Another one bites the dust

I'm beginning to feel I was wrong in my diagnosis of my food poisoning: 1. The meat that was expired that Ethan threw away was, in fact, not the meat I had eaten the night before. 2. Ethan came home from school complaining of a stomach ache and within a half hour, he was throwing up.

Poor Ethan, he had it way worse that I did. I have never seen him in so much pain and all I wanted to do was help take it from him. Unfortunately I couldn't, so I did what any good wife would do. I sat with him while he threw up (but far enough away because I still wasn't completely over my queasiness.. it could have been bad) and I went to the store and got him Sprite, Grape Powerade and lots of Lysol wipes!

When I got back I called our home teacher to have him come give Ethan a blessing. It was amazing that he had just happened to pull into our complex and was there within minutes of my call! He was pretty miserable for the rest of the night, but the throwing up had finally subsided.

I guess this is a blessing in disguise that we didn't get sick earlier in the week, or next week when we have some big plans! Today's plan: disinfecting every surface of our house!

Husband of the year

I'll say it once and I'll say it again, I seriously have the best husband ever!

Tuesday after work, Ethan and I and our friend Victor went to the gym together. We got in a good workout, one I knew I would be sore from, and we headed home. we made some tacos for dinner and then I made myself a little meet and cheese roll-up with some onion and chive cream cheese. Big mistake.

Around 10:00 PM, I started getting a stomach ache. I didn't think much about it and a while later I went to bed. I woke up around 4:00 AM and I knew I was done for. I headed for the bathroom and that is where I spent the rest of my night. Poor Ethan didn't much sleep either because every time I threw up he was right there at my side. After each time I made him go back to bed because I knew he was going to be dead in the morning and he still had classes to go to.

I finally made my way downstairs around 8:30 AM, hoping that I was done. It was a couple hours later I was back on the bathroom floor of our downstairs bathroom. I laid there in pain and all I could do was cry. It was pretty pathetic, but I felt totally justified! Ethan had already turned in his assignment for his religion class and came home to comfort me and brought me a Sprite. He gave me a blessing and about 15 minutes later, I was out. He left to go back to class, but came home after his final class.

He brought me ice, he rubbed my back, brought me Sprite, held me when I cried. If I could have given him a trophy, I would do it in a heart beat! Around 7:00 PM I asked him to come lay down with me on the couch and within minutes I was out for the rest of the night. He let me sleep and I didn't wake up again until 7:00 AM.

I woke up feeling a lot better, but my body is still hating me. I lost a good 7 lbs and I feel so weak, but at least I'm able to move. Ethan was absolutely amazing to me and I can't thank him enough.

Memorial weekend

This past weekend we had an amazing time. Our friends Brennan and Austin invited us to spend time up with them and Brennan's family at their cabin on Henry's Lake in Island Park. It was so nice to go up and hang out with everyone and enjoy the beautiful area.

These boys spent a good five or six hours widdling sticks and making bows, arrows and spears. I'm pretty sure they would have done it all day, but they wanted to try out their new gadgets to get some fish.  

Unfortunately, they didn't catch a single thing, but they were sure impressive spears. I guess if you watch survivor shows enough, you learn some valuable skills!

We spent time outside hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather. Lainey loved spending time outside in her stroller. 

 Ethan and Austin did a great jobs of keeping the fire up. Isn't he so strong and handsome?

Ethan also brought his shotgun and some clay pigeons for everyone to enjoy. This was Mitch's (Brennan's little brother) first time shooting. Look how excited he is!

Poor Brennan, after the first shot, she was in so much pain. She didn't realize that she had pulled the gun away from her shoulder before she shot it, allowing it to fully kick back and slam her shoulder. It didn't completely shake her from trying it just one more time.

Monday we headed to West Yellowstone. The only time I remember going there was last year when we went snowmobiling with Ethan's family. There are so many little shops around there with souvenirs completely overpriced, but that didn't keep us from enjoying ourselves.

We did however find this random shop that had sweatshirts for $10.00. We couldn't not get matching sweatshirts!

We finished the day at Pete's Rocky Mountain Pizza which was fantastic, and then stopped at a little candy shop called the Rustic Candy Shop (amazing taffy, I allowed myself one piece of cinnamon). 

We said our goodbyes and starting planning our trip together down to Lake Powell this summer! Her family invited us to join them for their week long trip on their houseboat and of course we said yes! We love having such good friends that we can do these thing together with. 

