What do you do with too much shredded pork?

You make your favorite food in the world........but you make it a whole new way!

Shredded pork street tacos......yummmmmmm!

 

Paul even made himself a side of shredded pork nachos. 

 

We still have some meat left, so we'll have to creatively use it again tonight.

I have a happy heart today

Normally (most of the time), my heart is happy.  I am so incredibly incredibly fortunate to have the life I enjoy. 

But today its just a tiny bit better because I just dropped Cris off at the airport to go visit his brother.  I am so glad to see them getting along again and want them to always have a great relationship.  But when they get ticked off at each other, it's only my place to stay neutral and listen to each side and try to get them to mend the argument. 

So I'm excited for all of the fun that they have planned while he's there and glad that they are getting some bonding time together.  And I'm slightly jealous that I don't get to enjoy some of that fun with them.  Oh well....can't help being a mother :-)

I've also got some recipe updates for you.  My crockpot as worked overtime this week cranking out some delish food.

Here's a finished shot of the meatloaf.  I would make a few changes such as adding more spices and steak sauce to the meat and using less of the liquid the recipe stated.  But we still had a delicious dinner that night and the meat loaf made good leftovers for lunch.

Last night we had pork butt roast cooking all day in root beer.  No spices or anything else, just 2 cans of root beer.

When it was done you just shred it up and mix it with BBQ sauce.

 

 

Get all the ingredients to make some power slaw

 

And now you plop it all down on an onion roll.......you've got 'yerself a meal!

 

I love it when things turn out good.  I always feel like such a cooking genius.

Are the Gainors having fun yet?

Well not exactly lots of fun......but lots of things happening.

Today's excitement begins with trying to get this damn paperwork caught up.  All these envelopes represent 1 day of daily sales paperwork that needs to be completed for each store.

Some days I feel like I'll never caught up with it all.  Today's plan is to get all this done and get all these envelopes out of my drawer!

Then I will need to tackle this stack of paper.....this all needs to be entered in Quickbooks.  And that stack will be bigger because I will have all the paperwork packets that I'm working on right now.

Are you keeping up so far?

This morning we spent some time going over our floorplan again.  We have a phone call into another contractor that we want to meet out there to get an estimate.  We also need to meet again with the contractor from yesterday....since he wants to meet us there with his plumber.  Wow.....there is so much plumbing work that will need done in new space.

I wish that I had taken some pictures out there yesterday, but I'm sure I'll be back there again before the week is over.

I do have my dinner cooking in the crockpot though.  We are trying the meat loaf.....hope it's good.  We were going to go to the movies tonight and have a night out.....but I don't think that its going to work out.

And then in between Cris losing the keys to the truck and me having to call Paul to meet him with keys and all that stuff......Aaron calls me with some exciting (maybe) news.  This is all in the very beginning stages and we're not even sure if it's going to happen......but his area manager came in this morning and asked him what he thought about transferring to the Farmington, NM store.  This would be a HUGE HUGE promotion for him and going from a store that doesn't hit a million to a store that does 3.3 million a year.  But........it's just the first inkling of what could happen and he said that nothing probably would happen for a month or two.  We will keep you posted on these details.

Good news on the older son front as well.....his assistant manager just got a new store, so Cris' manager is going to try and get him promoted to assistant manager there.  This would also be a big promotion for him and would make such a big difference in his life.  * cross your fingers * that this happens.

Okay........I hear the paperwork calling my name.  Thanks for checking in on us!

Feeling the pressure today

It's difficult to wake up each and every day and try to be a writing comedic genius.  But somehow, I just manage to do it.

So here's a funny look at all the boring stuff we did today, Monday November 11th (so far).

Got up early this morning and took our showers.  We both had errands to run today, but decided to do them all together and it gave us a chance to hang out with each other for awhile.  (no really what that means is Paul didn't want to do his by himself and I am always looking for an excuse not to stay home and get the boring work done.  Then I can blame it on him later that I would have gotten my work done if I didn't have to hang out with him while he does errands).

First stop was to drop off all my new customer packets I worked on this weekend.  We drive into the post office and there's no cars.....oops.....the post office is closed today because of the holiday (well that errand could have been done another day).

Ok, no big deal......next stop is the elementary school to drop off their stickers and flyers that I worked on this weekend.

Since they are right up the street from the Grant Rd. store, we stopped here and picked up their paperwork and to survey a few items there that needed surveying.

Back in the car again.....and this time we were off to preview the stuff for a restaurant auction next week.  We're looking for a vent hood and a sink for the new store.  We have to be really watching our money right now so that we have enough for all the construction that needs done.  Boo.  Here's an exciting picture of the kind of sink we are looking for.

