Diarrhea of the brain

Today's post is just a brain dump/whiny waa waa poor me blurb so feel free to move along to other happier and well thought out posts! I just need to vent.

.... Are we clear now? Cool.

Firstly, I had a pretty crappy 1 year wedding anniversary and am coming to terms with it. 3 weeks after the fact. Yea, I have a slight thing for holding grudges so sue me.

Secondly, work is overwhelmingly busy/stressful. As in 12+ hours a day busy. Where I come home and plop on the bed without changing out of work clothes and pass the eff out busy. And will continue to be so until January 2012. One of our managers quit and while I was originally hired on for IT stuff, I've inherited all international financial stuff also. That's what you get for double majoring in MIS and Accounting in college. While I don't mind helping out a lil, this is overload galore on my plate for being the low man on the totem pole. Aka I'm super under paid for what I'm doing. Optimistically, at least I have a job and am glad my managers trust me to handle it all. However, I hope my other managers see what I'm doing and how hard I'm working so maybe there will be light at the end of the tunnel?? Oh here's another bonus! I've lost 3 lbs and am at my go happy ideal weight! Yay me!!

Thirdly, we recently bought 21.55 acres that came with a 2000 sq ft manufactured home, a barn, and three sheds. Fun stuff. The place was neglected so it's a mess and we're cleaning it up. However, we have interested parties in renting the place already. Which is great but hello! Place is not ready for renters. Hubby is a social butterfly so we pretty much have a family standing in our doorway ready to sign lease papers. Um. I have never done this before so on top of 12+ hour work days, I'm researching on being landlords and drafting up tenant applications and lease agreements.

Fourthly (is that a word??), our pool sprung a leak (somehow two holes decided to make my pool their home) so add finding a reputable but cheap contractor to my to do list.

5) yea I totally just changed up the sequential format. Any who, we have a potential buyer for our shop. While it means I get my weekends back (whoa! Weekends? Free time?? What's that?) I'm also frightened. I absolutely LOVE our shop and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to part with it just yet. The shop has enabled us to be financially sound. Heck, our un-conceived kids have more money than we do right now! It was also the hubby's job. I'm worried about what his next steps will be. It's a long story so just pray for him. For the both of us. Meanwhile, no donut shop means we can start thinking about kids. And EVERYONE knows the hubster has baby fever. Bad! But are we mentally ready? Let's reconvene late 2012 mmmk? k!

6) laundry and dishes are always clean, but the house is never guest ready. I'm uber embarrassed but just don't have the energy to clean. Any recommendations on house cleaners in North Dallas or how to hire a trustworthy one?? I'm skeptical on hiring anybody. It is my home after all. Messy or not!

7) all this stress is making my face break out like I'm going through puberty again. I'm so embarrassed and it's not cute in corporate world or in life. Talk about low self esteem. Sigh.

Major props to people/parents that do it all. In style. Without complaints. Like a pro. Teach this grasshopper how you do it please? Seriously.

Random Mondays!

Today's Random Mondays Emoticon:

{source}

Item in question:

The city's informal town hall is held every Saturday at our shop. These guys crack us up and are like informal door greeters to all our customers (because they literally know every single person in town). It's also becoming the place to meet up! For example, the town's football team has breakfast at our place every Friday. It's the place to grab breakfast before any sports games/meets or even for church on Sundays. And most recently, we're the convening place for boy scouts! How cool is that! I couldn't be more proud of what our "mom and pop shop" has become and am excited to see what's in store next. The people here are what really make it what it is. Plus, the hubster is such a social butterfly and is somewhat a local celebrity, but I'll let him tell you that story!

There's more of them, but they couldn't all sit at the

already extrapolated table without violating the fire code!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Happy 4th of July everyone!! Thank you to all our men and women in the service for all that you do for our country! Hope you're all enjoying some good ole BBQ and spending quality time with your loved ones!

I'm dreaming of a....

vacation.

Work at both the corporate job and the shop have been uber stressful lately. As in I have at least 4 - 1.5 hour meetings a day (on the phone because I'm responsible for overseas business units) and then those side ones where your manager calls you over to his desk "real quick". As for the shop, business is getting better and better, which is awesome, but since we man the ship ourselves, we get burnt out. Fast! I mentioned several times in the past we only close the shop once a year (Christmas till New Year's), but this year, the hubby is thinking about closing the shop sometime in the summer since the kids will be out of school. As in the kids in town. You didn't think... Oh no. no. no. no. Although there will be a post about that later on. Our shop is located directly in front of the high school and junior high so the kids make up a good chunk of our clientele and in the summer, they sleep in well past our closing hours. With this exciting news (while it's not set in stone that we will be closing), I couldn't help but daydream about potential vaca spots.

