At the start of the year Melinda and decided that it was time for us to start eating right and begin working out. Melinda gets her exercise via Just Dance for Wii and I try to get to the gym three-four days a week so right now I am on the hunt for the best running shoes for men.

I have a few pairs of running shoes but when I was walking the tread mill the other day they weren’t as comfortable as I would have liked them to be. Typically I wear New Balance and to date they haven’t failed me but the problem here is that they are just old. I read that you are supposed to buy new running shoes every six months and I know for sure that they are way older than that. The other obstacle here is price. Good quality running shoes that you want to last the six months aren’t exactly cheap and if they are you are running a chance that they may not last or feel that great on your feet.

I have been looking online as well as in stores to try and get the best deal possible that I can get because I figure I will be wearing them an hour or so a day three to four times a week so I need to be 100% sure that they are comfortable.

Save some change; Eastbay coupons are always available for running shoes.

Do you wear running shoes? What brand do you wear and do you like them?

As a man I find wedding fun to a certain extent. Meaning I like the food, drinks and then desserts and cake. The one thing that I hate about weddings is looking for wedding gifts.

I feel like Melinda and I are pretty laid back and simple so finding a gift for us would be pretty easy. Something bike riding related for me and something home/kitchen related for Melinda and BAM you just got us the perfect gift.

Unfortunately not everyone is simple like Melinda and I and take a lot more planning and this is where I fall on my face because I don’t have the know-how or concept of wedding gifts. To me a toaster, mixer or even cash seem appropriate but I see people listing china, silver flat wear and this is where my head starts to spin. Thankfully Melinda is a pro at this and usually steps in and takes over. Over the years we have taken the time to go out and purchase a gift and for the last few wedding we even went online and bought a gift. Shopping online for wedding gifts is the way for me because you never need to leave the house and just about everything you can think of is out on the web which is a huge time saver.

I remember when I was the best man in my friend’s wedding he gave me a flask for being in his weeding and to be honest I thought that was an awesome give. Simple, easy and extremely functional but something that I will keep forever. Now to be honest I have only used the flask once but that is something that never gets dated and something that I will always have.

When you attend a wedding do you buy a gift or give cash? Also, do you prefer shopping for the gift online or going to the store?

With everything going on in today’s society I can understand why so many people experience depression. Adults have to work longer and harder in order to keep their jobs and kids need to work harder than ever in school so that they can further their education and become successful adults.

More women are experiencing postpartum depression and it seems like more people than ever are on anti depression medication. It’s not hard to believe that depression is so rampant in this country with everything that is going on in the world. It seems like every time I turn on the news it is nothing but bad news. People getting killed, unemployment and the list goes on and on. I typically don’t watch the news and when I actually did turn on the news I see a report about the Costa Concordia hitting a rock and now approximately 29 people are missing.

I know it seems like I am being a Debbie Downer and trust me I am not and all I am saying is I can see why it is so easy for people to be depressed and unhappy when a lot of things around us aren’t exactly happy go lucky.

It’s the new year – did you make any resolutions? If saving money was on your list of things to do in 2012, you’re not alone! Was taking care of your eyes on your resolution list, as well? If not, it should be! So many people wait over two years to get a new pair of eyeglasses and they usually hold off for so long because of the cost.

What if you could save money on a new pair of glasses this year?

Did you know that by shopping for glasses online, you can save up to 70% on a fashionable pair of frames? GlassesUSA.com puts their money where their mouth is – their glasses start from $38 and come with basic single vision lenses. All of it translates into savings for you!

You won’t be getting cheap glasses with GlassesUSA – you’ll be receiving a high quality pair of glasses that comes with a satisfaction guarantee! You can also try their glasses on through their Try-It! Virtual Mirror! All you need to do is upload a picture of yourself to their database or select from one of their models and try on any frame you like!

GlassesUSA also sells multifocal glasses and you can get them on sale! For a limited time, you can upgrade your lenses to progressive lenses and get all three premium coatings for only $45 instead of $110! You’ll get their premium anti-scratch, anti-reflective, and ultra-violet protective coatings for free – all you need to do is select the “progressive lens” option along with the three coatings combination and use the code MultiSave. How easy is that?!

So, this year, stop wasting time and energy worrying about how you’ll pay for new glasses. GlassesUSA makes it really easy for you to save money while you get a great pair of prescription eyeglasses. What are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present to start following through on your resolutions!

This post was paid for and sponsored by GlassesUSA.com.

With it now being 2012 most of us have made New Year’s resolutions. I am assuming the #1 resolution is weight loss and #2 is probably some sort of financial resolution and this is where Nerd Wallet can help you find cash back credit cards.

With 2012 upon us now is the time where we should be reevaluating our credit cards and maybe think about replacing them with lower interest or reward cards. Nerd Wallet allows you to search credit cards by rewards such as travel and gas as well as low APR and balance transfer options. They also show you credit card options for students, business as well as cards for people with bad credit.

I like websites where they have all of your options in one place especially when it comes to credit cards. There are probably hundreds of credit card options and finding the right one on your own would be extremely difficult and very time consuming so Nerd Wallet putting your options all in one place is a real savior.

