Review: Plan to Eat

I know I've talked about how having a meal plan has saved my sanity on more than one occasion. I have in the past, signed up for meal planning services online, but always ended up using a simpler system where I would pick the meals and make my own grocery lists. But then each week, I'd sit in front of a blank sheet of paper (or a new week on my "meals" google calendar) and wonder what we should eat that week. Who knew sustenance would be so much work? You have to consider what you have in the pantry and freezer, how much time you'll have to cook on any given night, the various food preferences and aversions of your family members, and with the price of food these days, what's on sale and whether you are prepared to go to two or three stores just to get the best prices. Then there is the matter of tracking the plan - you want to see it at a glance from your kitchen counter (so you'll remember to take out the chicken to defrost beforehand), you also probably want to be able to access your grocery list when you're on the go, and you may also want to be able to check your menu from work if you are facing unexpected dinner guests. Then there's the cooking process, you need to track your recipes for all but maybe the most common meals that you can make from memory. You want a place to store recipes that you find on Pinterest, in magazines, or that you get emailed to you from a friend. You need to be able to access the recipes in the kitchen, and preferably not have to kill a tree each mealtime by printing them. No wonder people get overwhelmed by the idea!

Enter Plan To Eat.

This one website truly does it all. There are three key stages to the meal planning process on their site. The first is Recipes. Here you can enter in your recipes, either from scratch, or by importing from most* recipe websites such as AllRecipes, FoodNetwork, etc. you can also quickly enter recipes by copy-pasting from an email or other location. Your recipes are categorized and searchable, and you can queue up ones you want to try soon to make them even easier to find. There is a social aspect as well, you can add friends and browse their public recipes and easily add them to your recipe collection too. They have a browser shortcut that you can use when you see a recipe elsewhere, just click "add to an to eat" and it will neatly import the recipe while you keep browsing.

Then you have the Planner. This is a calendar like layout with your recipe inventory on the left. Each day has sections for breakfast, lunch, supper, and snacks. You can easily drag and drop recipes, or add individual ingredients to a day's meal if needed (canned tomato soup, crackers, carrot sticks, anyone?). You can update serving sizes so if you make a big pot of oatmeal at the start of the week you can repeat it in the meal plan daily but set the servings to zero so the site will know you only need to buy the ingredients once. The calendar view can be adjusted to see a lot or just a little, and it does a good job of highlighting the current day so you know where you are at. You can even type in notes in different sections of the day so if you need a further reminder of things that occur in your life that affect meal planning, it's there (6pm swim lesson, for example). There is also a very good feature that lets you copy meals, it's super flexible so you can select what to copy and what day or dates to copy from and to. I really like this feature for planning my kid's school lunches, so I can figure out a week or two of lunches, and then have them repeat for as long as I want to.

So you now have your recipes in place, and your plan set up for the day/week/month. What's next? Grocery shopping, of course. The site has a Shopping List feature that you can customize by selecting which dates on the planner you want to shop for. You can check items off the list if you already have them at home, and take what's left and do your shopping. The shopping list section has a pretty cool pantry feature where you can actually put an inventory of your pantry (or fridge, freezer, etc). This helps you keep track of what's in your house.

One feature that is missing (though the makers of Plan To Eat say they are working on it) is inventory auto management so that if you cook something with items in your pantry, it reduces the quantity you have left. Right now if you want to do that, it's a manual process. There is a neat pantry related feature though that is called "cook from my pantry". It's exactly what it sounds like, it compares your pantry to recipes in your recipe section, and finds things you can cook with the ingredients you have on hand.

All in all, Plan to Eat is the most comprehensive meal planning site that I've used so far, and I like it enough that I signed up for a year of usage. The first 30 days are a fully featured free trial, and you don't have to give your credit card info to sign up so it truly is risk free. I think I paid maybe $40 for a year of service and I found this pretty reasonable. I still use it weekly and I love the fact I can access my recipes and meal plan from anywhere. I've checked it from my computer at work, from my iPad in the kitchen, and from my phone on the road or in the grocery store. If you want to try Plan ToEat for yourself, you can go right to their site, or you can help me out by clicking through on this referral link (http://plantoeat.com/ref/q8aygx1zcq) to sign up. If you wish, you can also add me as a friend and we can share recipes. Happy planning!

CJ's BUTTer Body Products (are awesome)

I've always had an obsession with lotions and lip balms - just ask my poor mother whom I was constantly asking for money to buy more Lip Smackers.  Because in my young and inexperienced view, if you're going to use them, you really should have one in each flavour/scent, right?  As I've grown up (a bit), had children, and learned more about which ingredients are better for our bodies (or at least, which we would do well to avoid), I've developed different criteria by which I judge the products I use.  This is especially true for products I use on my children's skin.  The skin is the largest organ in (on?) the body, and anything you put on it absorbs into your bloodstream sooner or later.  And so, I try to minimize the number of products I apply to their skin.  This means a product has to be effective (so I don't have to reapply all the time), and free of known harmful chemicals (such as parabens, pthalates, SLS, etc).  CJ's BUTTer is all of these things, and more.

