Exciting news for me! I have been asked by my local favorite watering hole’s owner to tend bar for a month. One of the full-time bar gals is going on a well deserved month long trip. Rather than hire someone that they really don’t need on staff, they have asked me, one of their favorite patrons. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. I already have a posse who plans to come and hang out while I am there. Look at that, I have already increased business. 
So, I went up today for lunch to learn the POS system they use. That took about 10 minutes and I have it down, no problem. I already know the menu, although they recently hired a new chef who plans to change things up a bit. I can already mix most drinks being that I have experience drinking said mixed drinks, so I foresee no real problems with this temporary position. Who knows? Maybe I will love it and stick around a bit after all is said and done. Wish me luck and if you are in the area, come and have a drink!
Filed under: Blogging, Exciting, Family, Life, Shopping, Thoughts, Travel | Tags: Days Off, Hand-Blown Glass, Tamarack, Training, Weekend Getaway, West Virginia, Work
This weekend we are planning a trip to Tamarack, West Virginia. I cannot wait to get out of town for the weekend. I have worked very hard this week to have both Saturday and Sunday off with the family. All I want to do is sneak away with them all, high in the mountains where our cell phones do NOT work. I want to shop for hand-blown glass this weekend and maybe some other intriguing gifts for Christmas. Some of what we are looking at is at this website: http://www.tamarackwv.com/. Visiting this wonderful natural place of beauty, shop for some artisan specialties, maybe stop at the New River
and show our children where some of the best bungee jumping and bridge jumping is found. (more…)
Filed under: Exciting, Family, Football, Friends, Halloween, Hauntings, Kids, Life, Photos, Success | Tags: Candy Bars, Football Playoffs, Halloween, Pumpkin Carving, Trick-Or-Treat
This year we are continuing what has apparently become a tradition at our house. For Halloween, we have always decorated the yard and house. We have always carved some pretty cool looking pumpkins. We have tons of decorations that jump, shake and “boo”. We have a graveyard and strobe lights, black lights and fog machines. Each year brings a new decoration or two. This year we lost a few mini lights, but added a couple of ghouls. Over the years, our pumpkin carving has gradually increased. Last year we had about 22 pumpkins carved with many designs. I remember Steve Irwin, Mt. Rushmore, album covers, etc. With the drought this summer, we only bought 20 pumpkins to carve this year. They were so expensive compared to years before. That and time to carve limited us to not having more than last year. Unfortunately, my oldest dropped one of the pumpkins and another must have been some type of pumpkin-gourd mutation because no knife that I owned would cut into that hard ass gourd.
Happy Halloween!
Anyway, so we started carving last night. The designs are not as intricate as they have been in the past. Hopefully, we will not disappoint the neighbors who come each year to see them. We just didn’t seem to have the time we usually have to get it all done. Today we carved a few more and set out all the decorations, minus a few bones and webbing which we saved for tomorrow morning.
I had to leave quite a few pumpkins uncarved and go to my son’s football game. A couple of friends of mine finished all the pumpkin carving (thank goodness) tonight, 18 pumpkins carved! A HUGE relief and task accomplished for me. They did this all while I was watching my son’s football game. The Oarsmen vs. Mustangs Playoff Game.
Filed under: Balance, Band, Cheerleading, Exciting, Family, Football, High School, Kids, Life, Love, Marching Band, Papa Johns, Positive, Redskins, Thoughts | Tags: Football, Homecoming, Weddings, Young Love
Saturday, October 20, was Homecoming here in my little town. My oldest attended the pancake breakfast with her friends. Then she was off to join the Homecoming Parade. Since she is in marching band, she had to go a bit earlier than we did. As the oldest headed to the high school, we left to attend my youngest’s football game to watch her cheer. It was the last game before playoffs and although the team did not win, they do have at least 1 playoff game to look forward to. We were then off to the parade. For the rest of my weekend, keep on reading. (more…)
Filed under: Balance, Band, Cheerleading, Exciting, Family, Football, High School, Kids, Life, Marching Band, Shopping
Where do I begin? The last couple of weeks have been very hectic for my family, but positive. Beside taking care of my Mom, I have been busy with the kids as well. My hubby has been great in helping out with them, getting them off to school, practice and everything else. So read on to find out all we have done and will be doing. (more…)
Filed under: Blog Wars, Exciting, Laughs, Pink Truth, Thoughts, Tracy Coenen, Truth | Tags: Laughs, moles, Pink Truth, Tracy Coenen
Those of you that have been following the MK, anti-MK, PT, anti-PT blogs “Blog Wars” in my previous posts http://nightowlmom.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/the-blog-wars/ and http://nightowlmom.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/blog-wars-its-all-about-respect/, and on the numerous blogs that seem to grow by the day, you obviously know that PT has had a mole, two or three. Who am I kidding?? There are quite a few. Even in her little group of Mavens, she has a mole or two. I for one, was never a Maven. (Thank God.) Never asked to be one either. But I was Mole #1. (more…)
I just happened to luck out and acquire 4 tickets and a parking pass to Saturday’s game at Fed Ex Field!! Woo Hoo! Washington Redskins vs. Pittsburg Steelers. I am a die hard Redskins fan since forever. The Steelers happen to be my second favorite team, so this is a win-win for me! The hubby and I are taking the older 2 kids and plan to have a blast.
