I can't be in charge of keeping you entertained all the time

No time to blog today.  My day has been filled with stickers and flyers for school nights, payroll, new location, general life, and whatever some employee has decided to throw at me for today.

So instead......you get to be entertained by this joke.  After you read it.....I hope you're still laughing!

And those of you that know me well, know that this isn't so far off from the truth :-)

Back by popular demand!

You asked for it and here it is.........the latest bloggy update on my life.

Trust me........these past few days have not been filled with much adventure.....but lots of boring little details.  So enjoy this small pictorial review of my life the past few days:

I've been making some awesome dinners.  Such as scalloped potatoes and ham which is a big family favorite.  I used this picture to tease my younger son with the promise that I'll make it when he's home for Christmas.

I bought these cleaning essentials over a week ago with the intent on doing a thorough housecleaning.  Well here they are in the place I left them and they haven't been touched since. 

This, my friends, is the story of my life.

 

We went out last Friday night and got to listen to our favorite musicians and friends.

We had this picture taken of us that evening.  Too bad the lighting is bad.....because I really LOVE this picture.  Especially my honey's happy smile.  He's probably smiling cause he's got such a good looking girl on a date with him.

 I finally got the bench for the guest room that I've been bugging my husband about for 6 months.  Thankfully the older son came by and put it together for me.  I can officially say that this room is done and it's really my favorite room in the house.

 This is Misty our cat inspecting the project I needed my husband to do.  Around our back gate it always gets really muddy and hard to get the garbage cans out.  So Paul dug it out a little and put some concrete blocks down so we don't have to trod through the mud.  We even had to get an axe and chop up some tree roots......I meant to get a picture of Paul "Bunyan".....but somehow that didn't happen.

These are the stupid garbage cans that our homeowner's association recently made us use.  They are so big and bulky and when it got muddy.......you could hardly get them out the gate.

 



And here is Misty once again checking out all the action going on.

 



This is an embarrassing picture and really shouldn't be posted.  These are the blocks that I laid down about 4 years ago with the intent to make a nice pathway to the back gate from the back door of the house.  As you can see......we never got any further with it than throwing these down.  I still have high hopes of someday making a beautiful brick lined pathway.

 

 This is a picture of the pizza shop we visited in Brenham, Texas to get an idea for a layout in our new store.  I'm not going to tell you what major pizza chain this is.....you will have to figure it out on your own.  Actually, we had a wonderful afternoon on this day.  Brenham is about an hour out of town and we went up and had lunch and then spent an hour chatting with Paul's friend who owns this pizza shop.  He gave us lots of brilliant ideas.

This is our first rough layout of the new store we are working out.  There are so many things we need to do to get this new location transformed from a Vet's office to a pizza shop.  But.....it's going to be so incredibly worth it at the end.

 

So as you can see......our life this week has pretty much been dedicated to work, work, work.  We were supposed to go to Austin this week to hang out with our favorite bandmates.  Staci is playing at the Race for the Cure again this year and we were all going to go up on Saturday night and have some fun.  Unfortunately for us, too many people want the weekend off......so we had to cancel our plans.

 

Oh well......our life goes on and on and on and on.

Waiting for the husband to come home

As much as I love my children and miss having them living with me.......I can't be more excited than the life I have with just my hubby and I living alone.

I feel like I devoted my life to my children the 18+ years that we all lived together.

But the stress of having to balance what they were doing vs. trying to keep the husband happy was so stressful for me.  You know how it is.......the mother is always in the middle.

Now it's just the two of us and we have such a great life together.  I only have to worry about dinner when I want to.....and the rest of the nights he brings home food (from the best pizza shop in the world) or we go out and have fun.

Just something for you to think about.....isn't it funny how your life changes from having kids in the house to not having kids in the house.

I guess our next step is grandkids :-)

Recollections of a road trip

I think I've always been born to travel.

Flying, of course, is the fastest way to get there and when you need as much time at your destination as you can get......but really seeing and feeling the trip is when you go by car.

Paul and I really like road trips.  We talk, sing, laugh, remember, plan, dream, annoy, sightsee, snack, and drink all along the journey. 

It's like being in your own little private world, but the scenery is ever changing and different from what you typically look at day to day.  You get to be amused every once in awhile by the other cars around you, but they pretty much change constantly too. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our latest road trip.  In fact, it wasn't the one that we thought would rank as the best one we'd ever taken.....but a funny thing happened and this might just be it.

