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!