Traditions of Vacationing

It's no secret.....Paul and I love to travel.

Not only do we love to travel....but we love to sample what the locals love and what makes each city unique.

Our recent jaunt to New Orleans was no different.

So what are the things that makes New Orleans special. Wow....there are too many to list, but here were some of the things that we got to savor:



Probably the most famously known street in the United States. On Bourbon Street we enjoyed live music, fantastic food, and if you are into people watching...this is the hot spot. We love Bourbon Street (on the nights when the drunken rowdy people stay home).



The offical beer of Louisiana. We discovered a great new tasting beer!



Red Beans and Rice, Jambalaya, Gumbo, Muffaletta, Crawfish, and Blackened Fish. Louisiana has the best food! We made sure to eat Louisiana cuisine every chance we got!



No trip to New Orleans is complete without coming home with your own Mardi Gras beads. We were lucky enough to be there the first weekend before all the craziness happens and partially saw one Mardi Gras parade. But we did manage to bring home our share of Mardi Gras beads!

Next blog.......will be the ACTUAL pictures of our wonderful vacation!

Toilet hopping

I know....I know.....a funny name for a blog title. But that's what our life has been lately.

Seriously, you never know how great you have it until something gets taken away from you. Like the luxury of using your own toilet.

Think about your own private toileting habits and how inconvenienced you would be if suddenly you didn't have that luxury any longer. And I am talking LUXURY.

We have turned into quite a creative couple when it comes to tending to our personal needs.

Paul has found that getting up really early and going to work is the best. I have found that using the neighbors has been my best work. Although, you don't want to use the same neighbors all the time.......so you mix it up a little.

We have also discovered that going out to eat at night not only avoids having to dirty dishes (because we can't run our dishwasher) it also provides you free use of a restroom!

But hope is on the horizon....the plumber was out here this morning and they are going to have to replace the clean out (where the roots have penetrated the line and busted it wide open) and 20 feet of sewer line, which has apparently shifted and dipped and not draining properly. The best news is its only going to cost $750, as opoosed to the thousands that we were afraid we were going to have to spend.


That means only two more days of searching out the perfect toilet!

7 Days and counting......

.....no working toilets in my house

Well that's not exactly true, but really close.

Last Friday night while we were frantically doing last minute stuff to get ready for our big vacation on Saturday.....our downstairs toilet decided to act like Old Faithful. 1/2 inch of sewer water all over the downstairs floor and what a mess we had. Not the kind of thing we needed the night before we leave.

Luckily we have a home warranty company (not that they are that great or cover that much), but the plumber shows up after several frantic phone calls about our emergency and discovers that we have roots in our sewer lines and a broken sewer. Our knight in shining armour (not exactly armour.....but a plumbing shirt) informed us that it was not covered under our home warranty, but he would get a tiny hole in the line and we are only allowed to use the toilets with water only. You know what that means?

Lucky for us we were leaving for four days -- so we blissfully enjoyed our trip to New Orleans and didn't even think about the stinky problem we had waiting at home (Coming Soon: the blog and pics about our wonderful trip).

But alas we had to come home and deal with the issue. Calls to insurance company resulted in no satisfaction. Now we are in the process of dealing with the neighbors -- since it was THEIR tree that did the dirty deed.

Meanwhile we either have to go to restaurants or ask our neighbors to use their facilities. Embarrassing? Just a little bit. I never in a million years thought I would say that I can't wait to run the dishwasher and do laundry. But luckily I can take a shower and brush my teeth every morning....hallelujah. I just can't sit on my own toilet.

Hopefully resolution will come soon.......the plumber is scheduled to be here 9am tomorrow!

All my bags are packed.......

..well not exactly, but that song just keeps running through my head.

Well we are in the final preparations of our next destination.....New Orleans! A fun and exciting place to visit, but not the first time we've been there. In fact, this will be the third time we've been there, but really our first time to REALLY visit there.

Our first time there was on our way back from Orlando in 1997. We got there about 11:30 at night and our first stop was a hotel. We got up the next morning and visited the aquarium, some open air market, and took a picture of Paul, Cris, and Aaron at a Bourbon Street sign. Then we left. That trip was probably a total of 16 hours there.