Friday fever

It seems like the weeks that I know I'm going to have a long weekend, drag on forever. The days never seem to end and Friday never feels like it's going to make it. But it has and I'm so excited for the weekend! Our friends Brennan and Austin (and little Lainey) are coming into town and I couldn't be more excited. Ethan has a couple of lacrosse games that I'm excited for and I have Monday off meaning I have a three day weekend. Score! The best thing about it, is that the weather is supposed to be great and we will be outside enjoying all that the beautiful weather has to offer.

Thank you Friday, you finally made it and I'm so happy to see you!

Breakfast of champions

If I don't have any bananas, this is usually what my breakfast consists of. 

It's delicious and we have a ton of them from Sam's Club. They perfect for putting in my purse and taking them to work. Did I mention they taste amazing?

Sunshine on my face

I used to think people were absolutely full of it when they would say that sunshine makes you happy. I was a fairly happy person growing, but there is no way I was going to give credit to the sun. That is until I became one of those people.

I sit in an office all day with no windows and no one to talk to. When I go outside, all I want to do is sit in the sun and just bask in its golden rays. The sunshine targets every single one of my little cells and brings a smile to my face. The sun makes me happy, and I'm proud to admit it.

That's probably one of the saddest things about growing up and starting real life. You don't get to take time whenever you want to go lay outside and soak it in. I guess I'll just have to appreciate all of the times I do get to enjoy the sunshine, I'll take full advantage.

Dance lessons

Last night for our ward party we did a service auction. I would say the majority of the people offered to watch kids for a night (we have a TON of kids), others offered talents, and me? I offered a plate of homemade cookies.

It was also a BBQ and since Ethan is in the elder's quorum presidency, he got put at the grill and I sat with a couple girls from the ward whose husbands weren't able to come. We talked and had a great time and had good conversation.

To pay for the services we earned money points. They had a sheet of paper that you filled out. You got points for doing any of these things within the month of May:

• Attend temple
• Read scriptures
• Said Prayers
• FHE
• Attended devotional
• Etc.

There were quite a few more activities and they were each worth between $50-$100. We ended up having $1,000 out of $1,400 to spend. They read through a few of the services and I had my eye on two of them, 3 lbs of beef or dance lessons. The auctioneer was going about a mile a minute (just kidding, but I hope you started saying that like John Michael Montgomery singing "Sold"!) The auctioneer wasn't really that great at all but it was fun. I figured the meet was going to be a hot ticket item, so I decided I was going to bid on the dance lessons. There is a couple in our ward here who are on the Dance Alliance traveling team here at BYU-Idaho, so I knew they were going to be good. 

The bidding started and I raised my hand each time someone challenged me. I got to $1,000 and was ready to keep going. Luckily, I got it for that amount because it took me looking back down at my paper to realize that's all I had! We won and I couldn't be more excited. Ethan and I have talked multiple times about going and trying dance up on campus. Now, we don't have to feel ridiculous in front of everyone because we get a free private lesson!

The activity wrapped up and everyone had a great time. The meat went for the full $1,400 amount so I'm happy I didn't wait to bid! But we definitely didn't leave empty handed. The bishop had lots of hamburger left over so we took a sleeve of patties that we can grill up ourselves. Score! All in all a success. 

Finding a place

I feel that I can honestly say that I'm finally finding my place here. This weekend I had the baby shower that I went to that was so fun. There weren't many girls there but they were all from our ward and I got to know them a little bit. I was 1 of 2 girls out of 7 that wasn't pregnant, but it was fun to hear all of their stories. I enjoy listening to other's experiences because it gives me little hints as to what I may be able to expect when the time comes for me!

We then went over to that same girls house last night to play Apples to Apples with her and her husband. We seriously played that game for hours! We talked, laughed, yelled and did pretty much everything you shouldn't do when there's a little two-year-old sleeping right about you. Luckily, it didn't phase him a bit and we had a great time.

It's amazing how just that one friendship can change almost everything. I couldn't wait to get out of this ward. I was looking at other places, since ours is up for sale now, but now, I'm frantically looking to stay in our same complex so I don't have to do this all over again. I finally feel like I'm belonging in this ward.

I suppose whether we leave or stay, this has been a learning opportunity for me. And, although I would never want to go through it again, it's made me more aware of how much I rely on friendships and how much they mean to me.

