Our little stash of treasures

On our recent visit to Waco, we stopped at a couple of antique stores, a flea market, a tourist attraction, a museum, and received a gift from a friend.

Here's some of the treasures we came home with:

 We purchased lots of DVD's.....some of these were brand new.

Now to find the time to watch them.

 My husband found this.  I was a little disturbed as to why he would be interested in this.

Always a great find when you can find any of these in the antique stores

 

 Paul felt the need to tell the world that he's a pepper

I felt the need to purchase a t-shirt from the very expensive tourist attraction

 

Joetta suprised Ronda and myself with this awesome gift that her friend made.

Love this!

 

We also stopped at a restaurant supply store (of course) and made

a few purchases, but I won't bore you with those pictures.

 

And last, but not least, I'll share this picture that we had taken

of us at Minute Maid Park the day of the food show. 

 

Home again....home again....jiggity jig

Seriously.  I don't know why that title came into my head as I sat down at the computer.

It might be an old piece of a song or rhyme that I knew as a kid.

But the title does fit.  We are home again after our latest journey.

I need to get better at getting all the traveling documented here.  This is the only official record of our travels.  However, we just got home a couple of hours ago and there are lots of things I need to get done. 

But there are so many things to be excited about right now....that I just had to share a sneak peek at some of it.

It took forever for us to get started on the home remodel.....now, we can't wait to get it done.  We're so excited to having the house be brand new.

Here's some of the stuff happening right now:

My favorite guy in the whole wide world........love this man!

 A romantic dinner with the hubby in Waco

 Have lots of memories with these ladies.  Our reunion in Waco was so much fun!

 A tour of the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco.  Did you know that Dr. Pepper was created in Waco?

 He's a Pepper....she's a Pepper.....wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

 Paint going on the house today.......YAY!!!!!!!!

And the last picture today......I was so excited to come home today and find the new top on the front porch painted with the new house color.  This picture does not do it justice.  It looks so amazing!  Imagine this as old holey white plywood.....yuck.  I can't wait until they have the porch swing up and I've got it all fixed up.  

Our list of home upgrades is long.....but we finally are starting to see some progress.

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

Arghhh #*&%*@(%

That's how I feel today.

Our house is slowly being torn apart and being built again. 

The yard is a mess.

I listen to hammering and pounding all day long.

Here's what it looks like so far:

Can't wait until we see the finished product.

 

Gutters, paint, and a new roof next week!

Back by popular demand

It's been a long time and I've been super busy.......but I think I'm going to start recording some of the details about my life again.

Hopefully someday, my family will all read this and realize exactly how crazy any individual I really am.

Truthfully, someday I hope to be able to have the time to go back and smile and reminisce about the awesome life I am living.

Not going to promise I'll write every day......but I have so many things in my wonderful life that I want to share.

So once again.......because of lack of time.......here's a few pictures to keep you interested in following my wonderful life.

If you don't care.....then just move along and close it down right now :-)

Plowing through color wheels trying to find the right colors to paint on the exterior of our house

 Flowers from the husband......always a nice surprise

 Taking one last picture before the demolition begins

 Taking a picture of a delicious recipe found in the magazine on a flight

 Pictures of the Grand Canyon on your way to Las Vegas

 Snapping a picture inside the Paris Hotel in Vegas. 

You seriously feel like you're on a foreign vacation  (I LOVE Las Vegas!)

 

 The Pizza Expo.   What an adventure!  So much food to sample and new things to see.

 Haha.....I love it that any picture my husband takes on his phone downloads into my photo folder.  This is my husband trying out the new "ghostbusters" vacuum cleaner that we bought at Pizza Expo.

 Sadly watching Cris' car get towed away and sold for such a small amount of money.  It really sucks that you get hit by an uninsured driver (and not have the right insurance coverage to cover it).  But we are also glad to finally have it out of our driveway.

 Pictures of Zoney Pepperoni and Paul getting the kids excited at the elementary school pizza nights!

 Attending a food show at Minute Maid park on the club level.  They are getting the field ready for baseball season.  What a beautiful day it was!

 Going to the Airline Farmer's Market to get supplies for Pizza Zone. 

This is always an adventure with so many places and so much fresh fruit and produce.

 A much needed vacation with family to Arizona and getting the opportunity to explore Tombstone!

 It's a good thing they weren't playing with real money.  Learning how to play Faro at the OK Corral

 Can't visit Tombstone without seeing the Gunfight at the OK Corral

Never realized or saw the beauty of the Tucson Sonoran Desert

Stay tuned......I have lots more to share with you!

Ready to do a new do

Tomorrow I have an appointment to get my hair cut and highlights.

