Ch-ch-ch-changes

We went out to dinner last night; that’s not really blog-worthy as we eat out/order in more than we should; although I am trying to hold it to two eat outs and two order in's per month. 

What IS blog-worthy is that some pretty neat things happened while eating out.  It was just the three of us (“Tall-Skinny” is house-sitting) and we had errands to run so we left the house almost immediately after hubby got home from his hour commute (after staying 30 minutes late at work to complete a fix that he couldn’t do during the work day because of a FOUR-HOUR meeting). 

We drove to Red Robin; our choice of the night.  I wonder how other families choose their eating out place(s)?  Ours isn’t quite rock-paper-scissors, it’s more like we all say where we want to eat for the night and the majority wins.  If there’s no majority, then we try to remember who chose last time and delete their vote.  To be honest, we usually let the kids “win”.  They’re old enough now that if hubby and I want to go somewhere else, we’ll save it for “date night” and let the kids suffer with Peanut Butter/Nuttella sandwiches or macaroni & cheese. 

So, tonight all three of us wanted Red Robin (which is pretty blog-worthy in and of itself because we rarely all agree on the same place).  There wasn’t a line and we were seated right away, chose what we wanted and waited for our server. 

Here’s one of the noteworthy parts:  We didn’t order an appetizer, dessert and only hubby ordered alcohol.  Even more noteworthy is that I ordered WATER.  I didn’t order a Bailey’s shake (yummy) or a “Sand in the Shorts” (yummy as well) or a soda.  WATER.  Okay, my meal was off the appetizer menu, but it was my meal.

Our total bill came to $44 before tip; but it got even better.  I have a “Royalty Rewards” card which I forget about but remember to drag out when we’re paying.  We got one item free (the most expensive one, at that) for purchasing cumulative 10 items (there were only 5 on this order; 5 from previous visits).  That brought our bill down to $32 before tip; I left an $8 tip.  We paid $40 for the three of us to eat.  Right, that’s more than $12/person (including tip) but usually a meal out for three of us is $50 before tip because we order all the other crud that restaurants depend on to pad their income.

And did I mention that I ORDERED WATER.  I really don’t like water.  I know I’m supposed to drink more of it and I did a great job during pregnancy drinking my huge glasses continuously (and during nursing too), but frankly, water is just, bleh.  And flavored water is flavored bleh.  So I don’t usually drink my water during dinner.

Next cool thing was I checked the calorie count on the two things I was interested in eating (not salad, btw).  They were about the same, so I chose one that sounded the best.  I usually don’t check the calorie count before I order; I just throw caution to the wind and live on the edge.

Dinner was over and we needed to go to the pet store so I decided to walk across the parking area instead of getting in the car and driving there.  Yeah, I know what a sacrifice, but I had to work off some of the dinner calories somehow!  We all walked there (and back) to the car and then went on to our other errand.

All in all, after I logged in my counts for the day, I was only 35 calories over my goal for the day which made me feel I’d made some pretty good choices.