OK, a lot of nervous energy to expel.
More often than not, when I’m feeling anxious, I turn to knitting. Case in point, this cute little Bunny Nugget below!
It only took me a couple of hours to knit and completely assemble the little guy. I found the pattern on Ravelry (if you aren’t a member yet, you have to register first before you can start your pattern hunts).
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]]>How did we do it? Well first, we have a family membership. For the price of what it would cost our family for admission to the zoo three times, we are able to get in for free for an entire year. I think we took advantage of our membership six times this year.
Next expense: Food. We ate lunch before going to the zoo. You can easily drop $40 on lunch at the zoo, so eat before you go. I talk the kids into this by promising a treat at the zoo. This time we all had popsicles to the tune of $2.95 each! It ain’t cheap to eat at the zoo, people!
Have you seen the yellow zoo key boxes around the zoo? The key is around $3.50 and when you insert it into the boxes you learn some interesting facts about the animal you happen to be watching. We bought our key about a year ago and always remember to bring it back with us.
Also, have you seen the cute little animal- shaped sports bottles for the kids? Refills on those are 50 cents. We bought one for each child a year ago, and bring them with us whenever we go to the zoo, so we are not spending $3 per drink. For my family, this saves us $7.50 per trip. Not only that, but we are also reducing our waste by reusing the bottles.
Our total for food was about $17, which included a non-kid drink for me.
Last stop: the gift shop. We could have easily avoided this if it wasn’t in the budget. This time around, though, I gave each child a $5-ish limit. One will spend the whole $5, while another will be way under and the third a little over, but it all evens out. Our total at the gift shop was about $16 after tax. And I had completely forgotten to show my membership card to save an additional 10 percent , too.
If you are keeping score, our total for the day was about $33. Granted, we had initial expenses a year ago that we continue to reap the benefits of. But if you are smart about those things and truly consider your family’s usage of such memberships, you can have some serious cheap entertainment during those months when money’s tight. Don’t forget about science museums and other types of activities, too.
Last tip: save your receipts! The zoo is a nonprofit, so any money you spend there should be a tax writeoff!
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]]>And at just 108 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 1.6 grams of fiber and 4.2 grams of protein per serving, they make a great snack or addition to your breakfast.
Here’s my recipe. Try it yourself and see if you agree.
Flax Fruit Muffins
1 3/4 c whole wheat white flour
4 t sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
12 t ground flaxseed meal
3/4 c plain nonfat yogurt
1/2 c nonfat milk
1 whole egg
1 c frozen fruit, your choice
Preheat oven to 400. Mix all dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients and mix until combined, adding the fruit last.
Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and pour batter evenly in 12 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes, or until muffins are slightly brown.
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]]>I have to say, I’m torn. If that store was around when I was a girl, I would have wanted to live in it. My girls both loved the “pinkness” of it, and had a great time getting a makeover.
But, there is the argument that makeover-type stores geared for girls are encouraging our daughters to grow up too fast.
I definitely see both sides of the makeup aisle. But, for me at least, it comes down to this: My girls are watching and listening to their mama - and forming their own values.
And that cannot be bought nor applied in a 30-minute experience at a pink-a-licious store.
What do you think?
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]]>I’ve been putting off the whole allowance issue for a couple of reasons. My biggest reason is I believe children should not be paid for simply breathing, yet should also be expected to do certain chores as just being part of the family. In other words, we are all a team, and each member is expected to perform certain functions in order to be part of the team (not that we would ever kick a child off our team, but you get the idea).
So what to do? Do you pay your child money for doing the things that are automatically expected of them anyhow? Do we give our children weekly spending money and hope they will learn the value of a dollar at some point? How can we as parents make this whole allowance thing a teachable process?
The solution I have found that is working well in my family is not to give allowances at all, but to give commissions. This concept is based on Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Junior kit and isn’t as complicated as it seems. Here is how we implemented commissions in our household:
- We sat down with each child and established “jobs” that the child was capable of completing easily. For my son, his jobs include gathering soda cans around the house; clearing the backyard of “puppy presents;” cleaning out the minivan; wiping down the bathroom counter; and taking out the trash. Notice I didn’t include keeping his room clean here. Later for that.
- Next, we established a daily pay rate for each job. Most of his jobs will earn him 10 cents per day, but the puppy present job earns more, because, well it’s a gross job, no one wants to do it, and it has to be done. So we pay him a whopping $1 each day he cleans the backyard.
- Finally, according the Financial Peace Junior, there should also be financial penalties, so to speak. So we established that not keeping his room clean, not completing his homework daily and fighting with his sisters were all penalties. He will have to pay us $1 for each penalty. Now, my son is a neat freak, so his room cleaning is not a problem for him, but sometimes he’ll try to slack on his homework and fighting is a daily problem in our house. Since we have instituted this plan, homework is no longer a problem and the peace has been kept, for the most part.
