Apparently, when the moon is directly over your head, you weigh slightly less

This has to be a short post, unfortunately, because I NEED to sleep and I am procrastinating hoping that my man will come home before it's REALLY too late to wait up.  He's cooking tonight at the aforeblogged Black Bear Diner that opened yesterday (YAY!).  I put in an 11something hour day, came home, watched some Castle (YES!)... and I'm currently staring at the mess in my apartment wishing I had a little less zombie-ness so I could clean it.

FIRST I would like to blog a very happy birthday to Elizabeth Anne Grover, aka Lizzy, aka Porky.  This woman always puts the biggest smile on my face and laughter in my soul.  She amazes me in her capacity to love all people, animals, and things, and her loyalty to our friendship is my favorite.  I wish you the happiest last 30 minutes of your birthday, dearest, and I hope you are spending it sleeping instead of doing homework.  <3

ANYWHEYS, if you were to ask me how I am and how the diner is doing and you wanted to know the real answer, I would first say "I'm exhausted," which you would be able to tell by the look on my face before I said anything.  I am starting to get to dangerous exhaustion where my body says, "remember that since you had mono 2 years ago I SUCK and you can't handle being this tired?"  My second answer to your question would be "Really, really great!"  Jesus is SO good and I am so blessed with this job, with my family and my husband... Once you shave off the exhaustion, I am really a very happy woman inside.  The diner is doing just fine for being open for 2 days.  We have had busy dinners and not-so-busy breakfast (average lunch).  There's been emergencies, scares, confusion, drama, and mass chaos, but that's part of the package! :)  And overall, I believe guests are having a marvelous experience.


Here is a picature of me, Mr. Man, and Rrrrrandle at the diner, it's my favorite.  (Please note that I was in "casual" dress, as I actually had some time off at that moment.)

Bear-y Busy

So, sadly my blogging has slowed a little... not that you were hanging on the edge of your seat or anything....
BUT I have a good reason.  Let me give you a little update! 

We (meaning my boss and we the management team) are opening a Black Bear Diner in Natomas (W. El Camino and 80) the week of the 28th of this month!  Black Bear Diner, in case you haven't heard of it, originated in Mt. Shasta/Redding area of NorCal and is a cute family oriented, good ol' fashioned family cookin' type restaurant.  The theme, obviously, revolves around black bears, and I hope to take pics once we open of the cute decor and share them for those of you who can't come in person. 

So, naturally, opening a restaurant is a lot of work.  Especially for a relatively small team of people, of which I am one.  It is safe to say I had no idea how much actually goes into opening a business like this and I had no idea what I was signing up for!  While I am not unhappy or regretting "signing up" so to speak, I am thoroughly exhausted.  An average of 6 days a week and 55 hours a week - and a lot of mayhem and chaos.  We've had to postpone our opening a couple times (which is normal), but we are 98% sure of opening the 28th to the public!  My title is officially "Administration" which means I do everything.  I am the go-to, go-between, logistics manager, marketing manager, make-sure-everyone-does-what-they-should-be-doing person, paperwork chief, run-to-Walmart person, call-everyone-on-this-list person, "we haven't ordered that yet??!!" manager, and "let me move that to the top of the bosses priority list" lady.  (and SO much more)

SO, when I get home at night (sometimes 10:30pm) I hurry to relax (dumb) and do my severely neglected housework.  Oh, and sleep.  And thus, my blogging suffers.

BUT there will come a time when the restaurant is open and thriving (Lord willing) and I will be back to 40 hours a week and free-ish evenings.  And maybe a massage and a pedicure, hehe :)

I am definitely not used to working this much, and I have not been this tired since college.  I can't believe I was more than this exhausted for FOUR years!!  No wonder I had mono senior year. 

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that my excellent husband has been hired as a line cook for the Black Bear Diner!  He has already started pre-training at the BBD in Sonoma, and he is rocking the house.  *Beaming*  He quit Chipotle (they were very sad to lose him) and the Diner will provide him with more money and more opportunities.  It's also more along the lines of what he really wants to be doing, working in a real kitchen.  And we kind of get to work at the same place.  Don't worry all you skeptical people, I won't be his boss in any way. =P

Has anybody ever been to a Black Bear before?  I hope that any of you local people will come visit after we are open!  We also have banquet facilities available, because I KNOW all of you have business meetings you need to schedule with us, haha.

Other than work, I have snuck in a little bit of fun with celebrating some birthdays and such, yay!  Here are a few of my pictures from the summer (the rest are on Facebook):

adorable nephew Kaden and Pop at Ikea

Mom, Dad, sister Cathryn, and me at Music Circus - 42nd Street

us'ns around Labor Day at Kaden and Pop's bday party