Crystal's Cup

Coffee is my cup of tea!

rosenan

Pawstruck Bully Sticks

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Let me start out by saying these Pawstruck Bully Sticks are some of the best bully sticks! I bought these for my brother and sister-in-law’s two little dogs. They loved them!

What my sister-in-law said she liked about it was that the Pawstruck bully sticks occupied the dogs for hours and they were not sticky after the dogs had been chewing on them. My SIL appreciated them because it occupied the dogs while she got stuff done. She told me that typically while she is cooking supper the dogs come begging for some food. When they were chewing on these Pawstruck bully sticks, they didn’t even come into the kitchen!

The puppy would go and hide with her stick so the older one couldn’t steal it from her. How cute is that!

So these Pawstruck bully sticks are dog and dog parents approved! I know they are a little more expensive, but if it occupies your dog for hours, it might be worth it.

Check it out here!

*If you purchase from this link, I will receive a small commission. Disclosure Policy is here.

I have also purchased them the Pawstruck beef jerky and the Pawstruck bizarre bully sticks. My sister-in-law did inform me that the bizarre bully sticks did have a little more of a distinct smell to them. The dogs loved both of these products too though!

Mia Adora Silk Fiber Lash Mascara

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I bought this Mia Adora Silk Fiber Mascara because I was looking for a new one to help make my eyelashes pop and look thicker. It interest me because this one had silk fibers which I had never tried before. I can honestly tell you I will never try it again.

This mascara has a 3 step process that you had to go through to get it applied. Step 1, you have to stroke your eye lashes I believe about 20 times to get the first application of mascara on there. Then Step 2, apply the silk fibers by stroking the brush along your eye lashes. However, you can’t apply it too close to your eyeball. Step 3 (which is the same bottle as Step 1) is stroke your eyelashes 20 times until you have all the silk fibers covered so they will stay on your eye lashes.

As a busy mom, I don’t have time to apply ‘mascara’ on my eye lashes over 40 times. Also, when I was wearing it I felt like my eyelids kept sticking together. Almost like they were sticky and getting glued somehow. I was also very nervous that one of those small fibers would get in my eyes.

At the stage I am in my life, this mascara is not for me. Maybe once I get older and my kids are all grown up, but right now I will pass on this one.

Check it out here!

*If you purchase from this link, I will receive a small commission from Amazon. Disclosure Policy is here.

Little Remedies Gripe Water

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This Little Remedies Gripe Water is a life saver! For anyone that has a new little baby, this is for you! I have three little girls as you probably know. I have only used the gripe water on my last two because I did not know about it while my first one was little.

This is amazing stuff if you have gassy babies like I do. Yes, you can buy gas relief drops for them. I will tell you, it does not work as good or as fast as this stuff. I have tried both. When I give the gripe water to my kids, they almost stop crying instantly from gas. When I gave them the drops, it took more servings for it to start working.

My girls would cry so bad and hard when they got their gas and it was frequently. If they have just two bottles of milk, their stomach’s get upset. This would calm them right away. I have actually purchased the exact bottle above, multiple times. I always have it on hand for my kids.

You are probably asking what is in the gripe water. Well, it is basically just ginger and fennel. It is safe for newborns up to adults to take it. It is amazing!

Amazon also has the cheapest price on gripe water that I have seen. They even beat out the store prices, at least around here.

Check it out here!

*If you purchase from this link, I will receive a small commission from Amazon. Disclosure Policy is here.

Blue Apron Meal Delivery Review

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Sesame-Sweet Chili Wonton Noodles

I thought might as well try Blue Apron since it isn’t associated with HelloFresh and EveryPlate. So here is my review of Blue Apron.

I know that Blue Apron has been around for a while. If I were to guess I think they were one of the first meal delivery services. I remember first hearing about them probably 3 1/2 years ago. When I first heard about them I thought, who would EVER pay for that! Well, obviously I just did, but a lot of other people have because there are a few of these companies coming up now!

Blue Apron Packaging

When I was on the website after I signed up for their services. I was disappointed in the number of meal options they had to choose from. I was getting 4 meals and they only provided 6 different meals. One of the meal options was Vegan. My husband loves his protein, so I knew that wasn’t an option! So that left me with 5 to pick from. The other delivery services I have used gave me at least I would say 8-10 options.