With just a few selections like what type of card you are looking for, your credit rating, your average spending, length you plan on keeping the card and fee you are ok with paying Nerd Wallet will spit out every card that they feel is a good match for your selections. To me this is a pretty easy site to use so if you are in the market for a new credit card for 2012 Nerd Wallet is the site for you.  Check out the Chase Sapphire Review for tips on turning points into cash.

When I was growing up there were five kids if not more in our house at any one time so my mother used our basement as a long term food storage area that she still uses to this day.

 Now you can understand why my mother would need to do this because out of the five kids there were four boys and teenage boys eat like it is going out of style.  Well, at least me and my brothers did and my mom would always say that she needed emergency food storage just in case because my brothers and I would probably starve otherwise and she was probably right, LOL.  I can remember my brothers and I eating one to two boxes of cereal every morning at breakfast and eating a pack of hotdogs after school.  Now that I think about it this may be the reason why I am not a huge hotdog fan.  That is another post for another time.  

If you are going to store food like my mother did wise food storage is essential.  She had and to this day still has a system where all cans were stacked a certain way and certain items were store with like items.  It was OCD at its finest.  Thinking back my mother used to store enough food to feed an army so there was no way my brothers and I would have ever starved.

I kind of do the same thing now but on a different level as I really don’t have the space to store a lot of extra food but I do what I can with the space I have. In our pantry I do keep multiple items on hand so that I will never run out of any one item and shop in bulk and we even have a chest freezer so we can store a lot of frozen items. Not sure why but I feel more comfortable knowing that I have extra food on hand just in case.

What does your pantry look like?  Do you have a crazy food storage system like my mom has and still has to this day?

About a month ago I bought a new laptop which is the computer I use when I work from home but I still haven’t installed Acrobat CreatePDF on it as of yet and I am not sure why.

It seems like every time I work from home my boss asks for something in PDF format which I was able to do with my old laptop because I had a pdf converter installed but currently I am unable to do it until I get it installed on my new laptop.  I know what you are thinking you want to know why I don’t just take the ten to twenty minutes that it will take to install it and to be honest I have no answer for you.  I have been extremely busy in the office as well as at home and in the last month or so I haven’t worked from home at all so there has been no urgency on my part to get the pdf converter installed.

I wonder if my boss has a pdf converter because she is always asking me to convert the documents she needs.  Either way I need to get on it ASAP before the New Year so if and when I do work from home the next time I will be prepared.

I got a really cool opportunity from a sponsor recently. This particular PR rep’s client liked my review so much that they want to add it to their advertising in their storefronts. How cool is that, a blurb written by me on a real live store. She emailed me and asked if I could send her a PDF of the review. I was instantly confused I mean I know how to take documents from PDF to Word but I don’t know how to do it the other way around. I asked around Twitter-land and was told it was really simple I just needed Acrobat.com. I don’t have that, not that I know of.

Anyway, she got back to me and said she can do it herself she just needed my ok. I figured it would be really cool advertising for LookWhatMomFound…and Dad too!. Even if 1 person comes here and reads something funny or enters a giveaway isn’t that worth it? One new reader is better than no new readers, right.
Blogging to me isn’t about getting famous or having 1 million page views a month. Blogging has always been about sharing cool stuff with you guys and giving you a peek into the chaos and joys of our life.

A few years back I worked with a guy who kept a lot of freeze dried food on hand for that just in case moment.  He was Mormon and told me it was necessary for him to keep about 6 months of food on hand for emergency preparedness and at the time I thought that was weird.

Thinking back I can understand why he wanted to be self sufficient when it came to food but he must have had a huge food storage area.  Melinda always laughs at me for keeping extra food on hand.  Don’t get me wrong we don’t have 6 months worth of food but we could probably go about a month.  If we have four jars of spaghetti sauce in our pantry and we use one or two the next time I go shopping I make sure to replenish our sauce supply.

I know that is weird but there is nothing worse than using the last of an item and not having another one just in case.  I like going to the grocery store once a week so I guess being so nuts about our food allows us to do that.  I am not sure where I got this trait from because my parents are like that but I am and we even have a chest freezer that we fill with bulk items from our local BJ’s wholesale club.

Maybe I am nuts but I like knowing that I have extra food on hand just in case I need it.

Do you keep extra food on hand?  If so how long could you live off of your food supply?

We live in Newark, Delaware but we do border Elkton Maryland which tends to be a little on the hick side. Don’t get all mad and what not because to me there is nothing wrong with that because my own father leans more towards the hick side. I just find this way of living and thinking interesting to say the least.

The other day I was at the Super Wal-Mart in Elkton when I heard what sounded like a train horn. Living in this area and shopping at this same Wal-Mart for the last 1.5 years I realized there were no train tracks close and after closer examination I realized that sound was coming for a large pickup truck. I am guessing the owner of the pickup truck was researching how to take his hickness to the next level and stumbled upon train horns for trucks and then decided a train horn kit was exactly what would make his truck 100% worthy.  It is kind of cool because I am sure you could force traffic out of your way with this type of horn but it just isn’t something I would install on my car.

Again, I am not judging I just find these kinds of things interesting.

Just thought I would share this information with you.  Ever see or heard a train horn on something other then a train?