Only problem is, I have no idea where to go! The hubs and I got scuba certified on our honeymoon last year so I'd love to go somewhere that has lots to offer in the underwater world like

The Blue Hole in Belize

Great Barrier Reef in Australia

Or we could return to Hawaii. Where it all started!

Then there's the option of being a tourist and visiting places like

NYC

Chicago

Seattle

Or we can take a cruise, visit a place neither of us have ever been to, or just stay home and be bum bums and sleep in every day! There are numerous options available, but yet, I don't really have yearning for one in particular. Hmph!

What's your favorite vacation spot? Any suggestions on where we can go?

Weekend Recap (Mar 26 & Mar 27)

This package greeted me when I got home on Friday

Who's it from?

Colorband PhotoArtisans??? It's here! It's here! It's finally here!!

Want to know what got me all excited? Unwrap with me to find out (please excuse my messy house)!!

Me: slow and steady and very ladylike

Callie: "Rip it open already!"

Oh eff it! I want the goods NOW

Darn packaging tape is super strong. The

hubs suggested using a sharp tool - small

flat head screw driver was the nearest thing

Sigh... how much of this tape did they use?!

Eep!! I can almost see it!

Double eep! It's our canvas wrap!!!!

Surrounded by more packaging/tape. Ugh!

At least they packaged it well for shipment.

Thanks Colorband PhotoArtisans!

  

Almost there...

This should do the trick!

Ta da! Completely unwrapped and in my

hands! Muahahaha!

Now let's hang this beauty up!

Apparently, I was so darn proud of myself

Our wall of wedding pictures in the living room with

our fan pulling string making an ugly appearance

On Saturday evening, we attended Farmersville's Chamber of Commerce's Banquet as guests of the City Secretary, Mrs. Edie. She's a super sweet person and great friend of ours. It was such an honor to be invited by her. Theme for the evening: Country!

Mrs. Edie and her husband Ricky

The centerpiece and our own table!

The hubs checking out the silent auction goods

We were super exhausted on Sunday since the banquet ended much later than anticipated which means less time for us to sleep prior to the shop. So we went into hibernation mode after we got home from the shop!

How was your weekend? Happy Monday!

Butt-ritos or Why I Don't Look Forward to Thursdays

This isn't a post about the delicious Doritos chips that may or may not make your butt (look) bigger. Although the Cool Ranch ones were my faves! This post is about a particular item we sell at the shop that we just can't seem to make enough of - burritos. We sell homemade sausage or bacon, egg, and cheese burritos with homemade salsa. The hubs makes it at the shop and brings it home for me to wrap. While people look forward going home after work to relax with their loved ones, this is what greets me at home:

3.5 hours worth of burrito wrapping

Supplies needed to wrap a monstrous amount of burritos: a large cutting board or counter mat (because it'll be messy and it makes clean up a whole lot easier), something to scoop the mix with, wax paper, and lots and lots and lots of shredded cheese and tortillas (as displayed in the above picture).

Oh, and a movie/TV show/channel to keep you company because the hubs will be doing this

Poor guy! It was a long day at work

Once I setup my grunting wrapping area, I grab a tortilla, add a little bit of burrito mix and some cheese...

roll it up nice and tight and place it on a sheet of wax paper...

wrap up the burrito and set it aside.

 

Repeat until you get a ginormous pyramid of burritos that constantly falls onto the floor indicating you should probably quit adding burritos to it and pack it up already.

Therefore, yell out in exhaustion  sweetly wake the hubs to put it in a sack for you while you continue wrapping and forming another ginormous burrito pyramid. If the hubs does not awaken, go grab yourself a bag and angrily neatly stack them. And if you wrap a bacon burrito, make sure to mark it with a B to indicate it's a bacon burrito prior to sacking it. Brilliant right? I know, thanks! I've thought about drawing random things like flowers, turtles, stick figures, etc instead of putting a boring letter B, but the hubs said it wasn't "professional". What a party pooper!

Thursdays are also the day the hubs brings home laundry from the shop so somewhere in the middle of wrapping, don't forget to move the colored clothes from the washer to the dryer and start the whites. If you forget, subtract another 2 hours from your beauty sleep. Minor details though! 3.5 hours and 96 burritos later, I'm finally done and it's time for me to hit the sack while it's time for the hubs to wake up and go to the shop. Oh, and those 96 burritos will only last one day. Sigh... This totally should have been one of my answers on my questionnaire for the letter C. Chore You Dislike.

