Dear Diary -

Dear Diary -

I am filled with so much anger right at this very moment and wish that I could just tell everyone how I feel at this moment.

But I can't.

I wish that there was someone here right this second that could listen to me and tell me that all would would be ok in the end.

But there isn't.

I wish I could just write down all these things that I really need to get out and let everyone know how I really and truly feel about things.

But I won't.

So for now, dear Diary.......this is all you are going to get.

P.S. I really feel sorry for Paul when he gets home tonight, as he is the one that will get to listen to my ranting and raving.......although, things don't seem to be that bad when he's around :-) Must be his constant state of sanity and rational reasoning.

There's no place like home

This is the topic today because Aaron just got done spending 4 days here and left this morning to go back "home".

Talking to him last week, he kept mentioning about how excited he was to come "home" to Houston. He missed his friends, he missed his family, he missed doing all the things that he did up here and couldn't wait to get here.

I actually got to spend some quality time with him this trip since he stayed here. We had a chimichanga dinner Sunday night for all who could attend and I made 58 chimichangas to send home to those who couldn't be here.

This morning he got up at 5:30 to make the drive back home because he needed to be at work. As he was leaving I asked him if he had a good time and if he was glad to go back "home". He remarked that it was good to go back "home", the place where he is now comfortable. The place that has all his stuff. That is also surprising because I feel like he is now getting established in his new life and not missing what he left here. I'm sure now his visits to Houston will be farther and fewer between as he builds his new life even bigger.

I know exactly what he's talking about. As much as I love to travel and be gone and do things.....there is sometimes that it's just plain nice to be "home". It is always a good and familiar feeling walking back into the door of your house after being gone for awhile. What a nice and safe feeling your "home" is.

A mantra to live by

I can't please everyone all the time.

To find my own happiness I must please myself first.

Then I will be "full" and able to help others around me.

Although I have found that there is always others out there, who no matter what you do, will never find their happiness.

My own happiness is based on me.......and me alone.

Aaron is home for the weekend.....can you tell?

No words necessary for this one!

Wordless Wednesday: Update

Update on porch swing.....it got built.....but still sitting in the living room.

Oh well.....at least there was some progress!

A miscellaneous kind of day

You know those days where you do a hundred things and at the end of the day you feel like you haven't got anything to show for it?

Well yesterday was my "miscellaneous" day. You know those items.....there are 50 "small" things that don't take much time -- but you just keep pushing them aside.

I thought I would just start jotting down all those things so I could see where my day went.



* Went to both stores and dropped off/picked up things
* Set up new paperwork at each store and did a backup of each stores orders
* Printed OOPS cards
* Mailed out 2 OOPS cards
* Mailed out and sent congrats note & gift cards to our recent Facebook winners
* Answered 4 or 5 e-mails
* Reconciled the food vendors invoices against the bank drafts they sent me
* Wrote a couple of checks to food vendors
* Reviewed insurance quotes for our renewals: property, driver, and Worker Comp
* Designed and ordered new business cards
* Helped Michael R. get a filing cabinet out of the garage he wanted

Ok, seriously.....it's only 4pm and I've already done all this stuff.

Here's what's left:
* Aaron's taxes (don't anybody judge me for this one)
* Fix Pizza Zone web address on Yahoo (this means contacting them)
* Get all the online reviewing sites caught up with all our information to attract new customers. This includes: FourSquare, Yelp, Google+, Merchant's Circle
* Order new toners for my printer
* Get credit card machine info and set up for Grant Rd.

Also, amongst all these tasks was eating lunch and dinner and doing laundry.

Ok.....I'm not writing any more of this stuff down -- it takes too long.

Needless to say.......I was a VERY busy girl yesterday.

This president doesn't have an oval office!

......he has a square one!

* cue song Hail to the Chief *

Well many months ago I finally got Aaron's old bedroom cleaned out and painted it to be our guest room. Well Paul loved the color so much -- he decided it would be his new office. (Can't remember if I ever blogged about this and posted pictures....but whatever).

So.....anyways.....the room got painted and he threw his stuff in there, but it never really got finished. So in my attempt to try to give every room a mini makeover and a HUGE cleaning --- this past weekend was spent tackling his office and our master bathroom.

