The 8th Blogiversary Contest has come to an end and The Lucky Three have had their names drawn out of a pot by a random Trader Joe’s employee.

Thanks to all 30 of you who entered.

Once again the prize is that each winner will receive $100 in cash to spend on a Shopping Field Trip. We’ll spend the day shopping and learning the in and outs and best buys at:

Trader Joe’s

Queen Creek Olive Mill

The Pork Shop

and

AZ International Marketplace

After I typed up all your names on a sheet of paper. I cut them into strips…

Then placed them in a pot, a saucepan actually, and drove myself and the pot to the Trader Joe’s on Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd, east of Scottsdale Rd.

I put the pot in a shopping cart and walked around looking for an employee that wasn’t too busy. I decided on the nice woman who was cooking up samples in the back of the store.

I let her know I’d be filming her and then posting the video on my blog, she kindly agreed and drew out the winning names.

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Four winners!

Many thanks to all of you who left comments these last few days for my Free Cooking Classes giveaway.

Before I announce the winners and show you the videos of the drawing, I have a few things to say.

So… today is my birthday. I pretty much love my birthday! I love everything about it, but the thing I love most is that it’s in October and it’s at the end of October.

What makes that so special is in late October is when it finally cools down in the Arizona desert and life becomes enjoyable and the outside becomes bearable again. October is the best and the end of October is the very very best!

That is until this year.

All I can say is what the hell is this!?!!! This is the worst! How is it even possible for this to be possible? One HUNDRED degrees on October 27th is not right! Not right at all. I am mad and this is ruining my birthday!

Alright. I’m done. I just had to get that off my chest. I’d love to say I feel better now that I’ve said it, but I don’t. I’ll try not to complain about it for the rest of the day.

Now, on to the enjoyable task at hand… giving away fun stuff!

Yesterday, after the entry time ended, I wrote the eligible names down on slips of paper and took them over to my neighbor, Karin’s, house. She and I are finishing the last-minute details on our neighborhood Fall Festival, which is this Sunday. I had Karin help me videotape the drawing. I held my iPhone, while Karin folded up all the slips of paper, put them in a pot, and drew out the winners. I used the time-lapse feature on my phone for the first time.

I did… OK with it. Not great, but sufficient.  Here, you can judge for yourself:

Winner #1 for the cooking class on Tuesday, November 8th is…

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Thank you to everyone who participated and left comments for the 7th Blogiversary.

My special guests arrived yesterday morning to draw the winning names out of the saucepan. I made two videos, one for the Grand Prize Winner and the other for the Seven Individual Cookbook Winners. Unfortunately both videos were too large to post here and I have not idea how to fix that, so I’ve posted them to YouTube. They are fun, so be sure to click on the links and watch.

The special guests were Tram and her sweet twins, Zoey and Zak.

We’ll begin with the Grand Prize Winner drawing.

The eligible contestants are Amy K., Nancy B., Amy G., and Sheila C.

Please click on THIS LINK to watch the drawing and discover who won.

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Good Tuesday morning! Thank you all for the lovely comments, the Facebook “likes”, and for encouraging your Facebook friends to also “like” LPG. The number of LPG “likes” went from 277 to 291, which is perfectly wonderful.

As I said yesterday, not one of the new 291 told me who suggested that they “like” LPG, but after some top-notch investigative work, I was able to determine the origin of several of the newbies. I discovered that the top two “saleswomen” were Jeanie Hays, who brought in at least three new people, and Amy Kilpatrick, who brought in at least two new people. In addition, Amy posted 4 comments here on the blog and Jeanie posted 1 comment. So Amy and Jeanie had the most tickets in the drawing – with 10 each!

All in all, there were 23 different people’s names in the big salad bowl with a total of 63 tickets. This is high-level math for me, so imagine the work involved – I believe that I  have a little tension headache from it! But alas…. we have our winners! And they are ~

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