Judge not

Lately I have found myself looking at others and judging them in a sense and I don't really know why. It's awful and hurtful, even if the other person doesn't know. I have no reason to judge them, I don't really know them and I don't know what they're going through. Case and point:

1. The other day I came across the blog of a guy that I knew of through friends. It had a picture of him and his wife and a little girl. I knew there was no way he could have had a kid that old. With that, I assumed that she was probably one of those girls that messed up. You've heard the expression about assuming right? Yea, it's something about a donkey. You can look it up if you don't know. Anyway, I started came across another blog which happened to have this same girl on it. The more I got reading, the more I realized that she wasn't one of those girls like I knew in high school. She had been married for a couple years to her high school sweetheart in the temple and he went in to the police force. When the little girl was just 3 months old, he was killed by a drunk driver on his way to a call about a shooting. After a few years, she remarried the guy that I knew of.

2. There was a girl that I played basketball against up here at school. She was a good player (and absolutely gorgeous.. of course) but she seemed so full of herself (I had legitimately spent some time with her and got this vibe). She was also a world traveler. Her dad was an FBI special agent and they lived all over Europe, Asia and Africa. I recently came across her page on Facebook and saw that she was married. I was looking through her profile pictures (and coveting her beauty) when I came across one of her dad. People were saying they were sorry for her loss. She had a link to his obituary. Evidently he was an amazing athlete and did amazing things but he had suffered from cancer for years and had lost his battle with it just months before she got married.

After each of these events I felt so awful. I couldn't believe I would let my judgment cloud the type of people they really are. I have no idea what they have been through or the person they truly are. The one girl I had never even met before! I find myself more and more trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have no idea who's judging me or thinking negative things of me, but I know it would crush me if people who know me or even don't know me had these thoughts. I then came across this quote from President Uchtdorf:

He couldn't be more clear of what he wants. This resonates with me so much. I will continue to make a valiant effort not to judge people because you never know their story. 

Late night

Two nights ago Ethan had a project due for one of his classes. The class is basically all about Excel and learning different functions. For this project, he was giving four possible job offers right out of college. He had to come up with 20 different criteria of what to consider, (salary, location, crime rate, etc). I tried to help him to make it as realistic as possible as to what we truly would consider. I'm also decent at Excel, so I helped him a little bit there as well.

In order to put them on the same playing field, and then weigh each according to importance, you have to get them to an adjusted score. There are a few different formulas we used to get it and then you multiply that number by your weighted score for each and you come out with a number. The one that comes out with the higher number is supposed to be one that you consider. Our's actually landed us in San Jose, CA. Not that we'd ever really look there, (not that we wouldn't leave it an open option), but when you put California up against places like Rawlins, WY and Flint, MI, San Jose it was, with Houston has the second place.

We were able to get all of the totals and everything done, and then it got to the part where we needed to make it visually appealing. This is the part that I enjoy most. I love doing graphs and charts and making it easy to interpret. What we had done was made a drop down list that if you choose 1 it pulls up the first option, choose 2, the second, etc. What we then wanted to do was have a new graph pop up for each of the offers as well. Bad idea.

We started this part around 11:45 pm or so, and it's not as easy as it sounds. In fact, because the graph isn't technically in a cell, it makes it ridiculously hard. We were on YouTube forever trying to figure it out. around 2:30 am, we still hadn't figured it out, so we gave up and make a graph just of the weights each criteria was given. I kind of dozed off around 3:00, and then we make it up to bed finally at 3:30 am.

The next day was BRUTAL! I didn't understand because I used to do this all the time in school. I had many nights up until 4:00 or 5;00 in the morning. The difference is, is that the next day I wasn't sitting in quiet office, all by myself with no one to talk to. I can't tell you how many times I almost fell asleep. I came home from work, went upstairs to my bed and took a nice little nap. We had some dinner, played tennis and then came home for Ethan to do some homework. I had good intentions of getting to bed early. I guess compared to the night before it was early. All I can say is I'm excited for this weekend to catch up on sleep a little bit. Only two more days. I can make it.

Invited

I don't know if I've mentioned before or not, but I don't really have friends in our ward here. I have my basketball friends that I see once or twice a week, but we don't really communicate outside of basketball. And I have friends,  they just don't live in Rexburg. So this past Sunday I sat by a girl in my ward whom I've always wanted to be friends with, but she had "other" friends (other = friends with kids like her). Is it just me or do I seriously sounds like I'm in elementary school again? Great. But we talked and had a good time.

