People I Follow on YouTube

I confess.  I have an addiction.  Actually, if I was going to be really truthful, I have several.  This one is related to the internet specifically.

I am addicted to YouTube.

I have had said addiction for many years.  Sometimes it's really bad and sometimes I go for long periods of time without it.  Depends on my boredom level.  Due to this addiction, I've picked up a few people on YouTube that I LOVE to follow.  I want to share them with you.

ShayCarl

  

Shay Carl is a dad of 4, married to his beautiful wife Katilette, and is one crazy, awesome guy!  His beard has it's own following.  I mean, really.  That has to tell you something.  He has 3 channels, ShayCarl (creativity channel), ShayLoss (weight loss channel), and Shaytards (daily vlog channel).  Shaytards is the second most subscribed to channel of all time on YouTube and that's the one I like best!  I started watching Shay when he and his family lived in Idaho and he was a radio DJ.  He decided to make YouTube his job and moved the family to L.A. so he could collaborate with other popular YouTubers.  They have since moved back to Idaho but they are still that crazy, energetic family that captures the attention of his 760,000 subscribers.  I love watching the "Shaytard's" everyday lives and in a way getting to know them even if they may never get to know me.  

Nalts

 

Nalts is also a professional YouTuber and he was my very first subscription and the beginning of my addiction.  Kevin Nalts is definitely one of the YouTube pioneers.  Kevin Nalts is also a dad of 4 (let me see if I can remember: Katie, Patrick, Grant, Charlie. Yay!) and is married to Jo, aka WifeofNalts. Nalts is the self-deemed "Viral Video Genius" and has written a book about using online video to help your business called "Beyond Viral Video."  Nalts is famous for his pranks.  Jo has a lot of patience.  I give props to that woman.  In his uploads, he also has a lot of creative work as well as some family fun.  Nalts, like Shay, has more than one channel and the one I like the best is UncleNalts daily vlog channel.  Lots of variety from this man's life.

Rhett & Link

 This channel is a little different than the other two I've listed.  Rhett & Link is not a daily vlog channel.  These guys are all creativity.  They've made CDs with their crazy songs and even had their viewers help them design a real 'mythical' shoe!  They also make hilarious 'commercials' for local businesses around the U.S.  They have some of the most inventive and well-done videos on YouTube.  These are some of my favorites from them:  Drive-Thru Folk Song. You HAVE to see it.  The Taco Bell guy deserves a raise.  Another one I like from them is Kid Dumbbells which is just kid & dad heart-melty-goodness!  Also, you may have seen a McDonald's commercial they did based on this video called T-shirt war.

 Kandee Johnson

Kandee is a bubbly, bold, and sweet mother and professional make-up artist.  Her videos are mainly make-up and beauty tutorials.  She has a wide range of looks for you to try out.  She talks make-up tips and tricks, hair care, beauty products, and inner beauty.  She never fails to tell her subscribers that they're beautiful, and even though I don't know her personally she still manages to make me feel special.  Kandee, like most of the other popular YouTubers, has two channels and I am subscribed to both.  One is mainly make-up and beauty stuff.  The other was recently the headquarters for her pregnancy videos!  She had a beautiful baby girl in January and even shares her story about her first home birth experience.  Kandee is the perfect self-esteem pick me up.

So, those are some of my favorite people to follow on YouTube.  Someone else I recommend checking out is 10000 Pennies who does political math.  His illustrations are fun and easy to understand.  Anyways, take some time and check these people out! 

E-Mealz

 

That's right, "E-Meals."

Sounds very modern, doesn't it?  It sounds inedible.  Like it would be a picture of a meal you could carry around on your mobile device.  "Have fun admiring this beautiful food wherever you go!" 

Not quite. :)  I discovered E-Mealz off of the Stuff Christians Like blog by Jon Acuff.  A recent post from Jon is a challenge to eat together as a family and E-Mealz is the sponsor.

I decided to check it out.  I am SO totally going to try this out after I get married.  For $5 a month, you download a meal plan for the week (1 meal a day).  The download includes the schedule, the ingredients needed, and the recipe as well as a pre-made shopping list!  They have many different meal plans that are categorized by store (WalMart, Kroger, any, etc.), special need (weight-loss, gluten-free, vegetarian), as well as by family size (4-6, or 'just us 2').

