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September 3, 2016

Life Lately

Good morning friends!

I’ll be heading to Atlanta shortly, but I wanted to pop in and catch the blog up on some things going on lately since I haven’t been around much.  I’m so excited about my trip to Atlanta – I’ll see my precious cousin and her little ones, my grandmother, some aunts and uncles, and friends on this trip while also taking a class for the Series 7 Exam.  So what’s been going on?

  • I bought a house!

Crazy, I know.  I had a great experience buying a house and would love to recap that at some point.  I have a few projects on the horizon, so there will definitely be some before/after posts coming soon.

morning-coffee

I’m getting fairly settled in, but it’s been crazy busy in my neck of the woods and things are coming together a lot more slowly than I initially anticipated.  The kitchen is organized though and I have my coffee pot brewing coffee, so that is the biggest start to making a house feel like home in my opinion.  This has been such a fun and exciting experience for me and I’m so thrilled to have my sister living with me during this time!

  • Street Vegan and other Vegan Cookbooks

street-vegan

I’ve been waiting to have my own kitchen back for 3 years now.  Over the past 3 years, I have collected a multitude of vegan cookbooks.  One of which was recently given to me by some friends.  My birthday is in April, but I didn’t get this gift until last week, which turned out to be perfect timing with buying a house.  This cookbook looks so unique and fun!  I’m also looking forward to cooking from Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. and Vegan Cooking for Carnivores.

  • Book Club is Back!!

This is very very exciting, y’all!  We took a little book club hiatus and kept talking and talking about getting it back together…. well, we finally took the plunge!!  We started off with a night at Katy’s picking books and hostesses.  Katy provided tiny home-made pizza’s that we could personalize.  It was so much fun, we always have a great time getting together!  It’s wonderful to love who you work with and I certainly do.

book-club

Then Chris made the cutest bookmarks to let us know when/where/which book we’ll be reading!  The first book club was at Chris’ house and she made some delicious bruschetta.

bruschetta

bookmark

The host always provides the dinner and then you bring your own choice of beverage, usually wine.

  • My best friend is back

me and lacy

Back in July, I got a text message from my friend Lacy (who I met as a VISTA and who was currently working and living in South Carolina) that said she was applying to Law School at Mississippi College in Jackson, MS.  I was thrilled to say the least, but honestly didn’t believe it would actually happen.  I knew she’d get in and I knew she’d get the scholarship she wanted because she’s brilliant, but I wasn’t sure if she would actually take the plunge and move here.  Her boyfriend is still in South Carolina and I didn’t really think she’d be too excited about moving back to Mississippi.  She got accepted, got the scholarship, and decided to accept!  She’ll be here for three years and we have so many memories to make!  The very first memory made was with Sweet Tea, of course.

Well, that highlights a little about what’s been going on.  I’m off to finish laundry & packing, but I’m hoping to be back more frequently these days.  I have internet at my new house now, I have inspirational places to blog, and I have lots to blog about!

  • What’s been going on in your life lately? 
  • Have you bought a house, what was your experience?
  • What do you think makes a house feel more like a home?

Filed Under: First Home, Mississippi, Travel, Vegan Tagged With: blogging, bookclub, coffee, food, mcalisters, vegan Leave a Comment

March 16, 2015

McAlister’s, we’re breaking up!

I have been a huge McAlisters fan for years!  I mean… years and years and years!  When I ate meat, I loved their club sandwich and chicken tortilla soup, they were the best!  Then when I transitioned to a vegetarian lifestyle, they proved to have multiple options for a vegetarian – veggie spud, veggie sandwich, veggie club, vegetarian soups, and the veggie chili (plus more.)  I loved their choose 2 option to satisfy more than one craving when I ate there.  Now, don’t get me started on their Sweet Tea because I’ve been known to have an obsession.

