You just gotta do what you gotta do

It's been a long day that began early this morning with an interview for a possible Assistant Manager.  Good news is: it looks promising........but no decisions yet

The rest of the day has been spent picking up posters, first of the month stuff, bank deposits, new employee stuff, and blah blah blah blah blah.

The husband won't be home until 10:30.

It's 9:46 and I'm still working.

Here's the proof:

I'm drinking a cold beer and printing and cutting up boxtoppers.

Oh yeah I forgot......I also have a whole lot of signs that needs to be put together in frames and stuff

But you know what.....life is good!

Where have all the good people gone?

We've run an ad for Assistant Manager and Delivery Drivers for about 2 weeks now.  We've advertised on Craigslist, the GreenSheet, a couple of places on the internet.

The applications we get are weak.  When you do find one and set up an interview.....they don't call you back or they schedule the interview and don't show up.  The one that did show up expects us to pay him $50,000 a year and he has no experience in a pizza shop.

Seriously dude.......good luck finding a job.

It's so frustrating.  We're busy.  We're tired of working long hours and so many days without a day off.  Where in the heck are we going to find our STAR employee.

I'm so tired of all of this right now.  Gosh darn it......I need a vacation.

Taking care of business and working overtime

Wow.....what a crazy couple of weeks it's been.

Remember all those glorious days earlier in the year when we were able to take off and travel?

Well, those days are long gone for the moment and there's no vacation in sight.

Back to school meant losing 80% of our "A" team going to college and only able to work weekends.

And to make matters worse, our only two shift leaders who we were counting on to fill in the majority of the gaps.....took off for 2 weeks to visit family.

Then as if that wasn't bad enough......we seem to have a major epidemic of people calling in sick.

So......guess who has to cover all these shifts......yep, that's right. we do.

My poor husband is going to be working so many hours these next couple of weeks (even though he's been working his butt of these last couple of weeks).  I've even had to work......GASP!  I've been making pizzas and delivering.....and looks like I'm going to have to put even more hours in working at the store.....GASP!

In fact, remember those Tom Petty tickets I won awhile back?  Well unfortunately, there is no way in **** that Paul would be able to go and now it seems as though I am not able to go either.....boo hoo!

So, as I remember all those fun days that I had traveling with my husband.......I long for a vacation once again.  (lucky me gets to go to Santa Fe....and my poor husband has to stay behind).

But while we are working these long and crazy hours.....we can't forget that business is BOOMING and we keep setting record breaking days. 

Cross your fingers.......that we get some really good candidates applying to fill our vacant positions so that we can get a MUCH NEEDED day off!

How can this be logical?

You sell your one location......you should only have to work 1/2 as hard as you were working.....right?

Well how come we're working DOUBLE?

Because sales are crazy, crazy, crazy.  We've broken about 7 records this year for daily sales and weekly sales.  We brought a daily record last Friday......and we broke it again this past Friday night.

Ok.....I'm certainly not going to complain about how great business is.  But I am going to complain about people you count on to run the store who take turns calling in every other day.  And driver's that don't show up.  And other driver's that make up stupid reasons why they can't come in and you know they're not telling the truth.

But anyways.....that's the way it goes sometimes.  We're on a full media blitz right now trying to get a new Assistant Manager and some drivers hired.  We also need some pizza makers.....it's hard for us to keep up.

In the latest creative arts department news.......

PZ is donating a gift basket for a silent auction for a benefit next week.  I'm kind of proud of the little "pizza lovers" basket I put together.  It's also going to have a $50 Pizza Zone gift card in it.

The other great news of the year is, this is the first weekend in FOREVER that I didn't have "gotta get the taxes done" hanging over my head.  I turned the taxes into the accountant on Thursday and he's going to have them ready by Monday.  Whewwwwwww.......what a big load that is off my shoulders.

Except now I need to start working on getting caught up for this year so I can actually turn my tax stuff in on time next year.

Yeah right.

A successful tunafish experiment

Last night we were going to have tuna sandwiches for dinner, mostly because I had just grown a jar of Sprouts and they are delicious on tuna.

Well Mr. Brilliant came up with the idea of doing tuna melts.

