Forward to 2 friends and have a chance to win!

We would like to give you a free sample of an important new book called When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head.

Forward to 2 for a chance to win! After you’ve learned about When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head, would you tell two of your friends about it as well? We will give a free copy of When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head to the first 200 people that tell two friends. Unfortunately, we can only ship copies of the book within the United States.

Here's how to enter:

1. Read the excerpt from When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head (below).
2. Type your email address into the first field in the form (after the excerpt on this page).
3. Using the space provided in the second field of the form, write a message to your two friends, telling them about the excerpt and why you are sharing it with them.
4. Type your friend’s email addresses into the two spaces provided in the form. Don’t worry, we won’t keep these addresses. We'll only use them to send your email this one time.
5. Click the “submit” button.

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Read the When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head Excerpt:

Chapter 3

Fit to Be Tied

One Monday morning, shortly after I discovered my back fat, I did call the Sports R Us Athletic Club. I talked to the grown-up manager, and before I knew it, I’d signed up for a three-month trial membership and a dance-fitness class. I hesitated before signing up. I knew an athletic club wasn’t for me. The very name implied something I wasn’t. But a dance class? What could be so hard about that? I loved dancing.

I worried a little that the class would be full of tight and toned women who had been dancing their way to fitness for years—women who had never had to wrestle an extra Butterball or two off their waist. Walking into the first class laid those fears to rest. These were women just like me.

A long T-shirt over sweats, which hides a multitude of brownie sundaes, was standard apparel. I sensed a spirit of fun. I could enjoy this. These were just nice women wanting to firm up a little. Or so I thought.

Then the music started. Krissy was our teacher. She wasn’t ten after all. She was a dynamic little spitfire, about twenty-two, and absolutely perfect.

“Are you READY?” Krissy shrieked into her headset. Her voice reverberated off the walls.

“Yeah!” the class yelled back, and the music started pounding.

“Let’s GO-O-O-O!” Krissy screamed. “And it’s STEP and LIFT and STRETCH and KICK and JUMP and SWAY and TOUCH and TUCK! ABS, ladies! Hold in those ABS!”

Abs? What abs? I hadn’t thought about mine for over two decades, since the last time I’d given birth. “Lift! Kick! Stretch!” Krissy hollered.

I was lost in a minute-and-a-half. The class had obviously heard all this before and had practiced at home. I stretched when I should have squeezed, lunged when I should have tucked. The class moved right, I went left. They moved forward, and I was run over by the woman behind me. I was inept. A complete klutz.

In this moment of abject hopelessness, I noticed a woman about my age, two rows ahead of me on my right. She wore a body-hugging leotard, not that she had much body to hug. Her calves were sculpted granite above her aerobically correct footwear. Her headband was color-coordinated to her outfit. Even her hair looked fit. She lunged and lifted, tucked and squeezed on cue. And she added little hops everywhere for extra aerobic benefit. “Hopper” was trim and cute. And she was giving me a headache.

To save my flagging sense of self-worth, I focused on the woman to my left. She was uncoordinated and out of shape. Her muscles looked like they’d been on sabbatical for years. In horror, I realized I was next to the mirrored wall. I smiled weakly at my reflection. Hang in there. You’ll survive. You’ve had children.

Krissy told us to pick up our weights. Impossible! I thought, and then realized she meant our handheld weights. Hopper reached into her gym bag and whipped out weights color-matched to her outfit. They were the size of small dogs. My little one-pounders looked more like hot dogs.

Krissy shouted encouragement. “Think bicep! Tricep! Deltoid! Trapezius!”

I turned to the gal behind me. “Do I have those?” I asked.

“You’ll know tomorrow,” she said. I believed her.

“And it’s up-two-three-hold. And down-two-three-relax. And it’s up . . .” I hefted. I held. I relaxed. I’m doing it! I’m lifting. Hey, this is easy. What are those body builders always sweating about? My muscles chose that moment to protest. I felt tension, then quivering, and then complete surrender. I heard them chanting, “No! No! We won’t go!”

Come on, girls, I begged silently. Just a couple more repetitions. They responded with, “Two-four-six-eight! We won’t lift another weight!” and tuned me out. I knew they were thinking about a hot bath and a liniment rub.

I stopped and watched Hopper pumping away, sweating nary a drop. Her chiseled biceps flexed with military precision, and her triceps bore no trace of those chicken wings that wave at me in the mirror every morning as I do my hair. Hopper even put a little extra hop into her lifts. I hated her.

What am I doing here? I thought. My grandma never took a class like this…

Grandma’s Glamour Stretcher

Grandma got all the exercise she needed doing housework for her family of twelve. She competed weekly in the Laundry Olympics—the Monday-Wash-Day-Tuesday-Ironing-Day Biathlon. She pumped water, boiled it, and scrubbed clothes on the washboard. She bent and stretched again and again hanging clothes on the line—fifty-two weeks a year, summer and winter, in Minnesota. Bend and stretch, tug and lift, hold and release. Repeat. Again. And again.

