Jan 18th, 1932 - Jan 14th, 2010

Grandpa French passed on Thursday.  Today he would have been 78 years old.    

Below, the true essence of Thomas Rodney French, which is how I will always remember him:

We miss you, Grandpa. 

Retail Me Not

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been using the website Retail Me Not to earn discounts for my online shopping lately.   I tried the site for the third time today and for the third consecutive purchase/fee, I've received a sizable discount just by searching Retail Me Not for a discount code.  I'm just so excited that this website exists and that the codes really work!  I do as much online shopping as I can because I find that I can often find the same items for a better price.  Well, add in coupon codes that really work for anything from ten dollars off the order to free shipping and you've got yourself a great deal :)  

So far I've saved the following amounts with a code:  

-For an Adobe Digital Edition of The Road for-- savings of $3

-For the registration fee for my half-marathon --savings of $10

- For wedding save-the-dates from Snapfish --savings of $20 dollars in shipping!

Grand total = $33.00 for things I was going to buy anyway - coupon or not.  

Check it out.  http://www.retailmenot.com/

Running with Coupons

I did it.  I entered the Country Music Half Marathon held on April 24th, 2010.  I've been talking about it since I broke my sesamoid and had to bail on my half marathon training during college.  I'm really stoked and wanted to share my goal for two reasons:  

1.  to invite anyone who'd like to road trip with me

2.  to help keep myself accountable. 

 I'm registered and paid in full, so if anyone wants to join me, I'm not messin' around!  The official training program starts at the end of January so 'pre-training' begins immediately :-) 

I noticed that the price had jumped quite a bit since last year and the year before (I've been checking the website with apprehension for the past five years it seems) so I did a quick search for "nashville half marathon coupon codes" and found a coupon website for the second time within the past week.  It's called "Retail Me Not" and I've now used it twice - once for an Adobe Digital Edition of The Road and now for the half marathon.  It saved me two dollars off of my ten dollar book and TEN dollars off the price of the race.  I highly recommend checking this site out if you're buying anything online.  It rates the coupon codes with a success rating and allows you to give feedback about whether or not it worked for you.  I figure, it can't hurt to try a code and I don't feel bad about taking advantage because they are published publicly somewhere and compiled onto one site for easy access so I don't have to search high and low for them.  

Here's the URL if you're interested:  http://www.retailmenot.com/

Happy running and shopping :-) 

Snowperson

We got to see our first snow since we moved into our house and it was accompanied by two snow days - today and tomorrow. I love a good snow as long as the only plans it ruins are plans to go to school. After sleeping in for a bit, a light breakfast and some reading in front of the fireplace, I left Matt inside to nurse his injured back while I tackled my first ever snow-covered driveway.

The pseudo-country kid that I am, I never had to shovel or mow. This was work for manly men and tractors. Both immediate neighbors had some high school students use a snow blower to clear their drives for $15 bucks. I know this because one of them is currently my student and he came to my door while I was still in my robe to ask if I would enjoy the same service. #1. Embarrassing. #2 No way. Snow blowers are for wussies and this is a right of passage I felt I must endure. So for an hour today, while kids everywhere made snowmen and snow angels, I played with the shovel and made clearing a driveway women's work :)