As your stereotypical overachiever, I live my life believing that we are capable of “having it all.” One of the side effects of this is that life can become an intense juggling act in which there are one too many balls in the air – all of them about to drop at any second. I want to be the best wife, the best employee, the best runner/triathlete, the best friend, the best daughter and the best blogger. I want to work an 8-hour day, complete a hard workout, spend quality time with the people I love, write about running, answer every email I get and still manage to do laundry, pick up the closet and get a healthy dinner on the table (and I don’t even have kids yet, whew!). This is probably not unlike many of you.

Are these expectations too high? Well, probably. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. Sometimes it all works according to plan. Sometimes I fail miserably or prioritize incorrectly which disappoints someone, including me. But at the end of the day, all we can do is the best we can and that has to be enough.

So how do we make it easier?

As a busy runner and triathlete, one of the most challenging things I find myself stressing about is meal planning and cooking. It is important to Mr. rUnladylike and me to cook healthy meals during the week. I plan our meals and grocery shop on the weekend (one day I’ll become as amazing at Sunday food prep as this girl). If I haven’t gotten up early before work to exercise (which has been way too often lately), it becomes a rat race by the time dinner rolls around, transforming my best intentions to cook a wonderful meal into wanting to get the fu@k1ng food on the table so I can relax and go to bed. Not good.

Sometimes (ok, most of the time), I wish I had a fairy godmother to magically prepare meals for me, or at least make things easier.

Enter: The Vegan Garden

The Vegan Garden is a family owned online vegan food delivery service based in California (which means I love them even more since you all know I love California). They produce and sell readymade a la carte vegan and gluten-free meals that are delivered to your door. They reached out to me before Thanksgiving last year and offered me the chance to try their food at no cost to see what I thought. Even though I am not exclusively vegan or gluten-free, I jumped at the opportunity to have the option to integrate some pre-made, healthy meals into our dinner schedule.

They sent me a variety of breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner options. And I’m excited to give one of you some too!

So was the food good? Did it help ease my juggling act of life? Here’s what I thought:

• The food arrived quickly and in great packaging. Everything was still frozen when I received it and I was impressed with the delivery. (Mr. rUnladylike ate one of the chocolate muffins before I could even get home and see what had arrived!)
• There is a wide variety of menu options for all meal types, with all vegan and many gluten-free options. You can order single servings or family servings (for up to 4 people), which is nice depending how large your household is.
• The prices are very reasonable. Lunches and dinners range from $5 to $10.
• The food is easy to get from the freezer to your plate. You simply pop them in the microwave and they are ready in 3 minutes or less. Although microwave timing instructions are featured by every food item on their Web site, they aren’t on each food package. This makes it a little inconvenient and I would recommend they print the unique heating instructions on each item moving forward.
• Overall, the food tasted really good and I would give it 3 out of 5 stars. I really loved the Giardano Pizza, quinoa salad and all the desserts. The peanut butter cookies were especially delicious. I like that the ingredients are natural and mostly locally and organically grown. The 2 items we would NOT order again are the mac ‘n’ cheese and the hummus and falafel. They were the least delicious of everything we tried.
• This is a great option for people like me with a very busy schedule to make cooking dinner easier a few nights each week. When I was running short on time or was starving after a workout, it was awesome to have lots of frozen meals in the freezer that could be ready in minutes.

So now it’s your turn to try out The Vegan Garden to ease your juggling act and help you eat healthy. Who doesn’t love free healthy food!?!

I’m giving away a total food package from The Vegan Garden that includes YOUR CHOICE of 1 breakfast item, 1 lunch item, 1 dinner item, 1 smoothie and 2 desserts.

Ready to win? Here’s how:

• Use the widget below to enter and track all your entries. Simply log in with your Facebook account or email. (Mandatory)
• Post a comment in the comments section at the end of this post sharing at least one food item that looks good to you from The Vegan Garden (you can see all the food at http://thevegangarden.com). (Mandatory)
• Once you’ve done that, check it off in the box below to unlock additional options to enter.
• The contest will be open from Wednesday, January 29, 2014, through Sunday, February 2, 2014, at 11:59 p.m. EST.
• The winner will be contacted on Monday, February 3, 2014, via email. The winner will be instructed to go to http://thevegangarden.com to choose 1 breakfast item, 1 lunch item, 1 dinner item, 1 smoothie and 2 desserts. All items will be shipped directly to the winner from The Vegan Garden.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! Happy juggling and eating!

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by The Vegan Garden, however, they had no influence whatsoever on the content or opinions expressed in this post. I keep it real and uncensored 100% of the time. I would NEVER share anything on runladylike.com that I don’t like or use myself. Ever.

What menu item from The Vegan Garden looks yummy to you (answering this question below is mandatory to enter the contest)? Have you ever tried a food delivery service? If so, what did you think?