Their goals posted on the home page are as follows:

• Goal #1
  Spending time with your family 

• Goal #2
  Save time and money

• Goal #3
  Serve delicious food

• Goal #4
  Save yourself from multiple and last minute trips to the grocery store

• Goal #5
  Stare at your children across from the dinner table rather than into the
  pantry looking for a dinner idea

• Goal #6
  Lose weight without preparing separate meals for the family. (Every meal plan is designed to be family friendly, even the weight management plans!)

Personally, I'm excited to try this out.  When I rented a house my last year in college, figuring out what's for dinner was one of my most frustrating experiences.  Like Goal #5 says, I spent a lot of time staring into my pantry and fridge, willing a meal idea to present itself.

Something I like about the E-Mealz plans at first glance is that they seem very real about it.  For example, look at a sample meal plan and at the very bottom of the 'shopping list' page, it makes a mention to if you decide you don't want to use a particular meal, just cross off the corresponding ingredients.  They know you're not going to necessarily follow the plan to the letter.  I mean, I saw one plan that had catfish as the meal.  EW!  So not happening at my house!  They know you're real, and they're just trying to help you out.

Anyways, I totally love the idea of this and when I have to start coming up with meal ideas again when I move into my new house as a wife, I plan to give E-Mealz a try.  Maybe you'd like to as well?  No more staring into the pantry!!!

'Where are the plans?!'

"Where are the plans?"

Do you remember that line?  It's from one of the opening scenes of Star Wars Episode IV.  Darth Vader has one of the 'red shirts' (mixing Sci-Fi references!) by the throat and is demanding to know where the plans that R2-D2 stole went.  My dad used to do that to my brother growing up after we saw that movie.  Not the choking, mind you.  He'd grab my brother around the neck with one hand, my brother would grab my dad's wrist with both of his hands so there wouldn't be any pressure on his neck, and dad would lift him up and say, "Where are the plans?"  Then we'd all giggle.  None of us girls really had the arm strength to hold on like that, but it was a funny little family thing we did. 

Recently, I've still been saying, "Where are the plans?" but I am not participating in a family joke.  I'm starting to wonder quite seriously what the plans are because whatever I do plan goes right out the window.  Wedding planning would be a good example.  We ask an ordained friend of ours to perform our wedding and then find out he can't because he has a mandatory class that day for the adoption he and his wife are trying to go through.  We've since asked other people to do it and keep getting no for an answer.  Then, we set up a time, finally, for counseling and the day it is supposed to start, tragedy befell the couple who was supposed to counsel us in the form of the wife having a stroke.  Now we are searching for new counselors as well.  Also, we had counted on a certain living arrangement to work out and as of this week, that's a no go.  Non-wedding related, I planned to go visit my big sister's family (brand new niece included!), but got sick the week I was scheduled to go and had to cancel.  This has all taken place in the last month.

God apparently has other plans.  Now I'm just waiting to see them.  At this point, I think I've gotten past a good amount of the frustration and just want to know, "Ok then, what is the next step?"

On the upside though, we'll start sending out invitations soon!  We got them finalized this weekend and will get them printed up ASAP.  I'm glad we made progress somewhere.  We also rescheduled my trip to visit my big sister and I'm going to bring my youngest sister along!  It will be her first plane ride.

And now...I'm ready for lunch.

Do Not Feed The Trolls: Crazies on the interwebz

Since the beginning of the internet, there have been crazy people who have misused it.  They've since earned the title, 'trolls.'  I'll admit I used to shadow a forum just to watch the trolls pop up only to be shut down.  IBTZ! (In Before The Zot!).  As the use of the internet has increased, (it's available to more people and there are more pages to view), so have the amount of trolls.

Trolls can be identified by their puerile nature and the burning intent to get under everyone's skin and push all the buttons they can.  You can find them most places where users interact with each other.  Obviously there are degrees of trolling, some users are much more 'troll' than just user, but it always surprises me how crazy people can be on the internet.

Take for example, Family Talk's facebook page in the past week.  Recentlly, they aired a program on vaccines and immunization.  They of course presented their view on the subject:  vaccines recommended.  Much to the disappointment of some of their audience, they did not address the non-vaccination view the way they wanted.  True, while they did not mean to dismiss that part of their audience, they don't usually bring the 'anti-view' on the broadcast.  In order to help the audience feel heard as well as address some of the questions that came up, Ryan Dobson interviewed Dr. Larimore on his show Grounded addressing the questions and comments that accumulated on the facebook page.

