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

I don't like not understanding

I originally started this blog thinking that I would post sometimes about "deep thinking stuff."  Like my thoughts on feminism, or the Christian culture, or human pain, or what true love is, or my pet peeves about people...  but honestly, I hate conflict, and posting my deeper thoughts to the public is a recipe for drama.  No thanks.

BUT

When I have spent the last week seeing SO many girls come to apply for a family style restaurant in the most revealing and inappropriate of outfits, I have to think out loud a bit.  I really want to figure it out.  Do girls come to the interviews revealing so much because 1. that's what they wear every day and it's what their "personality" dresses like or 2. do they honestly think that it will impress the men interviewing them enough to score them a job?  OR 3. do they think that looks professional? or best yet, 4. do they even think at all?  Help me here, society, because I really don't get it.  Yeah, ok, so I'm a mildly conservative person and I think wearing revealing clothing is not a good idea in any public situation, but I really thought that a job interview, especially in today's market would bring out the best in people.  Logically.  Especially (if they read the ad) for a family-style restaurant?  Am I old-fashioned?  Let me clarify by saying that the immodesty I am talking about is extreme, supported by the opinions of the hiring managers I am working with.
And of course, if #2 is true, what does that say about the men in our society doing the hiring?  I heard someone postulate today that men hire girls that "dress to please" even for family style restaurants because married men with kids need something nice to look at.  If words could describe the contortions of my face...

Don't even get me started on the guy that came in with a dirty white tee and a big bright bracelet that said "boobies" on it.  That's another vent in and of itself.

Couchin' it up

The plan tonight was to be productive.  We haven't unpacked from our quick weekend trip to LA yet and there's laundry to do and grocery shopping to do... but somehow I can't move from the couch.  The same thing happened last night.  This is not good.  When Mr. Man came home at like 11:15 last night from class, I asked him sheepishly if it bothered him that I wasn't productive and he assured me he didn't mind.  It's nice to have a husband that understands when you worked all day and you just want to stare at the computer screen all evening.... two nights in a row.  All that to say that tonight is definitely not over, and maybe I will get up and do something yet.

My mind is not only fried from working a fairly insane day (a little long too), but it is heavy with concerns for people dear to me.  Several of my friends are experiencing painful life experiences right now and I just wish I could help.  Unfortunately, I live far away and words are all I have (which normally suck and aren't that helpful).  I am glad that they all have Jesus to comfort them.  This world is just so full of pain, I see it everywhere!  I find myself often saying this little motto:  "Life sucks, Marriage is great, and Jesus is best."

By the way, it is National Night Out tonight.  What does that even mean and why have I never heard of it before?  Is it a Sacramento thing?  Our apartment complex is doing some shindig for it (I'm not going because I am husbandless because he's in class, and somehow it just seems weird).

So anywheys, this last weekend we went to LA to see Troy and Melody Rankin tie the knot, and spend all hours in a whirlwind of hanging out with cool people.  It was SO GOOD to see such good friends and SO refreshing.  It was fun to hang out with other couples too.  One of the highlights of the trip for me was spending time with ma cherie Jenny who is getting hitched in December.  I am her Matron of Honor, although I hardly consider myself a Matron.  I have no children and I wouldn't call myself matronly... would you?  Hm... maybe don't answer that.  But anyways, Saturday we were able to buy her super gorgeous wedding dress!  WHAT an honor for me to be there!! YAY!!! We also took an adventure to downtown LA for a bridal shop... we had neither of us been to true downtown LA other than the concert halls.  Let's just say it was interesting and leave it there.  I wish I took more pictures of the whole trip, because then I would share some with you, but alas and woe are we.  No pictures. 

Did I mention we got internet in our apartment?  We are Comcastic now.  It is excellent to have reliable internet again... and it enables me to sit here on the couch and not do laundry.  oops.  

Perspective

So I lay down to try and sleep about 10 minutes ago, hoping that even though Mr. Man isn’t home yet, my body would win over my mind and I could sleep.  I realized that the past two Mondays I had blogged, and I thought that it was a pity that I hadn’t.  Then my mind wandered to all the things I could say, and I had some great perspective changes about my day… my week… my life… you know how that goes.  So here I am, NOT sleeping, and blogging instead.

I am so incredibly happy.  I am living a dream.  My whole life I dreamed of “growing up,” having a job I liked, a husband, and a place of my own.  (Kids are negotiable as of today.)  Our apartment is a dang mess right now.  I have forsaken my wifely self-appointed duties of laundry, dishes, and general picking up for the last few days… and we picked up and moved in a new couch and a dresser from Freecycle today (YAY!), and therefore disarray prevails.  (I didn’t even have the productive means to move the clothes from the bookshelf into the dresser!)  Normally the guilt of not doing my chores weighs on me and I feel like “a bad wife” and I get caught up in the trivial.  Excuse me?  I have my own apartment!  With dishes that CAN be dirty!  And although we’re still living off peanut butter and dry corn flakes, we have food!  And clean water!  AND I have a husband who loves me more than I understand, who is off doing something that he loves (I think he’s doing Floribbean Cuisine tonight)… we both have jobs we enjoy.  Hello, silly self, this is AWESOME!