When I committed to cloth diapering full time (instead of part time), one of my first questions was what to do about diaper cream?  I was used to being able to slap on a disposable anytime a bit of redness appeared, and then it wasn't an issue to use an effective zinc based cream.  While I've tried a number of different creams, I had always heard rave reviews about CJ's BUTTer.  So you can imagine how excited I was to be asked to try a number of CJ's products for this review.

I decided to request the sampler of 8 individual BUTTErs, so I could try some different scents, and so I wouldn't end up with a whole tub in a scent I did not love.  As it turns out, that wouldn't have been an issue - the scents were all lovely!  Of the 8 varieties that I tried, my favourites were Lullaby Baby Lotion, My Pixie Pie, and Oatmeal, Milk and Honey.  The EO Carribean Therapy blend was also amazing.  CJ's Original BUTTers  are made with shea butter, olive oil, coconut oil, lanolin, beeswax, cocoa butter, Vitamin E (derived from soy) and gluten-free colloidal oatmeal.   The scented ones are scented either with Essential Oils/Blends, or pthalate-free synthetic fragrances (they disclose on their website which ones are scented using which method, and it's worth mentioning that the synthetic fragrances used do not come with an ingredient list except that they are indicated as being pthalate-free).  The BUTTer goes on so smoothly and is (at room temperature) exactly the right consistency to spread on a squirmy baby's skin - it goes on quickly and evenly.

I've used it to successfully treat mild redness in the diaper area (we've been blessed with few diaper rash issues), but I think one of the best things about CJ's BUTTer is how versatile it is.  I use it on my own knuckles, which for some reason (frequent hand washing associated with cold/flu season, perhaps?) are always dry and cracking, and although they aren't cured yet, they are in much better shape now than they were a month ago.  My son has a dry patch of skin (maybe eczema, but I'm not sure as we've never had it diagnosed) on one of his hands, which I had been treating nightly with various creams and balms, but it wasn't til I started putting CJ's BUTTer on it a couple of times a day that I really noticed an improvement.  I wish I could say it was gone for good, but I suspect I'll have to wait for the warmer weather before that becomes a possibility.  One patch of dry skin it has kept completely in check is my daughter's cheeks.  She has has a cold for a while and along with it, the crusty nose and red cheeks. But every time she sleeps, I put a dab of the BUTTer on her cheeks and under her nose, and over the course of a few days I saw her skin return to its normal baby-soft condition.

I also had the opportunity to try the CJ's BUTTer Lip Balm, which is unbelievably creamy and smooth, and has a long-lasting effect.  And unlike many commercial formulas, if you lick your lips, you're not stuck with some gross fake taste on your tongue.  It just tastes mildly sweet (I have the unscented version).  One last treat in my reviewer sample kit was the CJ's BUTTer Creamy Lotion.  The Creamy Lotion had a refreshing cool and creamy feeling to it, went on smoothly and absorbed quickly, and left a delicious scent (I tried Coconut Lime Dream, Monkey Farts, and Apples & Spice).

I am thrilled to let you know that you can now buy CJ's BUTTer Body Products right here in (OK, near) Halifax, NS - from CJ's All Natural - HRM.  Check out their Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/pages/CJs-All-Natural-HRM/251573734922333, view the list of scent descriptions here http://tinyurl.com/6mlfzrf, or take a closer look at the product options and price list here http://tinyurl.com/7pmqkss.  Even better, Andrea has generously offered to give away a 4oz tub of CJ's Original BUTTer (winner's choice of Monkey Farts, Warm Vanilla Cake or Apples and Spice scent - retail value of $9.95).  To enter, you must "Like" her Facebook page, and leave a comment ON HER WALL to let her know you're there via Geekmommy Reviews and what scent you would like if you win.  Contest open to NOVA SCOTIA residents only (sorry, out-of-towners), and winners who can't arrange to pick up the BUTTer in HRM will need to pay shipping to their home.  But hurry, contest closes April 22nd.  And hey, if you don't win, you can take advantage of an Earth Day special 10% off sale, good from April 18th - 22nd, by emailing your order to andrea@gettingtonatural.ca and mentioning the sale.

If you've used CJ's products, what is your favourite scent & product?  I personally can't wait to try their Peppermint Lotion, which has peppermint and tea tree oils in it, and is supposed to be great for tired feet AND for an alternative to conventional petroleum based "vapo-rub" type products.

And don't forget to "Like" CJ's All Natural - HRM on Facebook and comment on THEIR wall as I mentioned above for your chance to win a 4oz tub of BUTTer!

