The summer of motherhood

Elijah gets out of school on June 5th. I am frantically still trying to figure out what to do with him. He usually goes to Florida and visits with my family, but this year is my year to pay and me and Bud can't simply afford it. I was going to get a job and put him in daycare for the summer but I've been looking at the places around here and it really will not be affordable. Basically I can spend between $110-$190 a week plus $25-$50 registration fee and I will not feel guilty about putting him in daycare because he will be going somewhere at least twice a week like going swimming once a week and other things the city provides for kids over the summer in addition putt-putt and movies or I could spend $65-$90 and no registration fees and he will stay with an unlicensed provider and stay at their house watching TV and maybe play outside which is no way to spend a summer. So in rides the guilt. How do I plan a fun summer without spending too much money and let him still have fun?

The solution...Mommy Camp.

What is Mommy Camp you ask?

It is the answer to me not feeling guilty. I took my skills as the forever college student combined them then, asked myself the question: what if I do decide I want to become a teacher when I graduate? So I decided to make my child my first student. So tentatively we will go about finding things the city has planned like puppet shows and summer reading programs, taking advantage of the $2 movies at the theater, free books I ordered from random US Governmental Agencies and Universities and creating lessons about the various topics presented in the books, I also ordered travel guides from various national attractions e.g The Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park to see if my son could plan the perfect vacation.

Also I will attempt to fine tune his cooking and cleaning skills and teach him budgeting.

Mommy camp is loosely organized right now and I would like to find a friend or two for him to bring along so its not just me and him everyday. I was thinking about signing him to join the Texas Rangers Junior Rangers Fan Club its only $15 and it comes with all of this:

• A Jr. Rangers drawstring backpack
• A Rangers cap
• Temporary tatoos
• Ticket vouchers for eight (8) select home games in the Lexus Club Terrace
• Coupons redeemable at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington
• 15% off a Rangers merchandise in the Majestic Grand Slam Gift Shop (some restrictions apply)
• Invitations to "Members Only" Jr. Rangers events
• VIP "Front of the Line" acces every Sunday afternoon for Run the Bases...No waiting!

I have no doubt I will stick to this but I just hope we do not drive each other crazy with all of our "quality" time.

Save some green

Right now I am on this saving money kick. I am learning the lingo of the truly frugal ones. So if anyone is curious about saving money I will give you a few links to print coupons off the net:
http://www.coupons.com
http://www.redplum.com
smartsource.com

Another thing I have been into is freebies. Right now Bert Bees is celebrating their 25th aniversary and as a result the people benefit. Everyday for the next 25 they are giving away 1,000 of their lip balms between 9am and noon.

That is all for now but when I get better at this I hope I can share some more of my evolution with you!!!

My first post

I am starting this blog to chart my journey through life. I am 29 years old and everyday I change the direction my life is going. In my head I have mapped out the person I want to be and she too changes. I want to save money, get healthy, be a better mom, be a great wife, save the world, be good to the environment, teach my dogs some tricks, be more organized, etc, etc.