Gearing up... BIG changes ahead

Do you ever have those times in your life when you just NEED a change?!? A change of address, a change of style, a new haircut, a new job? Yeah, well, I'm having one of those times! I need a change of lifestyle! I'm tired of being TIRED. I'm tired of being POOR. I'm tired of BAD HABITS. And mostly I'm tired of feeling completely over-whelmed on any given day with my life! But you know what? I'm not gonna bitch about it, I'm gonna do something. In fact, I'm gonna do a lot and what better time to start than September 1, 2010.

1. After about a month of down time, I will start the kids up with school. This will be the Piggy's first year with "real" school, and the Monkey Man will be cruising into his 5th year of homeschooling (since I started him at 4). He's an old pro now! And lucky for me, he has the ability to be self-directed, doing some independent study while I work with the Little Miss. I'm sure it's going to be a bit of a learning curve for all of us, but especially me. Time management is key and I'm not the best at it!

2. The kids will start all of their activities! Last year I was pretty lax with things, but they are craving more activity and interaction with their core group of friends. So... they will both be participating in a homeschool sport and skate class, Campfire, bowling, and Nature Nights at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center! The Monkey Man will have a monthly science class through the Austin Nature and Science Center as well as weekly science experiments at our local library! The Piggy will take a few of the Nature Center classes as well as a weekly arts and crafts class at the local library! And can I just give a big shout out to my library for offering cool things for my kids FOR FREE! Hooray! We love free! We will definitely be a busy bunch of beavers over the next few months, but that is exactly what they need!

3. I am starting a new menu program to hopefully cut down on our grocery bills!! I admit it, I shop for what sounds good to me at the time, I make sure I have all the staples and I wing it almost every day for every meal! I have a couple of things in mind when I shop, but end up having to go back to the store for little things like cilantro or broccoli or mozzarella cheese! It never fails and it adds up! We have also spent entirely too much $$$ eating out. We are pretty good about eating evening meals at home, but I have planned poorly for outings and errands and have had to grab food on the fly, and there are times I don't plan well for leftovers for Big Daddy to take to work for lunch. It's a huge problem. So not only am I planning for dinners, but lunches and breakfasts as well to hopefully cut back on that unnecessary spending! This is going to take A LOT of planning, and I'm going to have to FOLLOW THROUGH!! It's crunch time and I need to get our monthly budget under control! Mostly since we now have two kids participating in activities that require money and a home business we're trying to launch. Every single dime counts now.

4. This will be the first month implementing our cash only program. From now on, I will budget a certain amount of cash for groceries, kid activities and family entertainment. It is SO much easier to go out and just throw it on the card and deal with it later, which is what bites me in the ass EVERY time! I will now pull cash out every two weeks to deal with the various activities and the groceries. Bills of course, still have to be paid online, but I have those budgeted at this point and know exactly when things will be coming out. One tank of gas per paycheck, unless there is a specific scheduled outing that takes us out of town (like a camping trip or a tour of the Bluebell Ice Cream Factory). So this household is on lock-down for spending for at least the next 6 months to a year! We will have to get a headstart on XMAS shopping this year and get pretty creative with how we pull it off! Fun, fun!

5. Health is a top priority! I will be continuing with my physical therapy as my knees have been feeling SO much better. They're not perfect, but I feel as though I'm not compensating as much and I can climb stairs now with minimal issue!! I NEED to keep this going! My kids deserve to have healthy active parents! I am instituting the evening walk at least 5 nights a week! Big Daddy and I are both on portion control at meals and I'm trying very hard to cut back on the country-cookin' and focus more on healthy choices. I have never fed my family a lot processed, packaged crap, BUT I do have a tendency to fall back on the old stand-by meals that I ate as a kid as they are cheap to prepare and make enough to have leftovers the next day! Maybe it's just time to get creative and re-vamp those meals! I am hoping at some point to purchase bicycles for the entire family. It would be nice to get out and ride the trails! I mean seriously, with Lance Armstrong here, you KNOW Austin has some cool biking trails! Obviously healthcare is expensive so now is the time to get pro-active. The old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" makes SO much sense to me, because honestly, I don't have the time or $$$ to be sick!

6. Burn the TV! Haha! I say this as on the same day I sign up for a free trial membership with Netflix! But we are seriously cutting back on screen time in this house. Obviously a large part of my homeschooling involves the computer and educational programming, but it's the junk TV and games I'm worried about. The kids will each be allowed one hour of screen time a day (they can choose for it to be a movie, the Wii or some non-school related computer time). Once a week we will have a family movie night and Big Daddy and I are going to implement the hell out of the DVR and record the 2-3 shows we love like "Modern Family" and "House" so we can watch late-night TV after the kids are in bed! I'm not saying there can't be exceptions, but night time needs to be family time, not sit-on-our-asses-and-watch-the-boob-toob time! I have a feeling this is going to be the hardest goal of all. My kids are TV watching, Wii playing, computer junkies! And I'll be the first to admit that sometimes all I want to do in the evening is veg on the couch and watch HGTV until I'm damn near comatose, but really? I can't find anything better to do, like read a book or play a game with my kids? We're definitely gonna figure this one out!

Now that I'm reading through this post, these goals seem SO lofty! Is it even remotely possible for me to pull this crap off? I don't know, but the only way we'll find out is if I jump in and try! And since September is the kick-off of our school season, it seems like the perfect time to kick off some smarter, healthier practices in our home. Wish me luck and I'll keep you posted, that is if I don't keel over in the process!!