picture from Globalimages.net

I lived the first 30 years of my life in a little town called Dalton, GA. Didn’t really even know anything else ever existed. In 2000 my husband and I moved our family to Louisville Kentucky for him to attend school. We fell in LOVE with our new town. We fell in love with it so much that we tried to move away and with in 2 years we were back.

There is so much to do in Louisville.  I wanted to share with you why I think you should carve out sometime in your life to come to Louisville and enjoy my town.

This is Derby country and our city has the flavor of fancy hats, southern charm and mint juleps but there is so much more to our city.  So much rich history and fun activities.

The Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory.   If you head west on Main street, you will not miss the HUGE bat that is all one solid piece leaning up against a building.  This is the Louisville Slugger Museum and where they make the bats that supply the baseball players all over the world.  You can actually tour the factory and watch them being made.  When you finish the tour, everyone gets souvenir bat to take home.

Churchhill Downs & the Kentucky Derby Museum.   This is what the city is best known for.  Horse racing.  It is a beautiful place to visit and to watch the horses race.  You can get so close to the horse and it is amazing to see the strength and size of them.   At the museum, you can learn the history of the derby and the races.  To get into the races it is actually a very inexpensive thing to do (they make their money off of betting). We enjoy going down to the track and watching the races and only spending about $5 to do so.  We never bet because we know we will loose.

The Brown Hotel.  In the 1920′s the Brown Hotel was the rip roaring place to be.  Still today it holds that flare and elegance.  This is the place to get the original Hot Brown to eat.  If you have not tried a Hot Brown, you are missing out.  The Brown Hotel is a wonderful place to go and have lunch, dinner and if you want, you can splurge and spend the night.  Such a beautiful place.

Louisville Stoneware & M.A. Hadley Stoneware.  The artisan district of Louisville is large.  These two pottery places, I am sure you have heard of. They are distributed all over the world.  Both have been in business since before the 1920′s.  You can visit these locations and help design your pottery, create a one of a kind. or just pick up some pieces that are in the gift shops.

Waterfront Park.  This is a huge open field right at the Ohio river.  It is a great place to picnic, walk , play ultimate Frisbee, ride 2, 3 or 4 person bikes that can be rented or play on the play grounds.  There are restaurants in walking distance. The park has summer concert series to enjoy.

We have several sport venues.  Louisville Bats Field that host the minor league Reds team, the YUM Center that host the Louisville Cardinals Basketball and other events, and the Skate Park.

We have wonderful communities with open air dinning, shopping and AMAZING coffee shops.  {Favorite to this day…. Quills Coffee, a must have cup of java}

Come visit my city. I think you will fall in Love with it too!

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This past weekend we celebrated the kick off of the 138  Derby with Thunder over Louisville. It is a huge airshow and fireworks show.  It is a great day and sets the tone for the next two weeks.

If you have never experienced Derby season in Louisville, I invite you to come and enjoy. Parties through out the two weeks, celebrities all over the city, and the best is the chow wagons at Water Front Park.  ( Fair food! )

The day of derby houses through out the city will be full of people enjoying the day of races.   And when you have a lot of people together you have wonderful foods.

One of my favorite Derby day is the Kentucky Derby Cheese Torte (This torte sells for around $40 around Derby Time) and the Derby Pie.   These two are my favorites that I look forward to eating each year.

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Adpropo is a brand new social and entertainment site that allows consumers to have fun, receive value, and collaborate with brands – when and where they expect it.  Adpropo asked consumers how YOU feel about ads, something that doesn’t show up very much in all the research around online ads!

Adpropo is in its beta phase, testing out some different ways to provide fun & games with brands.  There are four main elements of the site:

PLAY: Live online Treasure Hunts for cash and prizes, games, contests and more.  

SHARE: Idea Labs encourage consumer interaction and collaboration with brands.  A Message Center allows consumers to sign up for the brands that matter to them and then receive info within a designated on-site Inbox.  

WIN: Incentives include virtual points, cash prizes, gift cards, and support of great charities based on participation.  As the site expands, so will the prize and support opportunities.

CHANGE:  adpropo is all about changing how consumers learn about brands (to a better way for the consumer).  Plus, by tying cause support to activity, adpropo would like to change the world!

How can you check it out?

• Sign up for adpropo at www.adpropo.com.
• Check out the list of Treasure Hunts by clicking on that tab – those are the most interactive and have the biggest prize opportunities!  Sign up early for any that you can make – they all happen LIVE and online, and registration closes at Go time.

• Go onto the detail page and click the red Register button (you have to be logged in to the site)
• Read the information provided 
• Show up a couple minutes early to make sure your clock isn’t different than the site clock – and to review details and make sure you are set to go.
• The next two Treasure Hunts are scheduled for:
• April 18th at 9 ET for $1,500 in giveaways “For the Ladies”
• May 2nd at 9 PM ET for $1,500 in giveaways “It’s the Guys’ Turn”

(Keep your Facebook  page open to adpropo because some trash talk / updates might just break out during the events!)

Go to the Games section and try out the picture puzzles and trivia challenges.  The Idea Lab is the place for sharing ideas and feedback – the site is brand new, so help get some conversations flowing.

The founder is looking for feedback and ideas, so feel free to email her at consumerconnection@adpropo.com.

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Adpropo is a new site that is still in it’s beta stage that provides away for you to have fun playing games and allows you to interact with different brands.  What is awesome about this getting signed up at the beginning a new site, you get to help mold the site and share what you like about it and don’t like about it.

There is several elements to Adpropo that is fun and rewarding.

PLAY: Live online Treasure Hunts for cash and prizes, games, contests and more.  

SHARE: Idea Labs encourage consumer interaction and collaboration with brands.  A Message Center allows consumers to sign up for the brands that matter to them and then receive info within a designated on-site Inbox.  

