Friday Finds – April 9, 2010

— Which would you rather get for Mother’s Day: a bouquet of tulips or a $1,000 makeover? (I guess either is better than nothing, actually.) Enter Hybrid Mom’s Glam Mother’s Day Makeover contest and you could win a complete outfit by White House | Black Market, a $100 gift certificate to SOMA intimates and jewelry to perfect the look by Lia Sophia, plus a basket of great goodies to complete the new you package. Nominate yourself or another mom in need of a little “reinvention” by May 3 for your chance to win.

— Sprout for Parents goes green for the month of April. I know, I know, you should love the planet all year long, not just during Earth Month. But only during this April can you enjoy the fruits of my friend Shannan’s labor as guest moderator of the Sprout for Parents blog! Shannan (aka Mommy Bits) asked the questions, found the experts, and put it all together for Sprout. Click on over to read the articles and give Shannan a little comment love. She and Sprout both rock!

— Thanks for getting my junk, 1-800-GOT-JUNK. First of all, I like any business with the word “junk” in the name. It’s just a terrific word with multiple, and possibly off-color, meanings. But the main reason I’m giving a shoutout to 1-800-GOT-JUNK is because they are a rocking business that really helped me out of a jam.

As you may have read last week, we just sold our house. In preparation for putting it on the market, we had to do some SERIOUS decluttering. Things were not as bad as on Hoarders, but still, they were pretty bad. The day before our house was due to be listed, I had two enormous piles of trash that needed to go somewhere. One was outside by the trash cans, the other filling up one part of our basement. Trash day wasn’t until Tuesday. What was I going to do? Well, it was easy. I went to 1800GOTJUNK.com and set up a same-day appointment, with a two-hour window (how you like that, Time Warner?!), to come out for an estimate. The best part? If I was cool with the estimate, they would take away my junk right then.

The truck showed up right on time (with a phone call in advance, to let me know they were on their way). The guys were super professional and friendly. They gave me a quick, fair estimate, and I said “TAKE MY JUNK!” (Kinda like Ty Pennington does with “Move that bus!” on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. But with less fanfare and tearjerking.) So they did. The whole thing took maybe 30 minutes.

So if you need some junk removed from your home, and your usual garbage day service won’t suffice, I strongly recommend 1-800-GOT-JUNK. (And just so you know, I was not paid or influenced by PR people in any way for this. It’s a totally unsolicited shoutout.)