I'm putting together to do a five year blogiversary giveaway, but I didn't prepare and there are too many blocks on this network for me to link anything anyway. So look for that by the weekend!

 How long have you been following along with me? Anything you've wondered about since you started reading? How long have you been blogging? Leave me your link if I'm not following you, I think there are a lot of great blogs out there that I don't know about.

BLOGIVERSARY!!!!!

Celebratory Glass of Wine?

Today is my blog's first birthday! I don't have much planned this year since it kind of sneaked up on me. (I hate the word sneaked... I really think it should be snuck, but it shouldn't. Seriously, go look it up).

Let's take a moment to reflect shall we?

My very first blog post I showed you some photos of what I planned to talk about. And I think I've stayed pretty true to course. I planned to talk about my jewels, my nails, my excessive shopping, running, and horses.

Here are some highlights (in photo form):

I've also made sure to include plenty of posts about my adorable Pugs and FOOD!

A few changes over the year included adding some regular weekly posts: Truthful Tuesday, Thursday's Threads, and occasionally Mani Mondays. Amateur at Large even has a Facebook page now! If you're so inclined (and boy would I appreciate it!) head on over here and give us a like!

What a year it's been! Do you have any suggestions on things you 'd like to see more of? Or maybe less of? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below!