I'm excited.  I'm ready for a new and exciting  haircut.  Looking forward to my upcoming trips and wanted a new fun and easy hairstyle to go with it.

Found a website on the internet that lets you try different hairstyles on a picture of yourself. 

The next few pictures are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud.  That was my reaction too.

 Nope.....don't think so

Don't think this one is going to work either.

 

 Even if it was the right color.....still not right

 Nope.  Not this one either.

 Okay.....now we're getting weird

Oh hell no!

Well this was a big waste of time.  Guess I'll go tomorrow and just see how it all works out.

IN OTHER NEWS......we went and picked out the shingles, gutters, siding, and shutters today.  Now we just need to decide on the color to paint the siding and the trim.  Decisions.  Decisions.  This job will begin around April 4th.

We also met with the plumber today about re-piping our entire house.  We sprung another leak in Paul's office and these old galvanized pipes just aren't going to make it anymore.  We will be having all the pipes in the house replaced with Pex pipes.  That job will begin on March 21st.

Can't wait......our house is going to look brand new inside and out.

And last but not least......we cooked steaks and Pierogies last night for dinner.  Our first time eating Pierogies.  I made a Cilantro and lime sour cream to dip them in.....oh my god, that was the best sour cream ever!

Now it's time to try and get a little work done.  Spent the whole day doing other things and not able to get stuff done.  Oh well.

Have you figured it out yet?

Have you figured it out yet......we are a boring and nerdy couple!   I can't believe the things that we find enjoyment in.

Here's another installment of random pictures that we took the last couple of days.  If you didn't figure out yet that we are boring and nerdy.....here's another chance:

This picture was taken and sent to Aaron and Shay to show them that I loved my Christmas present from them and found a place to hang it!

 

Having problems with the video loading....in case it doesn't....

here's a picture of it (you can also find it on my Facebook page)

 

 

This is Paul trying out his new Kanga Boots.  No words necessary for this one, except I hope that he doesn't break his neck!

 

The next few pictures are of our project of gluing and framing our awesome puzzle. 

Why in the hell did I even take these?

 The old Pizza Zone gift cards worked amazing at spreading the glue

into every crack and crevice of the puzzle

 Here it is......all framed and ready to hang in our exercise room!

(or the room that we hope to have finished and finally turned into an exercise

room and a place for Paul to use his Kanga Boots)

 

 Found these in the grocery store the other day and had to share this picture with my

Cheeze-it loving son.  I think they finally made my FAVORITE flavor of Cheeze-its!

 I also sent this picture to tempt him with these crunchy squares of cheesy goodness

 When we were in Las Vegas in January, we ate at an Irish Pub in Mandalay Bay and tried something new.....Cauliflower Au Gratin.  Well, it just happened to be one of the most delicious things we had ever eaten.....so Google found me The Barefoot Contessa's recipe....and last night I made it.

 This is Wrigley.  She is always right under my feet when I'm doing anything, so I decided to take a picture of her last night while I was cooking.

 Here's the cauliflower ready to go in the oven. It had Cauliflower, a white sauce made with Gruyere Cheese and Parmesan cheese, and topped with shredded Gruyere and breadcrumbs.  Can you say delicious?

 This was all that was left after dinner.  We ate simple last night....Cauliflower Au Gratin and Baked Sweet Potatoes......awesome dinner.

And last, but not least, these are the kinds of picture my husband sends me.  We have a catering order Wednesday morning of Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo and he was showing me how many servings fit in the catering tray.

Yes.....we have a strange and weird life.  But I seriously wouldn't trade it for anything!

Progress has begun

As we've been wrestling with our decision whether to buy a new house or stay.....we finally made the first step towards getting this place back in shape.

We'd love a new house with a pool, but for now we're going to wait and see how much we love our house after we get it all fixed up.  We are so close to having the house paid off, we hate the thought of starting another mortgage.  We've also discussed doing minor renovations and renting out this house and moving.

But as of right now......we've started moving this house out of the 1980's and into the 2000's.

We had two different companies come out today and quote us to do new siding, new roof, new gutters, windows, and a new storm door.

Once we've picked the right company to do the job.....we begin the process of picking colors, picking siding, picking shingles, picking the type of gutters, picking out a storm door.

 

Can't wait to see it once we're done.  This will pretty much take care of the entire exterior of our house.  We'll have to work on some landscaping after that and get rid of the ugly backyard.

After all that is done......we begin the task of 3 bathrooms remodeled, all rooms painted, new carpeting upstairs and the stairs, kitchen remodel, new tile and wood floors downstairs, and new furniture.  Don't have much on that list at all......NOT!  We're pretty much going to have a brand new house once we're done.

So many things to do and so many decisions to be made both personally and professionally.  Sometimes I just don't want to think about anything important.

Well.....back to work