It’s a common issue among those of us who are not into the whole T-shirt, Norts, tennis shoes everysingleday thing, that when we go to the gym we (ohmigosh) blend in. Sure, I use it as the only public place I can wear my ex’s fraternity shirts, and the only place I can check myself out in the mirror for extended periods of time without seeming conceited. But the gym needs to also be away to get some points across.

This week’s giveaway, gym shirts made by Ruffles With Love, will get across the point that you’re into looking good, but you’re also not a thrown away child either. Common broski-voiced sayings in girly colors accented by a bow on the back say “I may be disgusting and sweaty and listening to Olivia Newton John, but you can buy me a drink later.”

Ruffles With Love is giving away three of their shirts this week.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Like Ruffles With Love on Facebook.

2. Go to our Facebook page and find the link to #kj’s blog post for CTL, “The No BS Reasons You Should Get to the Gym.” Click “Share” and share with all of your Facebook friends! It should be right below the link about this giveaway! (Note: We CAN see who shares the link, so no cheating!)

3. Comment below with your name and email address.

The giveaway will last from now until 11:59 p.m., Sunday night. Monday morning we will pick the winners, and email you requesting your mailing address. You must reply within 24 hours to receive your shirt!

Thanksloveyoubye.

Yayyyy, Bridget Foley, Katie Hill, Eliza Hunt, Mabel Jane Hoevker and Jessica Daniels for winning the Liquid Courage flask giveaway! Please email us your mailing address to contact@vodkavendettas.com within the next 24 hours. Happy drinking!

You probably didn’t wake up this morning thinking that you were tired of plain, liquor store or gas station purchased flasks. But you are. You totally are. Which is why you need a flask from Liquid Courage, an online retailer that sells handmade flasks that are to die drink for. They even have personalized flasks! Nothing says, “don’t steal my alchy, bitch,” like your initials monogrammed to your flask. Am I right? amirite?

Liquid Courage is owned by husband-and-wife duo Tyler and Amy Fisk, who began selling their products on Etsy, and now have their own personal online store, liquidcourageflasks{dot}com. The flask designs are made on high quality 3.75 mill vinyl and are completely vodka whiskey rum  water proof!

This week, Liquid Courage is giving away five flasks with some of your favorite @VodkaVendettas tweets printed on them!

Here’s how to enter: (It’s a little different than the last two giveaways, so please read!)

1. Mention @VodkaVendettas in a tweet describing what you love about us with hashtag #vvgiveaway! <3

2. Follow @byLiquidCourage on Twitter.

3. Comment below with your name, email AND Twitter handle!

The giveaway will run until Sunday at 11:59 p.m., and winners will be announced Monday morning! We will then email the winners to request their mailing addresses. The winners will have 24 hours to respond to the email before we pick someone else. Who receives which flask will be totally at random, so please don’t request which one you’d like. While you’re anxiously awaiting for the results, check out Liquid Courage’s website, Twitter, Facebook and Etsy page!

Congrats to Heather Hopkins, Colleen Beach, Brianna Desrochers, Claire Monahan and Brittni Sapper, who all won signed copies of Heather Bauer’s book, Bread is the Devil! Email us your mailing address within the next 24 hours to contact@vodkavendettas.com so that we can get the book to you.

Keep looking for upcoming giveaways!

We all have our own food devils. Maybe it’s Ben and Jerry’s “Imagine Whirled Peace.” Maybe it’s movie theater popcorn. Or maybe it’s those S’mores PopTarts your boyfriend keeps in his apartment that he never eats that call your name every morning when he leaves for class that you just. can’t. resist. I’m not saying that’s mine….butimjustsayin.

The point is, dieting is nearly as impossible as getting your eyeliner to stay on your waterline when you don’t know how to avoid the “diet devils.” Heather Bauer, nutritionist, author, mother of three, creator of Nu-Train, New Yorker, runner and just all-around badass, has written Bread is the Devil for just these issues. Maybe you’re a free-style dieter, pretending you can guess and count all those calories in your head when, let’s face it, you struggled through pre-algebra freshman year. Or maybe you’re a OMG-It’s-My-BFF’s-21st-So-I-Can-TOTALLY-Have-This-Queso-Dip-And-Pitcher-Of-Margs dieter. Or perhaps you, like me, suffer from “boredom bingeing,” or what I like to call, “SVU marathon eating.” Whatever your vice, Bread is the Devil has a way to fix the situation, and Heather Bauer herself has some words of wisdom for when your diet devil is that Jäger shot at the bar:

Most diets don’t work because the only way you could possibly follow them is if you lived in a hermetically sealed bubble. That’s not the case in my new book Bread is the Devil. Over the last 12 years I’ve helped thousands successfully lose weight and keep it off. The secret? I understand the connection between behavior and eating. Bread is the Devil gives you an easy-to-follow 3 week plan, as well as strategies for 10 important “diet devils” — the underlying situations that are the real reason we are all 5, 10 or 80 pounds overweight. We all have a few. Whether it be the Dine Out Devil, the Late Night Shuffle, or Boredom Bingeing, my book will give you the ultimate solution. My other claim to fame? Realizing that people have non-negotiables. For many of my clients, it’s drinking (see, you’re not alone!). So sidle up to the bar, because you don’t have to give it up. All you have to do is tweak what you drink and build it in. Good news, vodka is one of my top picks!

