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How to Create a Natural Disaster Survival Plan

October 4, 2016 0

Hello, Friends! Emergency preparedness has been on my mind, since Hurricane Matthew is quickly approaching. We have lived through several category 1,2 and 3 hurricanes before, so I know how important it is to be prepared.

This week, the mister and I have been updating our family’s natural disaster survival plan, kit, and backpacks. I thought if I walk you through my process, it could be of service to some of you out there. First, I wrote a new natural disaster survival plan – this is especially important for us, since this is the first major storm we have experienced since we moved back to Florida. Read on to learn how to create your own natural disaster survival plan.

1. Review, Update + Practice
First things first, once a year you should sit down to review, update and practice your natural disaster survival plan. This is the one way that you will be able to make the necessary updates to the plan and practice makes perfect. Everyone in your family should have a role when it comes to your plan, including the kids. Some examples include choosing a designated place to meet if your family becomes separated and establishing an out-of-state emergency contact, someone everyone in your family can contact to say “I am OK! if you become separated. Please have your children memorize this number in case their cell phone goes dead.

2. Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? 
If you know about the disaster ahead of time – in cases such as; hurricanes and volcanoes, you need to quickly decide if you plan to stay or evacuate. If you live in the area that is going to be directly hit by the natural disaster, it is best to leave as soon as possible. However, leaving doesn’t mean you have to hop on an airplane or drive hundreds of miles. You usually only have to drive several miles to get out of harms way – you don’t want to get stuck on the freeway or at the airport during a natural disaster. For example, the last time we lived in Florida, when we heard that Katrina (category 1 at the time) was headed our way (we lived on the beach at that time), we grabbed our hurricane kit and backpacks and drove to a hotel (that accepted dogs) outside of the cone.  Always better safe than sorry.

3. Have a Last Resort Plan
If you decide to stay during the natural disaster and then for some reason you have to leave your home at the last minute, you need to know where to go. Have a list of shelters in close proximity that you can get to quickly and have an emergency preparedness kit and backpacks (for each member of your family) ready to grab and go, including blankets/pillows, food, change of clothing, toiletries, water, medicines, and other survival items.

4. If You Plan to Stay – Stay and Prepare
Do not wait until the natural disaster is knocking on door to prepare. For natural disasters such as hurricanes, install your hurricane shutters immediately. If you have a generator, replace the oil/gasoline and make sure you have enough to keep your generating going for several days, make sure the generator is in working order. (Remember to only run the generator outside and away from your home, this is very important, many folks have died due to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning). If you need a very long extension cord, make sure to pick on up immediately. If you need supplies to board up your home, get them now. Choose a safe room in your home that has no windows and that can shelter your family if your homes outer structure breaks apart. Great examples are inside bathrooms, closets or stairwells. Choose an out of state emergency contact, someone everyone in your family can call to say “I am OK” if you become separated from your family.

5. Prepare for Special Needs Family Members + Pets
If you have a family member that has special medical needs, contact your local emergency management department to find the local special care shelter. If you need to take a family member to the shelter, make sure that you pack enough food, water, medicines, and supplies for each person for at least three days. If you have pets, take careful consideration on what you will do if you have to go to a shelter or evacuate. Many shelters will NOT allow pets – please have alternate ideas ready in case you have to leave.

6. Prepare Your Home
After you have made all of the necessary accommodations to protect your home from the natural disaster – contact your insurance company to find out what disasters and damages your policy covers. Determine whether you need to add more coverage protection and ask yourself, would my insurance cover the costs to rebuild my home from ground zero if necessary?

7. Prepare Your Survival Kit and Backpacks 
You should have a natural disaster backpack for each member of your family. We have dedicated backpacks that are packed with all of the essentials necessary to sustain each of us and our dogs (Noodles and Olive) for at least 3 days. Included in each of our packs a blanket/pillow, two changes of clothing, toiletries, first aid kit, bug spray, flashlight, hat, vital documents, credit cards, cash, notepad/pencil, a book, card games, rain gear, and our hiking boots. We also have separate large survival kits that house our food, water, Swiss army knives, tent, paper goods/plastic cutlery, rope, solar powered radio/flashlight, extra batteries, tape, garbage bags, wipes and other supplies that will be necessary, if we have to grab and go we are prepared.

If you are in the path of Hurricane Matthew, please prepare now if you haven’t already! It is always better to be safe than sorry. Stay safe everyone!

photo via Rick McCharles

How to Make Mealtime Less Stressful in the Busy Fall Season

September 1, 2016 0

How to Make Mealtime Less Stressful in the Busy Fall SeasonNOTE FROM SWEET GREENS: This article wasn’t written by me. Thank you for supporting the companies that keep Sweet Greens in business.

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With the kids heading back to school and the seasonal work picking up, preparing supper can suddenly become a great source of stress in some people’s lives. Depending on the number of people who need to be fed, your work schedule, taking care of the kids, and any other responsibilities, you may feel like cooking is a chore that is best left to a restaurant. That is, if you can afford one. Here are some tips to make mealtime at home a little less frantic and stressful.

