Teacher's Day Off (A Chicwish Review)

I made the decision recently to finally start blogging more frequently. Alas, my best intentions gang aft agley. To make a long story short, over the course of the last few months, our cameras and phones have been biting the dust one at a time. Up until this evening, we were down to the camera on our iPad.

Despite that, I soldiered on and put together this Chicwish review.

I discovered Chicwish from Rebecca over at The Clothes Horse. I was a bit wary of trying a new company after a very bad online retail experience recently; however, their good reviews, a 30% introductory coupon, and their (get this) free international shipping sealed the deal for me.

I ordered two skirts from them. Today, I'll be reviewing this cute little jean number. It's the "high-rise, a-line denim skirt" (no longer available). I didn't used to be much of a a-line skirt girl, but I've fallen in love with the look recently. Perhaps it's Tilly's adorable Delphine pattern that started it. Honestly, it probably is. I can't wait till I have a sewing machine again and can make it. Until then, I'll have to content myself with this skirt!

It's an easy skirt to content myself with. I love it. In fact I'm wearing it right now as I type up this blogpost. It did arrive with one little quirk. The buttonholes weren't cut out. This took only a minute for me to deal with; however, it was a bit strange!

Besides that, my ordering experience was great. They were quick to respond to questions, went above and beyond when I contacted them with a concern, and kept in contact during the delivery of my order.

The skirt in question is perfect for my days off from teaching: cute and comfy.

Many of the Chicwish styles aren't quite my personal cup of tea. They also use a lot of synthetic fibers. I prefer natural fibers. (Thankfully this skirt is cotton.) For those two reasons, I can't see myself ordering too frequently from them, but I'm definitely considering another order at some point!

Outfit Details:

Sweater: LL Bean Signature Collection

Tee: Net Fashion, Taiwan

Skirt: Chicwish

This post contains affiliate links.

Graze Subscription Boxes: A Review and a Few Referral Codes

Sometimes, I signup to try new things and then forget about them. Graze is one of those things. An advertisement for a free Graze box popped up in my Facebook newsfeed last month. I signed up and then went on my merry way, completely forgetting about it till the box came through my mail slot early last week.

What is Graze?

Graze is a subscription box service for healthy snackers. According to their website, they started as a collaboration between seven friends tired of eating junk food. You sign up for biweekly or monthly deliveries, and your subscription can be canceled at anytime. You can choose between a Nibble Box or a Light Box with lower calorie options. Pricing is a bit difficult to find on their website, but I believe each box costs $6.

My Experience with Graze

Graze stresses that their boxes can fit in most mailboxes. I was glad to see that it even fit through my tiny slot since package drop-offs can be a tricky thing in our building.

Anyway, the package had a label instructing me to turn it over in order to open it, or else I would "make a mess." I appreciated these instructions since I would definitely be the type to open from the wrong side and send trail mix flying. Once I opened it, I found four individually wrapped snacks inside: Pomodoro Rustichella, Chocolate Orange, Banoffee Pie, and Fruit and Seed Flapjack (snacks vary from box to box).

The chocolate orange snack was delicious. It included orange flavored cranberries, disks of dark (but not too dark) chocolate, and hazelnuts. All the flavors blended beautifully.

My husband ate most of the Pomodoro before I got to it, but what I had was good, salty but not enough to drown out the flavor. According to the label, it included cheese croutons, tomato baguettes, and tomato and herb almonds.

I'm not a huge fan of dried bananas, but I even enjoyed the Banoffee Pie. But perhaps that's because it included banana fudge. I'm not sure how that's healthy (!), but the fudge didn't taste overly sweet. It was more fudgy in texture than in sugar content. The Banoffee Pie also included dried bananas, almonds, and pecans.

Finally, the fruit and seed flapjack. It was really a fruit and nut bar. It had a light and airy texture rather than the hurts-your-teeth-over-sugared-gooey mess of many commercial fruit and nut bars. It contained rolled oats, mixed seeds, and dried fruit and had a nice mix of sweet and salty, although I could've leaned more toward the salty side.

Out of the 4 snacks, my favorites were the Chocolate Orange for sweet and the Pomodoro Rustichella for savory.

Is Graze Worth It?

It depends on how you judge worth. If you're buying a lot of expensive snacks already, it might be a no-brainer option for you. We don't buy snacks a whole lot ourselves. When we do, it's usually a bag of tortilla chips on sale and cheap or homemade salsa.

Pricewise, Graze isn't spendy, but it isn't cheap either. For the same money I'd spend on two boxes a month, I could get quite a lot more tortilla chips! I did, however, appreciate the quality of Graze's snacks. They tasted fresh and quality-crafted despite having been shipped to me. I can definitely see us trying a few more boxes and maybe getting a treat once a month.

If you're interested in trying Graze, I have 3 referral codes I can share. They'll get you your first and fifth box free (remember, you can cancel at anytime). Because these codes are limited, I'm not sharing it on my blog, but the first 3 people who comment on this post to let me know they want one will get a private message with the code from me.