It's OK (by me)

  I'm going to play along with airingmylaundry today as I tell you what items/events/activities I missed but didn't lose sleep over.

You can find her current post here.

It's OK that I took my son out to play in the puddles last week.  What are rainboots for!

It's also OK that HE has long hair.  He has mentioned now a couple times that he is ready for a haircut so it may be gone soon.  I just wish people would see his monster truck or dinosaur shirt and realize he's a boy.

It's OK that I can't get the buy one take one home deal at Olive Garden still haunts me from weeks ago.

For a little as $12.99 you can buy one take one.  I have never tried that option before but, I will the next time I go!  I choose the Fettuccine Alfredo to eat there and for my to go was the five cheese ziti! It comes to your table at the end of your meal frozen! That ziti was amazing. With some self control I spaced it between two days.  I have however done a lot of math. 12.99 for 2 meals split into 4 days equals $3.25 a day for 4 days!!! That's the cheapest fast food meal EVER!!

It's OK that I'm excited for a new Andi Mack because my daughter likes that show and is counting down.

Photo credit Wikipedia 

It's OK that I just wish it was the weekend even though I don't have any plans nor will I probably sleep in.

What are you OK with this week? Feel free to let me know any meal deals I can stretch! What fall show are you waiting for?

A Customer Service Decline

  Remember when you went out to dinner and had great service.  You were seated at a table.  Drink orders taken then brought back.  Appetizer and entrees orders taken and brought to the table in a timely manner.

   One restaurant we have gone too has new computers on the tables.  We have gone a few times so I am used to seeing it.  You can order your meals, play games or trivia on these tablet like devices.  It never found it impersonal as I didn't pay much attention to it until it has showed up in a bother restaurant.  First at Chili's now at Olive Garden.

We ate out the other night at Olive Garden and the devices were there.  One table I observed a child playing on it ( I was told as I was seated games were unlimited for $1.99)the whole duration I was there.  Another table that was sat after me immediately passed it over to their toddler.  

My waiter instructed us when we ordered that we needed to put our kids meal request in the system. But he was standing there and just took all our other orders!  He preceded to attempt to use the machine but failed horribly.  So he took pen to paper and went back to old school order taking to complete our order.

At the end of our meal we again were directed to the device to pay our bill.  That didn't work our well again.  With a swipe of the card and no response we still handed over the card to be ran through the original register.  

Bottom line is what is the point of these devices?  To speed the process up? To entertain people young and old which leads to happier patrons overall?  To free up waitstaff to do their job more quickly and efficient?  To make things less personal between a restaurant, the waitstaff and their customers?

I personally as a customer like the interaction.  People need to talk.  Some of us have special requests, our kids certainly don't need to be trained to play games (for entertainment or shushed up) at the table, are we tipping for half the service if we are placing our order on a computer making us do half the work?  

I hope this is just a phase and the devices will go away.  Bring back the waitstaff so that we can chat.

Day 25!!! Almost done with 30 days

  I want to start out with I'm soo glad this is over.  Everyday is a challenge.  Not because it's hard to make healthy choices because that is getting easier than it used to be but because I consciously think about my meals. At breakfast I'm wondering about what I'm going to do about lunch.  Regardless of whether I have healthy food on hand or already made food on hand.  I'm so absorbed on trying to do the right thing.

  Well today I had a great workout.  Normally I workout but on cardio machines it's a half hour or 2 machines for 45 minutes. Today I hung out with a machine for an hour! Let me tell you I feel so awesome when I have pushed through an hour on a machine.  I have only done it twice but I need to do it more often.  I feel so accomplished when I look over the numbers of distance and calories.

Breakfast: yogurt, granola and fruit
Lunch: leftover salad with carrots and grapes
Dinner: olive garden 1/2 of all my dish with Water!!!
Water 75 oz
Workout 1 hour on elliptical, weights, abs

I have had two bowls of this new granola I picked up and I was so happy with it. It's delicious but read the ingredients today after breakfast only to have found sugar in the ingredients twice and an olgifructose ingredient.  Not a good sign.  So I will be officially concocting my own recipe based on the healthy ingredients in this granola.

  Tonight's dinner was obviously my cheat meal but I happily only ate half of it and my biggest feat was not washing it all down with a sweet tea.  I drank three glasses of water with my meal and had two bowls of salad!

  As I wrap up on this challenge.  I am going to continue with padding on recipes and posting workouts.  On twitter I do post some motivation as well as workouts.  My goal is to help if you want, need or are looking for it.

  As always thanks for following my journey.