The next time we went we drove the 6 hours from Houston and spent about a day and a half visiting the WW2 Museum, Bourbon Street, Harrah's casino, and drove around a little bit and then we left. This was January 2005, the same year as Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city.

This time we are flying in on Saturday and leaving on Tuesday night. We have lots of exciting things planned including visiting the Civil War Museum, taking the night time haunted New Orleans tour, visiting the new casino, driving around and seeing the progress made since Hurricane Katrina, and of course visiting Bourbon Street. We are lucky enough that the first weekend of Mardi Gras is beginning and there will be a couple of parades. We are also lucky that this is the "quiet" weekend of Mardi Gras and all the rowdiness won't be happening until the next weekend. We really aren't into rowdy crowds, but would like to sample a little bit of Mardi Gras.

The airline tickets are bought, well actually one ticket was bought for $36 and the other ticket was paid for with our credit card miles. The hotel is booked and the rental car is next. Now begins the planning and figuring out what we want to do while we are there (we are hoping to find some Live Trivia competition as well). Knowing us this will NOT be a restful and relaxing vacation and we will cram every minute with something to do until our weary heads hit the pillows at night.

But the best part is we are getting away, seeing new things, and spending time together. The bad news is there is SO much that has to get done (for Pizza Zone) before we go and we will have LOADS of stuff to get caught up when we get back.

Oh well......we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Things you should know about my husband

It's Valentines Day. The day that the card, chocolate, and flower companies created to get you to buy someone a gift.

I believe that you should show your love everyday of the year and not just on February 14th. My husband is very non-traditional. I know that I will not get flowers today. We have a standing deal that I get flowers twice a year, not on the traditional "flower" days, but on two days that I would never expect during the year.

So in celebration of this faux holiday.....I will share those special qualities about my husband that I really love. Some of these you may or may not know about him, but they are the qualities that make him uniquely himself!



1. His sense of humor. It's a little off-track from most of the population, but every once in awhile he is really hilarious. I don't think people really understand he just really has a dry sense of humor.



2. His honesty. He is an incredibly honest person. He would never intentionally steal, lie, or do anything that is not above-board and honest. Sometimes I would like to "fudge" on something -- but he won't. They say that "what goes around comes around" and this man truly is going to be on the "good" end of receiving.

3. His brains. He really is a smart cookie. He knows so much weird and boring stuff that I never even really wanted to learn. I don't even have to solve manual math problems any more - I just tell him and he'll solve it for me. He really is a great team mate to have in trivia competitions.



4. His creativity. This man can take ANYTHING and make it work. I'm talking about a King McGyver here. (Remember the show where that guy could get out of any situation with a piece of string and some tape?). My husband has the uncanny ability to see something totally useless and find a purpose for it somewhere.

5. His care and his compassion. There is not one single day where he doesn't make me feel special and loved. He treats me like a queen and would go to the end of the world and back to do something to make me happy. Not many people get to see this "private" side of him, but he really is a caring and compassionate person.



6. His love and his loyalty for our business. He will do ANYTHING to make sure that our customers are well served. He works long hours, he runs around every single day to make sure that we are stocked up on supplies and will never have a situation where a customer orders something and we are out of it. He forgoes his own time off to make sure that an employee gets time off for something that they want to do (grrrrrrr.....not sure I like this one).



7. His patience and understanding. He married me and accepted my kids as his responsibility and raised them and treated them like they were his own (until they got too big and he wanted to boot their butts out). He made sure that we had everything we needed, that we took fun vacations, and that we were always well taken care of -- even when it meant it had to work long and hard hours.



I am so incredibly lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful person to be married to. He is by no means perfect (he's a mess maker, he's ADHD, he forgets important crap all the time), but today is meant to celebrate our love and how special our relationship is. I can't believe that I found someone who is the "perfect" other half of me and enjoys the same things that I do!

I love you very much Paul Gainor!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ahhh....Valentine's Day. The day we celebrate with the one we love.

