My Dad took me to Souplantation for the first time. I was in college. My brother and I were visiting him for the weekend and he suggested it. We went and I was in heaven. Any restaurant that has a huge spread of carbs that I can re-fill at will is my kind of place! Back then, the wait staff would bring around brown paper bags at closing and let patrons take home the muffins left at the bar. 

Anytime we went to visit my dad after that, we'd always ask for Souplantation and wait until just before closing to go. One time, we went the night before we were to leave on a road trip to Vegas. My brother and I made a bee line for the muffin bar and stuffed those bags as full as we could. We ate muffins all the way to Vegas and back.

One semester in college, I scheduled a three hour break in my Tuesday, Thursday classes. I'd take my books to Souplantation right before the pricing changed from lunch to dinner and I'd study for hours grazing on sourdough, pasta and fro yo. Looking back, the fact that I gained a ton of weight should not have come as any surprise. But, I did get good grades that semester.

Fast forward to Tyler's toddlerhood. We decided to take him to Souplantation to see what kind of veggies he'd like. It was the perfect place to spread a lot of little piles of food in front of him and let him go to town. Today, when I tell him he used to happily and willingly eat beets, he looks at me as though I've grown an extra limb. Souplantation is still his favorite restaurant. 

To this day his plate looks almost the same as it did when he was little: noodles, kidney beans, peas, corn, shredded cheese, pizza foccacia, sourdough and blueberry muffins. Lather, rinse and repeat. The last time we went to dinner, he did express slight interest in my baked potato with bacon, cheese and chicken* but I'm not holding my breath.

Where's all this going? Well, it's just a lot of backstory to help you understand why I was so psyched when I got an invitation to meet some of the execs from Souplantation a few weeks ago. All week leading up to the event, Tyler kept telling me how lucky I was. "You're spending three whole days there? You're so lucky! I wish I was going, too. Can you bring me back some noodles?"

I've said before that one of the best things about blogging has been getting to meet to execs from companies I admire and having them listen to our ideas, share their visions and ask if there are ways we can help them achieve them. I made a few suggestions as to how they could honor our men and women in uniform and make school fundraising a little easier. Add to that one of the contacts I made has asked for my help with their social media and it was a win all the way around. 

People often ask me what the benefit is to attending a blogging event. I never know what I'm going to get out of an event until I go. I have no idea if I'll write about events I attend until they're over and I can find a way to weave something personal in that will (hopefully) make it interesting for you to read about. 

In this case, how could I pass up the opportunity to meet the people behind a company I've loved since I was a teenager?

What about you? What do you get out of blogging events? Is there a company or brand you'd love the opportunity to get to meet with?

*They'll probably get mad at me for telling you this, but instead of buying the side of chicken meat at the salad bar, I take some of the chunks out the chicken noodle soup. 

This is not a compensated post though Souplantation fed me well for the three days of the event. Caryn of Rockin' Mama has a little bit of video of the event and I have a few pictures on Flickr.

Neglected Blog, But More Family Time

Hello! I was gong to apologize for not being around but I changed my mind. I wouldn't have anything to blog about if I didn't step away from the screen every once in awhile, right?

My Gramma was here visiting. She's set to head back to the midwest soon and wanted to spend a little more time with Tyler. Gramma spends the winter at my mom's, arriving in early November and leaving in February. This year's trip has been a rough one for her. Two friends and her brother died while she was here. My mom said after she got back from the east coast for her brother's funeral, she seemed to have lost a lot of her usual energy and vitality. I think it was good for her to be with her Sweetie Pie (me) and Grandbaby.

Gramma and Tyler are totally in love with each other. They have such a great relationship. That they've been able to spend so much time together over the years is something I'm happy to be able to have done for him. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of time spent with my grandparents. 

We didn't do a whole lot while she was here, but that's the cool thing about Gramma. We don't have to. We shopped, she showed me how to make chicken and dumplings and we all played Wii. My Gramma is a lot more competitive than I remember and a pretty good bowler too. We took her Tyler's hockey practice and she said 'woops!' every time one of the kids fell, which was often. And we laughed. A lot.

We've been teasing Gramma about her selective hearing. We say one thing, but she hears something totally different. The resulting conversations have often been hilarious. Example:

Me: Gramma, do you want an Oreo?

Gramma: Sure, thank you. (as she takes the whole sleeve) Where did you get these Oreos in a sleeve? Don't they usually come in a package?

Me: I got the Family Size box at Target.

G: You don't want to tell me? Why not?

Me: What?!