Ethan is actually her family's home teacher and so I asked him if we could go together to go visit them; He'd be able to get his visiting teaching done and we could hang out for a bit. My plan worked! We visited with a plate of delicious cookies and chatted for a good 45 minutes or so. We all talked about how we should all do something together and I was so excited to finally have at least one friend in my ward!

Fast forward to yesterday, her best friend stopped by and brought me this little gem:

I know it may not seem that exciting, but I was so grateful for that invitation. Who knows, maybe she had planned on inviting me before Sunday, maybe not. Either way, I'm finally stepping outside of my comfort zone and it's paying off!

Dandelions

I don't know about anyone else, but I loathe dandelions. Maybe it's because they take over everything, or maybe it's because it reminds me of being a kid and my dad making us get all of them out by the root with our hands a a little garden tool. We probably only spent an hour or so each time, but it felt like an eternity back then.

I as I was driving to work last week, I noticed that they were everywhere. I didn't really pay attention on the way back, but I was explaining to Ethan how they were completely covering all of the lawns and fields. We went out that evening to take some pictures of them, but they were gone! They were all gone! Some people had mowed their lawns so they were gone, but other's had already gone to seed. Ethan didn't believe me that they were there.

Fast forward to the next day, I walk outside and see the field on the other side of our street and I see this:

I told Ethan to come look. He couldn't believe they had come up out of no where. We drove by the other lawns we had driven by the evening before, and they were all over those again as well! I knew I wasn't crazy.

I suppose they're decent to look at when they're not taking over my own lawn, but those things go to seed quick so you have to get them before they blow everywhere and create more dandelions!

Piano Guys

Last week we were able to go to the Piano Guys concert that came to campus. It was amazing! For years I have listened to Jon Schmidt's music and since he's joined up with the Steve (the cello guy) his music has gotten even better!

They put on an awesome show and they had some humor in it as well. Both of them are funny and corky, but Steve is hilarious. Unless you were actually there, you can't really understand how awesome it was, but we had an amazing time. If I could see them again I would do it in a heartbeat! Here are some pictures (that don't do it justice, but they're the best I have!).
Yes, he is playing upside down, and he did it well.

 Here's Steve. He did a cello solo and was fantastic.

I got some videos as well, but they take forever to download. But they had a song where all four the the Piano Guys (Jon, Steve, their audio guy, and their music producer guy) played together by playing the strings inside the piano, the keys and then used the piano sides as a drum. It was one of the coolest things I have seen.

Like I said, I can't wait until we get a chance to see them again!

Mother's Day

With Mother's Day coming up, and since I take the weekend off from writing here, I thought I would finish off the week talking about the amazing mothers in my life.

Ethan's mom Sarah:

Unfortunately, because we've been married just a short time, and we live so far away from each other, I haven't been able to spend as much time getting to know Sarah as much as I would like to. But you don't have to know her very well to know that she is one of the most giving people I know. She would give you the shirt off her back if it meant that you would be more comfortable. She gives and gives and never complains. She is such an amazing example of service. 

She's also an amazing mother. She's raised 5 amazing children who love and adore her. I remember the first time I visited Ethan when we were in our early dating stage. I could tell that Ethan loved his mother more than anything and treated her with such love and respect. I also remember thinking, "He's a momma's boy. This could be really good or really bad." Luckily, it turned out good because he definitely loves her, but she taught him to be independent as well. 

She raised my husband to be the man that I always intended for a husband. She (along with her husband of course) taught him to be respectful of others, serve others without a moment of question, be strong in the gospel and to love unconditionally. There is not enough thanks for the gift that she has given me.

I can't wait to develop an even stronger relationship with Sarah and teach my children like she has taught her's. 

My mom Sue:

I could never write enough about my mom to fully explain how much I love her. I wasn't easy to deal with growing up and she never gave up on me. She is truly my best friend. I remember talking to my sister when I was in high school and she was explaining the relationship she had with my mom, and how if she could go on a trip and take her best friend (aside from her husband) it would be our mom. I laughed, but the past few years our relationship has changed and I completely agree she would be the first on my list. My mom is patient, kind, loving, thoughtful, talented--qualities that I hope to attain. There are obviously more qualities, but I don't want to embarrass her.

