Off On A New Adventure

I'm leaving for nine days. I am headed to Honduras with a group of people, most I  have just met because of this trip. I am sure we will know each other real well before this trip is over.

I am headed to Honduras for a missions trip. I will be working at Faith Home Child Care Center.

I am nervous, I wont lie. It's a new adventure for me. I have done missions in the US before but this will be my first international missions. I am not nervous about leaving the country but I am nervous about leaving home. Tony and I work together, we do most things together. I like to sound things off of him and be able to discuss things with him when I need to. Plus its always just weird when we are apart for so long.

Always before when we were apart for long periods of time we were usually able to have pretty good contact. I am not sure how much I am going to have with him in Honduras. This makes me nervous because I do own a business, and I will have people working while I am gone. There is no picking up the phone and just calling me if a questions arises. Well there is but it can be expensive and I wont have my cell with me for the most part. I will pick up the phone when I feel the need to hear his voice, no matter the cost.


But I am also Super Excited. I like new adventures. I am excited to be a part of this group and this trip. I can not wait to share my stories when I get back!

Please keep me and the entire missions team in your prayers while we set off on this adventure that God has put on our hearts to take. See ya when I get back!

The Blue Raven

Tony and I ate dinner at the Blue Raven tonight. In fact we eat there a lot, but not as much as we would like to. I am not a food critic or food writer so this is not meant to be a food review. Its just our thoughts and feelings on our favorite restaurant.

Tony was about  half way through a bowl of corn chowder and I had just sampled it for myself, when we had this conversation.

Me: "This really is soooo delicious. I could blog just about this soup."
Tony: " You could blog about The Blue Raven."
Me: " Stop eating let me take a picture of your soup."

Tony has gotten quite use to me taking pics of the food we eat because I always write reviews on the cruises we take. So he wasn't the least bit shocked or surprised that I started taking pics of our food. He actually started helping me try to figure out how to get the best pics. I have such a good husband who just goes with my craziness.

The half eaten bowl of corn chowder.

We love the soups here. My favorite is the lobster bisque. Tony has loved them all. (Well, except for one that was something something wasabi). This has made me think, if I had to say what his favorite was I couldn't answer. He really likes the chipotle apple. I will have to ask him now.

This is the current dinner menu.

Tonight I chose to have the Blue Raven Hot Brown because it had been awhile since I had eaten it. It didn't let me down. The cheesy mornay sauce is the best I have ever had. It's a pretty large serving and I was stuffed after eating it.

Tony had tonights special which we were told may become a regular menu item. It was a Marinated Flank Steak with Kentuckyaki (Bourbon Teriyaki) Sauce, Pickled Red Onions and Twice Cooked Potatoes. 

We once again we left the Raven with full, happy bellies.

The Blue Raven also has lunch Tuesday through Friday. Tony and I try to eat lunch here often, and highly recommend it to everyone we talk to. For the quality of food you get for the price you pay for lunch is unbeatable...anywhere. The crab cake sandwich is to die for!!

We love this place for so many reasons. Besides the FANTASTIC food, it has a great atmosphere, and a staff that takes wonderful care of us when we are there. I would highly recommend finding them on facebook if I were you so that you can keep up with what they have going on. Well that AND GOING THERE TO EAT!   Oh yeah..if anyone from the Raven so happens to read this, my feelings would not be hurt if the shrimp & grits made it back on the menu. (the ones with the panko fried shrimp) I have hurt myself eating these because I can not make myself stop.

 True  story. One day I was browsing in facebook and it popped up that The Raven was bringing back the shrimp & grits and the panko shrimp appetizers for that nights special. So I yelled into the other room and told Tony we were going there for dinner.  I ordered both. Yes both the shrimp appetizer and the shrimp & grits. About half way thru the grits I was full. Insanely full,  so full I hurt and I really really wanted to finish it. Thankfully they love me there and boxed the rest of it up for me to take home. It made a fantastic breakfast. Yes I ate it for breakfast. Hey grits is a breakfast food!

Let me leave you with a pic of tonight's desserts. The pic is not as good as I would like. I am going to have to work on my phone camera skills if I am going to keep doing this blog thing. But here is Tony's creme brulee and my peanut butter mouse. YUM YUM!

Thanks again for hanging out with me and having a little dinner!

                                                                                                                                        The Boss Lady

A New Show, an Old Show, and a Wedding

Yesterday ended up being a smooth, easy show...almost. The show was the Gaithers at the East KY Expo Center. We have done this show a few times and it has always went well. This time it was even easier it seemed. We had a pretty small crew, and the production wasn't too crazy, so it made for an easier day.

Remember my last blog where I mentioned for the first time in the history of me being in the business we finished and was let go after three hours? Well...It happened again! I was speechless and kept asking the stage manager, "Are you sure?"

So the show was ready and went on as scheduled.

Load out started great. We had everything down, off the stage, and in the loading area in less than 45 minutes.

This is where if fell apart. Don't get me wrong, this crew was great to work with and were wonderful all day. But at this point they decided they wanted to pack the truck different because they would only need about half of the stuff for the show the next day. So things where loaded, unloaded, discussed, discussed some more...FOR ANOTHER HOUR AND A HALF!! This load out  should of only taken a total of an hour and and half. But things could have been worse...a lot worse as a matter of fact.