I purchased new curtains for the room about 5 months ago, but they never got hung. After I bought them I discovered that they needed shortened so I decided to tackle that job myself. So with the help of some scissors, a ruler, and this wonderful stuff that hems things with an iron (oh this stuff is awesome!) -- I got the curtains cut.



So now this bare old window........



Has brand new curtains hanging from them!



Got all his pictures up on the wall, shampooed the carpets, cleaned up his desk and voila........he has a brand new office to do all his presidential Pizza Zone things in!



Hope you love your new office Mr. President........I sure do!



***I do have to say that I worked my butt off all weekend, but it really is rewarding to see some results from your hard efforts. Most of my work just gets stuck in a file drawer or a computer file and there is nothing to show for it.

I even had time to make a spectacular dinner....which by the way was at the request of the President himself.

Beef Stew and Cheddar Biscuits (like the Cheddar bisquits at Red Lobster). My oh my....I don't eat biscuits because I don't care for them.......but these biscuits were the best ones in the whole wide world....even better than yours Red Lobster.

My Life: a photo collection

But hopefully there is:



Soon.

Please.

While the cats away.....the mouse will?

WORK!

The mouse will work on getting all the new customer packets ready to mail!



The mouse will work on this pile of data entry of all this paperwork!



The mouse will work on this pile of miscellaneous stuff that just needs to go in all different places. Places like file drawers, folders, boxes, or put them on other stacks of paper.



The cat doesn't get home until the stroke of midnight.....he's having to close down the store tonight......so the mouse has a few hours to get all this done.

P.S. The mouse is going to stop for one hour from 9pm until 10pm to watch her favorite Friday night show. You know, the one that always has a juicy murder mystery that we try and solve by the end of the show. This one:

We did a bad bad thing

This is wrong on so many levels.

This is what happens after you decide to go get some dessert after eating chicken wings and beer.



This is what happens when you hit Walmart and they have all their Valentine Candy 50% off. Can't pass up a good deal.......can you?

Good news......we didn't eat it all in one night.

Sticks and stones may break my bones....but not my rock

I am so lucky to have a rock

He is the person that I can lean on when I'm feeling stressed and need someone to talk to

He is the person that I tell EVERYTHING to

He is the person who lays next to me in the dark and we tell each other our inner most personal feelings that no one else in the whole world knows

He's also the one that cracks me up and makes me laugh

He is the person that I went running to today when I really needed to let off a little steam and some pent up frustration

He is the one that is my husband forever.....and I am so thankful that I have him

It felt good to lean on your shoulder a little today.

You know I'll be there for you when you need it too....that's what rocks are for!

Wordless Wednesday: things I got from my kids this week

This is from the oldest:



And this is from the youngest:



These might not seem big to you.....but to me they are ENORMOUS!

Happy Valentines Day 2012!

Just look around and you can see all the love in your life.

Be thankful and grateful for what you have. Because no matter how little you think you have or how bad you think your life is.....there are LOTS of people with things worse than you.

I am loved.....I know it.

Today....
my oldest son brought me flowers
my youngest son called me for advice
my husband will come home to a box of chocolates, his favorite beer, and a candlelight dinner homemade special by me (he's not gonna see that one coming....the candlelight -- he is expecting the dinner)

I look around and I see.....
...a house, belongings, and security that my husband works hard to give me
...pictures of a loving husband, children, friends, and fun vacations
...piles of work because we are fortunate and have a successful business

I am blessed. I am loved. And I love each and every one of them.

Happy Valentine's Day!

You shouldn't judge people....so don't judge us

Don't judge us, unless you've walked a mile in our shoes....is how the saying goes.

Don't judge us.....unless you know what it's like to live our life.

Working 9-5 Monday through Friday is not the same as running your own business.
UNLESS you are running a business that is open 9-5 Monday through Friday. The pizza business is NOT 9-5 Monday through Friday.......it's sometimes 24/7!!

Running your OWN business is nothing like working for someone else.