Is there a particular "chore" you don't look forward to doing, but know there's no way out of it?? Happy Friday everyone and have a fabulous weekend!

P.S. Don't forget to move your clocks forward one hour due to daylight savings on Sunday.

Moped please?

Fortunately for me, I live close to a light rail station (15 minutes drive from the casa) and ride DART to work (45 minutes). Which means I only need to get gas once a week - weee!! Any who, I had to run some errands for the shop yesterday since the hubby was tied up running other errands. While pulling out of the park and ride lot, this lovely sign promptly notified me that gas is absolutely redonk.

Really??

The thing about buying supplies at a retail store versus from a wholesale/vendor is this:

100 coupons for $3.00 off your next transaction

Anybody want me to pick up some groceries for them?? =D

...And a better tomorra!

Town population: 3,200
Location: 42 miles NE of Dallas, TX

GOOD MORNING! HOW ARE YOU TODAY? WHAT CAN I GET FOR YOU? That's how I 100% of the time greet my customers and yes I literally do shout it when they first enter our store. Why? Um, because I do? So judgemental! And when they leave, I calmly express my appreciation for their business with "thank you very much, you have a great day today!" *insert BIG smile* Repeat! Being in a small town you get to know everybody and their biz and vice versa. I mean, the entire town has the hubs cell phone number for goodness sakes. And no, I'm not exaggerating when I say the whole town does. He's kind of a local celebrity - the high schoolers even have a song made up for him!! Then again, who can't love him. He's such a social butterfly (unlike hermit crab moi).  On the up side, getting to know all the locals has helped us establish a large, loyal customer base and we love catching up with them and going to dinners/rodeos/get togethers with them. Mike and Lela are the hubs and I's inspiration as a couple. They are so much in love with each other even after 50+ years of marriage. The way Mike looks at Lela and gets all jello and teary eyed... *cue unanimous awwww* On the bad side, getting close to the locals is hard on us. We become very involved in their lives through their ups and downs. We've put in a good mileage at a few hospitals the past few months unfortunately. I'd rather rack up those hospital visitation mileage than to hear the unforgettable news of a dirt nap. Sadly, we lost one of our good customers turned close friends, Sid.

Sid was one of the first customers I got close to and has a blunt but hilarious sense of humor. He always orders an apple fritter, and almost didn't make it to our wedding. He was a tough cookie and recovered well enough to attend. We were ecstatic to know that his presence will preside on our big day. When I pipe out my farewell line at the shop, he always responds with, "And a better tomorra!!" It never fails to make me smile from ear to ear and giggle. Now, I will never hear his response at the shop again nor see his smile and hear his crazy sense of humor when we visit him on an off day. Sid - thank you for being a part of our lives and never failing to make us smile when we see you. Rest in peace our dear friend.

Taken by Colorband PhotoArtisans

Cropped by me

Bittersweet Fridays

While most people are exclaiming TGIF and have rocking (or relaxing) plans for the weekend, I wrap up my week at the corporate job to get ready to start my donut job on the weekend. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to work there so that I could sleep in and be lazy bum bum or at least take the opportunity to clean up our can't.stay.clean house. During the crazy winter storm, I got to work from home so I took advantage of it and did a thorough cleaning of the house. It took me literally 2 days, and not even a week later, it looks like I never cleaned it. What the crap?! Or when our friends and family come into town, we could spend quality time with them or stay out late. With working hours of 3am till 1pm, nap time comes around 4-5pm and we're lights out for the remainder of the day. Boo!! As mentioned before, I love our shop and the loyal customer base we've built and I know that this rough schedule will set us up for something greater in the future!! Enough of the waa waa waa stuff!

Earlier in the week, I mentioned my lame wardrobe and am in desperate need of a closet face lift. So here's my work wardrobe this week. (I totally need a new camera btw! This point and shoot just isn't cutting it anymore. Sorry for the blurry pix below. Sigh... Any camera suggestions??)

please excuse the water marks in the mirror.

 I was at my parent's house and um yea!

No Tuesday because we drove home and I totally forgot

before we left the parent's house and when I got home

 to our house - boo!

I just realized all I wear are sweaters that make me look frumpy! No bueno!! I have put on some weight during the past few months, but that's another post. It's definitely not hiding that fact, it's actually adding to it!! Super sad face!

What do I need to add/change to spice up my closet? Suggestions of different articles of clothing are welcome too!! Any camera suggestions also?? Happy Friday!!