Bountiful Baskets -all you wanted to know (and more)

I recently joined this co-op after finally giving in to the curiosity at the urging of many friends and family members.

So what is Bountiful Baskets? It's a co-op run by volunteers that makes produce available at about 1/2 the price of what you would regularly pay for that quantity.

I got my first basket 2 weeks ago and I was impressed right away! My first basket had 2 bags of grapes, 5 clementines, a bunch of apples, bananas, a couple of pears, a thing of blackberries, 2 heads of romaine, 1 head of spinach, 3 avocados, 1 bunch of radishes, 3 heads of broccoli (can't spell), 3 English cucumbers, and 3 or 4 tomatoes.

I had surgery last week so I didn't order a basket.
This is what my basket looked like this week:

It includes, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, 1 bunch (3 head) of broccoli, 1 head of cauliflower, 5 ears of corn, 8 bananas, 5 tomatoes, 6 pears, 5 kiwi, 2 pomegranates, 4 oranges, a bunch of brussel sprouts, and a 1 bag of apples.

The cost is $15 + $1.50 fee for something = $16.50 total. If it is your first time, count on paying $19.50 because there is a 1 time charge for the sorting baskets that they will use for you. The baskets stay there though and you will need to bring your own container(s) to get your stuff home.

Here are some pros and cons for you to consider:

Pros-

•  affordable
•  variety
•  large quantity
•  good quality
•  Supports local business and small farmers for exotic items
•  Adventurous- You never know what you're going to get! You don't want it to go to waste and it is a good way to try new things that you normally wouldn't pick out :-)
•  a good volunteer opportunity
•  It's fast, you go in your PJs and you pick out your baskets and you leave
•  My site is really well organised, they have a good system and it flows nicely
•  these things are everywhere! (at least in Idaho this is true)

Cons-

•  You don't choose the produce- it is chosen for you and you never know what you're going to get
•  You have a small time frame (20 minutes from the posted time) to pick it up or else you lose it and there are no refunds.
• The small time frame for me is really early in the morning on a Saturday (usually about 6:30)
• they like you to volunteer at least once every couple of months which is an hour earlier than my really early pick-up time.

As you can see, several of my pros can also be cons. once in a while because of the preferences of my kidos I do need to supplement my baskets with some store bought produce. Usually it isn't much; a bag of apples or a bunch of bananas or some recipe specific veggies.
I have a couple of recommendations that you might find helpful:

• Find your local site on facebook if possible- My pick up time on the BB website is 7am but because I am in the local facebook group I know that my people are REALLY fast and I will get the best choice of baskets if I go at 6:30 because they are usually ready at 6:30 rather than 7.
• The early bird gets the worm!- You get to pick your basket and if you go early you have a lot of control over quality. PLUS all the baskets have at least the same amount of fruits and veggies but the extras get distributed as evenly as possible among that baskets so you can pick a basket that might have more of 1 thing that you like. For example, on my first week there was only 1 bag of grapes in the baskets but I got there early and I know my kids like grapes so I picked a basket with 2 bags since there were extras that week. There were baskets with extra lettuce and other stuff too. They really do try to dole out the extras evenly but every basket is different.
• If there is a delay in delivery or weather issues I know (through facebook) before it's posted on the main site.
• read all of the directions and play around on the main website thoroughly before you join up so that you aren't confused. It's a really easy process but there is a lot to learn at first.
• DO volunteer! If you can, you should volunteer. Not only are you helping out and getting a work out you get first pick from the baskets, first pick from the extras, and if someone doesn't pick up their basket you get more stuff. It pays to volunteer.

I'm actually not a huge lover of a variety of fruits and veggies, I know what I like and I don't really like to explore too far out of my comfort zone. But we really want our kids to try new things constantly and we want them to like more fresh healthy foods than we do and so this is a great way for us to explore as a family and set a good example for our children. It really forces us to step out of the box and try new things. It feels really nice to have to get creative in order to use all of our produce and I actually look forward to new recipes. I'm forced to follow through on all those good intentioned copied recipes that I have in my stash and I like it!

You can get more info and sign up at bountifulbaskets.org

a lesson in humidifiers

So I don't know how many other people really care about humidifiers except other moms and since that is about ½ of my blog I thought I would share J

I learned a couple of things and I found them useful, it’s new info for me but perhaps you already knew some of this.

Our humidifier hasn’t been making the baby’s room very humid. I decided to go online and do some research because our humidifier blows cool air and I grew up with warm mist. Do they still make warm air? Why don’t I really hear about them anymore? Which is better?

Here awesome answers in a nutshell:

Warm mist fell out of use for the most part when the cool mist was developed because it has to boil the water and has a potential to scald kids. In order to keep up with the safer cool mist though, the warm mist guys amped up their safety features so while there is still a risk it is not what it used to be. There’s automatic shut off and the boiling water and heating elements are more contained so that if it does get tipped over the hot water will not be as likely to reach your child and the cooler water will at least temper it down.
Cool mist has no risk of burns.

Both will have the same air temp by the time they get where they need to be in your lungs.

The hot water does get disinfected when it boils but because it creates a warmer environment bacteria can grow so keep an eye on that. The cool mist has antimicrobial properties but will not kill any germs that happen to be in it.

