I had the best of intentions for cooking every night this week. Unfortunately, it all fell apart tonight when I didn’t get home until six, and dinner would take quite some time to prepare. (I had scheduled baked potatoes for one night, and baked potato soup for the next with the leftover potatoes.) It’s just as well because we’re going to be gone all day tomorrow (the zoo! yay the zoo!) so I really wouldn’t feel like making soup when I got home from a long outdoorsy sort of day, even if we get home in time.

Hence, I stumbled upon material for this post. You win, I win.

Going to O’Charley’s for dinner? First, sign up for their e-club for a “free gift” upon signing up, and one on your birthday. The best part is that you don’t have to wait–the welcome email contained the gift, which was a free appetizer. I suppose that your free gift might be different but I am assuming that it’s always a free appetizer. Since I usually order from the appetizer menu anyway, that meant a free meal for me. Awesome! (Technically, the welcome email does not say that you can only use it once, either, so you could theoretically print one for every night of the week for a month… but I haven’t tried it so I don’t know that for sure.)

So now we are home from a nice meal out and it didn’t break the bank. At least, not too badly. My daughter is now at an age where we have to actually have to order her food sometimes. On the bright side, she actually ate it tonight, which makes it worth it. I just hate the times she doesn’t touch it!