Archive for Downey's House
A New Toy
Posted by: | CommentsI love getting new toys. Really, I’m just like a little kid when it comes to gadgets. Did I want jewelry or flowers for Mother’s Day? No. I wanted a little pocket video recorder. So, here’s the one that I picked out for myself:
I really like it…although I haven’t gotten a bunch of time to play with it. Chloe’s last day of school is tomorrow, and they’re having a little concert. I plan on recording the concert, and posting it here. Here are a couple of sample videos I did. These are NOT in high def, just in regular VGA mode. I’ll play with the high def more later.
This thing is great! It uses 2 AA rechargable batteries (which came with it…it actually came with four) and fits right in the palm of my hand. Great for throwing in my purse. It takes still pictures, too. I’m going to have fun playing with this…and I’ll be able to share some more video of the kids with my folks. Right now we have a camcorder that records on those mini dvd’s, and it’s a pain in the arse to share them with my folks.
So, I got a new toy to play with, and today I’m going to get some new hair! Well, not NEW hair, but a new cut and color. If you live around Pittsburgh, I absolutely LOVE how Jess does my hair. Jess owns Hot Heads Hair Design, which is right next to Downey’s House in Robinson Township. She’s super sweet, a whiz with color, and she took a big risk opening a place of her own. she’s great!
So maybe I’ll post a pic of me and my new hair. I hope everybody has a great day! The weather is fantastic here. Maybe I’ll slap some fake tan on myself soon, so I don’t scare everybody when I wear shorts!
Summer Teaser
Posted by: | CommentsWell, it was a fantastic weekend for weather here in Pittsburgh! It started on Friday, and it looks like it’s going to last through today. The kids really enjoyed it. But here’s how it went down:
Friday after school, Becca started. “Can you put up the pool?!?!” (I’ve promised that we’ll put up the easy-set pool that has been sitting in the garage for two years this summer). I told her that I can’t put that pool up until their birthdays (end of May).
Then she wanted a smaller pool. Well, it was 4:00 on a Friday. I wasn’t ready to tackle any kind of pool. So we compromised on the sprinkler. They were happy. Saturday, I caved. I put up one of those hard shell plastic pools for them. We later found that there must be a hole in it. But they had a great afternoon, bouncing between my yard and my friend’s yard. Carefree, almost summer.
Sunday we had a couple of events to head to. There was a christening for our friend’s twins down the street, then a communion party for other neighbors at our restaurant. We headed down to the christening. Now, our friends there put in an in ground pool last year. They got it late in the summer, and the kids were in it once. I didn’t think that the pool would be open yet for the season. But we got there, and the pool was open. (On a side note, I’m totally jealous of their pool and the set up. It looks like something out of a magazine. They should rent it out for parties.) So, I ran back to the house, got their suits, and they swam for a couple of hours.
Hello…it’s April in Pittsburgh.
It was a great time, and the first time that, as a parent, I didn’t have to get in the pool. They were fine just swimming on their own. Nice.
The communion party was held on Downey’s House’s deck. Because it’s not normally this warm in APRIL, we had to sort of scramble to get the deck semi-ready. The chairs still don’t match. We don’t have any coolers out there yet. We need to do some landscaping. But it went well, all things considered.
So, it looks like our little visit to summer ends tomorrow. Which is OK with me. But I’m glad that summer IS right around the corner!
But if you talk to me in August, I might have something to complain about 
Thought Soup
Posted by: | CommentsI usually don’t post a lot of ‘techie’ stuff on this blog. I’m considering starting another blog for this type of thing. But I DID want to at least mention it.
Let me back up, first. I started blogging as a way to get the word out about the t-shirts and gifts that I design for CafePress and Zazzle. That was almost two years ago. I really didn’t know too much about blogging and such, so I jumped in with a free blogger account. I’ve been pretty happy with it.
But, once I opened the restaurant, I got a blog started over there. And I used Wordpress. I love it! It’s on my own domain, and it’s much easier to tweak things. I have since used Wordpress to set up an affiliate site or two. And I’m getting better at it! I’ve learned so much…how to install wordpress, playing with themes, and so on. I recently did two things with Wordpress, and they’ve made me very happy.
First, I actually PURCHASED a theme. I purchased the Flexx theme from iThemes. I love it! It’s very easy to change the layout, colors and pics. Easy peasy. I also found a plug in for automatic updating. I loved it so much, I actually donated to the author (which is something I can’t afford to do as much as I would like). Here’s the link to the plug in.