Make a Weekly Menu
Believe it or not, trying to figure out what you are going to cook on any given night can be quite time-consuming. If you are not really sure of what to whip up, you may be stressing yourself out thinking about all your options. Everything that is associated with food and eating should be enjoyable, so try planning out a menu to follow for the whole week and see if this cuts down on your stress. Don’t use do it for yourself, keep in mind the kids too. If you plan out school lunches in advance, you can save yourself precious minutes first thing in the morning.

Prep on Sundays
Arrange your schedule so you can do all of your meal prep on Sundays. Or, if you happen to work on Sunday, put another day aside that you can devote entirely to meal prep. Don’t use that time to just prepare dinner for the week, prep breakfasts and lunches as well. If you send your kids off to school with their lunches, this kind of prep can be a life saver first thing in the morning. Just grab their lunch out of the fridge, toss it in their bags, and away they go! If you want a few days where you don’t have to cook, prepare double of what you normally do so there will periodically be leftovers to enjoy. Chop up any vegetables you need and, if necessary, separate them. Precooking and freezing meals, so you can just pop them into the oven when you are ready to eat, can be a huge time saver. Also, consider investing into a crockpot or slow cooker so, in the future, you only need to pull a prepped bag of food out of the freezer to toss into the crockpot to cook while you are at work.

Assign Roles
Get your family to help out. The kids should be home from school by the time you start on supper, so their hands should be free! On days when you are making spaghetti, delegate boiling the pasta to someone else and have another person cook the meatballs and sauce. By getting your family involved and helping out more in the kitchen, mealtime can become easier, more enjoyable, and far more efficient.

Buy Easy to Cook Foods
There is nothing wrong with enjoying making all of your meals from scratch. However, doing so does add more work to mealtime. Every now and then, go grocery shopping for easy to prepare foods. These are the kind of foods that you can simply pop into the microwave, or that you can eat straight out the package, like yogurt from Hampton Creek. Either way, easy to prepare foods or premade meals can be a lifesaver on those days where you are just too tired to put on your apron and cook.

Stay Positive
Your mood can dramatically impact your attitude about cooking. There may be many reasons why you may not be in the mood to cook, or even reasons why you dislike cooking. The back to school season can be an exhausting time. However, you should not let those moods overpower your need to stay positive. Maintaining a positive mindset about things you don’t like to do can help to make them more bearable.
Look for ways to keep yourself positive. Listen to some music while you are in the kitchen cooking, or watch one of your favorite shows. Talk with one of your friends or family while you are cooking, as long as you remember to stay attentive to what you are doing! No matter what you decide to do, remember to stay safe and never leave cooking food unattended.

With the right changes to your routine, preplanning your meals, and a little help from your family, mealtime doesn’t have to be so overwhelming and stressful. It can be fun and engaging! Advanced meal prep can also help keep your grocery budget under control as you no longer making daily trips to the store. The best part about all of this is that you’ll feel better, be less stressed, and have more energy to spend with the people that you love!

Bootler is Revolutionizing Healthy Meal Delivery

August 5, 2016 1

Bootler is Revolutionizing Healthy Meal Delivery

Back to school is right around the corner! If you are like most parents, you’ve probably felt the pull of delivery pizza or Chinese food on those busy back-to-school nights where you just don’t have time to cook. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to just pick up the phone and have someone bring hot food straight to your door? Of course, if you’re like me, you probably don’t feel so hot the day after eating too much processed, unhealthy food. If only it were that simple to get a healthy, organic, vegetarian (or vegan!) meal delivered, freshly prepared and ready to eat. With the explosion of internet-based food delivery services, it is actually possible to have this option, though it can be frustrating to figure out which service to use in order to get your favorite organic restaurants to deliver, as they’re all associated with different ones. Enter Bootler, the aggregation service that changes everything.

Sweet Greens - Bootler is Revolutionizing Healthy Meal Delivery 2

Bootler is essentially a search engine for delivery food. Basically, they work with multiple different delivery services, allowing users to pick a restaurant and then compare prices, availability and delivery time. This saves you both time and money when trying to get good, healthy delivery options. Although there is still more typical fare available, Bootler lets you find the largest selection of healthy and organic restaurant options. Interestingly enough, you can also order alcohol from them if you feel like having a bottle of wine or a craft beer with your meal. Alcohol comes from a delivery service called ‘Saucey’ which they are partnered with.

Bootler is not the delivery company; they only bring together other delivery companies and then redirect you to the appropriate website when you’ve decided on your order. You may have used a similar service before to book flights. Similar to Kayak.com, you book the flight through Kayak, but you fly with American Airlines, Delta, or whichever other company is offering the best flight deal. This way you can get healthy, organic, and vegan or vegetarian food options delivered at competitive prices and with the shortest wait time.

I know if I were located in Chicago (which is currently the only city they’re available in) I would be using this service to eat healthy, organic take-out food at home instead of just ordering a pizza on Friday night. Luckily once they’re out of beta, they plan on expanding to NYC by the end of the year and more major cities soon after. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for their expansion into Florida, that’s for sure!