The beauty about commissions is they are only paid when the child completes the work. No work, no money. Just like in real life. So, the child learning the value of money by earning it, the child is still expected to do basic chores that were already expected of him and we are not paying him simply for taking up space in the house.
At my son’s age, this is working great. He is saving his commission, tithing on it and spending a portion of it on things he really wants. My middle child, who is now 6 years old, hasn’t completely grasped things, but she manages to earn about a dollar a week, and she’s proud of it! My youngest, a precocious 4 year old, has decided for now that she doesn’t want to work, and that’s fine too. Someday soon she will.
And when she’s ready, I’ll have some jobs waiting for her.
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]]>As a small business owner myself, I know how easy it is to get wrapped up in the minutia of everyday tasks, and often overlook the tasks that need my immediate attention. The attention-grabbing tasks, once completed, will keep me on track, according to my mission statement. The everyday menial task also should be done, but my time and energy should not be overtaken by it.
So, you’re saying, “OK, what is a mission statement, and why would I need one?” Let me explain.
A mission statement is a sentence or two basically stating a company’s purpose and market. A pet store’s mission statement might look something like this:
Acme Pet Store exists with the goal of providing high-quality pet products at competitive prices to pet owners living in the north Sacramento, CA area. By offering superior customer service and personal attention to each customer, APS will grow in the market through word of mouth, and through its community philanthropy projects.
Now, for the second part of your question: Why in the world would a mom need a mission statement. To answer that, let’s take a look at my rather hectic spring schedule, which I am sure is very similar to yours.
All three of my children are in school (the youngest goes to preschool everyday). My oldest is a cub scout and is playing minor A Little League. My middle child is a daisy girl scout and is playing minor B Little League softball. My youngest is my lazy lima bean, with no Little League and officially a Daisy tagalong.
In addition to running a few websites, I am a certified Jazzercise instructor with 3-6 weekly classes on my plate. My mom runs her own business selling park models, and when winter hits, she runs off to Mexico, leaving me to assist customers and show park models. I also volunteer at my church, and run the media every other month.
My husband is a sports writer for a local newspaper and usually works early afternoon to late evening. In other words, I’m it.
Are you catching my drift? Sound familiar? I knew I wasn’t alone.
The solution to the chaos (and I didn’t even touch the household duties) is a mission statement. A simple sentence or two describing — and ultimately keeping you focused on — your core priorities as a mom. I’ll get you started with mine:
As a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and entrepreneur, my highest goal is to serve God and to follow the plan He has set for me as authentically as I can. In order to achieve this goal, I acknowledge I must daily address my physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, financial and relational health.
See? That wasn’t hard at all! Just by writing it down, I now can see clearly that when I have scheduling conflicts and to do’s are not getting done and I am completely stressing out, it’s because I am not focusing on my mission statement. The more I keep my eye on the prize, the more clearly I can see what tasks, errands, projects, meetings, etc, need to be dropped or delegated to someone else in favor of projects and items that will ultimately lead me to the goal in my mission statement! Refocusing my priorities and letting go of the menial leads to less stress and a happier mommy!
If you are also finding yourself too busy to breathe, give the mission statement a try. Just one sentence. Write it down. Revisit it when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Warning: A side effect to living by your mission statement is the new-found ability to say “No.”
Have you written a mom mission statement? If so, I’d love to see it! Post it here and help other moms find theirs!
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]]>So instead of letting MyMamaSaid.com languishing any further, I decided a major overhaul! If you have reached MyMamaSaid looking for a particular article indexed by a search engine, sorry. All I can say is, bookmark the site, because I will be faithfully adding content back to the site as fast as I can.
So what is MyMamaSaid.com all about? Well, without getting into a rather long history, I’ll just say here that MyMamaSaid started in March 2000 as a hobby. At the time, I had one little boy, nearly a year old. Today, I have three children, and that little boy is now almost 9.
And yes, MyMamaSaid’s namesake does come from that Lenny Kravitz song.
So take a look around, and let me know what you’d like me to add/offer! Comments are gladly accepted and promptly attended to!
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]]>The dough turns out very nice — not too hard, great color and great smell! Try it for yourself, and let me know what kind you made and how you liked it!
Mr. Keye’s No-Cook Play Dough
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon cream of tarter
Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Make sure the water is at a rapid boil. Add food coloring and flavor directly to water, and mix water with dry ingredients. Once mixed, sprinkle some extra flour onto countertop and kneed the dough, adding flour as needed to keep it from getting too sticky. Once the dough has cooled, store in an airtight container.