All posts by The Natural Mammas

A New Spin On Black Friday

How’s this for “Black Friday” deals – Free black and black and white cats!  That’s what was going on at one of our local animal shelter today; so we went there instead of the local big box store or mall for an excellent Black Friday deal.  Here he is, Mr. Black Friday cat (aka Harry) to the left!

We have two other natural pets that are both from animal shelters as well and it really is so easy and wonderful to adopt a pet from an animal rescue organization.

As for Harry, we decided we’d like to explore getting another cat awhile ago but just hadn’t found the right opportunity.

Then, we heard about a special event one of our local animal shelters was having for  “Black Friday” and every other Friday in November; adult black, and black and white cats are free while black kittens and dogs are up for adoption with reduced rates.

Why black cats?  According to many shelters black colored pets are adopted far less often than their blond, grey, white or other colored brethren.  Yet, like everything else in life – it’s not the color that matters, it’s the spirit inside.

We were drawn to the special “sale” because we had a dear black cat (a stray my husband found and brought home) many years ago who was killed by a car.  My hubby, boys and I still hold a soft spot for all those black felines out there.  So, when we heard about this it seemed like a great event, at the right time, plus, the two older kids were of school for the day so they could come along with our youngest and I to pick out our new furry family member.

When we got to the shelter there were lovely cats everywhere!  So many were friendly and happy and just so sweet.  We pet all those we could but, did focus on the black freebies!

Then we saw him.  The coolest cat in the cave!  He was hanging out but not running around and just looked so awesome.  I picked him up and he just molded right to my shoulder.  Then he let the boys hold him….and that was it!  He was already neutered too as were all those cats that could go home today since spaying and neutering is such an important part of keeping animals out of shelters.

All we had to do was fill out a bit of paperwork and he was ours along with a bag of his food (so its easier to switch him over to the type of food we feed the cats) and a free vet checkup to boot!

It was fun, easy and although it was a bit sad we couldn’t take all the pets home, we’re glad to be offering a “furrever” home to at least one of them.

I simply can not recommend adopting a rescue pet enough.  So many cats, dogs and other pets need a home and, not only do you give them the gift of a new life filled with love – you get a new best friend!

Greening The School Lunchbox On a Budget (& Dad’s too!)

classic school lunchboxI am probably what you would call a born again natural mamma.  At one point early in life I was way more natural than I am today and at some point in between I indulged in many modern conveniences with a tiny bit of admitted disregard.  Being able to admit this is the first step to recovering some dignity.  One arena in our house that was hard to wrestle back into shape was the lunch packing department and my struggle continues even today.

For the longest time, well for about 5 years, it was only my hubby and me and he packed his cooler everyday with weird blue ice packs from the freezer, plastic sandwich bags galore and usually a boat ton of soda (cause he used to be a soda fanatic).  These were those aforementioned years of modern and wasteful conveniences that I or more representatively, we indulged in.   I never paid much mind to the way he was filling his own lunchbox.

Once we had our first born, I started to notice what we were using and even more importantly what we were wasting money on to pack lunches and snacks.  Immediate changes were made.  We purchased stainless steel canteens for water, gave up soda, saved containers to re-use and eliminate the need for plastic bags and just made adjustments to do better by ourselves, our wallets and the environment.

We improved upon our lunch packing skills as the years, but here we are 5 years after our first was born and she is heading off to school each day with a packed lunch and once again, I was faced with challenges of keeping waste down, lunch items cold and a new added twist of dealing with “image” in the lunchroom.  I am using “image” for lack of a better word, but we all know kids can be cruel and when you are on your first solo socialization adventure the pressure can be a bit much at times and lunch shouldn’t be one of those times.

I have been looking around at options to better green our lunch process for our Kindergartener.  For starters, she likes her lunch cold.  If her organic yogurt is warm, she won’t eat it.  So, I didn’t really want to go with those weird lunch ice packs filled with, well actually I don’t know what is inside of them, so I discovered that I could make cute little tubes filled with dried feed corn (kind of like a corn bean bag?) that when frozen keep their cool long enough to keep her lunch chilled; easy enough.

stainless steel lunchbox containersNext was finding the right containers for holding snack size portions.  We pack a lot of organic black olives, grape tomatoes, baby carrots and other live fruits and veggies as well as rice snack mixes, yogurts and the occasional natural cheese puffs.  So the trouble with re-using product containers and packing a lunch box is size.  To get a lot of snacks into a manageable size lunch bag, your containers have to be the right size.  We did buy some BPA free plastic small Tupperware and they work well.  In my search though I did come across these stainless lunch containers, from Eco-Lunchbox, that are pretty cool too.  For us they weren’t in the budget at the time, but I still go back and look every now and again.

The next goal was to find reusable bags for some snacks to fill in those spaces between containers, but still not use plastic.  After the first round of pricing, I was like okay…guess we’ll be making those and I found these great instructions for making reusable snack bags.  But as a work from home mom, the time to craft my own never arrived so I finally broke down and looked again and found some that I really like and I think are reasonably priced on Etsy.

That is all the further I have come, so far.  I am sure there is more I could be doing.  So share your thoughts on greening the lunch packing experience and I guess I never said that we already use a cloth lunch bag and actually I still have my cloth lunch bag from when I was in school.  It is a totally rockin’ 80s design, but I couldn’t convince my daughter to use it.  For now, be green with lunch on the scene!

Planning Meals In Advance Helps You Eat Naturally For Less And Other Benefits Too

what's for dinner? sign for eating naturallyLets face it.  Food is expensive; often even more so when you’re trying to eat naturally.  Price is even a large reason many people give for not being able to buy the organic fruits, veggies and other foods they’d like to purchase otherwise.  This means we’ve got to make the most of each and every item we buy.

For me, one of the ways I try to do that is meal planning.  When I’m on my game, I plan the whole month at the beginning.  It doesn’t always happen because sometimes, I just can’t get it together….but when I do it helps save money on the food budget in several different ways.

  • Ingredients aren’t wasted or mistakenly unused
  • Less trips to the store
  • Buying only what we need – no distractions!
  • Able to get dry goods in bulk
  • Making better use of leftovers and extra ingredients
  • I know what’s for dinner each night so feel less likely to come up blank or unprepared, cave,  and just have Hubs bring home take out : )

All you need to do is sit down with a blank calendar (there are many possibilities here from paper to online programs), along with some cookbooks and other sources for meal ideas and come up with a plan for the month.  Its a nice way to be sure to incorporate some of everyone’s favorites, and, you can even consider side dishes and other options for being sure there’s something for everyone at every meal time.

From there all that’s left is to create grocery lists so that you can pick up all the ingredients you’ll need each week.  Then you can easily schedule ingredient prep accordingly too and make cooking even easier!

With this trusty calender full of meals and snacks you’ll get more variety in what the family eats, meals are easier and healthier and, don’t forget that lower grocery bill each week; which can make it more affordable to eat naturally.

Do you ever plan your meals?  How do you go about deciding what to eat and creating your meal plan and grocery lists each week?  Any other tips to help us all eat naturally for less?  Share it all here by leaving a comment and getting the discussion rolling!