For this giveaway, Heather is sending out FIVE of her books, signed, to those who enter! Here’s how:

1. Like Vodka Vendettas on Facebook.

2. Like Heather Bauer on Facebook.

3. Follow Heather Bauer on Twitter.

4. Comment below with your name and email address.

The time table to enter is now until Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Monday we will pick and announce the winner, and email them to request their mailing address. If you win and do not reply to your email within 24 hours, we will select someone else.

Happy entering!

We had a question asked via our Formspring that inspired this post:

“Is it ever worth it/even possible to be friends with an ex? We’ve been broken up for a few months and he said he wants to be friends (he broke up with me). my feelings for him aren’t completely gone…but i dont want him out of my life completely…help”

To view my direct response, go here: Formspring

It IS possible to maintain a genuine friendship with an ex. But you have to understand, that this is the exception, not the rule. When a relationship is over, it doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily remove this person out of your life completely (unless they, like, killed your cat or something….RIP, Fluffykins). You just need to be honest with yourself and know when you are ready to be friends, ready to be acquaintances, or ready to let that shit burn (and by “shit,” I mean his shit that he left at your place before you caught him cheating. Bonfire, anyone?).

The top three reasons you shouldn’t “be friends” just yet (or ever)—

If you (yes, you) are the dumpee (as in, the one currently shoveling Ben & Jerry’s from a spatula down your throat and crying to The Notebook in yoga pants and his old football jersey), then you. aren’t. ready. You can pretend it was mutual or try to convince yourself that if you take him up on his “just friends” suggestion that you can eventually manipulate your way back into the GF posish (position, duh). Well, honey, I hate to break your heart twice, but you’re totes delusional. If he dumped you, odds are, he’s not coming back. And ew, why would you want him to????? Get your skinny fatass off that Dorito-covered Futon, go to the gym, wave when you see him, and pretend like you just don’t give a fuck. And guess what? When you continue to do this, you actually will end up NOT caring. At all. Oh, and don’t even CONSIDER going to that lunch date. While he may just want to check up on you, you’ll misconstrue the entire event as his attempt to reconcile and then all the progress you’ve made will be forgotten, and all you’ll be able to remember are the China patterns you want for your future home together. You aren’t ready for a friendship with him until you’re the one who cares less. Remember that. And try not to mislead yourself or anyone else into believing otherwise.

He cheated. Or did something equally awful (like, suggest you are a medium when you’re clearly a small. Or, like, take you shopping at Sears or….*gasp*….Payless). I mean, this should be a no-brainer, right? If I’m not in a relaysh with him, I shouldn’t be friends with him, either? Exactly! No matter how much you would like to pretend you’re over him and “over it,” it doesn’t matter because, hello? This guy sucks. If he was that shitty of a boyfriend, how good of a friend do you honestly think he’s going to be to you when you are no longer doing his laundry, or making his sandwich, or giving him bj’s? Snap out of it, you silly betch! If he did something so extremely unforgivable, then why would you even consider rewarding him with the honor of your friendship? Of course he’s saying he’s “sorry.” Hell, he might even mean it. But the fact of the matter is, if he ever respected you enough in the first place, he wouldn’t have done the thing that he did, because you would mean too much for him to want to jeopardize that. The harsh reality is that you didn’t, so he did. Why assume he’s going to respect you any more as a friend than he did as your boyfriend? I’m not encouraging sending him queued hatemail every Thursday or tweeting his mom about how awful of a son she’s raised. But you need to accept that what he did was wrong and if it was enough to crumble a relationship, you need to know that there might not be enough left between you two to salvage a friendship.

You are dating someone else. Ok, like I said, there are instances where the unthinkable happens— the stars align, the angels sing and everything just really falls into place. Odds are, this isn’t that time. If you were once involved with a bro, unless it was, you know, in middle school and you’re like a soph in college, it’s safe to say this guy is out of the running for bestie-boo material. I’m not saying you can’t pull a stop-and-chat when you run into him on campus or do the wave when you see him at the bar after two three five vodka sodas. I’m just saying that out of respect for your current partner, maintaining a friendship with a bro who used to be inside of you, might be a little inapprop. I mean, imagine if the Jimmy Choo were on the other foot, would you want your guy hanging out with some skank that he used to call a “girlfriend?” Obvi no!

