My Life Before Kids

Most only know me as a Mommy and Steve's wife and not for all the crazy hours and hard work I put in before quitting to assume the hardest job on the earth - Stay at home Mommy.

Steve and I met at The Embassy Suites in Raleigh, North Carolina. They were remodeling the restaurant in the hotel and Steve transferred there from Dallas to open it up and run it. I was hired a couple months after he was and we opened Nicola's Ristorante. It was a great restaurant and awesome Italian food. While I was there we partnered up with a local art group and displayed local artists work in the restaurant and bar. We had twice a year art shows that had huge turn outs. It was a great first job to have in Restaurant Management. I also oversaw the roomservice and bar area. The employees at this place were INSANE. Typical restaurant workers - partying hard and with all of that came crazy situations I had to deal with.

Here is a picture of the inside of the restuarant.

Hotel the restaurant was located in.

After Steve and I got married we had to be transferred to different properties within 6 weeks since we were both managers and technically he was my superior as Executive Chef. We decided to move to Dallas where Steve had lived for many years. I stayed with the company and Steve ventured out. I took a position at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District in downtown Dallas as an Assistant Food and Beverage Director.

This was where the upscale dining restuarant called The Opus was located (tables were removed for the picture).

Front of the Symphony.

This was the main entrance off of the street - to the left was The Opus and behind where this picture was taken was a more casual dining restaurant called The Pasta Pavillion. This was by far the coolest job I've ever had. The other managers were awesome and we had so much fun. Ironically - this was the job Steve was at before transferring to Raleigh - he was the Executive Chef here. The restaurants were only opened before symphony performances and only for 2 hours. We were usually open on Thursday, Friday, Saturday evenings and then Sunday for brunch. When the Symphony wasn't playing we did huge banquets and dinners. Biggest seated dinner was for 1400 people and we had other reception type banquets for over 2000.

It was always exciting and always filled with famous people. While working there I met Kenny Rogers, Michael McDonald, Lyle Lovett, Phil Vasser, Larry Hagman (JR from the show Dallas), Angie Harmon and many many others. We did all backstage food and beverage for the performers and being management we were always backstage at some point.

After the Meyerson I was promoted across the street to General Manager (at the whopping age of 28 years old!!) at The Belo Mansion. It is an old mansion owned by the Dallas Bar Association. We did the food and beverage daily during the week for the attorneys taking continuing education classes and then every.single.weekend - we did weddings. Friday nites, 2 weddings Saturday (afternoon and evening) and then also sometimes on Sundays.

I was pregnant the last 9 months while working here. I hated this job with a passion. The money was awesome but the people who worked for the Bar Association were horrid. It was the worst job I have ever had. The people and then all the pressure and stress with being the top one in charge royally sucked. One of the happiest days of my life was pulling out of that parking lot for the last time! Within the first 2 months I was there I had to fire one of my catering managers who continued to show up to work drunk and at her functions. She was one of the top performing sales managers in the company so to say I wasn't met with resistance by people to fire her (this is after she was able to take a leave of absense for 30 days to go to rehab) is an understatement. This job just plain sucked.