Here's the details:

 It all began with the bread.  He chose Pumpernickel and I chose Wheat

 Toasted it in a pan with a little butter and added the tuna and the cheese.  We also added fresh jalapenos just picked in our garden.

A side of chips and add some freshly grown sprouts.  It was so delicious that there are no words to describe it.  This will definitely be on our menu again very soon!

Joy to the World and a trip to Beaumont

It's a well known fact lately that Paul and I love to go to concerts.

When I saw Three Dog Night was touring.....I knew we had to go.  The closest they came to Houston was Vinton, Louisiana to the Delta Downs Casino.  I was on a mission to get tickets.  It was a difficult task and then one day the Heavens opened up and I found some tickets someone was selling online.  Couldn't have asked for better seats: 11th row, seats 1 & 2 Center Aisle.

Yes, we were going on another vacation!

Well actually, this was only a mini overnighter.  Things were just too wild and crazy for us to take time off.  And Vinton, LA isn't exactly a destination city.  In fact, the only hotel in town was at the casino and they were charging a premium rate to stay there.

We got up early on Saturday morning, August 16th loaded up the Mustang, and headed east.  We made the decision to take the "back" way to Louisiana, which is small County and State roads through the little towns.  So much more scenic than the traditional route along I-10.

Our plan was to make a day of traveling to Orange, TX, which is where our hotel was (and only 20 minutes from Vinton, LA).  We were going to explore the downtown areas of the small towns along the way and find interesting things to do to spend our time.

First small towns were Liberty and Dayton, but neither town earned a stop from us.  As we were travelling down the highway we saw a sign to Sour Lake, TX.  Well it just so happened we knew a couple of people from there, so we made a small detour to see what this place was all about.

We found an awesome place that had 3-4 antique shops.  We LOVE to peruse old shops and see what kind of treasures we can find.  We ended up with a stack of paperback books and a picture to hang in our "breakfast" room.

We hopped back into the car and headed to Beaumont.  Lunch was next on our agenda and we found a place called Gino's. 

Our initial plan was to have a pizza.....but we ended up with a Stromboli and Caesar Salad instead.  It was good.....not great. 

Our next destination in Beaumont was a huge garage sale that Paul found on the internet.  It actually ended up being an old warehouse in DESERTED downtown Beaumont.  But, it was huge and filled with all kinds of interesting treasures and JUNK. 

Paul did find some interesting small  brass animals and a display box that he liked.....so that was our purchase there.  I even got him to try on one of the weird hats they had for sale.

On to the next destination, which is actually something we've driven by so many times on our way to the Louisiana casinos.  We always say "the next time we drive by here we should stop".  This time, we did.

The Babe Dedrickson Zaharias Museum.  She was a native from the Beaumont area who was an accomplished world athlete in Track and Field, Golf, and Basketball.

 

Not sure what this fighter jet had to do with the Museum, but I had to wait for Paul to use the facilities so I thought I would snap a picture of it!

Well....it was hot and we were tired.....so we hopped in the car and did the 30 miles to Orange, TX, which is also not a metropolis by any stretch of the imagination.

We still had a free hotel night......so we stayed at the luxurious and upscale Hampton Inn in Orange.

It actually was a nice, clean, and quiet hotel.  So while the husband took a nap before the big concert, I decided to spend my time relaxing and swimming in the pools.  It was really refreshing after being so hot and sweaty.

The concert was amazing and what was even more amazing was that we were practically the youngest people there.....lol.  The Three Dog Night were AWESOME!

After the concert, we tried a couple of casinos.....but we just weren't feeling it that night.  We ended up buying a 6 pack of beer and some pretzels and headed back to our hotel and watched a movie on HBO.  (I know.....you can't believe that we didn't want hang out at any casinos).

Slept in Sunday morning and took our time headed back to Houston.  We took the back way once again and stopped and had Mexican food for lunch.

It was a nice, quiet, relaxing and fun time spent with my bestest friend!

A bunch of Randomness

Just going through the Dropbox today to see what pictures we've been taking on our phones.  It's fun to see what Paul is up to and then he takes just some random photos.

Here's a "behind the scenes peek" of the kitchen at PZ.  Can't tell you why these pictures were taken.....only the "mad scientist" knows.