Follow Up & Review: Adventures in Haircutting (with the Conair Titanium Rechargeable Pro-Style Haircut Kit)

So, despite the hair pulling, pinching, and general pain and suffering inflicted by my last adventure in haircutting, my brave husband reminded me that he needed a haircut, and did I want to take care of that?  Part of me wanted to say "no thanks!!" but then I remembered that I didn't want to be a quitter, so I reminded him that the clippers we used last time sucked were not really in good enough condition for me to want to use them again.  Then I added "clippers" to my shopping list, and picked up a new set at the store on the weekend.  This time I went with a Conair cordless rechargeable unit (the Conair 36 Piece Titanium Rechargeable Pro-Style Haircut Kit), it came in a kit with tons of accessories, a carrying case, and best of all, an instructional DVD.  So out of curiousity, I popped it in.  I was really impressed by the usefulness of the video which covered topics such as cleaning and oiling the clippers, how to use them to trim nape and sideburns, and even had a section showing in detail how to perform 5 or 6 different haircut styles from start to finish.

There's nothing like being able to watch someone doing a thing properly to teach you how your technique can improve!  I would say the two most valuable things I learned were how to juggle the scissors and comb while doing a trim, and how to flip the clippers upside down to cut a clean line along sideburns and the nape of the neck.  And I dare say that the quality of the haircuts I completed (as well as the reduction in time it took me to finish two of them) improved a lot!  I gave my son a standard buzz cut with the #3 and #4 guides, in about 10 or 15 minutes (which included a break to find a way to wipe the stray hairs from his mouth).  Then we put the kids to bed, and I got my husband's "business cut" (I had no idea it had a name) completed in just a bit more time, as the top had to be trimmed with scissors to get the right look.

So, if you are looking to try your hand in the at-home haircutting game, I highly recommend this particular set (available from Amazon here http://www.amazon.ca/Conair-HCT221CPCZC-Piece-Pro-Style-Haircut/dp/B004RDQ622/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1332263654&sr=8-3-fkmr1), and regardless of what set you buy, I definitely recommend watching the instructional video that comes along with it.  For $50, you'll make that up in no time by not having to pay full price for cuts.

Giveaway - youTunes

Admit it, I know you've been there too.  The kids are all in bed, but the music is still on.  You find yourself singing along while doing the dishes (or folding one of the laundry mountains that have taken up residence on your couch...) and then you realize... you're singing along to the Fisher Price Classics.  You try and remember the last time you listened to something catchy that *isn't* Elmo And I Know It... and you realize you can't because it's been so long.

Now I'm more of an independent music fan, myself, and there are lots of artists on my music playlist that I guarantee you've never heard of (or maybe you have, some of my favourite indie acts have a way of making it big, and I don't realize it til I'm out shopping and hear a song I actually know playing on the speakers in a store...).  But as you know I'm also a runner, and as I'm training for a race this spring (actually training this time, not winging it like last time I tried a 10K...), I like having a selection of newer, upbeat music to run to.  Problem is, I don't know any of it.  And there's only so much you can glean from a 30 second clip in the iTunes preview.  Wouldn't it be great if I could listen to some top-100 music at home, so that I can then go and buy the tracks I really like?  Without having the blaring, screaming ads that all the popular radio stations are so full of?  Yes please!

Well it turns out that with youTunes, you can do just that, and more.  YouTunes is a free music player that lists the current top 100 tracks of pretty much whatever country you can think of, lets you add them to your own custom playlist(s), and then not only plays the song but also shows the corresponding video from YouTube.  Sometimes it's a music video, sometimes it has lyrics instead, but regardless, it's a nice way to catch up on what's hip outside of the preschooler scene.  It has great potential for a mom's night in (or as a prelude to mom's night out) by gathering up all the stuff that's playing on the dance floor, for your own party at home or in a hotel, as long as someone brought a MacBook and there's free Wifi...

In addition to automatically having access to each country's top 100 songs, you are also able to search for other songs if there is something you want to hear that isn't on there.  Now I do find that if you are searching for something more obscure, you are less likely to find what you're looking for, but the same thing would happen if you're looking directly on YouTube.  Most songs that show up in the search/top-100 list have links directly to iTunes where you can buy the official track or music video.  It would be nice if they add a link to purchase the song itself too, but that doesn't seem to be a feature in the app just yet.  I'm told that the company that makes the app is considering putting some settings into place to let you filter out songs with explicit ratings (making it sort-of kid safe, though I personally wouldn't play much of this stuff with my preschooler around), but there's no word yet on when that might be available.  So for now, this app gets the mommy stamp of approval, but consider it one you'd use when your kids are asleep or in another room playing quietly by themselves getting into trouble.

