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.