Gramma: Why don't you want to tell me where you got the Oreos?

Me: I said I got them at Target.

Gramma: Oh. I thought you said you didn't want to tell me.

Me: Those two sound nothing alike!

Gramma: You're right, I guess they don't. Want an Oreo? 

Oh my gosh, we were hysterical. Reading it, it doesn't seem very funny. I guess it was one of those, 'you had to be there' moments. 

Anyhoo, that's where I've been. I'm staring down a whole week's worth of To Do's but it was totally worth it. My Gramma makes me happy. Hopefully I'll be back to regular (maybe semi regular) posting next week. Happy Friday!

O Magazine $5 | Mamapedia Deal

I love it when magazine subscriptions drop down like this! My current subscription total is up to 16. 18 if the freebies I found this week go through. What can I say, I'm addicted! 

Mamapedia is another site offering daily deals (current subscriptions to those sites about the same as my magazines!). One of their current Sweet Deals is a one-year subscription to O Magazine for $10. Code OPRAH5 should take $5 off at checkout (please let me know if the code isn't working). The deal is on the right sidebar.

I definitely want to keep up with this subscription since her show is ending. I like OWN but not as much as The Oprah Show. Are you watching OWN? What do you think so far?

*Offer fine print: Valid for 1-year subscription only. Valid for new subscriptions and renewals. Limit (1) per household. May purchase as gifts. Offer valid Feb 11-14, 2011 only. Will automatically receive subscription in 4-6 weeks after order placed. Affiliate link.

Print Grocery Coupons at Cheap Sally: Frugal Friday

Yesterday I Skyped with Steph and one of the many things we talked about was budgeting and saving money. I told her continuing to trim our grocery budget is a big priority for me. One thing that has helped me the most is printing grocery coupons. 

Many sites will issue one or two new coupons throughout the month, but for the most part, printable coupon sites are re-set on the first day of month. I've bookmarked all the sites I go to and I try to hit them all within the first two days of the month. If I wait too long, many of the good coupons hit their print limits. 

Earlier this week I got an email from a local PR firm about a new site for coupons. Since I hadn't heard of it before I thought I'd share in case you haven't either. Having access to multiple sites for printable grocery coupons is the best way to get duplicates of really high value coupons or for items you buy all the time. 

The coupons on Cheap Sally are powered by Coupons.com which is my favorite site (look under the more savings tab). Cheap Sally also has coupon codes for online shopping, discounted gift cards and event tickets. I'll keep those things in mind but I know for me, the grocery coupons will be the most valuable part of the site. 

What site do you visit most for printable coupons? 

Peekaboo! I See You! Wordless Wednesday

Oprah Let Me Down

For the past few weeks I've been juggling two books. One was our December/January book club selection and the other just because. Both are really meaty books, 600+ pages. Both are on Oprah's book lists. Both of them suck! 

I usually stick with a book. No matter how awful it is, I'll keep plugging away, especially if the book is something tons of other people talk about and love. Well, not this time. I waved the white book mark, threw in the proverbial towel. I took Freedom back to the library yesterday after about 250 pages. 

I didn't like the characters. I didn't like Franzen's writing style. I didn't care about the story. It was a giant snooze. I feel like a quitter but I have about 50 books in my 'to be read' and most of them look so good. I'd walk past them all on my way to bed knowing that one of them was going to knock my socks off and then open Freedom. I couldn't take it anymore. 

Then there's Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True. I'm about 360 pages into it. I was really looking forward to it because both Deb and Mary loved it. But it's soooooo depressing! Not that depressing is bad. I've read books with heavy themes before and still enjoyed them. But this? Whoa.

We already had our book club meeting so I know the ending. This one I'm going to stick with (I think) but only because I want to see how certain plot lines play out. I will say I enjoy the writing in this book much better than Freedom. I haven't read too may of Oprah's book club selections but I've liked all the titles I've read. Until now.

What books have you waved the white book mark on? Have you read Freedom or I Know This Much is True? What did you think?

Amazon Valentine Playlist Freebie

photo © 2009 Beverly | more info (via: Wylio)

Amazon has another great freebie up. Surprise your sweetie with free music for Valentine's Day. The free playlist has 14 songs. You can also get a $2 discount when you send MP3's as gifts with code VDAYMP3S.

One of the February MP3 specials is 100 albums priced at $5 like Lady Antebellum, Norah Jones, Sara Bareilles and Train. With the code, these would make a super cheap Valentine's Day gift.

(Code and free playlist end on Valentine's Day, affiliate links)