Over the years I've also realized that I'm more like my mom that I ever would have thought. We even have some of the same mannerisms!

One weekend when my parents were visiting, we were sitting in Sunday School and Ethan leans over to me and says something to the effect of, "Like mother, like daughter." I look over and we were sitting in the exact position, from our hands to our feet.

My mom also listens to me and I listen to her, whether we've had a less than ideal day (we've been trying to "relabel" things, based off this book), or we just want to catch up. I don't know how many times I've just called to cry to her and she sits and listens until I can compose myself enough to speak.

One thing that I will always treasure with my mom is our love for music and especially the piano. My mom h as taught piano ever since my oldest brother was a toddler. She has sat through countless lessons, which is very painful at times to hear. But she and I have also spent hours upon hours together sitting at the piano together while she played and I sang. That is one of the things I look forward to most when I visit. She'll have the new choir song that she wants me to try out, or we'll sing some of the classics together. It never gets old.

She is beautiful in every way, and I can only hope that I will become a fraction of the mother and person she is. She is truly my best friend.

I have been so blessed to have two of the best mothers I could ever hope for to have as an example in my life, and to pattern the way I raise my own children after.

I love you both very much.

Locked down

Well that escalated quickly. After yesterday's post, I thought we had at least a week to let this all sink in. Apparently not. The Realtor came yesterday to get a copy of the key so he could show our home at anytime. Our door now looks like this:

I don't like it. Not one bit. I'm praying that this other townhome that we're looking at works out!

Slight plan detour

Before I graduated last July, Ethan and I had been looking for places to live so that we could get all of our stuff settled in before we got married and started all of the traveling that took place after. We found a townhome that we absolutely loved. We signed the next day and got all of the fixings to fill it the next couple days as well. We signed a contract for a year, with possible plans of resigning on.

Fast forward to this week. We got a note on our door from our landlord. Other than us dropping the check at their mailbox every month, we haven't had to contact them at all (thank heavens). The note kind of freaked me out a little bit because in my mind something's wrong.

My assumption wasn't completely off. We called him one night but he didn't answer so we left a message. He called us back in the morning letting us know that they don't really want to keep the place anymore so they were going to offer it to us for $95,000 or they would put it on the market for $99,000. Well, if they would have given us that option a year ago, we may have thought more seriously about it. Even then, it's a little pricey and we would only have it a short time. We told him that that just wasn't in the cards for us and we hung up the phone.

Ethan then got a call from the Realtor that's selling the place and he told us that we need to give him a key so that he can have access to show the house. Now, I know that that's normal, but I don't like that at all. I don't want someone to have access to my house--my things-- when I'm not there. He tried to make us feel better by telling us they would always call before they come. Is that supposed to settle all of my dislike of that situation. Heck no! On top of that, we need to have it clean before they show it. Luckily, I just implemented a fantastic cleaning schedule so our house is always presentable, but still. What if my unmentionables are out for their little peering eyes to see?? (That honestly wouldn't happen, but still.) What if?

So, I did what I would do in any situation like this. I got on Craigslist and found two other places that I really like. One it just a building down from us, and the other is closer to campus, bigger, and an end unit--love that!

They told us that if it did get sold our contract would be null and void, which is actually not true, but if they want to play that game, maybe we'll just leave early and let the house sit, renter less!

Who knows what will actually happen. That thing won't sell that fast. It's a little overpriced for what it is. But, I will have a back up plan, preparing for whatever may come. (Hopefully I'll get a few pictures before we actually leave since I didn't get any before!)

Spring

I think it's safe to say that it's finally spring here in Rexburg. Of course we'll get the occasional winter weather, but overall it's spring. 

It's fantastic to have the warm weather and the longer nights. My two favorite treat places in town just opened up again and I'm excited because one of them, Snoasis (it's for shaved ice), has sugar-free syrup! It'll be fun to have Ethan here this time around because of all the fun activities we can do together that we missed out on last year. We have lots of ideas planned and we can't wait to start checking them off our list. 

Here's to spring! 

Goals in marriage

People will always say that making goals is the key to success. Making goals and writing down those goals are quite different. I can make all the goals that I want in my head, but until they're written down, they don't necessarily take off like I would like them to.

