Just an appetizer

Got back to our house last night at 5:30pm from New Orleans.

Paul got called into work at 6:00 pm and I got called in at 6:30pm.

We had a wonderful time (of course), but I came back to payroll and he came back to LOTS of work.  We have a school festival on Saturday and we are selling pizza by the slice.  Lots of work to do to get ready for that plus I have payroll to do before tomorrow.

So............here's just a couple of pictures to entice you to come back later and enjoy our awesome 17 year anniversary celebration with us.  I can't wait to start looking at all the pictures myself!

I seriously love being a tourist!

On the road again...

Headed home to Houston today!

This was a pre-scheduled post for while we were gone.  I'm sure we have had a good time and I'm sure that we really don't want to be coming home yet.........but it's payroll week.  I guess the employees will want to have a paycheck this week.

Watch for the exciting photos to come later!

We're gone.....but the garden is still growing!

Here's a peek at my window sill garden. 

Cris brought me home some 5 gallon buckets and when we get home, it's time to start planting all my little vegetable plants I have all over the place.  I didn't want to dig up the yard, so my decision was to to a bucket garden.  Hopefully, I'll have much success!

 

But........right now I'm off enjoying the fun city of New Orleans!

March 24, 1997

My life forever changed on this date.

I can't begin to tell you how much I love this man.

It has been a fun 17 years and I have been so blessed.

Thank you Paul Gainor for all the love, laughter, and hard work we have shared these past 17 years. 

 

You truly are the love of my life!

 

 

Eastbound and down.......loaded up and truckin!

Heading out today.....yay!

Headed toward this destination:

Here's where we'll stay.  Our favorite hotel (thus far) in the French Quarter.  Stayed here in October for 1 night and loved it.

We'll probably do a little of this:

And we have a little of that planned as well:

And we'll definitely be eating this:

And all of this because two people fell in love.  Can't think of a better way to celebrate 17 years!

 

 

Getting ready to go

Just spending tonight doing laundry, planning, and loading the car up for our big trip tomorrow.

So excited.....love taking off with my best friend.

So it's a quick dinner tonight (he's brining it home) and finishing up on some last minute stuff and we'll be ready to hit the road tomorrow.

New Orleans.............here we come!

I am a cheater!

Please forgive me.

Last night I was watching the 5pm news and they showed a Stouffer's Lasagna commercial.  Oh my, did that ever look delicious.  I decided to run to the grocery store right that minute and buy all the necessary things to make homemade lasagna for dinner.

But I cheated.

No I didn't buy the Stouffer's lasagna, but I was lazy and did things I would normally not do.

I bought pre-shredded mozzarella......normally I would shred my own.

I bought poppin fresh breadsticks........normally I would buy a loaf of French bread and slice it and bake it in the oven with garlic and butter.  P.S.  This is the first time we've tried these and they were actually pretty good.

The worst sin of all......I bought ready to bake lasagna noodles.......normally I would take the time to boil real noodles and then lovingly place them in the baking dish.

One thing I did not cheat on was.......I made my own sauce.  I will never use a jar or canned spaghetti sauce when I can create such a fantastic Bolognese sauce.

Oh........the delciousness of homemade spaghetti sauce

Another thing I cheated on:  I bought a cheap foil pan instead of using one of my glass baking dishes.  I just really didn't want the extra dish to have to load into the dishwasher.  Actually, that's not totally the whole truth.  Paul says I cook too much so I thought if I used a smaller dish.....I would make less.  Invited Cris over for dinner and it was just enough for the 3 of us with a little bit of leftovers for lunch today.

I even had enough sauce leftover to boil up some macaroni for Cris and throw together a goulash for him to eat for the next couple of days.  Wow.......am I a great mother or what?

And here in all it's glory is the final masterpiece.  It tasted yummy, except I really don't like those fakey noodles.  No one else had a problem with them......just me.

Tonight I am entering the world of trying crockpot cabbage rolls.  I'll have to let you know how they turn out.  Thanks for the idea mom!

Questions asked. Answers revealed.

This week I've gotten the opportunity to play travel agent.

Monday night was when the "big reveal" of last minute fares would take place.  It was somewhat of a disappointing announcement. 

Our list to choose from:

Alexandria, La
Baton Rouge, La
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Calgary, Canada
College Station, Tx
Grand Rapids, Mi
Hobbs, Nm
Laredo, Tx
Merida, Mexico
Midland, Tx
Mobile, Al
Monterrey, Mexico
Fayetteville, Ak
Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago
San Jose, Costa Rica
Washington, D.C.

