Celebrate Green Blog

by Lynn and Corey

Don’t you just love the name, Ridiculous Chocolate? Even if you’re not a chocolate fan, you’re going to sit up and take notice of the name, right?

And if you are a chocolate lover and you haven’t tried some Ridiculous Chocolate, you’ll definitely feel the urge to after hearing from Mandy Ray-Jones, half of the wife-husband team that runs the home-based company.

Here’s Mandy’s self-written intro:

Mandy is a Christian unschooling mom of three, the oldest of whom is currently fighting leukemia. She likes to eat clean, get artsy, be healthy, and sell chocolate. Her focus is on maintaining a sense of humor and living an authentic life.

1. Your company, Ridiculous Chocolate launched in 2008. How much of a struggle was it to get the company up and running? What were some of the challenges?

Once we had the idea, everything sorta fell into place. My husband played around with the recipe for over a year until he finally perfected it. Because our product must remain frozen, we were faced with the challenge of finding appropriate packaging. The business went through several different phases and continues to develop. Right now we are working on designing a label and finding someone to create a more polished and professional website for us.

Our biggest challenge has simply been that life keeps happening to us. Right when we decided to go for it with Ridiculous Chocolate, we found out that we were expecting baby number three. I was very sick throughout the entire pregnancy and for about a year after the pregnancy was over. So my husband had to use most of his spare time to help out with the kids and around the house. We had just gotten the ball rolling again when our oldest was diagnosed with leukemia. Now we are trying to gain speed again.

2. Tell us about your organic vegan diabetic chocolate. How did this come about?

When my husband and I were dating in college, he would create this insane desserts that he would call crazy things like “Sex in a Pan.” Even my roommates were wooed by his sweet creations. His love of sweets carried over into our marriage. Eventually, we became interested in eating healthier foods. Upon reading a book called Naked Chocolate by David Wolfe, we became interested in raw chocolate and all of the amazing qualities it had to offer… health benefits and superior taste. We started playing around with concoctions and we’d try them out on my mom friends. I suppose we experimented with raw chocolate for about two years before we ever even dreamed of selling it. The final recipe is incredible and I’m terribly proud of my husband. He has a truly unique product and I feel good about selling it to our customers.

3. We know you also have faced some personal challenges as well. Would you mind telling us about this and where the experience of dealing with the situation has led you.

Hunter, my oldest child who is almost 7, was diagnosed with leukemia on July 30th, 2010. Within the week we learned that, despite his being lucky enough to have the more treatable kind of leukemia, he was still going to need a bone marrow transplant. Within the next week, we learned that my middle child, my sweet girl Ronin, would be his donor. The transplant was on November 23rd and we’ve just been hurrying up and waiting since then.

This situation has led me to have more faith in God’s ability to provide for our every need. Not once have I worried that we would go hungry or lose our home because of this ordeal. Every time we turn around, we receive another gift at the exact perfect time. It has also helped me to lighten up and realize that, despite being unschoolers, we were still way to busy and on the go too much.

I’m quite enjoying being forced to stay home most days. We read more. We play more. We rest more. We cuddle more. But most importantly, I just appreciate the little things more than ever before. I’m no longer spending all of my time trying to figure out some way to become “successful” or “noticed.” I no longer feel like that is necessary in order to feel fulfilled. Taking care of my husband and my children is all I need right now.

And guess what you lucky readers, Ridiculous Chocolate is running a special on their website and a chocolate giveaway at this link on their blog. Hurry, the giveaway ends February 13.

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.