And then there was the weird randomness earlier this week when I texted a picture of my lunch to Aaron and he texted back that he was in a restaurant and had just ordered Green Chile Mac and Cheese.  That was so random.  (His lunch looked WAY better than what mine was).

Can't wait until I get to Santa Fe......Aaron and I are really going to enjoy eating, eating, and then some more eating.  I'm glad he finally has outgrown only eating mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.

Then late last week we enjoyed the randomness of GIANT food.  These porkchops were purchased at Sam's Club and I didn't realize how thick they were.  Oh, but they were so delicious!

Then Cris brought me these GIANT jalapenos.  They seriously were 3x normal sized.  This picture does not do them size justice!

My little jalapeno plants have been producing enough to keep us in jalapenos all summer.  We have thus far harvested 30 peppers and right now there is a little growth lull......but we have 18 in various stages of new growth with LOTS of new little flowering stems.  However, my jalapenos were no where near this size.....but they were 10x more delicious.

This next picture is to address my sister's random comment the other day that my dinner choice sounded like something from Applebee's.  Well here is a picture of this deliciousness:  Grilled seasoned chicken breast topped with melted Monterrey Jack cheese and homemade pico de gallo.  Served with a side of cheesy rice.  The husband loved it.....it was seriously delicious and WAY better than something from Applebee's.

Last night after a BUSY BUSY BUSY night, we rushed to the bar and got a chance to hear our favorite musicians.  Enjoyed the music, a couple of beers, good friends, and a break from working.

And this last picture was a random picture I found in my e-mail today.  Tucson 4th Avenue - July 2013.  Ahhhhh........the memories of looking at all this randomness.

Miami Beach.....Part 3

I warned you a very long time ago that there was going to be LOTS of pictures from Miami.

I really have to honestly say that it's one of my top 3 cities......it was absolutely beautiful.  We have talked a lot about where our next place to move would be and 10 years ago we stated Fort Lauderdale.  That still is so true with me.  I love love love that area.

So onward with the rest of our day in Miami. 

After taking the city tour.....we jumped off our bus and onto another bus which was going to take us on a beach tour.  I have to say.....this was the most beautiful part of the tour by far.  We decided that we were just going to stay on the bus and not get off (haha.....that didn't last too long).

As we crossed the bridge over to Miami and South Beach......we passed private islands with big old fancy houses on them.  We also passed the cruise terminal which was loaded up with ships when we first went by.......and was empty when we came by a couple of hours later.

I have never seen more places of residences in the tallest and most congested place ever along the waterfront.  It was crazy.

We stayed on the bus for awhile and then decided we wanted to hop off at South Beach and see what it was all about.  We found lots of souvenir shops......so we finished off our shopping list and just checked out all the wonderful beach shops.  We spent about 90 minutes at our stop and caught the next bus by to see all the beauty of Miami Beach!

 Gorgeous......gorgeous.......gorgeous view!

 This was a gorgeous view as well.......love ya honey!

 

 This, however, was not very gorgeous.  It was some fat chick on the top of a double decker bus in 90+ degree heat.  But I was having a very good time!

What a beautiful sight!

Our bus tour ended about 6:30 so we headed back to our hotel to freshen up with a shower and catch a little nap before the evening's entertainment would begin.

We knew we were going to a casino, so it was decided to head back to the Jai Alai casino since it was close.  Dinner consisted of hot dogs and cheeseburgers at the snack bar and we enjoyed a couple of hours throwing our money away.

Had to get up fairly early because we had an early flight.  The trip home was uneventful (especially after all the trouble we had getting on this trip......).

We had such a wonderful time.....but only wish that we had gotten that extra day, as we had made plans to drive down through some of the Keys.....oh well, there's always another vacation that will need to be taken!

I love Miami!

She's got a ticket to ride

Just bought my ticket to Albuquerque.  Going all by myself to hang out with Aaron for a few days.

Now you all know I love my husband more than anything in this world.......so it's really strange to go on this trip without him.

But it's a win-win for both of us.

I get to go and hang out with Aaron and get some "me" alone time.

Paul gets the whole house to himself to do whatever he wants and won't have to hear me bitching at him to shut the lights off.  He also will get a wife for the next 6 weeks who is going to go wherever he wants to make up for his understanding and letting me take this trip alone.

But in the meantime.......need to get some things done!