If you are lucky enough to live in the Chicago area, I’ve got two coupon codes that you can use with Bootler‘s delivery partners:

  • Use “Saucey” to receive $10 off your alcohol order.
  • Use “Bootler” to receive $10 off your food order from Postmates.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve used Bootler (or a similar service in your city) in the past, and what your favorite healthy delivery meal options are. I’d love to know how you found your experience with the service!

 

This post is sponsored by Bootler – all opinions expressed are my own.

Cameron’s Specialty Coffee: BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod Review

July 25, 2016 2

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Love the convenience of single-use coffee pods but not their environmental impact? Me too! Today I am excited to share a more eco-friendly alternative to a traditional “k-cup”, which I think will be of interest to any of you readers who regularly spend time in locations which only offer Keurig-style coffee machines. I, myself have enjoyed using this alternative when traveling, it really is the only option other than going out to a coffee shop and getting an overpriced latte in a disposable cup. No thank you!

Cameron’s Specialty Coffee had the earth in mind when they designed a compostable alternative to the plastic pods which are so regularly used by most brands who offer these single-serve coffee pod options. It was the next logical step in Cameron’s commitment to being one of the greenest coffee roasters in the world. I took three of their BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod flavors: Kona Blend, Organic French Roast, and Vanilla Hazelnut with me on a recent trip to Montana. I was excited to see a company thinking about how to make these disposable products a little less damaging.

Traditional plastic k-cups are starting to fill up landfills around the world, despite being a relatively recent innovation. They’re one of the fastest growing types of disposable plastic waste products; current levels of production make enough K-Cups in one year to circle the planet over 10 times! Cameron’s Specialty Coffee has introduced these single serve pods that work in your Keurig-type machine and use compostable materials—from the lid made from paper to rings made from corn, beets, and wood rather than plastics. These materials will return to the earth within 90 days, which is an incredible improvement from the decades or centuries it can take some types of plastic pods to break down!

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Instead of plastics which can also leech chemicals into your coffee when hot water is forced through them, the BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod uses a filter, just like the way a standard percolator coffee is brewed. Beyond coming up with a more eco-friendly single serve pod, Cameron’s also roasts their beans in the most energy efficient ways. They’re dedicated to eliminating as much water waste in production as possible, which is definitely more ecologically responsible than the average coffee company.

One of the things which most interested me in the BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pods was the fact that they’re organic. Cameron’s also invests in sustainable sourcing by buying Organic, Rainforest Alliance, and Shade Grown coffees sourced from farms in some of the most remote areas of the world. Most places that I stay when traveling only have Keurig-type coffee makers, and I like to be able to still have organic coffee when I’m on the go. The fact that these are also compostable really won me over for my travel coffee needs.

What do you think? Would a greener alternative to plastic coffee pods be useful in your life? Would you visit Cameron’s Coffee and make the #BetterTasteLessWaste pledge to reduce plastic waste?  I would love to hear your thoughts!

This post is sponsored by Cameron’s Specialty Coffee – all opinions expressed are my own.

Wild SelectionsÂŽ Solid White Albacore Tuna is Perfect for Lunch!

April 18, 2016 0

Wild SelectionsÂŽ Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water 1

Since I am so busy during the week, I really don’t have time to stop in the middle of my work day to make lunch. This means that I have had to come up with several make-ahead lunches that I can grab in between conference calls and projects. One of my favorites is Wild SelectionÂŽ Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water on a bed of lettuce. Wild SelectionÂŽ Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water is one of my favorites because inside you will find delicious, delicate tuna that comes from all-natural sources. There are three ingredients: white tuna, water, and salt. That’s it! Every can of tuna is Non-GMO verified too. Now, I obviously love the product, but what really gets me feeling passionate is the philosophy of the company behind the fish!

People talk a lot about sustainability nowadays but for the folks at Wild Selections, it is their entire business model. The entire product line is the only one in the world that is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified as sustainable seafood. You can trust that the blue MSC eco-label on every can means that the fish inside only comes from well managed fisheries and healthy fish stocks. For even more proof, just log onto the Wild Selections website and actually see where the fish in your can was caught! If we want our oceans to be teeming with life in the future, everyone should start to follow Wild Selections’ lead.

Wild SelectionsÂŽ Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water

Their commitment to ocean health and sustainability goes beyond just their products. For every can of Wild Selection Premium Seafood sold, they donate 13 cents to the World Wildlife Fund for marine conservation and to fishery improvement projects all over America. Wild Selections projects that by 2018, they will have donated a total of $1 Million towards saving our oceans. Partnerships between companies like Wild Selection and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund are helping lead the way to a sustainable tomorrow.

Wild Selections wants to make it as easy as possible for you to find their fantastic products. Check out their store locator to find stores where Wild Selections Seafood is sold. There are many other products available, including salmon, sardines, and shrimp. And you can be sure that every one is as environmentally friendly as their tuna!

Wild-SelectionsÂŽ-Solid-WhitIf you want to learn more about how Wild Selections is helping to save our oceans with sustainable fishing, you can check out this infographic. Or you could visit their YouTube Channel to learn more about their partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and Marine Stewardship Council.

When all is said and done, it is just a delicious product. And one that will help you do your part to save our planet. You can’t ask for more than that!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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