The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll share part 1 of my favorite games to play remotely with friends and family.  In this video, I'll talk about Jackbox and HouseParty games. Being in lockdown has forced us to get creative in the way that we connect with people.  Zoom and FaceTime aren't perfect replacements for in-person contact, but they do help.  What I've also found is that we are using this time to actually connect better with people who live far away.  And maybe that is the way these creative socializing options will really benefit us after this -- we will use technology better to have more meaningful and richer interactions with those that we don't have the luxury of seeing frequently. I've tested out a ton of games to play remotely -- my poor family is ready to kill me -- and I wanted to share with you which ones worked well and which ones didn't.  I have really 3 categories of games that we h...

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll do a quick response to the biggest problem people are having transitioning over to Google Photos.  This is a follow-up from my video “Free Up Space on your iPhone with Google Photos.” I just wanted to do a quick video that addresses the most frequent issue that people are having when trying to offload photos from their iPhone to Google Photos.  That issue is that once they finish the transition process, they delete a photo from their phone and it also deletes from Google Photos.  I outline in my video that this is NOT the way that Google Photos is supposed to work.  Once everything is uploaded to Google Photos, if you delete a photo from your iPhone, it should stay in Google Photos. So, the important thing here is the phrase "Once you have uploaded everything to Google Photos."  If you have 100s or 1,000s or tens of thousands of photos on...

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how to forward specific emails using Gmail. There are lots of reasons why you might need to forward specific emails.  Maybe you don't check an email inbox frequently, but you want to make sure if a specific person sends you an email, you get it right away.  Or, maybe every time you get a newsletter, you forward it to someone in your family and you'd like for this to happen automatically.  Or, maybe you don't want to check your work email at all on vacation, but you want any emails that contain the key words from an important project you are working from to be forwarded to your personal email.  Whatever the reason, gmail will allow you to do this. This is not something that all email platforms will allow.  I use Yahoo mail for my junk email address (you can see my video on that if you are interested).  My Yahoo address is the one that I give out reflexive...

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll make the case for implementing the life changing habit of spending just 10 minutes every day cutting up fruits and vegetables. Without fail, every New Years, I have some variation on the resolution theme of eating more fruits and vegetables -- either for me individually or for my family.  And every year, I have a couple of weeks of good intentions and then it inevitably goes out the window.  Why?  I like vegetables -- I like fruit.  But why is it so difficult to eat more of them?  What I determined is that I'll happily eat vegetables that are washed, prepared and are sitting out, but since it's such a hassle to cut them up and cook them, I will almost always pick something faster and generally, less healthy.  Almost anything is faster to eat than cutting up a vegetable -- crackers, cheese, leftovers, nuts, etc.  And unfortunately, almost all of those options...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll give you a brief tutorial on using Zoom, which seems to be the video conferencing service of choice during quarantine. Okay -- now that I've done about 12 impromptu Zoom tutorials for family and friends, I figured it might be helpful to do a quick video on it.  I'll definitely go over attending a Zoom meeting, but I'll also cover how to schedule a meeting, invite others, and I'll review some of the cool features. I've used Zoom many times before all this since it is the video conferencing app favored by my grad school program, but it's only in Coronavirus quarantine that I've felt compelled to purchase a Pro account and really learn how to use it.  I've used Zoom to schedule regular meetings with colleagues and fellow students, but now I've also scheduled Zoom happy hours, dinner parties, game nights, and even my grandma's memorial servic...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll share 3 tips for connecting with your older relatives to to learn more about them, create a closer relationship, and fill in some of your family history. My grandma passed away about 3 weeks ago.  It was not Coronavirus related, although it happened right after everything started to lock down, so we weren't able to say our goodbyes in person or travel to have an in-person memorial service for her.  That said, she was 97 and was ready to give up the physical struggle that had defined her life for the past several years.  We were lucky to have so many full years with her, but we are all so sad that she is gone -- as evidenced by the outpouring of emotion on our family's Celebration of Life Zoom ceremony for her.   This video isn't about my grandma specifically, but her passing has reminded me to share three things that I thought were important in my relationsh...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, let’s talk about how to stay social during the Coronavirus lockdown.  My community has not been told to shelter in place yet, but we’ve all basically decided to do so.  As you know, what this means in practice is no going out except to pick up essentials like medicine or groceries and to have things delivered if at all possible.  This represents, as it does for everyone, a drastic difference in the amount of social contact that we all have — which is obviously the point!  But humans are social animals and we need human interaction to be emotionally healthy. So, it’s time to get creative about the ways that we interact during a quarantine.  I’m going to list all of the options from least intensive and interactive to most.  Group text chats I have several of these going in regular life, but they are even more important when you don’t see people regular...