Chaos Theory Reviews

As much as I love to cook, I sometimes find myself making the same thing repeatedly. Right now we’re in a cycle of chili, spaghetti, chicken in the oven, and a few other things to break up the monotony.

On the one hand, I don’t really mind. They’re all easy to make, delicious to eat, and they work well in the cold Winter weather. On the other hand, it would be nice to eat something different, you know? I do have a ton of recipes but sometimes when it’s time to make my shopping list, I lack the motivation to actually look through them to make something else, so it’s just simple to write down the ingredients for my staple meals.

That’s why I was interested when the Parent Bloggers Network offered me a chance to try a free account over at Relish! which is a meal planning site. I created my pro bono account and logged myself in to see what I could find.

The site is handy, no doubt about it. First of all, if you were to log in right now, it would wish you a happy Valentine’s Day, and then it suggests an appropriate meal menu (including stuff for kids) and a movie to go with it. Meanwhile, the regular features include a weekly menu selection. You can choose the Express menu which offers up some recipes with the promise that you “don’t think, just eat”. Believe me, most weekdays, not having to think but ending up with a tasty dinner is a wonderful thing. At the same time, you can choose from an entire list of recipes to create your own custom menu. I’ve only been on the site for a week, but I’m assuming that the menu changes from one week to the next.

The meals are healthy but not complicated, perfect for people in a rush who don’t want to eat take-out every night or cook things that are frozen in a box.

Aside from the menu, you can also choose to search for specific recipes, and they have a slow cooker section as well as cooking for the freezer - something I always mean to do and never do!

I really kind of like the dinner and movie section - much like the Valentine’s message, it features a movie of the week with a menu to match. It reminds me of a show that used to be on Friday nights where they would show a movie, and in between segments and commercials, the hosts would cook up a dinner or snack that went well with it. It’s fun and would be perfect for a nice weekly Family Night.

The only real annoyance I had was the fact that many of the links launch a new browser tab, which is a habit that drives me nuts. Internal links in particular should just open in the current window and you can use the back button. But that was the only thing I found that made me twitch and it’s certainly forgivable.

Overall, I do like the site, but I’m not sure I would pay to use it. While it’s useful, I think that there are a lot of food sites that offer menu ideas, complete with required grocery lists free of charge. Because of that, I don’t know if people would want to pay for a menu, but if you’re really stuck for ideas or if planning a weekly menu yourself is one of those chores you absolutely can’t stand, this kind of site could help you out.

In the meantime, they do offer a free trial so go ahead and check it out and see if it’s what’s missing from your kitchen life!

I was really excited to get a chance to read Felicia Sullivan’s memoir, The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here before it had even hit the shelves. I have been corresponding with Felicia for quite some time now, and she’s the one responsible for a great deal of the books I receive for review, so I was eager to read something that she had written herself.

From the time I cracked the book open, I didn’t want to stop reading until it was done. However, despite my desire to read, read, read, I found myself repeatedly having to put the book down. Not because the book was terrible, quite the contrary, it was written in a very compelling way. However, it was also very difficult to read. It wasn’t a fictional novel, it was the story of Felicia’s own life, from the childhood she lived through with a smothering and drug-addicted mother to her adulthood with her own addictions. More than once I would find myself so incredibly shocked by something that had happened to her, particularly as a child, that I had to stop reading for a bit, just to compose myself. Frequently I would put the book down and go hug my own kids.

But don’t let that dissuade you because this isn’t a downer of a book by any means. Rather, it’s a book of hope. As you read along through all the things that Felicia survived and fought against, you will find yourself cheering. It’s a story that shows you that you can overcome anything, not just the people around you but your own issues and demons.

And I’m not going to spill the beans, but the final chapter of the book is by far my favorite.

I love memoirs, so I may be biased a bit, but the book was definitely incredible. It’s a little strange to say that you loved a book about someone’s hard times, it always comes out sounding a little wrong, like you’re saying, “it is just AWESOME that you had such a difficult life, great story!” But honestly, I loved the book for the way the story is told and the uplifting feeling of hope that is never completely hidden no matter what else was going on.

Highly recommended.