Turtle Club

My mom called me today and said she had spoken to some OOOOLLLLLDDDD family friend's of ours.  I mean, back in the DAY!  She mentioned they had blogs, so the cyber-stalker that I am I had to look them up.

I stumbled across Lauren's blog.  Lauren was just a few years younger than me, and I can remember us riding bikes and playing together when we were younger.  I do not recall her being this fit and fabulous.  I was snooping around her blog and found that she, like me, has recently started running and doing 5Ks.  She even has a club!  How awesome is that??  Of course, I had to join.

She encourages you to write about why you run.  I started running as a challenge to myself.  I wanted to lose 30-40lbs and I love food, so I figured I needed to figure out a way to do this without giving up food.  As my motto has always been, "I like to eat too much to diet."  As all runners will tell you, I got hooked.  I now run to clear my head, to escape from the madness of my house for 30 minutes, and because I'm addicted.  I will continue to run 5K's because I love the feeling I got when I crossed that finish line.  So, I will proudly join the turtle club, because even when I KNOW I'm going as slow as a turtle, I push through to the end.

Party Planning on a budget

Since we know that I love all things CHEAP, I wanted to share my wonderful friend Krystin's new blog.

Affordable Party Planner

She has just started so there is only one post so far but I know she will have many more in the upcoming days and weeks.  This girl knows how to throw a party on a budget since she has the same Caviar taste, beer budget mindset as me.  I hope you will all go check it out and follow away!!!

Today's AWESOME Deal

As I mentioned in my ramblings yesterday, I am going to be posting some great deals.  Well, today's is an AWESOME one.  My wonderful employer, www.juiceinthecity.com, is featuring a deal for the Houston Museum of Natural Science - Sugar Land.  For only $12 you will receive 1 adult and 1 child entrance into the museum.  What a great deal to save for this summer when it is blazing hot and the kids are bouncing off the walls.

I am so excited because it's such a great deal it is featured on some well-known Houston area blogs!!  Go JITC!!!

Houston on the Cheap

Macaroni Kid - Katy

Frugal Reality

Family Friendly Frugality

My first 5K and other random musings

So, originally I started this blog as a way to share great deals that I found and fabulous recipes.  Then I got bored with that so I stopped blogging.  Then I got a really awesome job finding great deals in my area and I thought, I really need to blog again.  Then I got promoted and didn't have the time to blog anymore.  It really has been a vicious cycle.  I constantly have thoughts pop in my head that I think, "Man, I should blog about that, but I have a couponing blog, it's not relevant."  So, I have decided that even though my blog is a couponing/deal blog, I am going to post random things as well.  I apologize if you've stumbled across my blog expecting simply deals, but I promise there will be some fabulous ones coming.  :)

Yesterday I ran my very first 5K.  Let me just tell you, before January 3 I had never run in my life.  I was that kid in PE that had to tie their shoe every 100 yards.  I think the fastest I had ever run a mile was somewhere around 16-18 minutes.  On January 3 I started training with my friend Lisa.  We trained telecommutely (used the same training schedule but never actually trained togther) using a schedule made by a friend of her's that does IronMan competitions.  On January 3, I ran 9 minutes without stopping, and actually didn't die.  I felt pretty good about myself.  Over the next 3 months I gradually increased my running until I was running for 30 minutes straight and on March 26, 2011, I ran 5K in 33 minutes and 20 seconds.  I have never been so proud of myself in my entire life.  I have graduated from college and had 2 children and still running for those 33 minutes seemed like the greatest achievement of my life.  I actually did something by myself, with no help from anyone.  It felt AMAZING!!!!!

Here is the picture of me crossing the finish line:

I cannot wait for my next one!!!!