However,  this did nothing to pacify the posters.  There are still very vocal non-vaccination audience members posting everyday on the facebook page. Though a discussion tab has been created and a request made for the comments to move in that direction instead of the main wall, the posts continue.  A few of the upset members have even revoked support for the ministry over this one view.  While no one disagrees that it is an important subject and it should be talked out, there is no respect for the requests made by Family Talk to move past this on the main page.  You could almost qualify the continued posts as spamming.

After the request to move the discussion elsewhere was ignored, Family Talk made the decision to block the most active, vocal, and relentless posters.  This raised a whole other set of craziness.  Posters are now crying, 'censorship! censorship!' While I must admit, if my posts were removed from a board or I was blocked, I wouldn't be terribly happy.  In reality, however, if I had been disregarding the requests of the forum, I could expect nothing less.  It is the right of the blog, message board, facebook owner to moderate as they see fit.  You don't follow the rules, you get the boot.  That's the way it works.  Another cry came up that Family Talk is afraid to address them or to get down and dirty in the truth.  I don't believe this to be the case:  respectful posts were kept (ones that are calm headed, still passionate, but not brutal or disregarding the requests made to move on) as well as a discussion thread made in the discussion tab in order for the debate to take place.  This appears a very level-headed and calm decision, not that of a panicked organization trying to avoid 'truth.'

Really, the amount of 'crazies' on any sort of message board or facebook discussion is a low percentage but the ones that are really crazy are the noisiest.  It surprised me the amount of people upset about the immunizations broadcast from Family talk.  I was even more surprised by the adults who couldn't or wouldn't hold a respectful discussion about it.  What's more frustrating is that no sense can be talked in to any of the vehement posters.  No calmness.  No reason.  Not asking them to change their view, just how they present it.  Really, Family Talk took the action they could.  Sometimes, the best way to make them stop is to 'not feed the trolls.'

The crazies on the interwebz.  What are you gonna do?

Essentials For Your 'I have a cold' Kit

Yep. That's what I have.  A cold. Blah.

Hardly unusual for this time of year (is there a time of year when it *is* unusual to get a cold?), today I'm not feeling miserable but breathing would make me feel better.   I went out to the grocery store and bought some stuff to keep in my office.  I took DayQuil over an hour ago and I'm still stuffed.  This got me to thinking though: There are some things that should just be in your 'Cold' kit.

KLEENEX
A no-brainer.
HAND SANITIZER
Always comes after the kleenex.
LOTION
Always comes after the hand sanitizer (keeps your hands from drying out).
VICKS VAPORUB
This has always been in the kit at my house for colds. Helps with coughs and clearing your nose.
VASELINE
Keeps your nose from getting raw.
DEGONGESTANT
Which ever brand you like best.
IBUPROFEN
For when your sinuses make your head hurt like someone hit you.
COUGH DROPS
I like Hall's Defense in assorted citrus.  I get my Vitamin C, my throat gets less sore, and they taste good. 
ORANGE JUICE
I got some 13.5 oz bottles of Simply Orange today. Perfect for keeping with you all day.


I think that pretty well covers the basics.  Of course there are other things which help with a cold:  hot showers, hugs from people you love, and sleep.  But you can't carry those with you all day in your kit. Bummer.


On another note, again I have neglected my blog for some time.  One of these days I will learn discipline, grasshopper.  I won't lie, there's been some stuff going on.  The most urgent of which is Joanne Heim, the 38-year-old wife of a coworker who had a stroke a week ago.  If you would like to be kept up to date on her condition or what's been going on, or would like to help with the medical bills you can do it all on Joanne's blog which her husband has been updating:  thesimplewife.typepad.com

If you're so inclined, wander back into some of the older posts, before the stroke, and read some of her hilarious and helpful posts.  Prayers for her and her family are greatly coveted.

ALSO, thanks to my 2 followers! YAY! :)  Sorry I've been so lazy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS...and all that Jazz

MERRY CHRISTMAS week!


We've now reached the middle holiday, Christmas.  Such a controversial holiday.  To say 'Happy Holidays' or 'Merry Christmas,' that is the question.  Personally, I'm perfectly fine with Merry Christmas (as evidenced by above exclamation).  It's fun, though!  Usually.  This year I feel like it snuck up on me something serious.  I feel wholly unprepared.  The list of presents I have for people is short compared to what I need to have. Wednesday and Thursday shopping for me.  I hope there's something left to get! 


