UPDATE:  Um, for all you bloggers out there, you have to push “publish” for people to actually see what you wrote!

I love hearing peoples stories.  Everyone has stories to tell.  When Tony was in the hospital, two nights before he left he got a roommate that he actually clicked with – his roommate had been diagnosed with lymphoma, was about to start chemo, and they two of them connected in a way that reassured them both – Tony described his colon cancer scare, surgery and recovery earlier in the year, which I think helped his roommate realize that the word “cancer” doesn’t necessarily equal “death.”

Tony is still slowly coming around – I feel bad because I either do too much or too little and I can’t seem to find a happy medium to help him. šŸ™   Today is my last day at work so I’ll be home for the next four days – hopefully his appetite will come back too – he’s only had bread, bananas and applesauce the last week!

We had my office Christmas luncheon yesterday, but it didn’t start until 2:00.  For breakfast I had another hash – 4 ounce potato, egg, this time chicken sausage (60 calories for the whole link!) and baby spinach with a super juicy orange from my PIL.  I ate half the orange with breakfast and other half around noon.

I was kind of in charge of our holiday party – I had a budget, my boss and I selected the apps and menu, and I thought it went really well.  Here are two ways to save money at a holiday party at the restaurant:

1.   See if they have a corking fee.  We wanted to offer wine and beer.  The least expensive wine they offered started at $32 a bottle.  I called and found out that they had a $10 cork fee – so I could bring in wine at a significant discount.  If you are a member at World Market you already get a 10% discount right off the top on all their wines, and if you buy more than 4 bottles, you get an additional 10% off.

I was able to buy 3 bottles of Cupcake Chardonnay for $6.99 a bottle, and 3 bottles of Cupcake Merlot for $7.99 a bottle, even with the corking fee we were still saving rougly 50% over the restaurant wine bottle prices. šŸ˜€

They also wanted to charge $8 per person for dessert.  I ended up buying these cute holiday Chinese boxes and I made the cookies myself – between the cost of the boxes (only .99 cents at Michaels!), and the cost of the ingredients for the cookies I made, I got dessert covered for $3 per person.  I just handed them out at the end of our meal.

I hadn’t planned on eating any appetizers, but I was really hungry by 2:30 in the afternoon.  I had four fried dill pickles (holy yum!) and a slice of pear, goat cheese flat bread which was really good.

And because it was nearly 3:45 by the time we ate, I knew this would be my lunch and dinner, so splurged on their signature Monk Burger – rare burger (love that they do rare burgers!) with Tillamook cheddar cheese and hand cut fries.  I ate 3/4 of the burger and maybe 10 fries.

Their burgers are so flavorful and juicy – worth the splurge!  I ended up snacking on a bit of Chex mix later in the night, so all in all it wasn’t too bad of a food day.  Maybe just lacking some veggies and fruit!

Does everyone have a four day weekend?  I assume everyone has the Friday and Monday off for Christmas, that is unless you work retail!  I will have a five day weekend – hoping to be a better nurse for Tony during my time off!

Make it a great day!

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