No matter what the terms were during the breakup, there are always going to be some unresolved feelings and emotions attached to the relaysh that once was. This is normal. If they’re lukewarm for both of you, then whatevs, just proceed into a friendship with caution. I always recommend being civil with an ex. I mean, duh, at least pretend to not hate that uglyhot bastard with his cheap new arm candy (think: Sixlets, not Godiva), right? Right.

#mc

Congrats to the five winners of our Exlusiv vodka and moscato giveaway! Adrienne Gorman, Karen Rodenheiser, Joanna Perry, Effie Miller and Sarah Head have all been selected as winners using a random line picker. The five of you have all been emailed regarding your mailing address and must reply within 48 hours!

Disappointed that your name isn’t on the list? Don’t be…we are working on future giveaways! Keep checking the blog/Facebook/Twitter for info on when the next one will be.

Keep loving #VV!

#kj

We are super excited about our first giveaway! Seriously. We’d be smiling right now but our mud masks are about dry. We want to make this a weekly thing, so if you have a product you would like to provide for an upcoming giveaway, know someone who does or just have an idea of a brand you’d like to see, email us at vodkavendettas@gmail.com!

It’s no secret that we love vodka. Duh. But if there’s one thing we like better than vodka, it’s good vodka. And if there’s one we like better than that, it’s GOOD FREE VODKA! Enter Exclusiv Vodka. A crisp, clean vodka with the right amount of kick, Exclusiv hails from the country of Maldova, and is actually spelled “vodca.” (We won’t hate them for the misspelling, considering we’ve probably spelled it, “V0DKKASADASDAAAAAA!!!”). I (#kj) died for it in a Bloody Mary, but that might be my New Orleans roots drinking talking. Try it with tonic water and lime for a low-cal, sexy drink.

This week, Exclusiv is giving away a bottle of their vodka and a bottle of their moscato (also totes amaze) to FIVE of our followers!

How to enter:

1. Like Vodka Vendettas on Facebook.

2. Like Exclusiv Vodka on Facebook.

3. Leave a comment below with your name and email address in the comment box (not just the Disqus Login box!)

Unfortunately, Exclusiv can only deliver to the US but cannot deliver alcohol to the following states: Massachusetts, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, South Dakota, Texas and Utah, and to the following cities in New Hampshire: Brookfield - 03872, Ellisworth - 03223, Landaff - 03585, Monroe - 03771, and Sharon – 03458. If you live in one of those states or cities, we are terribly sorry and hope that you will be able to participate in our next giveaway! Also, please make sure that someone who is age 21 or up will be able to sign for the package.

You have until Monday at 10 a.m. to enter, when we will announce the winners and contact the lucky 5 for shipping information!

We are so ecstat (ecstatic, duh) about this giveaway and can’t wait for all the ones to come!

The Kardashians get a lot of shit. No, I don’t mean the good kind, like Kourtney’s black python Celine Luggage tote (want), but the super jeal haters who troll the interwebz bitching about how they are sucking the life out of television, ruining youthful minds, yada, yada, yada.

So no, we’re not sure how they got famous. It’s some combination of the Kim-Ray J sex tape, Robert Kardashian, Sr. being one of OJ’s 5,000 lawyers, Bruce Jenner being the world’s worst case of plastic surgery gone wrong, or maybe those Olympic gold medals he won (NBD). Or it could be Kris Jenner’s Grammy-award winning music video, “I Love My Friends.” (We do, after all, love our friends.) But I have a better question for you, judgmental jerks: WHO. CARES!?

Not a day goes by that I don’t think, “Where the hell are the cameras following my life?” If someone wanted to pay me to have the most awkward run-ins in history, fight passive-aggressively with my best friend via Twitter, or tell my boyfriend he’s being annoying, um, duh I would say “OK, now where’s my diet pill contract?”

Not only are their lives the most dramatic thing to hit television since the “Donna Martin Graduates” episode of 90210, but they touch on real-life issues and give hope to all ages! Before Scott Disick I would have sworn no man could go from being an arrogant, alcoholic asshole to being a funny, empathetic boyfriend in the span of a year. Kim’s 72-day “marriage,” made me feel better about all 14 of my relationships that lasted under three months. Fail your driver’s test the first go-round? It’s OK, so did Kendall Jenner! Think your Mom is the most annoying woman on the planet? At least she’s not Kris Jenner. And best of all, when I find myself on the floor of the kitchen at 2 a.m. licking Cheeto cheese off my fingers, I know that somewhere in L.A., Rob Kardashian is probably downing a bag of Lay’s and struggling with his food addiction.

So hate on, haters. Because not only are the Kardashians not going anywhere anytime soon (I mean, there are, like, 47 of them!), they’re taking every major city in America, and making millions of dollars doing the more expensive version of what I do everyday.

Just try to rock a center part like they do. Just. Try.

#kj