Now, am I going to break up with blogger? Nah, I don’t think so. It’s worked for me so far, and I guess I’m sort of attached. I have, however, re-directed links to my own site. So, you can also find this stuff at http://blog.brainlint.net.
Just a little mention of regular life: The new menu starts at Downey’s House on Tuesday, so I’ve been busy! I’m printing them up today. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks trying to get the menu together, programming it into our POS system, and making sure we have all our i’s and t’s dotted and crossed. On top of it all, the girls and I are headed down to Florida on Wednesday. Packing? Haven’t even really thought about it yet.
I also (finally) finished reading Dead Until Dark. I really, really enjoyed it…even though it took me much longer than it should have to read it. I bought the next 2 books to read while we’re in Florida. Hopefully I get enough ‘me’ time when we’re there. If you watched True Blood, the book and the show are pretty similar. But I was surprised that there wasn’t any mention of Tara (the bartender). I’m not going to spoil anything for anybody, so I’ll just say that there WERE differences in the book versus the series. But I think that both are very good.
OK, the girls are complaining that everything is ‘Booooorrrrriiiiinnnnnnnggggg!’ How about an exciting trip to Staples, girls? (OH, that makes me thing of a quick side note: I have always loved the smell of office supply stores. I’m strange. I love the smell of toner and paper. It makes me happy. We walked into Staples yesterday and Becca, with a smile on her face, said ‘Mom, mmmmmmm…it smells GOOD in here! Poor thing.)
Wow…this post really did go just about everywhere. Like I’ve mentioned before, sometimes I just can’t focus Have a great day!
Happy Steak and BJ Day
Posted by: | CommentsYup, that’s what today is. Steak and BJ day. You can learn more about it at their website www.steakandbjday.com/ To sum it up, it’s the male version of Valentine’s Day.
Here in Pittsburgh, it also happens to be Parade Day. This is the day, in the past (and I’m stressing IN THE PAST, because it’s different now), that I would find my husband the most inebriated. He’s Irish. Plain and simple. They would start with beer and donuts at 8:00, head to the parade, then take the bus back into Carnegie. Carnegie was a mecca for Parade Day Partiers. Lots of bars, one of them being an Irish Pub. And we lived in Carnegie. It was the perfect storm.
Me? I’ve never been to the parade. I’m not much for a) being out in the cold – and it’s usually cold on parade day and b) large crowds of drunken people. I just don’t have the patience.
So, Steak and BJ day combined with Parade Day? That’s drinking, hanging out with buddies, steak and a blow job. That’s the perfect day for most guys I know. Now my guy? He won’t be going to the parade this year. He’ll be working at Downey’s House, keeping the fun going. He will get to hang out with his buddies a bit, but he won’t be drinking. As for the steak and BJ? He might eat a steak at the restaurant.
But he doesn’t get home until 4:00 in the morning. That’s when I’m sleeping.
Sorry, babe.
Show Me The Money
Posted by: | CommentsYou know, the past year has been crazy for us…especially financially.
It all worked out OK in our heads. Tony will quit his job, we’ll still have one more paycheck on its way. We’ll turn the restaurant around in 2 weeks (which we did!), open up and get right back into making money. We tapped ourselves out in order to get the money to purchase the restaurant. A second mortgage, emptying out the 401K, plus another small loan got us our money to purchase Downey’s House.
There were a few things that we didn’t really factor in. Like new signs. And deposits for the utility companies. And, oh yeah. The first food order. Most of these things ended up on our personal credit cards. Some of that stuff is still on there. Plus, we really had to live off credit cards for about a month. But hey, you’ve got to take a risk to get where you want to go sometimes.
Well, I’ve decided that I need to get that credit card stuff in order. I have amounts on four different cards, just sort of floating around. So, I went to this site I heard about, and you can get instant approval credit cards right online. It’s nice to see all of the different deals, right there on one site. Me, I’m a fan of zero percent interest. I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles like cash back or airline miles. I’m gonna get all of this in order – and paid off (hopefully) quickly. The restaurant has been doing well, and Tony is happier than a fat kid in the Twinkie factory.
So, now that it’s been almost 1 year, I’m feeling settled. Not so crazy and scattered. And I’m takin’ care of business.