After a quick look at all they had.....we headed to the next destination which was one of our food suppliers.  The big dummies last week didn't deliver our stuff to us (twice....but who's counting?) so we had to stop by and pick up some food items.  Oh well, at this point we put the top down on the convertible and enjoyed the gorgeous day.

Then it was off to the Kuykendahl store to drop off the food.  This was just a quick run in, unload, and get back out kind of trip because we still had stuff to do.

Well since it was about lunch time.......we voted that it was time to eat.  Today it had to be something quick and something near the grocery store.......because we had to be somewhere at 2:15pm today.

We decided to eat at one of our favorite Mediterranean places and shared a beef shawerma sandwich and a greek salad.  Delicious!

Next stop: grocery store.  Luckily we had planned ahead of time and had our list written out.  We ran through that grocery store like contestants on Supermarket Sweep!  On my menu for the next couple of days is Slow Cooker Pulled Pork cooked in rootbeer served on onion buns with a side of Paul's Power Slaw (he puts collard greens and jalapenos in it......it's awesome).  And also at Debbie's Kitchen this week, we'll be featuring a Crock Pot Meatloaf and served with your choice of two sides: Mashed potatoes and Peas.  Please make your reservations at least 2 weeks in advance.

Finally got back to our house and we had 40 minutes before we had to leave to go meet a contractor at the new place.  Paul's duties were to get a food order placed that needed to be done in 10 minutes.  We had so much darn fun with all these errands this morning that he had completely forgotten about it.

My duties were to get next week's paperwork set up for each store and get them on their computer.  CHECK

Cook bacon (that we had just bought at the store) so that I could get my crockpot of pinto beans cooking for dinner.  CHECK

Cut up all the onions, jalapenos, garlic, etc. and get that pot of beans cooking.  CHECK

Yippeee....5 minutes to spare.  Had to run over to the new proposed location and meet with the contractor and the landlord.  We had to discuss all our plans and try to get a quote on how much it's going to cost to do the build-out.  We don't want to find out that it's going to be way more money than what we have and then be stuck in the middle of a project and have a lease on two spaces (no bueno).

So now it's 5pm and I just got home from that hour long meeting discussing ripping out walls, handicapped bathrooms, gas lines, electricity, and plumbing issues from moving sinks.  I just cracked the first beer and am going to sit here and take some time to figure out what works needs to be done today (after I finish entertaining myself by writing this blog).

The beans are cooking nicely, so dinner won't be much of an effort tonight.  Just gotta cook some jalapeno cornbread to go along with those pinto beans.

And in the meantime I'll try to find something to keep my self occupied and entertained (I have a choice of many many things).

Hope your Monday has been half as fun as mine!

A multi-cultural dinner

Last night's dinner was so good.......and multi-cultural

Spanish Rice and Salad with Italian Dressing.

 

I really outdid myself with the Spanish Rice.......the BEST I ever made

I apologize in advance

.....if I'm not in regular touch with you

.....we're not out hanging out and having fun.  We have too much on our plate right now

....if I can't do your internet sleuthing, checking out things, or able to be on call to give you advice

.....if I don't seem as friendly as I usually am.  I'm stressed out to the max

.....if I'm not eager to carry on long conversations with you.  Sorry....gotta run.  There's a million things on my plate for today

.....if my house isn't clean.  Oh wait.....ya'll are used to that anyway!

.....if it appears that I have dropped off the planet.  I have.....I'm trying to maintain my focus and not get distracted

.....if this interesting blog isn't updated daily.  Although, sometimes I use this as my escape to vent off my frustrations

Yesterday was a particularly bad day and both me and the husband are incredibly stressed.  It didn't help that he almost was in the middle of an armed robbery at the convenience store next door.  Our whole life is just big tornadic activity right now.  Not only are we dealing with all the obstacles that come with opening a new store, running the daily business, trying to maintain some type of normal home life......we have manager issues at the Grant Rd. store and our attempting to demote someone and possibly hire a new one. 

You know.......winning the lottery would just ease up a lot of this stress!  * crossing fingers *

Today I found some treasure

Well not exactly treasure, but something that I haven't seen since I left Arizona in 1998.

Something that is going to make my Thanksgiving dinner so much easier to prepare and something to remind me of all the Thanksgiving dinners I got to spend with mi familia.

If I can win the lottery between now and then I'm going to go and eat turkey with them this year.

But odds are I will be here instead and enjoying this.