Scattered Sundays and Meal Plan for February 20th – 26th

I watch my nephew before and after school. He watches TV when he gets here in the morning, and since we don’t technically have cable, he has been watching various series through Netflix and Hulu. The one he is currently enjoying is Magic School Bus.

Quick question: where in the hell is this school district? Seriously, a field trip every day? A teacher who makes enough money that she can constantly have costumes and activities for the kids? I want to go there. Minus the whole bus that would likely put my kids in dangerous situations, and a serious lack of adult chaperones.

Hear that sound? The silence? The no “click” sound? It’s me feeding Bennett in a NORMAL bra. Ditching the nursing bra at one year has been so freeing and lovely. Oh the opportunities it opens up for outfits. And cuteness.

Know what’s equal parts creepy and sweet? This family that puts their cats in “runs” on nice days? I see them when I take walks, and I always do a double take.

We had Valensgiving on Wednesday, and it was lovely. It was a mix of the day after Valentines and months after Thanksgiving. It brought together family, and used up our frozen Thanksgiving turkey. Finally. And, it gave Troy an opportunity to reenact a very famous movie scene.

Remembering Valentine’s day was coming up after declaring No Spend February, we had to get creative. My card to Troy:

Thankfully for Jack’s school party, I recalled the giant Costco container of mini play dohs we had bought around Halloween. I looked online for some label ideas, but once they said things like “use your circular scrapbooking cutter”, I was OUT. I may not know paper crafts, but I do know mail merge, so 30 seconds and a Word document later, and we had “Doh you want to be my Valentines. Happy Valentines from Jack” on an Avery label.

J bone said they were a hit with the kids. Also, I think my hands get creepier each month.

So…I’ve been thinking about doing a series on the blog. I want to showcase small businesses and entrepreneurs. Here. For you all. You know I love to support local businesses when possible, and am tickled whenever I can find something rad that is made locally. We’ll define local as the North American region.

I want to give back and be able help out our readers. So, if you have an Etsy shop, a small service company, or something cool like that, please email me! I’ll send a few questions for you to answer, and we can maybe work together to get your biz out to a broader audience.

As with anything that sounds fun, I have to put a damper on some things. One, I am only looking for self-owned businesses that you didn’t have to buy in to in order to sell things – so no essential oils, candles, or whatever. I have had negative experiences with blog commenters fighting over which oils are the best and why the other person’s stuff is crap, and I don’t wish to engage in any multi-level marketing wars. Unique businesses only please.

Also, I don’t personally want anything you make/sell. I don’t want this to look like I am trying to get freebies or handouts. I’m sure your stuff is amazing, but I want to make sure I am above board on this. If you would like to give away an item or service to a blog reader in a giveaway or something like that, cool. A discount for my readers? Awesome. But no need to share your items with me.

If you are interested, please email me at beingfrugalbychoiceblog at gmail dot com (spelled out here so the robot sensors don’t spam me), and let’s get some fun stuff started!

Meal plan time!

Monday:: Family dinner. It was supposed to be today, but things got mixed up a bit.

Tuesday:: Homemade pan-friend chicken, salad, coleslaw, and biscuits (leftover from family dinner).

Wednesday:: Pasta and salad.

Thursday:: Burgers, onion rings, salad, and leftover slaw.

Friday:: Salmon cakes, salad, and leftover slaw. Jack and Troy are headed to a movie night at Jack’s school.

Saturday:: Popcorn and movie night.

Sunday:: Family dinner.

This week I spent:

$11.12 (the soup was free as part of the Friday Freebies) at Fred Meyer.

And then $4.99 more at Fred Meyer for Jack’s Valentine’s party at school (he was assigned string cheese). No picture.

And then $20.84 more at Fred Meyer.

Did you know that Triscuits only have three ingredients? I always assumed they were crazy processed.

$36.66 at Trader Joes. No photos because Troy picked it all up after work one morning.

$26.95 at Costco.

Smith Brothers Farms (sponsored)

What are you having this week?

Edited: 2-19-17, 5:12 am:  I changed some of the terms for the small business showcase. I posted, read it, and didn’t like a lot of the verbiage. It seemed too much like I was excluding certain groups and people and it needed some fixin! Bottom line, posting too early in the morning made my brain seem like I was an asshole, and I’m sorry for it.