This is currently a Mac only app, available for download in the Mac App Store for $0.99, a pretty small price to pay to have all this music at your fingertips.  Plus, I have a bunch of promo codes to give away, so you could have the app for free!  Here's what I'm going to do.  I will give away 1 promo code.  If I get more than 10 entries to this giveaway, I'll give away a second promo code.  20 entries?  I'll throw in another one to give away.  (Max 10 promo codes to be given away).  So share this review, and tell your mac-owning friends, as in this case, more entries could actually improve your odds of winning (2/11 is better than 1/9, right?)

To find out more, or to buy this app, visit http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-music-player/id502305134?mt=12

Frugal Mommy - Experiments in Haircutting

Confession time: when I was growing up, I rarely went to a hairdresser.  My elaborate style (aka chin length blunt cut with bangs) was regularly maintained by my mom, on a folding chair, in the bathroom.  And when I got older, I usually cut my own bangs, sometimes it worked, and other times I was reminded that hair shrinks a bit when it dries (and my bangs looked a bit odd).  So it seemed like a real luxury when I moved out and went to University to actually pay someone else to cut my hair.  I bounced around between different salons, and ended up taking my meager student budget for haircuts and going to one of those franchise salons that doesn't take appointments and you never get the same hairdresser twice.  Honestly, it was always a bit of a gamble, sometimes you got a good haircut, sometimes... not so much.  Thankfully now that I am "all grown up" (haha) I have a great stylist at a nearby salon, and she knows my hair well enough that she can make suggestions about how I might want to consider cutting & styling it.  My husband and son, on the other hand, still visit the franchise salons, and I've watched them have their hair cut often enough to think "I really should be able to do that myself".

The culprit...

When my son was younger, he went through a phase where he thought that hairdressers were out to get him, and that any encounter with a spray bottle full of water, a comb, and a pair of scissors, was akin to being followed down a dark alley by a group of thugs.  Scream, and run away was pretty much his tactic.  So much so, that we were kicked out of a number of haircutting establishments because they just did not feel safe trying to cut the hair of a child that would kick, scream, twist, and squirm trying to get away from what he perceived to be torture of the worst kind.  So I did what any good mama would do, I bought my own set of torture implements (aka, clippers, cape, scissors, comb...) and decided that we would just cut his hair at home.  Yeah... that idea didn't quite pan out.  We would convince him that clippers would get the job done faster... bribe him with candy and toys (side note: lollipops consumed during haircuts will inevitably get hair stuck to them and become another source of aggravation), and he would sit still for about 5 seconds until the clippers shaved off just enough hair that you couldn't just quit, you had to finish the job.  Then he'd scream bloody murder and you'd have to whip out the scissors and try to cut his hair that way.  It was AWFUL.

So we started taking him to a nearby salon that specialized in kids haircuts.  He was coddled with TV, video games, toys, chairs that look like racecars, etc.  He still screamed and squirmed but at least he was in the capable hands of stylists that were used to cutting kids hair under these conditions.  It was pricey, but I considered it to be worthwhile because I could step out of the role of Terrible Mommy with the Scissors/Clippers.  Eventually, he stopped being so upset at haircuts, even looking forward to the balloon he would get at the end, he would even let them use the clippers!  Once we got to a time when there were no more tears, we decided to start taking him somewhere less expensive.  And then I got to thinking, I have these fantastic clippers at home, and could really just skip the driving/waiting/paying bit, and just do this myself.  So, the other day, I popped A Bug's Life into the DVD player, rolled up the livingroom rug, and put my son on a chair in the middle of the room.  He was OK with this, as I told him I'd pay him some money for his piggy bank (as I'd be saving $12 on a haircut elsewhere).  All through the haircut he kept cringing, whining and complaining about the clippers "hurting".  I thought this was ridiculous, after all, they are just clippers!  No sharp blades risking contact with skin, plastic guides in place to make sure I didn't cut anything too short, everything was as it should be.  So we (he) powered through.

After the haircut turned out pretty neat & tidy (for a beginner like me), my husband suggested I try cutting his hair too.  So, I rolled up the rug again, plugged in the clippers, and wouldn't you know it, he is grimacing and complaining too that the clippers hurt!  So it turns out that my "at home haircut set" (which I bought on clearance at a big box store) either wasn't a quality set, or was in some way defective, as a closer examination revealed that the metal plate at the end of the clippers (where the blade cuts against) kept getting loose and the hair it was supposed to cut, ended up getting pinched and pulled.  So, it seems that despite my best intentions, it's possible that the fear of hair clippers that my son still fights, was worsened by my attempts to try and make things better and easier for all of us.  The moral of the story?  Cheaper is not always better... I will be shopping for a new hair clipper, and I hope that when I find one that works well, the cost of it will be offset by the fact I will be able to save money by cutting my son's and husband's hair at home again.  Without the screaming.