There is nothing worse than being a single parent at a family wedding. First, you have your mother who is trying to set you up with the single maid of honor. Which doesn’t sound like a bad thing, except you try to explain to your mother that you actually baby sat the maid of honor and your niece (the bride) when they were younger. Despite the fact that the maid of honor was hot, I still couldn’t get the picture out of my head of when she was nine and playing with my niece in my sister’s back yard.

Ok, so we know that a decent day at a major museum can exactly do what we are trying to avoid here. I recently discussed with a spokesperson for the Field Museum in Chicago the ridiculous ticket price of more than $20 per person, in addition to $15 for parking, and was told that the museum felt its prices were “very competitive”.

Fine. But there are plenty of places out there that promise fun and education for much less money, sometimes even for free.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has released the most popular baby names for 2008. Jacob won the honors for the tenth time in a row for boys and Emma surpassed the usual favorite Emily, which held the title of the most popular girl name from 1995 to 2007.

Gee, we were just greeted by Christmas decorations in our local department stores. Yup, it’s the time of the year again. Get ready for the annual frenzy and long lines for the hottest Christmas toys. With the help of Amazon.com and product rating services, we are regularly publishing a list of the hottest toys to help you sort through the most popular products every month. Here is our Top 10 for October.

With Halloween ante portas, what weekend fun tip would you expect? Of course, we would suggest something scary: There is a wealth of information about haunted places in the United States on the Internet, some of which are enticing enough to be explored.

You really don’t need to do much more than open your web browser, select one of the many haunted places websites and pick a few haunted places in your area. If you haven’t looked into this topic before, I am sure you will be surprised how many of those locations might be close to you.

Children who are leaving their home to live somewhere else is a dramatic step not just for the children themselves, but for the parents as well, especially if they are singles. Think about it: You have longed for the free time from fighting children, laundry, nursing the sick one at home, or demanding husbands who were having a bad day which made us exhausted.

Now you have the energy and time so let’s begin the wish list. Here are Natalie’s ideas what to do with your time.

There are plenty of weekend activities that will not cost you a small fortune. Every week we will post an idea for single parents how to spend quality time with your children without worrying about a huge expense. Our first idea is not only cheap, but you can actually make money on it: Clean out your closets, drawers, basement and have a garage sale.

A garage sale can be a fun activity, especially if you get your kids involved. Have them go through all of their old clothing, toys, books, CDs, movies, etc. Put everything in a designated place and decide what you want to sell.