veggie-spud

To satisfy my McAlisters craving, I met a friend there for lunch the other day.  I ordered the veggie spud and the ultimate nachos with veggie chili (this obviously included a sweet tea.) After I paid, I realized that I had been charged $1.00 for ordering veggie chili with my order.  WHAT?! I was really surprised by this so I mentioned something to the lady who took my order and she agreed that it seemed weird, but it’s something that the system automatically does now.  I was really upset about being charged extra for the veggie chili, but I let it go for the time being so I could enjoy lunch with my friend.  Once we sat down, we started chatting away and 10 minutes turned into 20 minutes which turned into 30 minutes and my food had not yet arrived.  The couple next to us arrived 5-10 minutes after we did and got their food before us.  I originally thought that my food had taken so long because I ordered a spud, but the guy next me had ordered a spud as well, so that theory was out the window!  I flagged down the girl who delivered their food and told her that I had been waiting on my food for a really long time.  She didn’t seem very interested in my complaint and gave me a pretty great stink eye, but finally my food arrived.  Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there because I continued to be disappointed since the $1.00 extra I spent on veggie chili was barely even noticeable on my plate of nachos!  At this point I had had enough with this particular McAlisters (it wasn’t my first bad experience here!) and due to my extreme opinions about charging extra for the veggie chili, I’ve made a decision that I’m certain will surprise every single one of my friends who know me at all.

McAlisters, we’re breaking up!

veggie-club

The bad experience could probably be fixed with a few response tweets from McAlister’s or a simple e-mail apologizing for the staff & service at this particular location, but I haven’t heard a word back from them about that – I tweeted & filled out a survey.  The service & staff change from one McAlisters to the other, so that doesn’t necessarily keep me from coming back because I’m 99% of the time pleased with the food & sweet tea regardless.  The most disappointing reason for this break-up is the $1.00 for veggie chili.  It was such an unnecessary issue that it baffles me I’m even writing this blog post.

It is vegetarian 101 to know that beans are MUCH cheaper than meat.  I know for a fact that they are not losing money by offering vegetarian chili, in fact, they are probably saving money when vegetarians order veggie chili in place of meat chili – especially when they’re robbing a $1 from us.  I refuse to support a company that chooses to penalize vegetarians for their dietary choices without logical reasoning.  No matter what they say or how they explain it, there will never be an arguable reason to charge $1.00 extra for veggie chili.  It’s not even fancy veggie chili that was slaved over for hours in the kitchen.  It’s the most basic veggie chili I’ve ever had, beans & a tomato base.  For that very reason, I’m breaking up with McAlister’s – a restaurant that I have eaten at twice a day before on multiple occasions, a restaurant that I have promoted positively via social media for years, a restaurant that I have made standing lunches at with friends on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, a restaurant that I would go out of my way for to get my fix, a restaurant that I have coerced other people to go to when we’re deciding what to have for dinner, a restaurant that I absolutely loved and supported 100%!  Now, McAlister’s, you’ve let one of your most faithful customers down and for that very reason, we’re done.

Let me know when/if you come to your senses and stop charging $1.00 extra for veggie chili, I do believe in second chances and would come running back to you in a heartbeat if I knew my chili wasn’t extremely over priced.  I hope the day comes where I can post instagram’s like this again, but for now I’ll support restaurants who cater to vegetarian diets at logically reasonable prices.

I do not miss out on #freeteaday at mcalisters! I opted out of lunch today though for the Chinese I’ve been craving! Love the message from my fortune cookie! #backtowork

A photo posted by Heather Black (@hblack79) on Jul 24, 2014 at 12:05pm PDT

If I hear anything from McAlister’s about fixing their $1.00 veggie chili mistake, I promise to let you know!  At this point (over a month later), I haven’t heard from them, but with as much as I have cherished their company in the past, I sincerely hope this isn’t how things end (Seriously, I want my sweet tea back!)  I took the survey they offer on their receipts stating that I’d be more than happy for them to contact me to discuss my experience and my disapproval of this visit – nothing.

Disclosures:

**I didn’t have pictures from the actual visit described in the post, so no I don’t have proof that my veggie chili was lacking, but hopefully you’ll trust me when I say there was not an extra $1.00 worth of chili covering my nachos.

**I believe there is a fine line between a vegetarian who seeks out equality and acceptance of their diet and one who chooses to make life difficult for those around them because of their diet.  I don’t think vegetarian’s should be penalized for choosing this lifestyle; however, I also don’t think that others should have to bend over backwards to satisfy that vegetarian lifestyle (which unfortunately, some vegetarians would disagree with.)  I make this point to say that I try to be a vegetarian who is accommodating for those around me without compromising my morals and values, so this is not a post trying to promote “special privileges” for vegetarians.  