Uhmmmmmmmmm.......no thank you.  Actually, we did have a wild hair up our butts for about 5 minutes when we were thinking about Mexico or Costa Rica.......but that didn't last very long.

Well since Monday, we've just been tossing out a bunch of different ideas.  One thing that has dramatically affected our travel plans for this weekend is the fact that we're not going to leave until Sunday night.  This is the first weekend of NCAA tournament and we are having some staffing issues......so we think it's wise to hang out for an extra day.

So as of the moment that I am writing this there is no definite plan in motion.  Our strongest contender at this time is heading to New Orleans for a road trip and getting a room at one of the fabulous old buildings in the French Quarter.  There is still lots of that city we haven't investigated.  Big bonus to going there also means live music all over the place every single night.......yay!

But of course, you know and I know what fun, adventurous, and SPONTANEOUS us Gainor's can be.........guess I'll find out in a couple of days what our actual plan is.

Patience is not my strong point

I seriously do not have very much patience at all.  When I want something, I want it NOW.  And I think I'm a little spoiled because I always want things my way.  Hey.....it's worked out for me for 56 years now......why change?

Well today is a day of great anticipation.  Anticipation to see where we'll be headed this weekend. They don't post their special "on sale" fares until 7pm tonight......I can hardly stand the wait!

Will it be this?

Or could it be that?

Who knows?

It might even be this:

Or these might even get used:

But no matter how much anticipation I have right now to know how we are going to celebrate our anniversary...........I know that it will include this:

Time off with the best husband in the world.  No matter where we go or how we get there.....I can guarantee you it will be filled with fun, love, and laughter!

It's Sunday Funday

No, actually it's Sunday gotta get my butt in gear and do a lot of work Day!

Yesterday, was ambitious and successful.  Got everything in the living room washed from top to bottom and even shampooed the carpets.  Wanted to shampoo the sofa.....but the day ran out of hours before I could get that done.  Oh well......I won't get to it now for at least 2 weeks....who cares.  We have a recliner that is supposed to sit in front of those two windows......but the living room looks so big without it and it's getting all junky......so I'm thinking it's time to throw away that crappy old thing.

Today will be spent trying to get PZ paperwork in order.  Got a lot to do this week if we are going to take off next weekend.  I've also got 2 laundry hampers full of dirty laundry just waiting for me to do.  So now it's time to just get to work and get it all done.  (*except that at 7pm tonight The Amazing Race is on and I need to watch that of course)

Here was my treat at the end of the day after all my hard work (home made hamburgers and oven roasted onion potatoes).  Of course, we didn't get to eat dinner last night until 10pm........again.  Oh.............the life of pizza moguls!!!

Progress. Work. Roulette.

What do these three things have in common?  Well they are all active parts of my life this weekend.

Progress:
Chose today to DEEP CLEAN the living room.  Pulling things off the wall, washing curtains, shampooing carpet......it's very much needed.  Hopefully, I can get around to all these other nasty rooms before this one gets filthy again.

Work:
Working on our new website and getting tax stuff caught up.  Still have the regular stuff to do as well, but the day is only 24 hours long.

Roulette:
Our 17th anniversary is March 24th.  I made a resolution at the beginning of the year that every month this year we would go somewhere.  Doesn't have to be a big "airplane" trip......could be a small "road" trip to a nearby Texas destination.  I put the thought out there to the husband....and he just kinda said "yeah ok".  Well in our life.....if you don't go out of town, you don't get a day off......so I just waited to see what would come of this.  For the last two years we have been somewhere WONDERFUL celebrating our anniversary. 

Two years ago it was New York City.

Last year it was Washington D.C./Baltimore/Philadelphia. 

What could we do this year?

Well a small discussion ensued and the husband was the one that said "hey, we should go somewhere for our anniversary".  I certainly was not going to argue with that.  (you know how much I love to take trips)

So the talk started with:  San Antonio, Austin or Dallas.  Then out of the clear blue sky the husband says "let's look and see if there's anything exciting on the last minute fares posted on Monday". 

Now you see where the Roulette comes into play.  We are waiting until Monday to see where United has their cheap last minute fares and we'll pick something exciting from there. 

United Specials

We are currently selecting this week's United Specials.