Was it because it was a 1700 mile road trip?  Was it because it made us slow down, relax and get to really talk to each other without all the distractions (riding in the car for 1700 miles can make that happen)?  Was it because we had the opportunity to be marriage partners again and not just full time business partners? 

I think it's a combination of all of the above.  We had a wonderful time!  We not only make the best marriage partners......but we are such excellent travel partners.  No matter where we go or what we do.....we always walk away from it with fond memories of good times and fun.  We always leave a city with a long list of things that we wished we had the time to do.  This ensures our return and finish those things.

The ice cream on the cake for me was stopping in New Orleans for the last night on the way home.  I love this city and would move there in a heartbeat if we could retire right now.  It's a good way to stop you from thinking about all the "real life" responsibilities that are waiting for you at home!

Thank you Paul.  Another Gainor journey has ended and we sure did have a good time!  I believe that Memphis will definitely be another city that we want to visit again.

1st of the Month

Have you ever heard my displeasure of  the first of the month?

There is always so freaking much to do.

We might have just added to our already TOO MUCH TO DO life.

The deal for moving the Kuykendahl store is starting to look like it might happen.  They gave us an awesome offer if we move.  There is so many good things about making this move.

But......there are so many things to do to make this move happen.

And we already have way too much to do.

So the time has come to get organized, get motivated, and get busy. 

I sure am going to miss the traveling for awhile :-(

*the new proposed location will be in this center

P.S.  Sometimes it's scary the way things just magically fall into place sometimes.  Makes you afraid that there's an earthquake waiting for you down the road!

We really are not ready to go home yet!

We began this last morning filling our little bellies full of the awesome breakfast the hotel offered.  We still weren't quite sure of which direction we were headed.  But we checked out and made the plans as we were leaving (you know how spontaneous we are)

Since we had an invitation to visit the PMQ Pizza Magazine headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi...and it would only take us a little way off our route.....we decided to stop in and take them up on their offer of a free tour.

They were approximately 1 hour south of Memphis so our GPS was programmed in that direction.  We were welcomed there and ended up spending about an hour meeting everyone and being photographed, videotaped, and engaged in a lively discussion about the pizza industry.

(note to self: make sure you don't wear glasses on top of your head during pictures.  Or even wear them clipped to your shirt like an old lady)

 

It was time to get back on the road again, but as we began our journey home.....Paul made the brilliant suggestion to stop in New Orleans before we headed home.  It really wasn't going to be very much out of our way......and since I wasn't ready to go back home yet either.....we said "GO FOR IT"!!  I do have to report that he really had to twist my arm for me to go along with that discussion.  I think he twisted for about .000001 seconds!

 

Our plan had been to stop again in Jackson, Mississippi and eat at another pizza shop.....but we weren't quite hungry yet and decided to save our appetite for some good old Cajun food.  Gumbo, Muffalettas, Po'Boys, and Red Beans and Rice were the topic of discussion as we travelled South down that Mississippi highway.

 

Paul made good use of his free time (since he had the luxury of being the passenger at this particular time) and was scouring the internet for a hotel in New Orleans.  This would be our 4th trip to New Orleans and each visit we had stayed in one of the towns outside the city.  This time we decided we were going to find an awesome authentic New Orleans hotel in the Quarter.  And what a great job he did finding the perfect place to stay!

 

We pulled into New Orleans about 7:30pm and headed straight for the hotel.  We didn't want to waste any time getting to enjoy all there is to love about Bourbon Street.  We pulled up in front of the hotel and were so incredibly excited to see this fabulous old hotel right in the heart of the French Quarter.

 

 

 Our room was in a tiny alcove facing the courtyard.  The handles were about 2 1/2 feet above the ground and we had shutters that we could close and latch shut when we were in for the night (they are the black shutters on each side of the door).  It was incredibly awesome!

 

 

 

 

You can see Paul in the window of the doorway to our room (slightly left of the fountain).....or was it a ghost?  We laughed as we were going out for the evening, as we kept seeing the ghost tours gathering near the hotel.  We are happy to report that we never spotted any......but then again we were so tired when we finally went to bed we didn't notice.

 

Because there is no real parking in New Orleans except for valuable street parking which is extremely difficult to get......we paid $26 extra to park in a tiny (so tiny that it only fit about 10 cars) little lot a half block down the street in a courtyard behind some buildings.  I have no idea why Paul took this picture, but now we have the proof of how small the lot was.  You can see our little travel mobile on the left.

 

 

It was definitely different.

 

After getting settled into the room......well more like throwing the suitcases in the room, freshening up a little, and making sure we had enough money.......we headed the 1 block walk to Bourbon Street!

