My first PeaPod Pick-Up!

I've never been a big shopper, but now that I have snerds I avoid retail stores like I avoid kids with a runny nose. We use Amazon Prime and eBay for all our shopping. Literally the only store I've ventured into in the past few years is the grocery store. But I'm hoping to end that soon too...

Imagine my excitement when I learned PeaPod has reached our area! Yay! With plans to home-school in the fall, I can't imagine lugging 4 kids into the market every time I need milk (and we'll be going through quite a bit of it) so I was eager to try Giant's new PeaPod delivery and pick-up service. As I mentioned in my previous post Eating Outside the Box, we already order some of our food online, so I'm thrilled to click a button and have more food arrive at my doorstep. However, since we live in the boonies and our driveway terrifies most delivery people (UPS often calls us to meet him at the end of our lane), I'm going to start by picking up my order.

My first attempt was a flop. Friday around 11AM I started putting items in my online cart to pick-up the next day (Saturday), but when I checked "available pick-up times" they were all "sold-out". Not sure if I need to order further in advance or if Saturday is just the peak day. Two different stores were "sold out"... hmm, fishy.

A few weeks later I tried again. This time around 11AM on Friday it showed every 1-hour time slot the next day, Saturday, was available. So I spent about 10 minutes selecting $150 worth of groceries, used the code "RMN17" to save $17 on my order (only works for your first order), created an account and clicked order.

The next day I arrived at the grocery store a few minutes into my selected time slot and all four of the designated "PeaPod" parking spots were full. So I parked in a close one and approached an employee who was clearly bringing out an order. He took my name, had me sign his clipboard, and brought mine out next. (Interestingly, my groceries didn't come from the store I was parked in front of, but a "PeaPod main store" that delivers the orders to the individual stores in time to be picked up. Odd).

Normally I would just pull into a spot, call the number and the nice employee would come out and load my groceries into my car-- no need to even step outside! A nice feature since it was about 19 degrees and windy.(and the sign says "no tipping please"). However, my food was still packed in ice, meaning even items that didn't need to be frozen, like bananas, were frozen. (In case you've never tried freezing bananas, it doesn't do good things to them unless they're coated in chocolate).

I had been a bit hesitant ordering produce, but other than the frozen bananas (which I made into muffins today- see my recipe below if this ever happens to you), I was happy with the strawberries, eggplant and broccoli someone selected on my behalf. I was also impressed that my order was completely correct-- that's more than I can say for my own shopping trips when I always forget something. Plus no spontaneous cookie purchases or kids begging for donuts.

The only downside is the groceries come in plastic bags (instead of re-usable-- so wasteful!) and the selection isn't exactly what my local store offers (since it's coming from a different store) so they didn't have, for example, SunButter (my son's peanut butter substitute to use for school). Otherwise, I was thrilled with PeaPod and plan to continue using it! Although I might be making quite a few of these...

Banana Muffins
2 cups banana, mashed (about 4 bananas)

3 cups flour

1 and a half cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

Half teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

half cup oil (coconut oil is yummy)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup milk

Mash bananas then add eggs and other wet ingredients, sugar and mix. Then add dry ingredients, baking powder last, then mix all together.  Pour into greased muffin trays. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  Makes about 2 dozen.  You can also add chocolate chips! :-)

The opposite of anger is patience

Earlier this month I received a New York Times news alert e-mail with the headline, "ISIS Said to Burn Captive Jordanian Pilot to Death in New Video". Without even reading the full article I was horrified, and clearly it's stuck with me.

At first I was angry. I wanted to retaliate, to punish those criminals for the inhumane acts they've committed. I wanted to write President Obama personally urging him to "go get 'em"! And to kill those fighters in the same miserable way the 26-old year pilot met his end.

Then I realized, that's not going to help. A snowball of violence and hate. Going to war, killing more people, is not necessarily the answer. An eye for an eye just makes us all blind, right?

Many of the people in ISIS may be fighting because they don't feel they have any other option. They aren't heard, don't have choices, freedoms, or a clear alternative path. What they need is help. Education. Opportunities. Acceptance. Patience rather than Anger.

Like a tired child throwing a tantrum, maybe these extremists are throwing a huge, awful, violent tantrum. Punishing may only perpetuate. We need to understand the cause of the tantrum and fix the underlying problem.

Instead of sending troops, can we somehow send education, health care, opportunities, options? How can we strengthen the community to prevent turns to extremism? How can we fight anger and hate without anger and hate?

Eating Outside the Box

At the beginning of this year we decided to start eating healthier. We already ate mostly organic and lots of fruits and veggies, but our new goal is to cut out as much processed foods and sugar as possible.

We made some small and some not-so-small changes including:
--swapping organic coconut oil in replace of canola and olive oil (in cooking and baking)
--no processed foods at breakfast (no cereal or frozen waffles) instead we eat eggs from our chickens with bacon from US Wellness Meats, homemade oatmeal or homemade pancakes with fruit and pure maple syrup
--no processed snacks -- instead of goldfish and granola bars we eat fruit (bananas, apples and oranges are favorites this time of year), carrot sticks, nuts (like almonds or cashews), organic yogurt, cheese sticks, trail mix or dried fruit
--no dessert or treats except at special occasions like birthday parties (and even then in limited quantities) -- the kids really look forward to their daily gummy vitamins, which are now a huge treat!
--instead of gummy vitamins from the grocery store, we order Smarty Pants Gummy Vitamins from Amazon
--we even switched to Tom's natural mouthwash for the kids (to avoid artificial colors and flavors)
--ordering all of our meat online from US Wellness Meats
--using only pure, grass-bed butter (again we can't find this in the grocery store and order it online)

The kids have been surprisingly open to the healthier options and there hasn't been much complaining.
My son has crazy "grumpy" episodes and we think eating less sugar and processed carbs has helped. We also--knocking on wood while I type this-- haven't been sick since we starting eating healthier (and using the coconut oil). Coincidence?

More ideas we may implement in the future:
-rice instead of pasta
-no more jelly (even organic jelly often has sugar as the first ingredient)
-eating only sprouted whole grains
-raising a pig for our organic meats (although I have to admit I haven't had much luck getting goat's milk from our goats who have now become lovable pets)

...and we'll see what else I come up with!

This is my first post here, so I might as well introduce myself...
I"m Emily Lovely. My "Lovely" adventures began in 2006 when I married Mr. Lovely, we sold his house and his business in New Jersey and we moved to Florida with everything we owned in a 14' UHaul-- all within a week.
Since then we've moved 4 more times and found our little piece of heaven-- an organic homestead in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
We've welcomed 3 --soon to be 4-- children into our family (2 through birth and 2 from China), and are planning to home-school them. Our little farm is also home to 2 dogs, 7 goats and a dozen chickens (and counting!)
We have dreams of beachfront living in the Bahamas, touring the U.S. in a camper trailer, sailing the Caribbean abroad a Catamaran and backpacking the Appalachian Trail.
Every day is a new adventure.