Queen of the trampoline

Run away with me....

Or walk with me. Whatever you'd prefer. I'm talking about a 5K & 10K walk/run that's coming up on April 12th @ Messina Hof...and it's supporting Habitat for Humanity. More info here: http://www.runthruthevines.com/

On this same day there will be another walk/run in Brenham called the Bluebell Fun Run. More info here:http://bluebellfunrun.com/

I'd really like to work myself up to the 10K, but from the looks of my current endurance I don't see that happening this time around. So I'm planning on the 5K, since I did one already...but I'm still going to work towards the 10.

I did a 5K a few weeks ago with some friends. It was a night time run called Glow, and was amazing. I've only worked myself up to run 2 miles continuously, so I wasn't sure if 3.1 would be possible. It took every "Go girl!", "You can do it!", and "You're almost there!" to get me to keep running, and I did, for the entire 3.1 miles. The feeling of crossing that finish line is indescribable. You have to experience it. What number you finished doesn't even matter. What does matter is that you finished.

I've decided I love running at night. It was cool with a slight wind. No sun beaming down on you. My face wasn't as red as a tomato when I finished. And most importantly - I wasn't self concious about my "jiggly legs". Yes.... my son pointed them out to me once when we were walking as a family. He said "Mom, your legs jiggle now when you walk. Cool. When did they start doing that?"

Hmmm...good question....I know they never did that in my younger years.....

His dad replied "Son, never, ever tell your mom, or any other woman, that anything jiggles on them."

I need to add a #14 to my list of why I love my hubby

And add muscle toning to my excersise routine.

Hope you'll join me for this run! {Or walk} :)

Stretching the dollar

I can't go into too much detail about bargain shopping, because there's so much information, but I've received so many questions I thought I could give some folks a starting point. Bargain shopping for household stuff comes easy. Bargain shopping for food - healthy food - takes more effort. In addition to my regular coupons through the Sunday paper and online, I depend on my coupons that Kroger sends me in the mail. I've come to find out that not everyone gets these coupons as often as I do, which is about once a month in the mail. I get the regular $ off a particular item, but also $ off any produce, fruits, meats, etc. So the only thing I can come up with is that after you spend a certain amount of money at Krogers they up the coupon mailouts.

Here's what I bought on my last grocery trip:
8 boxes cereal, 2 gallons milk, eggs, bread, large veggie tray, apples, grapes, bannanas, 2 boxes frozen veggies, many canned veggies, 5 cans tomato sauce, 2 jugs juicy juice, 2 8-packs box juicy juice, 2 jugs minute maid oj, 2 packs chicken breast, 4-pack mixed fruit cups, 4 pack dannon yogurt, fruit snacks, 2 tubs wipes, bag of pullups, 3 big bags rice, 2 small flavored rice, box of bisquit, 3 bags salad, cheese sticks, flour, 2 boxes hot pockets, pizza, yogurt, 2 bags totinos pizza rolls, little smokies, no-yolk noodles, 2 glade air freshener, 1 glade refill pack, 2 boxes of some kind of oriental noodles, 2 containers of honey, fibersure, & flour







All came to a grand total of $186. I paid $79.02. Not the best I've done, but not bad. I usually spend less than this on my weekly grocery budget, and I only buy meat when it's on sale. Thanks to my hubby's last hunting season we have a freezer full of fresh, hormone free & very lean buffulo ground meat, steaks, stew & roast meat. Did you know buffalo tastes just like beef without all the fat?

Another plus for shopping at Kroger: each time you spend $100 in groceries you get to buy 25 gallons of gas at 10 cents off a gallon. And the $100 is before coupons. I'm always able to get my gas at a cheaper rate than any gas station or even Sam's.

Some of these bargains I find as I'm shopping through the stores. Some bargains I find when I get the weekly sale paper. Many deals I find on the websites that I have posted on this blog. Most have store specific forums where they talk about what bargains people have found for the week. For instance, if I want to know what good deals are at Target this week, I go to the Target thread. Other people have already done the work of finding the deals for me. Makes it a lot easier because quite frankly many weeks I don't have the time to figure out what deals are where. That's how I got started, just by reading the web sites, and with lots of advice from the coupon queen bee - Kelly V.

I've been able to narrow my deal shopping to 3 preffered stores: Kroger, Target, and CVS. Every now and then I'll go to Walgreens when they have a particular deal I'm interested in, like when I received $200 in spa rewards money for spending $10 in medicine.

My mom and I got 1 hour massages for free at Riviera, with $50 to spare. I think I'll use that towards a facial....

See, coupon shopping has more perks than you thought.

You know it's spring when...

A good 'ole neighborhood game of baseball breaks out!

There's a hit! Runner goes to first base.....

First base throws to third....

And runner slides to third base!

The fans go wild!!

Team meeting on whether he was out or not...

Hey...I thought we had an umpire.....

I bet the ump would know whether he was out or not....

Where did that umpire go????

?

?

?

?

Does that face look like she was up to any good??

It's sure is a cute one though :)

Don't you just love spring?!!