Tradtionally the day to give your favorite person flowers, candy, or jewelery.

I was lucky and my husband wanted to spoil me by giving me my Valentine's Day gift a little early.

Just had to snap a picture of it and share it with you:



Yes you saw it right. It's a top of the line, brand new Bissell Carpet Shampoo Machine.

I was in the final stages of getting his new office ready and my old carpet shampoo machine wouldn't work so we made a trip to Sears and bought us a new one. He jokingly said that it was my Valentine's Present.

Bless him.....and he's probably right that this IS my Valentine's Day present. Seriously though, doesn't bother me a bit -- I got my best Valentine's Day present for eternity when I married him!

Drama, Drama and more Drama

I'm telling you every day we have to deal with some drama or another.

It's not enough we have our own PERSONAL drama to live with, but the drama that involves our employees.

Murphy (the Murphy in Murphy's Law) is really trying to take his crack at preventing us from going away next weekend.

I'm not going to get into the exact details of our latest drama but will tell you it involved:

Testosterone
Punching
Curse Words
Yelling
Police

Go ahead and think of any scenario that you like using the above list and you can probably figure out what happened.

We would appreciate it if EVERYONE COULD just get along and PLEASE allow us the 3 or 4 days that we desperately need to get away and find our inner peace again.

If not......then the drama next week will probably include us!

My Daily Word

Life is not perfect
Every day in my life is not perfect
I am not perfect either
I have good moods, bad moods, stress, joy and happiness like all the rest of the people on this earth
Most of the time I post happy stuff.....because I don't think people like to hear about your angry stuff. But let's be real here.....we all are not happy all the time.

When Paul's mom was alive she used to get a little envelope every other month from some church organization. Since she had had her stroke and was unable to read, I just threw it away (I wish I hadn't done that now).

Shortly after she passed, we received another one of those envelopes. I decided to open it up and see what it was and notify them that she was deceased and to stop sending them.

It was a little booklet.....The Daily Word. And inside it contained an inspirational message for every day of the month. An uplifting message to help when those days are bad and to inspire you and let you know that you are not alone, that God is within you and all around us.



I took this as a sign and I have been reading the message every day since (well almost every day). It's amazing that on some days that the message fits your life at exactly that moment.

Some days when I really just feel like the weight of every trouble is on my shoulders I can read this message and smile, knowing that I am not alone.



Thank you Daily Word. I am listening.

Afternnon Off + Great Times + Great Friends

Amazing what taking an afternoon does to your positive mental attitude. We literally have not had a day off since Christmas (and that's only because we were closed that day). We are not afforded the luxury of a sick day off.....if there is stuff that needs to be done -- it gets done. But yesterday we just reached a point where we blew things off and just enjoyed our afternoon and evening.

Since our "day off" didn't begin until 2pm our first stop was a nice quiet lunch. Spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian Sausage sandwich was on the menu and we leisurely played with our Blackberries while we waited for our food. We've had these crazy phones for over a year, but we are still learning how to use them!

We then made the trek across town to IKEA to lose ourselves amongst that huge warehouse for an hour. We were on a mission to find something to put our stereo on and a matching piece for the TV, but we didn't really find anything. I think that our minds weren't into trying to figure it out......so we just walked around and looked at all the great stuff they have.

By this time it was almost 5pm so we came home for a quick nap, because you know what Tuesday night is........TRVIA!

For those of you who don't know this, my husband and I are major trivia nerds. We used to play on the little trivia boxes found at local bars and restaurants, but a year ago we discovered Live Team Trivia and now we are so hooked. We have been playing live trivia for almost a year now and have met a group of friends with whom we play regularly against. It is so much fun to play competitively and really try to use your brain. It's also fun to reign as the supreme winners at the end of the night. But we have to honestly say the best part is the amazing friends that we have made on the way. We have so much fun every trivia night and do just about everything we can to make sure we can attend. I am also happy to report that are awesome team THE VILLAGE IDIOTS were the grand prize winners last night!




But all good days must come to an end......but I definitely am starting out my day with a better attitude and a goal to get everything accomplished that needs to get done!