Filed Under: Serious Talk, Uncategorized, Vegetarian Tagged With: mcalisters 3 Comments

July 8, 2014

Mini-Card Workout

Good Morning!

This week is being consumed with Series 6 studying.  I have 3 pretty slow days at work this week so I’m using that time to study.

Yesterday, I opted for McAlister’s for LUNCH (without realizing that I’d be eating that again today) and it hit the spot with a veggie spud & veggie club.

veggie-spud

veggie-club

I love my clubs with some honey mustard!  McAlister’s has excellent honey mustard too!  I decided to eat at my desk (which I really need to break this habit) so I could watch my online videos and take notes for my Series 6.

series-6-studying

Who else looks forward to Sweet Tea Day?  It’s one of my Top 5 Favorite Days of the Year!  It’s coming up VERY SOON!  July 24th!

After work, I started planning for my potential visit to see Meg in September and although it’ll be a super quick weekend, I think it’ll be a lot of fun and completely worth it!  I probably spent a good hour and a half mapping out my options!  I love planning!  I then made my trip to the grocery store for the week and stocked up on some fixing for smoothies & lunch items for the week.  After the grocery store, I went to workout.

I’m loving the workouts from Julie @ Peanut Butter Fingers!  A lot of them are a little more challenging than I can do right now, but I hope to build my way up.  Sometimes she’s all “Hey, this took me 20 minutes” and I’m all “Hey, that’s impossible… took me an hour!”  But whatever, she’s super great and her workouts keep my boredom at bay!

My WORKOUT last night consisted of a 10 minute treadmill workout to warm-up, a Circuit workout, and then a 2 minute cool down on the treadmill.

My Killer Incline Walking Workout kept me at a speeds of 4 & 4.3, but the incline went anywhere from 2 to 12!!  I was sweaty when I finished up and moved on to my circuit.

total body workout

Click on the Workout to go to Original Post!

I used a 5 pound weight just to get a feel for how this workout would go.  There were certain exercises that I could have used a heavier weight on so I’ll try that next time!  I’m really loving my local gym because it’s not too crowded during the times I go so I feel completely comfortable setting up my station and getting to work!

workout

Using notecards cut in half has been my ideal way to remember what exercises I want to do!  I don’t have to keep it on my phone (Which was especially nice for this because I needed to use my phone as a 1 minute timer) and I don’t have to remember what my workout is, I can just bring it on this card.  If the card gets sweaty or gross – no big deal!  I strongly suggest finding quality workouts online and writing them down on a mini-card.  By finding different workouts online through Pinterest or other bloggers, I’m consistently motivated to stay on track with my workouts and using this card system helps me go through the workout quickly.  Another idea I’ve had is to keep my cards if they don’t get gross during the workout, so eventually I’ll be able to grab one and go!  Using a file card box, I can sort them by type of workouts or which muscles are worked.

This morning, BREAKFAST started out as 2 pieces of toast w/ peanut & jelly with a side of pineapple greek yogurt.  Eating the yogurt wasn’t very appealing at the time, so I opted for a smoothie!  I tossed in the pineapple greek yogurt with some spinach, blueberries, OJ, peanut butter, and flaxseed.  I drank that on my way to work this morning.

toast-yogurt-breakfast

Today, my friend Lacy is coming town, so I’ll have lunch with her and then drop her off at the airport!  I’m looking forward to another HIIT class this evening – this will be my Tuesday ritual! 

Check back tonight for my day at Disney re-cap from this past weekend!

Questions this morning:

  • What heart-rate monitor or workout watch do you suggest?  I need to start looking for a good one.
  • How do you keep from boredom during your workouts?

Filed Under: Fitness, Food Tagged With: mcalisters, pbfingers workout, planner, smoothie, sweet tea, vegetarian, veggie club, veggie spud, work 3 Comments

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The views and statements expressed on No Bologna are my own. You are reading No Bologna at your own risk and I am not providing any type of professional advice. Unless otherwise noted, all material on No Bologna may not be used, reprinted, or published without my consent. I do occasionally have affiliated links on my blog - this does not raise the price of the product, I simply get a very small commission from the regular retail price if something is purchased using an affiliated link on my site. I appreciate any support by you in regards to affiliated links.

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