Until Monday, we'll keep watching this message on the United site and start making our mental plans of all the things that we need to do this week to be able to take off this weekend.  The plan is to take off on Saturday and do the usual Saturday-Tuesday trip. 

Oh........I'm so excited!

P.S.  As far as travelling every month this year.....we've already got May and June covered.  Going to Santa Fe, NM in May and travelling to Tucson, AZ in June.  Now I've just got to find someway to send subliminal thoughts to the husband so that we can get trips planned for April, July, and August through December!

The wild and exciting adventures of Paul and Debbie

We've had kind of a fun week.  Actually, just took off and ran errands with Paul a couple of times this week.  The weather was beautiful and I just didn't feel like sitting at my desk indoors all day.

Here's my highlight reel:

Monday.  We wanted to see REO Speedwagon at the Rodeo for about a month now.  We didn't buy advance tickets so Paul found some reasonably priced AWESOME seats....so he bought them on Monday morning.  Monday night was Rodeo night.......yee haw!

Tuesday was a trip to IKEA and lunch out with the husband and several other small errands.  Nice to spend some "down time" and enjoy each other's company.  Tuesday night was recovery night.   No excitement for us tonight.

Wednesday night was trivia night.  We had to defend our title.  No one showed up for our team that night except Paul and myself.....and we didn't even need them.  We seemed to be extremely smart that night and won first place after a tie breaker question.  Yay us!  A little darts and a few beers later.....we were on our way home.  Another late night out.

Thursday.  Remember that picture of the new hot water heater sitting in our entry way?  Well yesterday we finally got it installed.  The old water heater had leaked last year and made the walls in the closet all moldy and water stained looking.......so we had all the old drywall torn out and new green rock installed.  I'm sure you are really going to enjoy looking at the progress of this project......lol!!

Yay.......progress being made in our household.  I have lots of big plans this weekend to do a DETAILED cleaning in every single room in this house.  Plus we are making plans to start painting, new carpet, and updating a bathroom at this place.  Also in the plans are to finally get that game room transformed into our exercise room (which we've been waiting for a couple of years to finally get done). 

But don't worry.....I'm going to post all the boring details here as we go along........so you can see what's happening at the Gainor's.

A gift from the hubby

My husband.  He really is a great guy.  Not so much a romantic kind of guy.  But he's extremely into reading books on how to be a better person, be more organized, and be more healthy.

He brought me home a little something the other day because he thought it might help me out.

Nice gesture......but what I really need is this:

  And one of these would help too:

 

Then I would be able to have one of these:

 

Can't stop a girl from wishful thinking!

We've lost another one

Well yesterday we finally had to put the old 20 year old cat to sleep.  It's hard to imagine that we've had that cat since Aaron was only 7 and Cris was 11.  We hauled that poor freaked out cat across 3 states to live in Texas with us.  Now we are down to only 1 more cat, who is now 13 years old.

One thing that really disrupted her life was when Paul moved in.  She didn't like him for some reason and ran from him until 2 years ago.  Then she discovered that he wasn't such a bad guy and even fed her breakfast every morning.  The entire time we had the dog, this cat would only stay upstairs and hide.  She didn't like that dog.

When she finally discovered the dog was gone, she made her way downstairs and had a glorious time.  Instead of hiding upstairs under a bed or in a closet -- she was outside walking around the back yard and rolling in the sun.

We'll miss that old girl, but we won't miss her peeing all over the place and that awful Siamese howl she liked to do at 3 in the morning.  She was crazy, cooky and pretty weird.....but she had been our pet for 20 years.  Rest in peace Shadow.....now you can go and hang out with your best friend Tiger again.

I think I'm insane

Why I do these things I'll never understand.

I already live in a dirty house, 6 months behind on paperwork, and a long LONG list of things that need done around here.......and yet I go and find things to take up more of my time.

For instance, I took some time out yesterday and made Zucchini bread.....oh yum.......

And then I ran to the grocery store for a couple of items and I ended up buying a garden.  What in the *#&$ was I thinking??  Now I've got to go out and figure out where I'm going to plant all this stuff.  There is squash, cucumber, watermelon, zuchinni, and tomatoes.

Here's the progress of the garden currently growing in the house.  These are going to be planted outside at some point in time.  Here's the basil.....it's getting big.

And here is the jalapenos just starting to poke their little heads out of the soil.

Ok.....here's the details of what's been happening around here the last couple of days.  Now it's time to get busy......crazy week ahead (aren't they all crazy?)