Ode to Onions

This blog post is not meant to make you cry! Okay.....I'm not really claiming that my mind is always thinking normal thoughts, but seriously sometimes you just need to break away from the ordinary and write about some of the wacky things that float through your brain.

This time I'm dedicating this post to onions. I SO LOVE onions. Doesn't matter what kind -- I tend to put them in everything. So when I started thinking about them, I realized that there were so many varieties and that I have probably tried most of them.

So let's have some fun today and test your onion IQ! (answers are below)













There were so many more that we could have tested ourselves on......but I really need to get something more productive done!


Answers: Yellow Onion, Green Onions, Purple Onion, Pearl Onions, Leeks, Onion Rings

You snooze......you lose

Well we procastinated just a little long and missed out on the cheap tickets to Columbus for the pizza show (maybe it was subconsciously intentional).

However, all is not lost. We've decided that we DEFINITELY need a couple of days off and really freezing cold Columbus Ohio in February might not exactly be the best place to go.

So here's our options: we are going to wait until the Monday before (Feb. 14) when Continental posts their last minute fares. If Columbus show up on that list -- we're going to go. If it doesn't, we're going to play travel roulette......which is our favorite game to play anyways. That particular weekend is the perfect time to get away for 3-4 days because there is no school pizza nights, there's no payroll, and our store manager's baby isn't due for another 2 weeks (hope he doesn't come early).

For those of you who are new to my little blog......I'll describe travel roulette. We don't have the luxury of planning our trips in advance in most cases. Whenever we try to plan one something always happens at one of our stores to thwart are plans. Usuall someone quits, someone doesn't show up, we fire someone, or some major piece of equipment decides to break down.

So what we usually do is a couple of weeks in advance we look at our schedule and says "okay we can be gone here" and then we check our favorite "last minute" travel places and pick the best deal......so it's always a last minute surprise to us where we are traveling. It's really fun and adds an extra element of surprise because you decide on Monday or Tuesday you're leaving and on "poof" on Saturday you're off to a destination you had no idea you were going to.

Some recent examples have been our trip to San Francisco: $250 each (included airfare, car rental, and hotel) for 4 days. Washington DC: $300 each (including all of the above). Los Angeles: $250 for two airline tickets.

So if you love to travel, love the thrill of a last minute adventure, and like to travel cheap......here's a couple of awesome places that we use for our last minute travel.

Travelocity - Last Minute Packages. This is the site we use the most. VERY reasonable packages for a last minute traveler and lets you build your trip.

Continental Airlines: Look on Monday night and they post their last minute cheap flights that leave on Saturday. Usually there's a choice of international destinations for as little as $218 a ticket and U.S. Cities. If you have their airline miles saved up, most of these tickets can be bought for as little as $36 (we bought one of our tickets to L.A. for $36).

Also U.S. Airways and Delta have last minute fare deals (but we don't find them to be as reasonable as the ones mentioned above)

Well, that's enough of my traveling wisdom for now. Keep watching....I'm sure you'll get to see what exciting destination we have picked out. Hopefully there's a nice warm tropical location that we'll get to choose from.

I really think I should have been a travel agent when I grew up!

December Birthdays

In my immediate family you either have a birthday in August or it's in December.

Makes it easy. My boys are both August and Paul and I are both December.

My birthday is Christmas Eve. Not much open that day except the stores, but we started a tradition a few years ago and now it's something we look forward to every year - The Birthday Bowling Bash. It's a family bowling day and we have had to limit who can come. Everyone knows how much fun it is so we usually have a crowd that wants to come, but I really want to keep it small and just family. This year my "adopted" son Rubio joined us again. He attended the first Birthday Bowling Bash, so we decided it was only fitting to have him attend another.

Here's some of the pics from this year:









December was a busy party month for us this year. Paul turned the big 5-0, so I had a surprise party for him with old friends, new friends, old employees, and current employees. He had no clue and was genuinely surprised. The event was a huge success and the highlight of the evening was the karaoke.

Here's some pictures of the festivities:









How special it is to have a birthday in December and share it with friends and family!