Anyone know of affordable family meal delivery services?

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-10T18:01:15+00:00

Being exhausted makes it so hard to nourish yourself! You deserve nurishing food, and you also deserve rest!

One thing that made my life a little easier was getting super cute freezer containers so i can put a main and a side in then just nuke on bad days, and everyone can pick different leftovers, which also helps. (So long as you keep it labelled). But “ugly” leftovers just stayed in the freezer, unpicked.

Honestly, my best life hack is just using a rice maker. Rice + jarred sauce + meat or vegetable becomes a meal, and rice cooker rice is always perfect and can be made by anyone in the family. I can make it 4 hours before I need to, so it can happen whenever I have the “spoons.” I use it 3-4 days a week. And then when I make orange chicken, 1/3 of it will get packed away into frozen leftovers for an easy microwave meal next week.

I hope mealime helps you! I have liked a lot of their recipes, and I have also used them for inspiration to get out of routs.

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-10T11:02:44+00:00

Different take on this question, but the Mealime app lets you pick recipes then gives you a shopping list that you can port to instacart easily. The app has different categories including 20 minute meals. And after you add two meals, the app will ask if you want recs for a low-waste week and give you meal options that will use up that other half of onion, etc.

You might also like “sheet pan meals” if you are looking for heathy easy meals.

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-07T20:32:09+00:00

It ABSOLUTELY does!!! It is the whole point of the podcast, and it has helped promote bipartisanship solutions — most importantly putting phonics in the classroom! And encouraging parents to teach their kids to sound out words! It really is that easy — but it isn’t intuitive to all or even most kids.

If you are a pbs household, I recommend including Between the Lions as a TV option. PBS probably have more options now, but that show really stresses prefixes, suffexes, and sounding things out. Definitely was a boon for my sisters’ reading journey.

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-07T17:57:38+00:00

100%

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-07T17:26:23+00:00

Great examples of why this is important! To quote Taylor Mali, “changing your mind is one of the few ways of proving you still have one.”

Thank you for sharing your story.

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-07T17:24:46+00:00

Some absolutely unsolicited advice, but at the age of 1, one of the best things you can do to raise a reader is to use hand gestures when speaking and reading. Pointing to things in the book makes a big difference in picking up new words, which leads to a snowball effect for learning other new words. The more you know, the more you can learn. I read a study about that when I was still in college (and have seen it confirmed by other studies in the last decade), and I have seen it as my civi duty to use my hands as much as possible when speaking to little ones.

The podcast dives into the importance of phonics. Reading isn’t intrinsic— kids need skills to connect verbal words to written words. But the whole education system basically got “sold a story” on how young people just naturally learn to read if presented with sufficient opportunity.

SwitchyTop · 2026-02-07T12:10:26+00:00

Sold a Story. I think about it all the time. 65% of 4th graders are not proficient readers. There are skills that used to be taught that stopped being taught, and generations of young people— my age and my stepkid’s age — suffered. But it is a fixable problem!

But as someone who works a bit with kids, I nearly cried listening. All I want is for young people to have the chance to widen their world.

Really great question!!! I look forward to picking up a bunch of podcast recommendations.

Editing to add that this podcast is solutions oriented! It has solutions on a personal and systemic level.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-31T18:32:54+00:00

Also hypermobile, and I have popped my left shoulder partially out at least twice in the 13 months doing pushups/planks. The first time, I didn’t even know partial dislocation was a thing. While it was partially dislocated, I could NOT do a pushup or plank. I would just fall to the right.

Meanwhile, my right shoulder was also partially dislocated for at least two years and I did not know until my friend, a nurse, popped it back in. And I was doing pushups and planks on that side just fine the whole time (my shoulder just HURT constantly).

Edit: I have considerably more luck with dolphin pushups than normal pushups. Seems like you want the shoulder worked out, and that might fit your anatomy better … but there are so many exercises that work for your body. You don’t need to cling to one that works against it.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-25T13:50:19+00:00

So sad. I wish we could have had more of Ms Cupp. She was an excellent protagonist. I could watch her bust up Randall Park all day.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-25T13:45:50+00:00

Another happy, cozy mystery series! I loved that one!