WIN: Incentives include virtual points, cash prizes, gift cards, and support of great charities based on participation.  As the site expands, so will the prize and support opportunities.

CHANGE:  adpropo is all about changing how consumers learn about brands (to a better way for the consumer).  Plus, by tying cause support to activity, adpropo would like to change the world!

The next treasure hunt is coming up  & you will have a chance to win up to $1500 in money and prizes.  It is a fun event and you learn a lot about different brands as you are playing.

Jump over to Adpropo and find out more about this site.

Some of the links in my post may contain affiliate or paid links, you can read disclosure  policy here.  I don’t in no way try to influence my readers in any way that I don’t see is beneficial to me or to my readers. 

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If you are single and dating or married and having a date night with your spouse, it can get expensive.  Dating is very important because it is intentional times of getting to know that special person better but it doesn’t have to be expensive every time.  Save the expensive dates for special occasions.

Gregg and I have made it a habit to date every week.  One way or another, take time to intentionally get out and be one on one, face to face and enjoy our time together.  How we dated over the years looked different according to the stages of life that our family was in, but we have always held that as a priority in our marriage to keep dating.   The seasons of desert that I look back on in our marriage, I can see that we were not dating and connecting so I value this time highly with my mate.   Singles, keep dating, it is a preparation of dating after marriage.

With all that said, dating is expensive if you are not careful.   Here are a few things we have learned over the years to make it still fun, exciting and not a bank breaker.

• No material expectations when going out on a date.  Get into the frame of mind that it doesn’t matter where you are on the date, what matters is that you are setting aside this time to just be together.  This will take the pressure off of each other to try and please with material things. (nice restaurants, gifts, flowers, etc)
• Make a list of places you have not seen in your town or city.  Museums, city parks, out door theater, amusement parks, etc.   Check with your city calendar and see what events are coming up.  Our city has wonderful outdoor events all the time and some of the time it is free or discounted.  An outdoor concert at a park with a picnic supper can be one of the most romantic dates and it would be just the cost of picking up fast food or packing food from home.
• Start a hobby together.  This could be a date night by working on that hobby together.  Maybe the hobby is playing tennis, running, grilling out together, hunting, reading.  I love to go and just browse at a bookstore and so does Gregg, plan a night out to just go to the bookstore and get a cup of coffee.
• Find coupons.  Local papers, mail, Groupon , Living Social or even call the location and ask about coupons.  This is a great way to get to go somewhere that might be out of your price range.
• Have a plan. It doesn’t have to be minute by minute but know where you are headed.  If you don’t have a plan, you will end up spending more money than expected.

One of our fun dates that we enjoy and it is free.  We have a minor league team in our town and after the 5th inning or 6th inning, the gates are open.   I will look online and see when the baseball game is going to have fireworks after the show and we will go catch the last part of the game and enjoy the fireworks.  We have done this for the past several seasons and love it.  We watch just enough baseball for what we enjoy and get to see a great fireworks show by the river all for FREE.  One year, we were sitting in the drizzling rain, and I think that was my favorite memory of going to the ball park.  Make a memory.

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My sister Paula is going back to Romania this year.  She has been many times and has worked with the people of Romania. She and her group travels to specific locations and shares the love of Christ with them.

This year she is selling a decal that she designed to help raise money for the trip.  For $2 you will get a 2″ decal that will fit on your mirror, car window, backpack or even on your laptop lid to remind you that where ever you are, sharing Jesus should be your priority.

Help this team raise the money needed to go back and continue the ministry with the people of Romania by purchasing 1, 2, 5, 0r many.  You can either email me at thethriftygeek@live.com  and we will mail them to you with a return envelope or simply click on the paypal button below this post and pay with your credit or debit card.  $10 or $20 dollars might not be much to you but when you put it together with many, it becomes an impact.

Thank you for you desire to see the world impacted for Christ.

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I love Lecrae.  Enjoy this Wednesday morning with this reminder of how to walk through life.

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Does your family love March Madness like my family does?  You can print off the NCAA bracket and enjoy a friendly competition in your home of picking the teams to win.

Family Fun without spending any money.

Enjoy!

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UPDATE: Ok, have you heard “you are just like your mother”  I have one to tell you that this will make you want to say that.  This morning my daughter calls me.  She is heading into work and says, ummmm mom, you don’t want to get that tattoo.  Me:  Why?  Daughter: Because I got that same one over winter break.  Me:  Oh!  That is awesome!  Neither one of us had shared with each other that we liked this one.  Neither one of us had a tattoo before.   I think this tattoo is beautiful for one main reason.  Over this past year I have had to let go of loved ones in my life and let them fly.  My daughter moved into her own apartment in August, My son moved away to college in August and my mom moved her permanent residence to heaven in October.  I feel like a part of me has scattered into three different places and watching my children spread their wings have been wonderful to watch.

I consider it an honor for people to tell me that I am just like my mother and now I am seeing my daughter start to become some of me even through she is a replica of her father.  :)

Maybe this is not meant for me to get but to enjoy knowing my daughter is expressing herself and carrying a little of me with her.  Who knows…. we might have matching tattoos one day.  (don’t worry dad, I am still scared of needles & pain)

Original post :I love this tattoo. I found it on Pinterest from a site called We Heart it I have always said I wanted my eyeliner tattooed but I have ran across this one an d i have fallen in love with it.   I am 42 years old and I honestly can say the only thing that is keeping me from getting it is the disappointment that my father would have in me.  It would kill him if I got one.

I really don’t think my husband would care and he might even like it.  He isn’t a tattoo kind of guy but he doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

I think I would do only two birds to represent my two children flying.  Spreading their wings and taking on the world.   I like the placement of the tattoo.

What do you think?  What is your opinion of a tattoo?

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