Monday roll call

Hi friends,

We had a great time in St. Louis with my cousins and Kay and I did some shopping at local stores and restaurants ( no malls). The trip home was awful due to traffic. It took 6.5 hours to get home. We just went to bed, but now everything is put away and the house is picked up. We had some fabulous meals even if we could only eat small plates. And we brought home exotic cheeses and foie gras (something we shouldn't eat, so only a little bit)...

I hope you all had a good weekend!

Connie

Hello everyone

My Monday was just as busy as ever.  If I thought it wasn't going to be busy just because I can't enter anything into the new system...I was kidding myself.  I ended up working 1.5 hours of overtime...not much but something. 

They are doing a bunch of catering at work.  We have visitors from our home office helping us through the system conversion and they are catering lunch every single day!!!!  Today was easy.  They ordered from Smokey's...a BBQ place.  The reason it's easy for me is because Smokeys serves their meat plain and you add the BBQ sauce.  So I had a generous spoonful of plain chicken and fruit.  I didn't partake in the mac and cheese or the BBQ sauce or the buns or the twice baked potatoes.  Tomorrow will be Panera and I always get a plain grilled cheese (I cut the crusts off...yep I'm still a little kid that way).  So that's not so bad.  But not every day is so great....ugh!!! 

I just found out that Mariano's bought the Dominicks by me.  I looked it up....it seems like a nice grocery store.  Has anyone ever shopped there.  Do you have any feed back???

I have one more day to take off before the end of the year or I lose it.  I am taking it off Wednesday.  Chris has the day off too.  I am going Christmas shopping with him.  He still has some gifts to buy.  So we will be bouncing around from store to store.  I know for sure we are going to Toys r Us, Barnes & Nobel, JC Penney and Target....and I have groceries to do.  We will probably go out to eat.  I wiould like to try this place called White Chocolate Grill by I88 (near Rock Bottom).  They have a nice gluten free selection...and it's something different. 

Well time to eat dinner...I made potato-chicken soup....in the crockpot. 

Have a nice evening all....bye

 I saw your question last night but was too tired to respond.

Mariano's=great customer service, quality of produce, deli, meats, bakery, salad bar, fresh fish and variety of foods. The employees are personable and wear black slacks, white shirt and neck tie. Their fish has the date it was caught before it came to the store. They have a craft cheese department with an employee stationed there to slice cheese or answer questions (Whole Foods does the same). Their in store brand is Roundy's. Their prices you will find after all of the hoopala of the grand opening will be a little pricier but not has high as Whole Foods. They also (like some Whole Foods) have an area to grab a bite to eat or take home a pizza they make in store. They are always busy because they are popular and many stores have a cop directing traffic on the busy days like Saturday.

We do not have a Mariano's close by. Arlington Heights is the closest one and also the very first one in the Chicago area. It opened about 3 years ago. You will find that they have a fantastic variety of food and household items. We were hoping that where the Dommies closed in Elk Grove Village that one would go in. I would settle for a Piggley Wiggly or a HyVee. We already have a Kroger based store of Food 4 Less in EGV so I guess I will settle for something else. I did hear that Whole Foods is looking at the Dommie stores so maybe we will get them. Trader Joe's would be nice but the Dommie store is huge and TJ's usually are on the smaller size. There will not be an Aldi that goes in there because EGV already has one over by Food 4 Less and there is a brand new Aldi in Addison. I think that you will enjoy the store. 

Good Evening,

I got home right at 4:30 today, and I decided to make some mini chocolate covered vanilla wafers with marshmellows under the choc. Remember the ones we had when we were kids? I also made beef and noodles for dinner with left over beef. 

Work was slow thank goodness.  couldn't get on one of our programs, so I called our assistant supervisor, she had me do some vodoo,  and then both programs stopped working. I finally decided to go do a system restore  and that worked. We will see what happens.

Connie, we ran into no traffic when we came home. Of course we came home Saturday. I always bring back "St. Louis foods."

Its been raining here for the past couple of hours. At least it isn't snow.

Hugs,