When I opened the box, I was again disappointed that the ingredients were just in the box. There was no separate packaging of the meals that I ordered. Again, I know it is not tough to separate the food (I do it when I go to the grocery store and plan my own meals), but when you pay a premium for these services, you kind of expect top notch service.

Blue Apron Protein Packaing

I will say I did appreciate the packaging of the proteins. I provided you a picture of them still in the box above. Each protein was packaged in their normal packaging, but the company went above and beyond and put each protein in an additional bag! WHAT?! I LOVED this aspect of it because I have had bad luck with HelloFresh and the meat packages have holes and getting blood everywhere on the bottom of the box. This was a big plus for me!

Also, Blue Apron, only required me to use my own oil for preparing the meals. The other services, HelloFresh and EveryPlate, made me use my own butter and oil. Blue Apron provided me a thing of butter and even an egg in it’s own carton! I don’t think HelloFresh has ever provided a meal that required an egg. The ingredients with Blue Apron were of a better quality I would say. They provided top notch cheese’s and protein cuts!

As for the meal preparations, it was very simple and straight forward. The recipes maybe had a few more steps and wording then the other companies. I liked how Blue Apron broke out the recipe and simply stated what you were doing, “Prepare Ingredients”, “Cook Chicken”. Then it would give you the step by step you needed to do to complete it. I did not always like how they would tell you to cover something since you it was completed to keep it warm. I usually prefer that each item be done at the same time so it is hot out of the oven.

The flavor of the food was good. I wouldn’t say it was “Wow! Amazing!”. I thought that some of it again was flavorless. It probably just needed more salt! Again, I felt though I was salting everything so much and was going to get swollen ankles after I was done!

For the price of the meals, I would say it was worth it if you can find a discount. I believe their cost per serving is more expensive than HelloFresh, around $9/serving. Some of the recipes were unique and not something I would normally try, but they were good. I would just say salt your food!

Check it out here!

EveryPlate Meal Delivery Review

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The other week I decided to try out another meal delivery service, like HelloFresh. This time it was called EveryPlate. They advertise that their meal servings are around $3.33. That is about half the price of HelloFresh’s advertised price. So what did I think of this more budget friendly meal service. Let me tell you!

I went online to sign up for the service and was impressed with the number of meal options that they had! It was very similar to the number HelloFresh offers, 8-10 meals.

After waiting for my delivery, I opened the box amd I was a little disappointed. I noticed that all of the produce, grains and sauces were just gathered together in the box (as you can see from my picture). The one thing I loved from HelloFresh is that each meal is in a brown paper bag except the meat. So all I had to do was just grab the bag and I would know it was all there. Plus I had a garbage to put all the trash in. For EveryPlate, I had to go off of the recipe card and figure out what items went with which meal. One of my recipes called for 6 garlic cloves. They sent a bulb of garlic. I had to break apart the bulb and peel each clove. HelloFresh did not do that. They already had the cloves peeled and all I had to do was chop it up after taking it out of the packaging. I know this isn’t that tough, but when you are a busy mom, you appreciate the time saving things!

So I put all the groceries away and I looked at the meats and thought they look like HelloFresh’s meat packaging. That is interesting, but I had heard recently that some of the meal delivery services do use the same packaging companies. Little did I know that I would receive an email from HelloFresh telling me about EveryPlate and that it is their other budget friendly company!

Anyways, back to the food. I thought the instructions were good. The cards are significantly smaller and a little more difficult to read. The food recipes were OK. If I were to compare it to the HelloFresh service, I would say the EveryPlate meals were a “home cook” meal. What I mean is that it seemed to be simpler recipes and nothing too fancy to them. Whereas the HelloFresh meals were a little more complex. If you had a protein you also had a glaze or sauce to put over the meat. They were more complicated and had more flavors going on.

I liked the flavor of everything that we received with EveryPlate. I would recommend though really salting all of your food good. There was a few times I thought “Wow! I am using a lot of salt!” Well that happened to not be the case. That was the meal that needed more.

The EveryPlate meal was a good delivery service if you are on a budget and don’t mind the ingredients just all coming together in the box for you to sort through. Also, if you are a beginner and want a simpler meal, it was a good way to go.

Check It Out Here!
Pork Sausage and Mushroom Linguine, Crispy Ranch Pork Chops, Pork and Yellow Rice Bowls

You can do it!

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If you are like me, this week has been busy running around and just doing life. There have been tough, sad, and happy times. I wanted you to know though you got this! You can do anything you put your mind to!

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. – Albert Einstein