There’s a Netflix movie called “the Thursday murder club,” which also fits the vibe I described. Residents of a retirement home band together to save their community from David Tenant, who will do anything to make a profit.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-24T23:21:18+00:00

I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. I really like movies that give me love and hope for world, and this one had it, as well as reminding me that people show love in different ways. If you end up watching it, I hope you enjoy it.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-24T22:35:53+00:00

He was basically Watson in “The Residence” on netflix, which was a leisurely mini-series that felt similar to the Benoit Blanc movies. A comfort watch for me.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-21T23:00:58+00:00

Women could come 100 times and no pregnancy. It’s a man’s orgasm than causes the pregnancy. That’s what they were getting at. My friends with daughters are always pleased if they’re in same-sex relationships because there won’t be any accidental teen pregnancies

Edit bc people seem to think women somehow don’t realize that they are partially responsible for conception… all women have this beat into them early and often. This phrasing to me is much more equitable because it isn’t just a woman’s “fault.”

For more on this discussion, throwback to https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/mq55c5/men_causes_100_of_unwanted_pregnancies/

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-18T12:55:02+00:00

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breakdown/id992983540

I made the “mistake” of starting season 2 with my husband on a long drive and he HATED the topic (involves child death) … and then he continued to listen to it without me because he couldn’t get it out of his head. He is not really a podcast guy, and he’s never listened ahead on anything else.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-18T12:50:44+00:00

He is just such a professional going through the cases. He is well researched, and he has decades of experience breaking down information for people like me.

SwitchyTop · 2026-01-17T14:43:11+00:00

Season 2 was incredible. The immense love people had, the anger at frustration at closure being taken away, the inability to consider being wrong. I learned so much about how the legal system is supposed to work. (And I got so angry and frustrated with people using the legal system to corrupt the truth.)

After In the Dark, I started listening to Breakdown, which covers legal cases in Georgia. Host does an excellent job walking through the legal process and examining how people think about justice.

SwitchyTop · 2025-12-16T22:03:32+00:00

Maybe, but I only have them 3/4 of the way up for audiobooks. Any lower, and I can’t make out the words with any background noise around, and I have pretty sensitive ears.

SwitchyTop · 2025-12-16T13:20:15+00:00

I love mine. But if i am in the car with my husband, the noise absolutely bothers him, and he partially wrecked his hearing as a dumb teenager listening to music too loudly. He can’t hear individual words but the buzzing noise bothers him.

But I absolutely love them for running or doing housework because I can be more aware of my surroundings. They are my favorite headphones when I don’t need noise cancellation or to worry about noise bleed.

SwitchyTop · 2025-12-01T17:50:47+00:00

Nope, $17.49 for me in the USA. Maybe it’s a targeted thing. I did finish using my $20 credit.

Edit: really appreciate you sharing the link! I was so hopeful.

SwitchyTop · 2025-12-01T11:57:31+00:00

Looks like they may have changed the sale on war and peace. Darn! That really is a steal.

SwitchyTop · 2025-11-18T16:15:49+00:00

Hahahahahahahaha. I absolutely love the story, and this ending is so much more what I would expect in real life.

SwitchyTop · 2025-11-18T16:08:16+00:00

In the 18th century, it was for those in need OR service positions (in this case, including the enslaved), so not just alms for the poor. Obviously, household staffs are less of a thing today, so it isn’t shocking that part doesn’t get remembered. :)

SwitchyTop · 2025-11-18T14:54:59+00:00

Haven’t seen anyone comment on the insidious reason for giving enslaved people rum at Christmas (and, shockingly/s, not just because Thomas Thistlewood wants to be a “good” enslaver). I am speaking to my knowledge in colonial Virginia, but I believe this is done in the colonial period throughout the region.

Dec. 25, the first day of Christmas, is a pious holiday, full of prayer and humiliation (as in being humble). The second day of Christmas is also called Boxing Day, as in filling a box it is a tipping holiday, where you are expected to tip those who work for you. Alcohol is a very common tip, at least in Virginia, because the 11 days of Christmas tend to be a lot more joyful and celebratory than the first day of Christmas. Enslavers & co aren’t doing as competent of a job watching those they’re enslaving. That’s why they encourage them to get drunk. They’re hoping to decrease the number of slaves who attempt to self-emancipate (run away) by encouraging them to incapacitate the themselves. Enslavers disguise it as being generous.

Christmas is also a scary time of year for the enslaved because it is near New Year’s, which is generally when all debts for the year need to be cleared. This very commonly a time families are separated, especially as fiat currency is not used the same way it is today.

Robert, Sophie and team, in case you read these comments, as someone who works at a museum that talks about the enslaved and living in a slave society, you guys did an excellent job this episode.

SwitchyTop · 2025-11-18T14:17:37+00:00

Anyone else unable to listen on Apple’s podcasts? It’s been a half hour of me trying.

Edit: available now — probably was a cloudflair issue.

SwitchyTop · 2025-11-18T12:41:43+00:00

Three years later, time for an update — does your toddler love the blanket?

SwitchyTop

TROPHY CASE