Honest Reviews: Home Chef

According to Dr. Seuss, "Unslumping yourself is not easily done!"  There is no place where this is truer than the kitchen.  Whether you are constantly chauffeuring your children all over town or you are just tired of the same old same old, mealtime can become downright tedious.

Recently, I learned about a new online meal delivery service that is making the rounds. (through my Facebook feed, anyway)  I decided to give it a whirl and ordered a few meals for my family.  There are several of the services out there.  I tried Home Chef.  Each week, on their website, they have a menu. You select how many servings you would like and which meals catch your fancy, and they do the rest. They ship you everything you need in a neat little box right to your doorstep.

So, this is what the contents of your box will look like:

Each meal is packaged separately, as well as any meat.  They also send a binder and recipe cards for each meal.

They only send just what you need to make the meals, so there is no waste.  You won't have herbs dying a slow death in your fridge while you think of new ways to insert them into some other meal, and you will be able to use some oddball ingredients that you may not be able to find at your local grocer. 

This meal service may not be your go to for every meal because it can be expensive.  However, if your family is small, it's a good option to have.  It would be a great present to your college kid, and it's also awesome for vacation.  I happened to remember it for our recent annual Girls' Weekend Trip to St. Simons Island, GA.

We usually rent a house with a kitchen.  By thinking ahead, and using HomeChef, I was able to just order what we wanted (including Vegetarian options) and bring the box with me, so we didn't have to hunt down a grocery store while we were there.

We just poured some wine and broke out the meals. 

It was practically painless!

....and did I mention healthy?

Just look at the finished products:

Be sure to check Home Chef out.  Let the unslumping begin!

This post contains affiliate links.

St. Simons Island, GA - Girls' Weekend 2017

It's that time again! As temperatures rise, you can always count on The Harris Sisters to take off to parts unknown for their annual Girls' Weekend trip. This year, we set out for St. Simons Island, GA, and there were plenty of sites to see and things for us to do.

We arrived at our little condo around 5:00 in the evening, so that night we decided to take a stroll to St. Simons Island Pier Village. Along the way, we discovered many beautiful gardens. (You might recognize these Girls Only Road Trip t-shirts from our last Girl's Weekend in Beaufort, NC.)

And we even found a hidden, hand-painted rock, which is part of the rock painting craze that Harris Sister Misty blogged about earlier this spring.

Pier Village is centered around an actual pier and is a destination for restaurants, shops, and even the St. Simons Island Lighthouse. We made sure to get a picture on the pier before heading back for the night.

Once we settled in for the night, we got down to the business of relaxing with Hpnotiq Breeze cocktails. They were delicious, and Harris Sister Deanna has provided the recipe for you to try too! Sarcasm, wine, and everything fine - THAT'S what The Harris Sisters are made of. :-)

The next day, we headed out to the beach to dip our feet in the ocean. (And when we returned home, we hosted our VERY FIRST Facebook giveaway for the cup holder and insulated bottle you see in this picture. The giveaway is now closed, but make sure to like The Harris Sisters Facebook Page to keep up to date on future giveaways.)

Misty lent her artistic talents to make a St. Simons Island sign to commemorate our trip.

Many people have asked us where we got our vintage-style swimsuits, so we're providing some suggestions for you to browse.

After spending the morning at the beach, we ate our prepared picnic lunch, which consisted of sandwiches, rainbow fruit skewers, peaches (we were in Georgia after all), and potato chips. We washed that all down with Cokes marked with Harris (one of the 200 last names they added to their #ShareACoke campaign this year).

This year marks the third Girls' Weekend that we've celebrated with special Cokes from the Share a Coke campaign. First, we celebrated in Louisville, KY with Sis Coke cans, and then last year, we celebrated with Summer, Summer, Summertime Coke cans in Beaufort, NC.

Later that afternoon, we headed out to Get Your Muse On paint studio for a painting class. We all learned how to paint flamingos and in addition to our creative exploits, the studio offered some much appreciated air conditioning!

Thanks to the recommendation of one of our Facebook followers, the next morning we headed off to Driftwood Beach, which is in Jekyll Island, GA. This beach is a gorgeous work of nature that features a driftwood tree graveyard. Perfect for photo opportunities!

Later that afternoon, we checked out a park full of mossy oak trees and shared them with our Facebook followers via our VERY FIRST Facebook live video.

The rest of the time we spent hanging out, watching girlie movies, visiting a local downtown antique festival, cooking our own breakfast and dinners (which helped us to stay out of the heat), petting local pups, and planning exciting things for the blog (which you guys will hear all about in the coming months).

So if you have a chance to visit St. Simons Island, GA, go for it! It's relaxing, but it has plenty of fun stuff to do.

Make sure to check out our other Girls' Weekend posts for our rundowns on the other places we've visited.

This post contains affiliate links.

One Man's Trash: Archie and the Gang Juice Glasses

This is one of our sweeter vintage scores of late.  It's a set of three Archie and the Gang juice glasses from the early 1970s.  They were actually once Welch's jelly jars.  My husband found these a little while back at a dinky little flea market.  He got the set of three for a whopping $5.  

We have two of the "Reggie Make the Scene" and one " Betty and Veronica's Fashion Show".  They are all in great vintage condition with vivid colors, no chips or cracks, and each one has an etched Archie character on the bottom of the glass.  What a sweet little surprise!!

I did some checking, and these glasses are out there on both eBay and Etsy, but the prices are all over the place.  Some sellers are asking big money while others just get you on the shipping. However, in no case did I find a deal as good as what we got.  Yay us!!

  

It would appear that these glasses aren't particularly rare, but they are super fun, and now that I know we got a super deal on them, I like them even more.  I remember back when jelly jars were decorated with cute images that you could use as drinking glasses later.  We even had some in our cupboard growing up- but not the Archie glasses.  I honestly didn't know these existed until my hubbie brought them home. 

In any case, they have a good home now!  And in case you haven't seen it, we have a "One Man's Trash" section on our blog for other treasures just like this.  Lots of sweet vintage finds there.  Come check it out!  So, what treasures have you been digging up lately?

Hpnotiq Breeze

The Harris Sisters tested and wholeheartedly approved this simple drink over our Girls' Weekend this year. It comes together quickly and goes down easily. This is the kind of drink you should mix up for your lazy poolside days. Or at least when you are dreaming of being poolside. It's the perfect summertime drink!

Hpnotiq Breeze Drink

1 1/2 oz Hpnotiq

1 oz Coconut Rum

2 oz Pineapple Juice

1. Fill a shaker halfway with ice and pour in all ingredients. 
2. Drop some ice into a whiskey sour glass and strain mixture into it.

Enjoy!!

Notes:

There is no real substitute for Hpnotiq. It is a premium blend of exotic fruit juices, french vodka, and a touch of cognac. It is easily spotted in your liquor store as the bright Caribbean blue liquor in a frosted champagne bottle.

It will cost you about $20 for a bottle but it goes a long way and mixes up the perfect summertime concoction.