** Here was the big one for me**
The cool mist will require ongoing maintenance which I didn’t know about. Because it doesn’t evaporate the water it uses a wick. The wicks have to be replaced on average about once a year. So since our humidifier doesn’t work it is likely that the wick needs to be replaced. Since I got ours on clearance and I don’t even know where the wick is, I highly doubt that if I could find the right replacement I would know what to even do with it.  Upon further research, I discovered that our filter is also thw wick so that's easy. But!!!! Yuck! I had to replace the filter so often because it kept growing funky stuff an dI haven't been able to find the right filter for it in a while. My instruction manual didn’t say anything about any of this. Not all filters are the wick that the humidifier needs, it depends on the brand. The cool mist has a higher long term cost even though the initial investment is often lower.

The warm mist doesn’t have a wick so it’s pretty much good to go as long as you keep the mineral build up down. Warm air has a longer life span than the cool air if you have hard water. Again, not in the manual! Warm air has a medicine cup and you can add things like Vicks solutions that clear your chest. I’ve never used those types of additives but I think I might like to.

In the end I ordered a new WARM air humidifier because I don’t want to mess with our cool air one and I need it NOW, not in 3-6 weeks from some website that MIGHT carry the part I need.

I’m not going to throw out our cool mist unit though, I will look for a new wick and then I will eventually have a backup.

So there you have it, an FYI on humidifiers J

Birthdays at Pizza Hut?

Ok so this is specific to OUR pizza hut on the blvd here in Nampa but other pizza Huts may consider doing this I guess if you asked.When Aaron and my Dad came home one day after picking up dinner talking about how Pizza Hut does birthday parties and they only charge for the food and will put on the whole party for pretty much nothing. I thought it was WAY too good to be true and didn't think much of it. We got to talking about it a few weeks later and I decided to give them a call and the manager atthe Pizza Hut even remember the conversation. Sure enough he said he would supply the decorations, and a clown and put on a party for no extra charge. I booked the party right away. I have never considered anything except at home parties for the kids so this is a step outside my comfort zone.
I preordered our pizzas the week before so they could be sure to have enough (thanks seriously for all those timely RSVPs). I talked to the manager the day before the party and we were essentially assigned a waitress. She did the shopping for the party, gave me her cell number, asked for specifics, she thought of everything!
When we got there it was all set up minus a few last minute touches. They seriously HAD thought of EVERYthing!!!! The theme was cookie monster and everything was blue and white. They had a kid's table set up with sesame themed plates and napkins, there were balloons, games were set up, they had cookies sitting out and had even gone and bought milk to go with the cookies. They even had coloring pages and had ripped out all of the Cookie Monster sheets out of several coloring books.

All I brought and had to worry about was the cupcakes, people, and money. True enough; it was all free except for the cost of food and with the any size any topping for $10 deal they have going, it was truely a good deal.

They were more than prepared for us and very flexable and accomodating. 

We asked if Davin could blow out candles on his favorite pizza (chicken pizza) and they came up with a way to do it inspite of the pizza being hot. I forgot our candles and they had thought to even get back ups. Seriously, I have never had sucha  stress free party. The clown entertained the kids (who weren't scared of him)

I have nothing but good things to say about our experiance and I would totally recommend if you ever get the chance to do something like this to go ahead and try it.

a website review ~!!buyer beware!!~

I recently bought a book from feedbooks.com via my android phone. After purchasing the book I was asked to get registered with some random for of adobe that I have never heard of. I tried several times to register and it said I wasn't "authorized". I was unable to download the book that I had just paid for. I emailed the company within hours. I didn't hear back and I purchased the book from another source. I continued to try to solve my technical problem by working with both sprint tech support and aldiko to try to at least get  it on my PC. After a few business days I email the company that sold me the book and demanded a refund. They were very prompt in getting back to me to tell me I couldn't get a refund. they didn't offer any exchanges either by the way. They did offer a few trouble shooting tips but I had already tried all those things. I informed them that I had already taken many reasonable measure and even tried thing above and beyond what you might expect. This company which put me off for 4 days has been very diligent today in fighting every word I say to them via email. They are polite but unreasonable.

So I ask you; is it fair that I paid for a book and did not receive the book? Is this on the company or should I just swallow the losses. I feel robbed. I would equate this to buying a book from someone like borders or something over the phone or online and choosing in store pick up. Now say my car broke down and was not fixable in the foreseeable future and despite many efforts to make it to the store to get my purchase I am unable. In this theoretical situation Borders has nothing to do with my unfortunate transportation problem but would be obligated to give me a refund and re shelf the book for someone else to buy since I never did obtain possession of my purchase.
Isn't that the same thing as what's happening to me here?

So why is this seller (feedbooks) stealing my money?!?!

I am invoking my right to free speech and telling you to wary of this website. not all devices are compatible with any of  the venues available to download their books and there is no way of finding that out until after you have made a purchase. There is also no recourse for you to take against them except for word of mouth. I lost $10 and learned a valuable lesson. I will not be buying any more digital books unless it's from Amazon or Google books since I know that they are reputable companies and have had good experiences with them. I'm sure there are thousands of people who have had good experiences with this website but I am one person whose technology isn't compatible with their books and wasn't given the chance to find that out until after my purchase. Even if I were suddenly able to download their books I would not purely out of principal because of the way I have been treated.