We can't even enjoy time off if our business is open. We are always ON CALL. That means carrying our phone with us all the time to make sure we're ON CALL if someone gets busy and needs help. It means checking your watch when you're eating at a restaurant. It means not going to a movie......because you could get called out.

We jokingly refer to it as being a doctor and being on call....it's just about the same. When that open sign is ON.....so are we.

Don't judge us if you think we go out of town too much.

What you don't see is that we NEVER get a day off if we are in town. There is always something for us to be doing that's related to our business. We can go 2-3 months without a day off. It's not uncommon.

The ONLY way we get a day off is if we take off somewhere -- This is the only way we can get some time off. Being away from things also take some of the stress off and we really make an effort to not worry about things.

Not only do we have to worry about paying our own personal bills from the business we own.....we also have to worry about paying the 30+ people that are on our payroll. Some of these poeple live paycheck-to-paycheck and need to get paid each payday. It's OUR responsibility to make sure that everything is taken care of so that our business can meet it's financial obligations.

If our business is not being taken care of properly -- WE have to be the ones to come in and cover it.

If someone calls in and it's a busy night -- WE are the ones that have to cover it.

If someone quits or gets fired -- WE are the ones that have to cover it.

Owning your own business is full of stress and headaches. We don't get sick days, we don't get vacation days.......we get snippets of free time now and then WHEN there is enough staff to cover us being gone.

I'm not angry. I love my life and my business. But don't judge us because we can't be there or do the things that everybody else may get to. Sometimes it's not our choice.

This is the life we chose --- this is the life we're living.

What shall I do today?

Well the husband is working open to close today. That's 10am until midnight.

The good thing about that: he's not here all day to bother me so I can get stuff done
The bad thing about that: he's not here all day to bother me so I can see him

He hasn't had to do one of those in awhile. I feel sorry for him.....I wouldn't want to do it.

So now that he's not going to be here all day.....what should I do today?

I would love to sit in front of the TV and watch Lifetime Movies for Women and cross stitch all day. Boy, I sure do miss those days when I could do that.

Instead I have an array of tasks to choose from. So which is it:

Laundry
Clean Carpets
Clean every room in the house
Organize every room in the house
Grocery shopping
Get my hair cut
Redecorate, paint, and remodel every room in the house
Yard work: bamboo that needs cut, weeds pulled, bushes pulled and new ones planted
Catch up all the OLD paperwork from last year that needs entered into Quickbooks
Catch up all the NEW paperwork that needs done
Work on the new website
Work on the plans for our 15th anniversary trip
Work on the stacks of stuff sitting on my desk
Work on the Valentine's Day E-mail and type instructions for the stores on the heart shaped pepperonis and Cinnazones
Work on a poem for the Facebook contest for Valentine's day
Work on the renewal paperwork for all our business insurances that are due 3/1/12

Is it a cursing or a blessing that I have so many things to choose from?

Either way.......I have lots to do.

Wish he was here and then I wouldn't have to do all this boring stuff I really don't want to do.



Maybe some day we'll be able to get to do stuff like this again? (see picture above). Miss you baby!

Is 14 hours really long enough?

Well we managed to sneak in a partial day off this week.

We haven't had a day off since Christmas. So the plan was to get out of town for the night and part of the next day.

We left Houston and got to Aaron's house in Surfside at 11pm. Time for us to crack open a beer and Aaron and I walked down to the beach. How heavenly -- the beach was only across the street and two houses away. We stayed down there for a little while, but it was really windy and really cold.

Aaron settled us down in one of the guest rooms and that was it for that day.





Paul and I got up around 9am and Aaron was already long gone for work. The plan was to meet for lunch with Aaron. We had some time to kill, so we went down to the end of Aaron's street and there was a park with the LONGEST jetty I had ever seen. We walked all the way down to the end of it, snapped a few pics, and then walked all the way back.







We still had a little time before lunch, so we drove over to the neighboring beach town of Freeport. There we found an old Ace hardware general store. Unfortunately we only had 5 minutes to explore -- so it's another field trip planned to fully investigate this store.

We met Aaron at Pirate's Alley Cafe -- the only beachside restaurant in Surfside. So we sat, ate fish and chips, and looked out the window at the spectacular view in front of us.





