Frugalista Find: Groupon

I just discovered an awesome website...Groupon!

It's basically a deal-a-day kind of website, with fantastic discounts (frequently 50% savings and up!) on a variety of products and services, anything from helicopter flying lessons to restaurants to spa treatments to yoga to whale watching to...well, you get the drift. AWESOME stuff.

Anywho, Groupon works out these deals with business owners, who agree to it because they know they're reaching thousands of new customers and creating BUZZ for their company. And there's the catch...the deal is only "ON" if enough people (predetermined as part of the deal) participate in the promo. Apparently your mom was right, there IS power in numbers.

Click HERE to see a quick video explaining how Groupon works.

Groupon is operating in numerous cities, including Boston, and was just launched in Providence.

Give it a gander, you might just find something good!

P.S.-On a completely unrelated note, I just saw a commercial for a new show on the National Geographic Channel called Expedition Great White in which a team of fisherman and scientists actually catch great white sharks with a HOOK and haul them out onto a specialized platform to tag them and take biological samples. (Holy cannoli.) I'm definitely going to have to check it out. Premieres June 6 @ 9pm ET (Additional article about the show HERE)

Lovely Lupine

Remember this lupine I had to liberate from the weeds last summer?

Lookie what it's doing this year!

Our buddy Mr. Robin, who has a nest in the nearby rhododendron, apparently wanted to get in on the photo shoot.

Notice the big nasty caterpillar he's snagged. (click to enlarge) Is it just me, or does he look proud?

South Africa Trip!

One of the many reasons for my recent absence from the blogosphere: a 2 week trip to South Africa!

Just like the Paris trip last November, this trip came together rather suddenly, after weeks of trying to put a trip to South America together and not making any progress. I was ready to give up on going on a trip in April and our travelmates had pretty much decided on a "default" vacation to the Caribbean...but Steven (who did not get to go on a trip last year because of his ACL surgery and therefore suffered from the worst case of wanderlust) was all "never say die" and proposed South Africa.

We had plane tickets 2 days later. And flew out of JFK 16 days after that.

Overall it was a great, but exhausting, trip. We spent the first week in and around Kruger National Park doing a "self-drive" safari (read: rent a car and drive around looking for animals) and the second week exploring the Cape Town/Western Cape area. My favorite parts were anything having to do with wild animals...from the game viewing in Kruger to coming face to face (or warm-human-i-have-a-soul eye to cold-soul-less-killing-machine eye) with GREAT WHITE SHARKS off of the South African coast.

I'll blog about the trip some more when we get all our pictures together (and maybe even a video clip or two!), but for now here are some safari shots courtesy of our travel buddies Tom and Robin...

*Rhinoceros crossing the road*

*Lion, as seen through our windshield (!!!!)*

*Spotted Hyena chowing on giraffe bones*

*African Elephant*

Aren't they amazing?