Things I'm Thankful For

Amongst all the stress and chaos of my life....sometimes I stop and reflect about all the things that I am really truly thankful for. It's easy to let the stress of your life get you down and you forget that there are so many blessings in your life that need to be celebrated.

So this blog is dedicated to those things that I am most thankful for right here.....right now.

First of all is this man:

I know I go on and on about him, but he truly is the most wonderful thing that I had happen to me and I feel so lucky and blessed to be with him. I love you Paul Gainor!

Second is these guys:

Although they look a lot different now.......it just melts my heart when I see pictures of them when they were little. I devoted my whole life to them and had a blast raising them. I think we grew up together and even now to this day we have a special bond.

This week I am really thankful for this:



This means that my toilets are working this week. This is the trench that they had to dig in my yard to fix my sewer......but it's nice not having to borrow the neighbor's toilets any more.

I am also thankful for my crazy family -- ya'll know who you are. You are what molded my life and made me the crazy person I am. I miss hanging out there in Tucson with you.....but you all know what kind of person I am. I always wanted to live in different places and see different things and am not content to stay in one place for any length of time (thank goodness I married another vagabond like myself).



And lastly.....but by no means leastly, I am thankful for this. I am thankful that my husband had the desire, the skills, and the determination to provide for us. I am thankful that people like us and buy our pizza. I am thankful that we have a future. And as much as I complain, I am thankful to have a reason to put my multi-talented skills to good use.

Do you REALLY know...

...what it's like to own your own business?

I think that most people don't really understand or know. They only see the glamourous side of it....like when you can be off any time you want, you are your own boss, you are raking in lots of dough (seriously can't wait until we can experience any of those things!)

A recent e-mail from my sister made me think about how people have a different idea of what running your business is really like (sorry sis, not slamming you -- just trying to enlighten you a little). I'm sure that each business is different and of course my experience is only with running a pizza shop -- but I'm going to tell you all that it's not like what you think.

I remember a few years back when my family was upset because my brother couldn't make events that they thought he should be at because he was running his business. Their thought was "he should just be able to get off". It's not that easy. First of all when you are in a service oriented business -- you have to provide service.....great service. Food service is immediate and people don't want to wait. It's not like something you can schedule a day later if you are too busy. You HAVE to handle how many customers are there wanting their food right now! Therefore, if Jane and Joe don't show up for their shifts -- YOU have to be the one to cover. There always has to be enough people working to handle whatever business comes in that night. You can schedule heavy and the phones don't ring. You can schedule light and get slammed. It's always a guessing game, but a game you ALWAYS have to be prepared to deal with on a moment's notice.

That means......no matter what your own personal plans for the evening are.....if you are short-handed and you get busy -- YOU have to be the one to go in and work. That is if you care about the service you provide and you care about keeping your customers happy (and trust me you do care about this because you want them to keep coming back. Give bad service -- they'll go elsewhere)

Another thing we constantly have to worry about is making money. Not just to keep our own life running, but we have 30 other employees that we need to make sure we make enough money to pay them at the end of every two weeks. We also have to make enough money to pay for our insurance, our rent, our food and supplies, and unexpected equipment failures. Right now our stress level is elevated because the price of gas is astronomical. Therefore the drivers want more money per run because they are having to pay more for their gas. Our cheese prices have doubled since the beginning of the year. Green Peppers have doubled in price in the last two weeks. Romaine lettuce is on it's way up. And we have heard rumors that flour prices will also be increasing soon. What do we do......well we have to raise some prices, but we have to be cautious because we have competitors that want to sell their pizzas for $10 (crappy ones). We raise our prices too high -- the customers will go elsewhere.

There are other assorted worries as well: dealing with vendors, dealing with irate customers (thank goodness we do a good job and don't have to deal with that too often), paying bills, paying staff, doing marketing, reports for all the government agencies, taxes, our competitors, and the list goes on and on.

So don't think we are making up excuses when we say we can't do something because of "such and such". Please understand that this is the "bread and butter" we live on and we have 30 other people that rely on us doing a good job as well. We are constantly working our butts off to make sure we are doing a good job, but sometimes it's stressful and we get tired.

Some day I need to write about all the good things that happen when owning your own business, but for now the mountains of paperwork are calling my name.

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!