Today will be my first day back at work as a General Manager at PJ’s since March 2005! I am not nervous, just a little bummed that my days of being an at home Mom are over. The paychecks should fix that, right? I have no real worries about going back to work, just a bit concerned about how it’s going to feel putting in at least 50 hours a week after not putting in hours for over 2 years. (more…)
Filed under: Exciting, Family, Jobs, Life, Mary Kay, Papa Johns, Positive, Thoughts
Some of you know, that recently I have been up to something secretive. Today, I am spilling the beans.
About a month ago, there were some changes within the franchise that I worked for up until early 2005. I left that company with a very heavy heart, having loved my job, but going through some pretty rough personal issues. My father had passed away in October 2004 and that sent me into a depression, although I didn’t realize it at the time. A month after my father passed, just before Thanksgiving, I found a dear friend and wonderful employee of mine, face down and blue in her bed. No amount of CPR that I was doing was helping and although they were able to revive her for a minute or two at the hospital, Ms. Helen, also passed away.
Ms. Helen and her daughter both worked for me then. Helen’s death was hard on me and my employees, as she was “Mom” to us all. I tried hard to keep things together, but by March 2005, I was not able to continue to run my store properly the way it needed to be run and the way I wanted to run it. If I didn’t do something quick, the store would suffer too. I threw in the towel and decided my place was at home until I figured out how to get over the depression. (more…)
Hi everyone! We had a wonderful trip to Jamaica and have returned safely, albeit too soon, I think. :) Jamaica was unlike any place I have ever been and describing it may prove to be difficult without use of ”gorgeous” and “beautiful” too much. I have about 700 photos and many stories to share, so hopefully I will have a great post about our trip real soon.
Just some quick notes: Negril was gorgeous, cliff jumping at Rick’s Cafe was a blast! Ocho Rios was great too, climbing Dunns River Falls was awesome. I will have a video of that for you to see. We visited Blossom Gardens Orphanage which was a definate high-light of my trip. The kids there are the sweetest ever and it was hard to leave.
Ok, off for now to make some Blue Mountain Coffee and upload some photos. I will post soon. Thank you to all of you who wished us well on our trip. I will have the stories for you soon. I promise.
Filed under: Donations, Exciting, Family, Friends, Jamaica, Life, Thoughts, Travel, Vacation
I so feel like a kid in a candy shop right now. Our house sitter is here, we packed the car and are headed off. We arrived at my mom’s house tonight, the night before our flight. It puts us close to the airport and we can sleep in a bit later in the morning. God knows that I will need it, as I am way too excited to sleep! (more…)
Filed under: Donations, Exciting, Family, Jamaica, Positive, Travel, Vacation
Those of you that have been following my blog lately know that we are about to leave for Jamaica. We only have 2 more sleeps to go!! Then we will be basking in Montego Bay, Jamaica for 8 nights and 9 days and we are so excited about it. We have the plans to visit Ocho Rios, Dunns River Falls, Rose Hall, Negril, and Montego Bay’s Margaritaville. I will have lots of photos to share when we return and will post about our trip.
We have purchased a collection of school supplies and scholastic books for donations to the children at the Sandy Bay Basic School or Blossom Garden Orphanage. We are still up in the air as to which place our hired driver has made arrangements, but I know either place will be happy to receive the supplies we have purchased.
These are some of the supplies we purchased. There is construction paper, crayons, chalk, spiral notebooks, scissors, rulers, scholastic books and more!
Well, I must get back to packing as we still have lots of that to do today. I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe summer.
I have not been able to get this school out of my mind. I have read on some of the Jamaica forums at http://www.tripadvisor.com about this school. Since finding the photos, all I want to do is help. Things we often take for granted here in the US, like crayons, chalk and flash cards, are expensive in Jamaica and not always readily available to these kids. I hope those sites, don’t mind me reposting the photos here, as I hope to get the word out about this school. (more…)