If goals lead to success, and I want a successful marriage, then it only makes sense that I would write down goals that I have for my marriage. Ethan and I took some time to write down some goals that we have in order to make our marriage successful. Some of them we are doing, some we've tried to do, and some we've failed miserably at. We've written it down on paper, but putting them on the blog I feel makes us even more accountable. We broke it down into three categories of how to better bring ourselves together: Spiritually, emotionally and physically/mentally.

Spiritual:

• Daily couple's scripture study/prayer
• Attend the temple weekly
• Get to church 10 minutes early
• Visiting/Home teaching
• FHE (Sunday night)
• Monthly service act

Emotional

• One interactive date activity a week
• Weekly relationship review (how we're doing in our relationship)
• Be intimate
• Electronics free bed at night
• Positive quality notebook (writing down positive qualities that we see in each other)

Physically/Mentally

• Daily walk/jog/bike ride
• Maintaining a clean house
• Homework/craft/reading time (less TV)
• Cooking dinner 
• Do at least one activities from the "Activity List" once a month

Activity List

• Overnight camping trip
• Hiking
• Ice caves
• Paint balling
• Tennis
• Racquetball
• Rock climbing (indoor/outdoor)
• Bridge jumping
• Hot springs
• Zoo
• Roller rink- rollerblading
• Bonfires at the dunes
• Mini Golf
• Flying a kite
• Playmill theater
• Lacrosse in the park (tossing the ball)
• Craters of the Moon
• Monkey Rock 
• Stargazing

*This list was more of things that we haven't done out here. We tried to come up, mostly, with ones that wouldn't cost much or at all. We also plan on adding to the list as we find more things.

Both of us are happy about the goals and have both contributed. We're hoping that doing these things together will help strengthen our relationship so that we can have a successful marriage. 

Not perfect

Life is not perfect. It was never intended to be and it never will be (in this life). Trials are going to come and you may think you will never get through it, but you do. This life is about failing over and over again, then growing and learning from your shortcomings and becoming whom the Lord intended you to become.

As cliche` as it sounds, life is a marathon not a sprint. if I look at that example and apply it literally, doing a sprint takes virtually nothing for me. There's no training which usually results in no growth--no development. Sure I may be winded afterwards but it passes quickly. I look at marathons and think to myself, "I'd never do one of those." I have seen and heard of people training for marathons and they talk about the pain and time and discouragement they go through, but when they finally finish, they see all of those things pay off.

We may enjoy doing "sprints" over "marathons, but the fulfillment that comes from enduring all of the pain and trials until the end, makes finishing that much more sweet.

Becoming dependent

I'm a fairly independent person. I've never been much of a homebody and I'm not afraid to jump at opportunities. Being independent isn't always a good thing. Even when I'm in dire need, I won't always ask for help. It seems as though sometimes no one can help me, not even myself. I came across this quote and it made me take a step back and check myself.

I've never been very diligent in saying my prayers or reading my scriptures. I have spurts of greatness and then I fall out of routine. This has probably been one of the hardest things for me to do is depend on the Lord. Maybe I do it more than I think and I just try and give myself the credit for what I'm doing, I don't really know. But I'm someone that wants control in my life and given up that control and depending on the Lord is hard.

I feel I'm at a point in my life that something needs to change. I need a change. I need to be better--be more. I need to let go of the control I desire so much and put it into the hands of someone that knows what they're doing. I need to not only trust in the Lord, but depend on Him.

Pepperplate

There's this new app/website that my sister introduced to me and I am in love! For a couple weeks now I've been trying to convince myself I need to start cooking again. I eat more healthy when I don't cook, but poor Ethan, he needs some help. Frozen dinners are his go-to and that needs to stop.

It's called Pepperplate.

This site allows you to input recipes from certain websites (but not Pinterest, seriously?) or manually put in recipes. You can add categories to each which makes it nice if you're feeling, say chicken, and want to make a meal with that. The coolest feature in my mind is it has a function that you can change the amount that you want to make, whether it be cutting it in half or doubling the recipe, it allows you to modify it to your liking.

Another feature that it has is meal planning and a shopping list. You put in the meals that you want to have for that week, and it will generate a list of everything that you will need for that recipe. If you already have some of the ingredients, you can check the box, and as you go through the store you can also check it to know that you've gotten everything. 

I have already put a ton of my recipes that I have in there and have a lot more to do. Go check it out! Get your friends on it too, because they also make it easy to share recipes once they're on there. It's a dream.