With my son’s birthday party looming, a live on-air TV fitness demo to pull off and Easter around the corner, I have just a little nervous energy to expel.
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).
With my children’s two-week spring break coming to a close this weekend, I decided to treat them to a day at the Sacramento Zoo. With the budget in mind, four of us (hubby had to work) were able to have a lovely day on less than $40, souvenirs included.
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!
As of last month, all Club Libby Lu shops have been closed. The parent company says the chain was not a money maker for them (really? With the price for a Libby Do?)
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.
Almost all highly-successful businesses today at the very least have a mission statement that not only guides the company in a goal-oriented direction, but also assists the company owners in prioritizing short-term goals and tasks.
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!
We’re Baaaack! Honestly, I don’t know what in the world happened to the site, but the end result is I’ve lost EVERYTHING! And because my main PC — my laptop — is at Hewlett Packard in (dis)repair (and still under the one-year warranty, I might add), I have no idea if I backed everything up or not.
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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