In the winter, she got plenty of exercise chopping wood and firing up the stove to thaw Grandpa’s frozen long johns. In the spring, she got a nice aerobic benefit chasing the neighbor’s dog down the road after he ran through the clothes on the line and got her unmentionables wrapped around his neck.

When she was in her eighties, Grandma moved into a little house in the country, right next door to my aunt and uncle. The small, easily managed house offered a restful retirement. Maybe she missed the housework, or maybe she missed Grandpa, but in that house, Grandma discovered Jack LaLanne, television’s exercise guru of the 1960s, the father of the fitness movement.

Each morning, she faithfully followed LaLanne’s instructions, working out in her little house, performing her calisthenics, stretches, and bends. She appreciated how Jack called out encouragement to the viewing audience.

“Come on, Mrs. Larson! You can do it,” he’d say, or “That’s it, Helga. Keep going!” Grandma didn’t know any Helga, but she knew several Mrs. Larsons. And so, evidently, did Jack.

Grandma ordered a Jack LaLanne “Glamour Stretcher,” which was a thick rubber cord with a handle on each end. Holding the handles and spreading her arms wide to stretch the band, Grandma worked her biceps, triceps, delts, and pecs, without even realizing it.

One summer morning, when I was thirteen, I was visiting my aunt and uncle and my cousin Duane, who was fourteen. Duane and I watched from their front window as Grandma stood on the lawn next door with her Glamour Stretcher.

The morning sun sparkled through the trees as Grandma opened her arms wide, stretching that rubber cord as far as her arms would reach. Through the open window, we heard her counting off in Finnish.

We watched Grandma in silence, and then Duane started chanting, in time to her movements, a familiar joke line: “We must, we must, we must increase our bust…” I was mortified by this reference to the female anatomy—especially Grandma’s anatomy. I slugged him. He laughed and left the room.

I watched my grandmother as she continued her regimen, listened to her lilting accent as she switched from counting to singing a song from her past. She stretched on and on. She smiled, ageless out there, enjoying the movement, the music, and the moment. She was beautiful.

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Official Rules

SPONSOR

This sweepstakes (the “Sweepstakes”) is sponsored by The Zondervan Corporation (the “Sponsor”), 5300 Patterson Avenue, S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49530.

ELIGIBILITY & ENTRY

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. The Sweepstakes is open only to residents of the United States (excluding United States Territories and Possessions) 18 years and older. Employees of The Zondervan Corporation (the “Sponsor”) and HarperCollins Publishers Inc. and its affiliates and the Sponsor’s advertising and promotion agencies, and members of those employees' immediate families are not eligible. To enter, complete the registration form above.

The Sweepstakes commences on September 29, 2003 at 9:00 a.m. (EST). Only one entry per entrant is permitted. Multiple entries will be discarded.

Each entrant in the Sweepstakes must be the rightful owner or have authorized use of the email account indicated by the entrant’s email address. In the event of a dispute concerning the identity of the winner submitting an entry, the winner will be deemed to the person in whose name the email account is opened. The email account must be opened prior to September 29, 2003.

THE PRIZES

200 Grand Prize winners will receive a copy of When Did I Stop Being Barbie and Became Mrs. Potato Head? valued at $12.99. The total value of all prizes is $2,598.00 (USD).

CONDITIONS

By participating, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the selection of the winners, which shall be final, and waive any right to claim ambiguity in the Sweepstakes and/or these Official Rules.

The entrants release, discharge, and hold harmless the Sponsor and its affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, attorneys, representatives and agents, including advertising, promotion and fulfillment agencies, from any and all liability or damages arising from the administration of the Sweepstakes and the use or misuse of any prize received in this contest, including, without limitation, the following: (i) late, lost, incomplete, delayed, misdirected or unintelligible entries, (ii) any printing, typographical, administrative or technological errors in any materials associated with the Sweepstakes, and (iii) any damage to the entrant’s computer and related equipment and software resulting from entrant’s downloading of information regarding the Sweepstakes or participation in the Sweepstakes.

Sponsor may only use the personally identifiable information obtained from the entrants in accordance with its privacy policies.

Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify, cancel or suspend this Sweepstakes should a virus, bug, computer problem or other causes beyond its control corrupt the administration, security or proper operation of the Sweepstakes. The Sponsor may prohibit you from participating in the Sweepstakes or winning a prize if, in its sole discretion, it determines that you are attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Sweepstakes by cheating, hacking or employing other unfair practices or by abusing other entrants or the representatives of the Sponsor.

ANY ATTEMPT BY AN ENTRANT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE THE WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE OPERATION OF THE SWEEPSTAKES MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS, AND, IN SUCH EVENT, SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PURSUE ITS REMEDIES AND DAMAGES (INCLUDING COSTS AND ATTORNEY’S FEES) TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.

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THE ODDS OF WINNING ARE GREAT AND DEPEND ON MYRIAD VARIABLES. THE ODDS OF WINNING DEPEND ON THE NUMBER OF ENTRIES RECEIVED.

For the names of prize winners, mail your request to Zondervan, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (excluding residents of Vermont and Washington) after August 31, 2003 to Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530. All requests must received by March 14, 2004.

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