 

The first thing we needed was FOOD!  We hadn't eaten since breakfast and had been saving our appetites for southern food.  Ha Ha....we found this place.....but didn't eat there and instead found a place to devour a Muffaletta and a Sausage Po'Boy.  Our bellies were nice and full once again and it was time to find the best place was for music that evening.

 

 

I must confess that New Orleans is truly one of my favorite places to visit.  I LOVE the French Quarter with the buildings, the small streets, and just the feel of the area.  There is nowhere else like it.  Bourbon Street can be a little raunchy in places but it is so much fun to walk up and down the street and hear amazing music coming from so many places.  It's so much fun to hear a great song, run in, dance a couple, and then move on down to the next place.  There is always so much going on. 

 

 

Not only that.....there is always extremely interesting people on the street and very creative ideas on how you con a tourist out of a buck or two.  This genius got Paul to perform a duet with him of Come Together right in the middle of Bourbon Street.  I was laughing so hard.....it was difficult to snap the pictures!

 

 

I was supposed to be shooting a video of this, but screwed up. 

Now we only have the still pictures of this hilarious memory!

 

We finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel.  We randomly walked down this one street towards the hotel and saw this amazing sight!  This gave me a peaceful feeling and I just had to have another picture of it.

 

 

It was a late night and we had to get up reasonably early to start the 6 hour drive back to Houston and back to our real life.  Before we left I snapped a few more pictures of the area surrounding our hotel as a lasting reminder of this great city!

 

 

 

 

 

I even got a snapshot of this great looking tourist outside the hotel!

 

The drive home was spent talking and recapping our 2013 Road Trip.  We both had to admit it was probably one of the best trips we had ever taken.  The weather was perfect, there was so much to do, and we really enjoyed just hanging out with each other and getting away from our real life.  As is always the case, we left another city with lots of things to come back and do in the future.

 

We stopped in Lafayette, Louisiana for one more bite of Louisiana cooking and Paul found us a Creole place that had lots of rave reviews.  We weren't too sure when we pulled up in front of the Creole Lunch House:

 

And the inside wasn't exactly a 4-star restaurant

But the service was fast

And the food was SO delicious.  Paul got the Red Beans and Rice and the Stuffed Bread (stuffed with sausage, rice, jalapenos, cheese) and I got the Cabbage, Pork Stew, and Baked Beans. 

 

With our tummies nice and full.....we hit I-10 West and finished the rest of our long journey towards home base.  We pulled into our driveway about 6pm and were thankful for all the love, fun, friendship, and safe passage we had experienced the last 5 1/2 days!

And now the rest of the story......

After our awesome lunch with Greg and Jean......it was time to cram in as much tourist things as we could since it was really our last day in Memphis.

We still had a few hours to fill before the highlight of the trip.......The Eagles concert!

Since we  hadn't seen the Mississippi River yet.....we decided to take the trolley and do some sightseeing.  The trolley made a loop through downtown along the river and the cost was a whopping $1 a piece.  So off to the trolley stop we went.

I love riding trolley's!

 

We enjoyed a nice and relaxing ride and even learned a little more history about the area. 

We took this great "selfie" of us along the way.

The views were fantastic and the weather was perfect.  In fact, the weather the entire trip couldn't have been any more perfect than it was.  It also helps to have such a great travelling companion!

To me, there is nothing more beautiful than oceans, rivers, and lakes.  I love the water!

We exited the trolley at Beale St. and walked a couple of blocks over to the Rock and Soul Museum.  This was a museum filled with everything music.  What an awesome time we had and we learned so much about the birth of one of our favorite things........music!

The Rock and Soul Museum was conveniently located right next door to Fed Ex Forum, which is where we would be attending the concert.  But we needed a quick trip to the hotel to change into our "night time" clothes.

Then it was finally time for the magical moment.  We had spent a lot of money on our seats and when we walked in and saw how close we were......we were so excited!  The Eagles did not disappoint and it was truly one of the best concerts of my life.  A big thank you to my wonderful husband for really going the extra mile to grant me one of my wishes.

The concert finished up around 11pm and once again we ended up on Beale St. for our final evening. 

After a little bit of souvenir shopping and walking up and down Beale for awhile.....we chose to go to the Jerry Lee Lewis club. 

This particular evening they had an Elvis impersonator and that was exactly what we needed for our last night in Memphis.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat, a cold drink, and even managed to get in a dance or two before it was time to call it a night. 

The next morning our plan was to head out of town.  But where we were going and what direction we were headed were still undecided!

Stay tuned...........................