Today I went to Amazon.com and downloaded a bunch of free Christmas mp3s!  Steal!  That might become a habit.  I did it last year, too.  There's some decent stuff on there for free. 


Also, at work I was in charge of putting the Christmas Eve show together.  I am very proud of how it came out. :)  We had other staff members tell their favorite/most impactful Christmas memories and I put them all together and added music.  I hope people like it.  It's very different from what I do for day to day shows. There are some beautiful/funny/heart touching stories, too. It's worth the listen.


Another thing:  I finished my scarf! Gosh. Took long enough.  It's a little shorter than I'd like, but the black yarn ran out before the gray! What the...?  They were the same brand, same size and everything. I feel jipped. 


As far as wedding planning goes, we had a pivitol moment last week.  We realized while we browsed church websites over lunch that we don't have the time to hunt down a venue on our own.  We decided to ask our mothers to see if they could help us out.  Our budget is little, and all the venues we've looked at eat a good chunk out of it.  We found a church that will do it for $300 and then a little more for a reception or something similar, but it's a Baptist church and doesn't allow dancing.  I really want dancing.  That's one of the few things I've always imagined at my wedding.


On another note, hopefully soon I'll have another post.  Something a little more interesting than an update on my life. :) 

Games my family has me addicted to...

There are a billion apps on iTunes for your iPhones and iTouches. (iThis, iThat, etc.)  A lot of them are below average, not worth the time or money to download them.  There are others, however, that are good quality and well, addictive.  Most of the ones to which I'm addicted my family got first and then showed me.  I immediately had to download it and play it on my own iPhone.  Here are three that I would say are worth the time to download for free or for $0.99 to waste hours on:

-Fruit Ninja- $0.99

 This wonderful little game is the definition of addictive.  You use your finger to slice the fruit and hopefully not to slice the bombs.  It has 3 modes: Classic, Zen, and Arcade.  Classic starts off slowly and gets progressively harder.  Hitting a bomb in this mode kills you dead and you have to start over.  Dropping a fruit in this level goes by the baseball rules: three strikes and you're out.  Zen is one of my favorites. No bombs. No lives. Just cut as many fruits as you can! Arcade is fun as well. I minute to get as many points as possible. Hitting bombs in Arcade mode subtracts 10 points. 

There are many different achievements you can get, even the 'underachiever award' which is scoring under 20 points in Arcade mode after the bonuses. This is actually a LOT harder than you'd expect because Fruit Ninja has this funny quirk of giving odd awards.  For example, if in Arcade mode you hit a good number of bombs, one of the bonuses you can get is the Bomb Lover award, 50 points! My sisters and I have tried to come up with ways to make it more interesting yet, like playing it upside down. It kind of hurts your head.

-Pocket Frogs- FREE

 

I LOVE this game.  I have no idea why.  My little sisters got me hooked on it. All but one of my siblings has it on their iDevice.  Basically, you breed and/or race frogs. Earn coins from selling or racing the frogs and buy more frogs, habitats, accessories.  We don't ever buy that stuff though because when you take your frog to the pond to tame it, you find presents containing that stuff!  As you level up (by breeding and selling your frogs), you get rarer frogs and more habitats for your frogs (only 8 frogs a habitat).  There's also a Froggydex that keeps track of all the different kinds of frogs you've had.  Mine is still at 1%. My sisters are at 4 or 5%.  Those are some of the elements that make it addicting. To level up, you need to breed and sell more frogs. Since your habitats only keep 8, you need to keep rotating them to have enough room.

One of the things I love about this game is that you DO NOT have to log in ever day for the frogs to live or whatever.  Those types of games are obnoxious.  I just think the frogs are so cute and you get cooler and cooler looking frogs as you level up! It's so addicting! 

-Cut The Rope- $0.99 (Lite = FREE)

This is my most recent addiction from my family.  This little alien Om Nom eats candy and you have to feed it to him.  It's a puzzle and skill game.  You use your finger to cut the rope and get the candy to the little dude and get each star along the way.  Each level gets progressively harder.  There are several different level sets, one which they just added.  You start in the Cardboard Box.  I'm now in the next set, the Fabric Box and I'm stuck.  It really teases your brain though!  As you level up, there are bubbles, spikes, spiders, etc.  It gets pretty complicated!  It's really a cool game, though.  Keeps you there trying to get all 3 stars!