I’ve been bugging Ted Murphy about when next year’s IzeaFest is going to be. Not even a week later and I want to start planning for 2010. Does this give you an idea of how amazing this event was?

Imagine two full days – about 8 hours each – with information on branding, SEO, Twitter, traffic, blogging, marketing, with sessions by Chris Brogan, Sarah Evans, Liz Strauss and a fantastic keynote by Aaron Brazell. Our host, Bob Kodzis, somehow kept it all together. I have no clue how, but I his humor had a lot to do with it. Then add fun like, a seal, sloth, bald eagle and other animals visiting us for lunch, live tweeting that had me trying not to laugh but instead had me snorting, cake plows, and people (me) being turned into ice cream sundaes. There were parties too, which I missed out on, but they sure looked like tons of fun.

Then there were some things that were beyond description like this:

Next year, I know I’ll be there wherever IzeaFest is held and when ever it is. I plan on taking my own breaks during the day so I can party at night. After all I can see the video later from what I’ve missed.

Back to school means birthday parties are starting again. Samantha had her first sleepover last night. Of course I’m thrilled that she’s invited and wants to go, but the birthday gifts can start to get overwhelming financially. Here are some ways to recession proof birthday parties:

Buying Before The Invites

One of my ideas is to buy gifts when they are on sale and store them for birthday parties later on. I try to find gifts that have a general subject manner, like board games, dolls, Webkinz, hardcover books, etc. I also purchase seasonal toys that are on sale. Just this week, I picked up some pool toys that are perfect for pool parties.

Save On Wrapping Gifts

Wrapping paper and gift bags can really add up. I recession proof this area by re-using gift bags that we get. I even save the tissue paper. If it’s ripped up, I tear it up more and use it to line the bags. I either don’t buy birthday cards because most children don’t care about them or I buy them from our 39 Cent Store. There’s even a small section sometimes in Walmart that has 44 cent cards. When I see those, I stock up on a few generic ones.

Just Say No

Sometimes my daughter gets invites to parties that she’s not that interested in. Unless her reasons are unfriendly, she is allowed to RSVP with a “Thanks for inviting me, but I can’t make it.” With tweens birthday parties, there are no rules about giving gifts unless you attend the party.

The Balance

This is my solution to finding a balance between spending too much money on gifts and not allowing my daughter to attend birthday parties. I’m sure that you have other suggestions on saving money. What do you do to recession proof your child’s birthday party attendance?

Samantha is not into anything girly. It was pretty much torture for her to wear a dress to her sister’s wedding (she said that she’d sacrifice and wear it). So when we have a mother and daughter day, it’s not like we go shopping for clothes or get a manicure together. It usually is eating something out, catching a movie or buying something geeky.

Today was an exception though. I can’t share all the details because her friends read this blog, but let’s say that we spent most of our time together in a beauty salon. She did need her bangs trimmed so she’d be ready for school photos, but there was some other stuff that we had done too.

We also went to Publix for a few groceries and then to Subway where she got her favorite turkey sandwich and I got my $5 Cold Cut Footlong.

I’m not getting my hopes up that there will be more days like this. As a matter of fact it doesn’t even matter because we have fun together no matter what we do.

My husband, Shawn is a sports fanatic. It’s sports on radio or TV all day long. He’s not really into computers but I’ve been catching him on my desktop playing games and looking at the Tampa Bucs info. He has a lot of friends who are into fantasy football so maybe learning how to use the computer better will help him feel more confident to play along with them.

If he had the stats and other tools from WaiverWire he’d have a one up on the guys too. This site was built by people that know stats – former Wall Street guys. They love football but were done with finances. Now they would be the ones to know how to analyze scores, players and more.

Shawn doesn’t seem like it, but he is very competitive. When he gets into something, especially if it has to do with football and trying to prove his knowledge of sports, he will fight tooth and nail. WaiverWire.com will provide him with:

• Fantasy football draft software
• Fantasy football news
• Fantasy football analysis
• Fantasy football forum
• Fantasy football research
• Access to over 100 Local NFL team news feeds
• Fantasy football rankings
• Fantasy player comparisons

He’ll be the smartest guy ever with all the knowledge he’ll gain from this site. And then I can brag about him for something else that he can do extra special, well perfect.