Pocketful of Joules

I did my initial full review of Home Chef about a year ago. If you need a refresher, you can find it here: Reviewing Home Chef.

Home Chef wasn’t my first try at meal service deliveries though, as I had previously tried Blue Apron and Hello Fresh too. So, I thought I’d do a quick one-year check-in and let you all know if we are still loving it.

Short answer: YES. We still love Home Chef and are sticking with it.

Each week, I have 21 meals to choose from. TWENTY-ONE options! There are tons of meals every week: poultry-based, seafood-based, meat-based, or just veggie-based. We typically stick with a 2-person serving size, but if I know it’s something Jack will also love I’ll bump it up to 4-servings and have leftovers. However, many times the 2-serving portion totally stretches enough to include our 2^nd grader too (so keep that in mind if there are smaller kids in the house).

Let’s take a look at one of my upcoming orders:

Here are the three meals I picked to be delivered on December 17^th:

• Sweet and Spicy Coconut Mahi-Mahi with charred baby box choy and pineapple rice
• Roasted Red Pepper Steak Linguine with spinach and Parmesan
• Shrimp Bruschetta Risotto with Asiago and grape tomatoes

Our total for this week is $63.70 for the three meals.

And here are alllll the other options I had for that same week:

Pretty impressive, right?! I could have added meals, protein packs of meat, salads for lunch, or even a smoothie!

We’ve been using Home Chef for over a year now and I will typically get 1 – 2 orders delivered each month. I love the variety in the options and that we get to try lots of different dishes in the comfort of our own home. I also make sure to keep an eye out for their “Home Chef Express” options which take 10 – 15 minutes to make when I know I have a busy week coming up.

Give $30, Get $30 Referral Code
If you would like to try Home Chef, you are welcome to use my special referral code: https://www.homechef.com/invite/gbd4Ves20o5rY Those who sign up using the referral invitation will receive a $30 discount off of their first order and I will earn $30 in Home Chef credit towards a future order.

If you do decide to try Home Chef, please let me know what you think! A little tip though, when you sign up for your first delivery go in and immediately “pause” your second delivery date. That way you can try out a box and decide whether you want to keep the subscription before having to pay for a second box. Then, if you don’t like it just hit “cancel” and you won’t get any more boxes or be charged more than your initial payment.

{Disclosure: This was not a sponsored review. I paid for my Home Chef subscription with my own money. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own. If you choose to use my special referral promo code, I will receive a credit towards my future Home Chef orders. For anyone who does decide to use the code… my tummy thanks you!}

My November thrifting was small… but mighty. I only had the opportunity to go to one thrift store this month, but I found three fantastic items!

{Pssst, you can read about my previous thrifting adventures here}

Lucky Brand hooded tie-sweatshirt thing, $12

First up is this Lucky Brand sweatshirt, robe, tie-thingie. It is made out of sweatshirt material and has both a hood and a tie… and I’m calling it a fancy house robe topper. When I get home and immediately change into my comfies, I stick on leggings/sweatpants/pajama pants, a t-shirt, and this thingie. And it’s wonderful.

Striped Sweater $5.89

This is the kind of sweater that I thrift, wear the bejesus out of until it’s misshapen and pilled, and then donate and the cycle starts all over again. This one is a pretty moss green with black stripes and I’ve already worn it to work once over a black t-shirt and jeans. At less than $6, this was perfectly priced for something that will get plenty of wear.

Rene Lezard skirt, $4.89

This skirt was the amazing thrift score of the month! It was grouped in with the mediums, but I loved it at first sight so I decided to try it on even though my butt is firmly in the large category. It is some sort of amazing faux leather material, but feels like super soft actual leather to me. The inside tag said 36, which according to European conversion charts should be around a 10 in US sizing. I did some research when I got home and this brand is an upscale German brand with similar skirts on their website selling for 299 – 399 EUR, which is $320 – $430. HOLY. MOLY!

As it is, I just think it’s super cool and can’t wait to pair it with some black tights, boots and a sweater!

I’d love to hear your thrifting stories! Did you find a diamond in the rough (literally or figuratively)?

Lindsey and I are totally on a roll with our AR Workshop projects. First, we did a couple plank signs (see here) and then we went back and made our own chunky knit blankets (here they are). I follow the Annapolis AR Workshop on Instagram, so when I saw that they just came out with personalized advent calendars I immediately texted Lindsey and we signed up!

{Pssst, this isn’t a sponsored post, but if you want to find an AR Workshop you can find them here: https://www.arworkshop.com/}

Usually, I leave Jack at home with Travis. But he was super busy over the weekend with some tree felling goodness, so I figured I’d just take Jack with me. And I’m awfully glad I did, because he had a great time helping!

Much like my previous plank sign, we started with picking our colors, sanding the wood board, stained it, cut out and attached the stencil, painted the letters, took the stencils off, and then did any touch-ups needed. For this particular project, we also stained some extra wood pieces to attach to the front of the sign. After marking each straight line, I turned it over and used a nail gun to connect them together.

Funny story: when the helper lady brought out the nail gun and handed it to me to use, Jack raised his hand and let us know that he is NOT comfortable using a nail gun. Yeah kid… you’re 7. We know!

Here are some photos we took throughout the process:

Jack did help every single step of the way – except for the staining of the board and the nail gun use – and was super proud that he could hang out with the adults. I love that every year when we bring out our new Countdown to Christmas calendar, it will remind us of the fun memory of making the project together.  

Here are our finished projects:

Lindsey made a sign for her parent’s mantle and we made our Countdown sign. We just need to find something small – like a little tree or stuffed toy – to place on the ledge in front of the appropriate date as we count down.

As always, we had such a wonderful time at the Workshop that I’m already checking the website to see if there is something else I want to make. My sister reached out and wants to go too, so maybe I’ll have some more Workshop goodness to share soon!

I was recently sucked into a new show on Netflix and it was only 6 episodes… so I actually finished it within a month!

Here’s a quick trailer for the show:

Let me start by saying, I haven’t watched season 1 and from what I read it was totally different (and had different rules/prizes than season 2). For season 2, there are four pairs of contestants and they are competing against each other to determine who has the best Instant Hotel (basically an Air B&B or VRBO property). The show takes place in Australia, so each hotel option is in a different part of the country – which makes for some fun activities and sightseeing.

Here’s what happens: all the contestants take turn staying in each other’s properties as a group. So there are some group dynamics to deal with, as well as what it’s like to experience each of the hotels and the activities that have been arranged for them. After their one-night stay, each team scores their hosts on the house, location/attractions, value for money, and quality of their night’s sleep.

After they go through all four hotels’, the scores determine the two finalists. They get $10,000 each to make improvements to their property (based on the feedback they’ve gotten) and then the contestants get a chance to stay another night and give a final grade as a jury. The winners of the show receive $100,000.

I LOOOOOVED this show and looked forward to watching each episode after Jack went to bed. My favorite couples were Debbie and Justin (I’m totally wearing a ‘sausage dog’ sweater in her honor today), and also Leah and Jay. The team that drove me freaking crazy was Gene and Sharon. I liked that the drama wasn’t too drawn out and it only lasted 6 episodes. I also had no idea how the last episode was going to end up and literally gasped at the ending. So there’s that.

Have you watched Instant Hotel?