An Opportunity

I very sincerely miss the beach.  I miss deciding to go out in the heat and the sun and I might even miss the sand between my toes!  There are many things that I don't like about the beach, but it's such an integral part of summer!  There are so many great summer memories at the beach.  I keep feeling like summer is going by way too quickly and I'm missing out on chances to enjoy it.  Unfortunately it is hotter here in Sac than it was growing up in Hollister.  I miss that ocean breeze and the ability to take a night walk down to the park and not get mugged.  Hopefully, Mr. Man and I have a chance this summer to make our own new summer traditions. :)

I have one of those tired brains right now that thinks of plenty of things that I could tell you about, and when I start to type it, I feel like I don't have the energy to write about it.  Ever have one of those days?  I was up at 6 this morning after helping Mr. Man with his homework until late last night.  I needed to do all his typing for him because he overworked his arm muscles last week from cutting too much meat and veggies!  But he did bring me home some awesome Applesauce Cake with walnuts, raisins, cranberries, and a caramel sauce from one of his classes.  It was so interesting helping him with his homework, all of the old frustrations from unclear syllabii or silly petty assignments came rolling back to me.  Corey kept having to remind me that this was HIS homework and not mine, and I didn't have to deal with it, just type it.  :P  I am very happy that I don't have to be in school right now. 

Well, the original reason I began to blog tonight was to ask you to seriously consider supporting my sister and my family members in this year's annual Disneyland 5K and 1/2 Marathon event to support the A-T Children's Project.  I have mentioned this a few times, or at least my sister's disorder, and here is a very real opportunity for you to help.  Your money to support my Mom, Dad, Brother, and Cathryn will go directly to finding a cure for A-T.  Read more HERE.  Corey and I really wanted to participate this year, but we weren't able to because of funds and such.  Next year we plan to be asking you to support US. :)  I really hope that you will actually take a minute and really think about helping.  There are so many people asking for your help these days, and I would never push you to give money, I just would like the justice of you actually seriously thinking about it!  Thank you, friends.  It means a lot to me and my family to have people support us in prayer as well. :)  If you are planning to pray for us or to support, please leave a comment so I know there are some of you out there!

Well, I have to get to some laundry.  I have to do it like 3 times a week because of Mr. Man's uniforms.  Praise Jesus we have a washer and dryer in our apartment!

Everyone should like peach Snapple.

I am currently sitting in Barnes and Noble, listening to my Pandora station featuring Lady Black Mambazo and the Soweto Gospel Choir.  I love this music.  It is relaxing, harmonious, and just cuts straight through to the soul. The guys behind me are studying US History... I do not envy them.  I really am not a history person.  Unless  you're talkin' music history, then I perk up. :)  And I just finished watching an episode of Castle on Hulu, gotta love Nathan Fillon.  Watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog is extra hilarious after watching Castle or Firefly.  (If you have not seen Dr. Horrible, it is TIME.)

Sigh.  My man is in class, thus this "free time."  I hate to disappoint you, but I would much rather be hanging out with him, than writing a blog. ;)  He has night class Mon-Thurs this quarter (that started today).  Rough stuff.  It's gonna be a hard 3 months for him (and us).  He is absolutely loving working at Chipotle.  I visited him the other day (I am so grateful I have a flexible job that allows me to do that!!) and I watched him working hard in their exposed kitchen, making "cilantro-lime rice" at the moment I was in line.  I am so very proud of him.  He is so impressive.

Jesus is so good to us, and our situation is finally looking up, after 6 months of marriage (as of last Friday!).  I'm looking back, and it's really amazing how far we've come as individuals and as a couple even just in 6 months.  We've learned a lot, and I'm sure we will continue to learn!  What an adventure.  I saw the other day off I-80 a single sunflower growing as if it was defying the ugly freeway and the dead grass around it, saying "Today is a beautiful day! And you can't stop me from enjoying it!"  I marveled at having even noticed the sunflower in the first place, and then smiled to myself.  Life is beautiful, despite the road being ugly sometimes.

So, I will be trying in the next three months to find something to do with all the time I can't spend with Mr. Man... exercise is on the list, but as you can see, it didn't work tonight.  Read more books is on the list, but I am currently having a rough time getting into Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I hate starting another book when I haven't finished one.  Yeah, I'm one of THOSE people.  Keep the house clean, the laundry done, and the dishes clean are all on the list, so far so good on those.  Cooking/baking will make it on the list when we have more money for ingredients.  Poor Corey had to have an "emergency hot dog and cheese sandwich" on his hour break between long classes today.  And I had corn and an egg for dinner.  So far playing a lot of Animal Crossing has been topping the list... gotta catch all them fish.  Everything else I can think of costs money... so I'll keep brainstorming.

In other news, the documentary featuring Tim Borland running 63 marathons in 63 days for A-T (my sister's disorder, read this post) is coming out on DVD soon!  There has been some great hype about it, including a screening on TV, starring my fabulous sister. :)  If you are interested, click here.

I hope you have been able to see some beautiful things lately.  Even if the road you are on is ugly.  Enjoy some peach Snapple, that oughta cheer you up. :)