Aaron had an extended lunch, so we went into Clute and found the free sea aquarium. The bad thing.....it was closed on Monday. The wetlands area was open so we took our time walking through it and looked for alligators. Didn't see any.



But the time had come to head back to Houston, the Restaurant Depot, and a big pile of stuff on my desk that had to get done. We thanked our host for letting us stay and really having a great time with him (albeit short). Our plan is to head down that way again and do some more exploring.

Oh boy.....can't wait for the next vacation -- maybe we can double it to 28 hours!

That's the night that the lights went out in Austin

We went to Geek Bowl! What an accomplishment, yet what a failure.



We certainly didn't dominate like we had hoped, in fact, we finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.



The pomp and circumstance of the tournament was a lot of fun. Paul and I enjoyed a couple of hours of Austin entertainment before the Geek Bowl and feasted on pizza and walking around.



After the Geek Bowl, we hi6 6th St. which is the mecca of Austin's live music.



We managed to be in one bar for 15 minutes before 90% of the power in downtown Austin went out. The streets started filling up with hundreds of young kids because the bars they had been in went dark.

Luckily the bar we were in retained 40% of their power and the two guys in "the band" kept singing and eventually they had to quit. We decided to walk the 5 blocks back to our hotel and lucky us, the power was out there also.

We got a few beers from the convenience store and called it a night. Not much to see or do when it's dark.

We leisurely drove back the next day.....because of course.......Paul had to work.

It was a nice, short, mini get away.

Here's another reason.....

....why I love my husband.

He got this so that Aaron wouldn't have to worry about his car breaking down or needing help since he lives so far away from us now.



Seriously, this was such a great idea! Thanks honey for taking care of all of us.

The Incredible Mr. Limpett

Actually Mr. Limpett has nothing to do with this post.

I was trying to think of something "catchy" to go with the theme today.....and this is the first thing I thought of.

Must of worked good.......because here you are reading this.

We're excited.....we're taking a teensy weensy bit of time off and heading down to the beach tonight! Yay us!

As soon as Paul can get off from work, we're heading off in the car to stay the night at Aaron's new beach pad. Hopefully we can get down there early enough so that we can take him out for a seafood dinner.

I look forward to the sounds of the ocean, the smell of the beach, the relaxing feeling of watching the waves come and go.

I look forward to the quiet moments with my husband, the fun we have when it's just the two of us, and the way the world feels perfect when we're together.

I look forward to all the loudness, craziness, and everything wacky that's Aaron.

Looking forward to a little R&R before we hit the week full speed again.

Thank goodness.......we REALLY need this.

Anybody got a few hours to spare?

It's really funny to walk around this house and see all the stuff that needs to be done.

Well actually.....it's not funny.

We need more time. We have too many things that need to get done.

For example......let's recap Christmas.

Here is a lovely porch swing that I got as a gift. Yes that's right -- it's still sitting in the living room where it was on Christmas morning. Guess what....I can take a picture in March and it probably will still be in the same place.



Here is the Pur water filter that I got Paul for Christmas. Yes it is on and attached to the sink. Only because I stopped for 10 minutes one day and made it happen. Otherwise, that probably would be sitting unopened in another room of the house.



Here is the Ipod I got Paul for Christmas. WAIT! It's not here where it had been sitting for a month. Does that mean he actually is using it? I looked around and couldn't locate it.....so that means it either got stolen or he has moved it somewhere else. Oh well....we'll have to solve that mystery later. In the meantime.....here is the Itune gift cards he received from Cris and Aaron to buy music to put on the "missing" Ipod.



Here is the new rain shower head Paul also received for Christmas. It at least is sitting at the front of our bathroom door.....just a few more inches and 30 minutes of time and it will be up and giving us stimulating showers. Ha....like that's going to happen any time soon!



And last, but certainly not least, is the Kindle Paul got for Christmas. It hasn't been touched since it got moved to the top of the stack of REAL books that we still are majorly addicted to. One day we might actually put that Kindle into service.



Maybe I should do a progress blog at the end of March and see what (if any) of these items has been put into use.