I hate winter. Actually, I hate fall, winter and spring. There, I said it.

There’s a lot that bothers me about every season except for summer; I don’t like the cold (not even a little bit), I don’t like gray skies and I really don’t like dry skin.

Short of picking up my family and moving to another part of the country, these are all things I have to deal with. I can wear sweaters, soak up the sunshine every time it peeks out from behind the clouds and I can moisturize. A lot.

I have lotion everywhere: the car, my purse, kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom, and, although it’s only November, I have already noticed the need for moisturizer is increasing. My hands are a little drier and I’m finding patches on my arms.  Grrr…

My kids don’t mind the change of weather patterns, especially when there’s a snow day, but, they too, have that darn dry skin. My son actually suffers from it worse than I do. I am always on the lookout for something that will make it better.

I have tried a lot of different soaps, with varying degrees of success. Long ago, I realized that Dove Beauty Bars worked the best at keeping my skin looking and feeling hydrated. It’s the only kind of bar soap I buy.

But, my skin…it is extra lizardy. So the good folks at Dove offered to send me Dove Nutrium Moisture Body Wash.

They know me. They really know me.

See, I was always worried about using a body wash because I thought that the extra scrubbing with a loofah would dry my skin out even more. I was way wrong.

After less than one week of using Dove Nutrium Moisture Body Wash, the dry patches on my arms were gone…without the need for lotion after my shower! Do you know what that means? It means that I can save a lot of money AND time from now on.

This body wash has become part of my daily routine to nourish myself. I’m trying to get more sleep, I’m drinking more water, taking time out of my work day to stretch and, generally, feeling really good on the inside, and Dove is taking care of the outside.

Dove wants you to feel good inside and out too, which is why they’re giving one lucky commenter a $100 Spafinder gift card!

Just leave me a comment on this post telling me how you nourish yourself every day and you will be entered in the sweepstakes. It’s that easy. This contest runs from 11/21/11 – 12/21/11.

Now for the official stuff…

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older

Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.

You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be

Visit the Prizes and Promotions section on BlogHer for more chances to win!

Visit the Official Rules here.

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So, you know how you pick up your son from Cub Scouts and he’s crying because he’s so hungry (because God love his amazing Scout co-leader, but she’s a busy mom and she left the bag of snacks, in a bag, ON HER DRIVEWAY), but that’s okay because you were proactive and ordered a pizza while you were waiting for your son, but on the way to the pizza place he’s saying, “My stomach HURTS BAD, because I’m starving”, and then you get to the pizza place and pull out your credit card and they say, “Oh, we only take cash or checks”, and you have to drag your hungry kid back to the car and then to the bank, and when you restart your 14 year old car at the pizza place for the SECOND time it starts making a hissing sound, and doing this lurching thing, so you call your husband, but he’s busy with the repair guy who is looking at your chimney because it’s so water damaged that it’s getting ready to collapse onto your roof and when you finally get home, you find out the quote to fix it is $7000?

Yeah, me too.

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When my son was little, he was sick a lot. He used to get bacterial infections as often as I buy purses; which is to say, all the time.

Before he was a week old, he got a UTI, then there was pneumonia, strep, antibiotic-resistant strep-pneumo, mastoid infections (betcha never heard of that one, have you?), eye infections and two ear infections for good measure. I hate to leave out meningitis, but I will, because it was viral.

He’s had eye surgeries, two different sets of ear tubes and removal of his tonsils and adenoids…all in an effort to curb the infections…and more than anything, to stop them from traveling to his little, malformed heart. He has spent, roughly, two out of his nine years on antibiotics.

As he’s gotten older, and with each successive surgery, things have gotten better. But, that doesn’t mean that I ever let my guard down.

Just last week, my friend Bean was talking about how amazing a mother’s intuition can be. She trusted her instincts and got her son help when he needed it, because she just KNEW something wasn’t right. And, as far as I’m concerned, intuition saved my daughter’s life.

On Monday of this week, my kids didn’t have school. They were playing a game in the living room, while I was in the kitchen, when I heard my son cough. It wasn’t a fit, he didn’t throw up from it like he used to…it was just one, single, solitary cough. Cough.

But, I knew it wasn’t right; my gut told me so. Because of his history and because of his heart disease, I had set out to call the pediatrician’s office first thing Tuesday morning. My husband thought I was crazy. He said, “What are you going to tell them? That there’s nothing wrong with him?” because, really, there wasn’t.

Then I came to find out that five kids in his class had pneumonia.

I got him in and his doctor prescribed an antibiotic, but it hadn’t kicked in before last night when his cough and fever worsened. He was curled up in my bed, kind of weepy, when my husband walked in and knelt beside him. He rubbed our son’s head and said to him, “I sure am glad you’re on that medicine. You’ll feel better soon.”

To which I snarkily replied, “Wait…what? I thought there was nothing wrong with him.”

My husband shot back the snark and said, “Yeah, yeah. You’re the child-whisperer.”

Then my son, who obviously understands motherly intuition wearily lifted his head and said, “No she’s not! She’s my mom!”

Exactly, buddy. Exactly.

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One of the benefits of Catholic school is that my kids and their classmates do a lot to serve the community and those less fortunate. I am NOT saying that public school kids don’t serve their community, so don’t start hatin’ on me.

I am, however, speaking from my own public school experience and we didn’t do diddly squat.

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I even knew what a service project was and it usually involved picking up trash down by the river. Last year, my daughter’s class spearheaded a project that raised $8000 to build a well and clean lavatories for a school in Afghanistan. Hmm…picking up gum wrappers vs. clean water for third-world schoolchildren? It’s a toss up.

There are collections for toys, clothing, toiletries and once a month, every child brings in canned goods. It teaches the kids early, and often, to give of themselves.

Yesterday, my daughter and some of her friends visited a local soup kitchen to serve lunch. Before they went, they had to write a “pre-reflection” on what they were about to do. Here is what my kid wrote:

I’m really excited to go to the soup kitchen. I really want to learn and experience the act of giving to others. My goal is to really, truly understand what it means to help out the community and be able to come back, and not just say, “I liked helping because it made me feel good”…but, maybe something along the lines of, “I really enjoyed helping out at the soup kitchen because I could see the joy and thanks on their faces.”

See that? It wasn’t about her…it was about them.

And, that makes the tuition bill a lot less hard to pay.

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