My favorite picture of my mother is one where she’s in her early 30’s, her 5’9” frame is sitting awkwardly on my two-foot wooden rocking horse, with a pair of miniature toy spectacles balancing on her nose...oh, and there’s a huge chocolate syrup stain on her work blouse! It’s one of those rare photos that shows the silly, playful side of my mother. What you don’t see in the photo is me, six at the time, cracking up. I wish I could show you guys, but my brother has the picture hanging on his wall at his home in Oklahoma (it’s his favorite, too).

What’s your favorite photo of your mother? But, WAIT, don’t post it here.

Windows Live recently launched the national “Portraits of Mom” contest and is giving you a chance to honor mom by uploading a photo of her (through May 15th) for a chance to win some cool prizes (video cameras, laptops, family vacations, etc.).

To enter portraitsofmom.com.

P.S. If you’re in New York or San Francisco this week, look up the Windows Live portrait studio – they’re giving away free portrait sessions for moms!

Meet our Guest Discount Diva of the Day:
Margaret Bristol (Quick and Simple's contests and giveaways editor) saves money on everyday items to supplement her vacation fund, and is currently saving for a trip to Greece. Her money-saving mantra? "Wait in the longest line possible at checkout! I can't begin to tell you how many impulse purchases I've avoided by doing this."

It happens every year around this time. The weather gets nice and I start stocking up (er, stock piling!) on books. For me, there’s no better time to read than on a warm, sandy beach in the summer.

As you can imagine, I’ve built quite the library; one that has extended from the bookcase to the window sill to my bedroom floor. And, while I could never part with my hand-me-down copy of Jane Eyre from my sis, other paperbacks are simply ghosts of summers past doing nothing but collecting dust on the shrinking shelf space.

I need to purge. I need to de-clutter. I need to let go.

Cue Swaptree.com, a nifty media trading website that I stumbled upon while searching for titles to add to this summer’s annual "Margaret-Must-Read" list. After a simple registration process (membership is free!), I tell the site what trade-ready items I have (The DaVinci Code can go. I've read The Devil Wears Prada 100 times.) and what I want to acquire (I've been dying to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert).

In seconds, the search shows me what I can score by swapping with someone else. With a few clicks I accept trades with other users and print the shipping label straight from the site. Then, I drop the packages in the mailbox. Your vice/virtue isn't books? On Swaptree.com you can trade CDs, DVDs, and videos, too!

Do you know of any other great ways to swap old stuff?

I get anxious going through checkout at a real store when I have to calculate how much all of the stuff is really going to cost after tax is included. But my nervousness is even greater when I’m shopping online and the cost of shipping has to be included, too.

There is a new-ish website I just learned about called Freeshippingon.com that searches only for items with free shipping from some of the most popular online retailers – Amazon, eBay, Office Max, Apple, Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart.

Try it out and tell me how it worked for you.