This would probably be a good weekend to go shopping – why? Based on the early numbers it looks like half the country is going to be out seeing New Moon which means they won’t be getting in your way while you’re at the store. I for one could not care less about Edward, Bella or any of the other 20-somethings masquerading as emo-teenage-vampires – so I’ll need to find something else to do.

Earlier this week I mentioned the Holiday Taste of Sam’s event that is going on this weekend so maybe you could go out and try out some free food instead of sitting in a dark theater watching moody vampire/werewolf grudge matches. The event actually started today and being the responsible corporate mouthpieces – uh – I mean “affiliates” that we are, we went over to our local store to try out some of the samples and pick up some items for next week. I’ve been glued to my computer all week at work, I don’t think I’ve had five minutes to get up from my desk since Monday so getting out for a few minutes actually gave me a chance to – almost – look forward to Thanksgiving.

They had a bunch of food stations set up and we were able to sample quite a few of the items. The folks from the Sam’s AnnaSamsClubClub marketing department asked us to take some pictures while we were at the event, but for one reason or another this message never quite made it down to the people who actually work in the store. The Wife and I made a very-nice older lady who was working one of the stations pretty nervous when we asked to take her picture. After that we felt a little bit stalker-paparazzi-ish so we put away the cameras.  You’ll just have to take my word for it that we were there.

Back to the food. Now, I don’t mean to offend the appetizers, they were all quite good, but I’m going to ignore them right now and focus on one thing  – cheesecake. I’m not going to call myself a connoisseur,  but I’m pretty sure I know good cake when I eat it and this was good stuff. It was actually from the Cheesecake Factory and you could tell. We don’t have one of those restaurants in our area – I think the nearest one is in Massachusetts and it takes a lot more than a graham-cracker crust to get me south of 495 – so when we saw them at the store we picked up few. For $11 each, they were a good deal (especially when you consider that they charge $5 a slice at the restaurant). I think I passed on some sort of genetic affection for cheesecake to Anna since she kept asking to go back and try more samples.Screen shot 2009-11-20 at 9.23.28 PM

To avoid dealing with a massive temper tantrum on the part of the three-year-old, I had to remove her from the food area so we could avoid arguing over whether she could continue to grab samples. At least she’s not a picky eater. We went off to check out the electronics and toys while the Wife picked up some items for Thanksgiving. Lets be honest though – you don’t really care about what we bought – you want to buy stuff for yourself. I get it – so why don’t we try to help you out?

Giveaways
Keeping it simple this time, no stories, no themes  – two winners, $50 in Sam’s Club gift cards for each of them.

Official Rules:
1. You must already be, or become a subscriber to this site in order to participate in this contest.
2.  To enter, leave a comment on this post, it can be about whatever you want.
3. Two winners will each receive $50 worth of Sam’s Club gift cards.
4. The winners will be selected using random.org, based on the number of your comment.
6. This contest will end at 10pm on Friday, December 4th 2009.
7. Winners will be notified by email and posted to this site. Winners will have 48 hours from the time of notification to claim their prize. If the prize is not claimed within that time, another winner will be chosen.
8. Each comment represents a single entry. Those entitled to multiple entries for performing “extra credit” must add a comment for each entry.

Extra Credit:
1. Follow me using the Google Friend Connect widget – 1 extra entry
2. Follow on Twitter and Tweet about this contest – 1 extra entry per day (include link to Tweet in your comment)
3. Blog about this contest – 3 extra entries (include a link to the post in your comment)
4. Enter any of the giveaways in progress on www.theartofbeingmom.com – 3 extra entries (include name of contest and your comment # )
5. Post a comment on any of the other posts on this site (from the past month) – 1 extra entry per post (leave post name and comment #)

6. Visit the Sam’s Club “Holiday Helper” page and leave a comment on any of the posts. Include a link to this post in your comment. – 2 extra entries for each Holiday Helper post that you comment on (you can do this for any number of the posts on that website but only one comment for each post counts. You can’t just go and add 5 comments to one post and then claim 10 entries, but if you post a comment on five separate posts you can get 10 entries).

(remember, you have to leave a comment for EACH ENTRY when you do extra credit. We pick winners based on a drawing using the comment number. If you put 5 entries into a single comment, you defeat the whole purpose of the extra credit, since you aren’t increasing your chances of winning. No, I am not going to go through each entry and make sure that you’ve entered correctly, that is up to you.)

FTC Disclosures:
This post is part of the Sam’s Club – Sharing the Savings Blogger Program. I have received compensation from Sam’s Club in the form of a complimentary Sam’s Club membership. I have also been provided with membership gift/cards to giveaway to our readers. Regardless of compensation, all views and opinions expressed are my own.