Ok so the first two shows I wrote about have been pretty calm. So I figured I would tell you a little story from one of the worst shows I have worked. Actually it may have been the worst. The show was Motley Crue. It was the first show in the Corbin Arena that pyrotechnics were used. At the first blast of fire the fire alarm went off, which caused the house lights to come on. Here was the band rocking Dr Feelgood and boom...lights on!! I was freaking out, the building staff was freaking out, and the crew and promoter was freaking out on me. We couldn't override the system so we ended up flipping breakers off. The show continued. At that point I told the operations manager (who is no longer with the building) that I would radio him when the lights needed to be turned on. He would stand by the breakers and flip them on at my command. So I took a deep breath and told myself  "OK I got this. The lights are back off, the show is going, and I have a plan in action that will fix everything." You can see in the this pic where the house lights are on above the stage.

At the end of the show, I have my crew ready to start tearing it down, and I was standing on the ramp to the stage waiting for the show to end. I was instructed that the band would step to the back of the stage for a moment but then go back out and do one more song for an encore. At that point they would leave the stage and I could signal for the lights to come on.

Sounds like a good plan right? Right? Well, as soon as the band does their fake good night and steps to the back of the stage the houselights came on. Yep, Mr Operations Manager took it on himself to turn the lights on because he thought the show was over. Of course people began to leave...while all the time I not only had the promoter and the production manager screaming at me to get the lights off, I also had Tommy Lee screaming at me from the stage, and I quote, "Get the F****NG Lights off!" And of course Mr Operations Manager couldn't hear me because we was back out in the crowd. At that point I really thought I was on some kind of punked or hidden camera show.

There ya go..one of my worst shows ever!


On that note I want to leave you with a little fun. My niece Allie turned 6 yesterday. I had seen a Barbie cruise ship online a few months ago and knew I just had to get her one when her birthday came. So tonight Ken and Barbie had my dream cruise ship wedding.

Thanks again for being part of The Life and Times of the Boss Lady.

Two days with Big Bird, Hookers and a conversation about teleportation.

bt Event Services spent the last two days working with Sesame Street at the Arena in Corbin, KY. Sesame Street always ends up being a interesting show. It's actually one of my least favorite companies to work with. It never fails that by the end of the show something gives me a headache.

But anyway, we loaded up the 15 passenger van and headed out early on a Tuesday morning. I already had crew working when I got there and they had done their job beautifully .It made life easier for us when we got there. Thumbs up to my pre-rig crew!!

So Tuesday was all about getting the show loaded in. This is what a show looks like when we first start putting it together.

And this is how it looks when we finish.

Like I said before, Tuesday was spent putting this thing together. It actually went very smoothly for my crew and the production crew traveling with Sesame Street  was great to work with. But me dealing with the "bosses" of Vee Corportation (the Co that owns Sesame Street) is another story. I understand being business smart and about budgets, but Vee is always greedy, bossy and a bunch of bullies. So I ended up in a stand still over a spot light operator with them that pretty well ruined what should have been a breeze of a day.

But my crew did their thing and did it awesomely. In fact, we finished super quick. In the first time ever for my crew we were done and told to leave after three hours, even tho we work under a four hour minimum. What that means is that we are guaranteed four hours of work a shift, or at least guaranteed we will be paid for four hours even if its done sooner. I guess we were lucky the Vee bosses that sit in the office wasn't aware of it, they would have probably had us washing their socks or something to get their four hours.

So we were done fairly early in the day.  We headed to Cracker Barrel and stuffed ourselves, then on to our hotel to rest since we had two shows and a load out the next day.

Lunch time!

Enjoying the pool during some down time.

While enjoying the pool we ended up having some company from a young lady (I use the term loosely). After asking us about the pool temp and water, she asked if we were from around there. We found out that she was. So fact #1 she was hanging out at a hotel in her own town with another lady and gentleman (who stayed in the room during her visit). OK, raises some flags but hey maybe she wanted to rent a room to use the pool. But then later in the afternoon she and her friend left with the guy, only to return in a different vehicle with a different guy. So fact #2, they had a lot of friends that like to visit them at hotel rooms. We are pretty sure we came to a pretty accurate guess of what was happening.

So it was up early for us the next morning for the first show. It actually went really smooth without any hiccups. So my stress levels for the day were really low. I liked that.

Show crew for this round of Sesame Streets shows.

So we had a little down time between show 1 and show 2. We had some lunch at a nice little Mexican restaurant, where Shane entertained us with stories.

Show #2 went really well. Load out went ok, with only a couple of hiccups.  One of them being one of my crew was four minutes late and one minute from losing his spot on the shift. The other being the truck drivers taking FOREVER getting the second truck backed into the Arena. We would have been done a good 40 minutes faster if not for this hold up. But if these are the only hiccups for a two day event, I'll take it.

After all the trucks were loaded and sent on their way to Columbus, OH. We headed back to Pikeville, KY. These van rides are always interesting. You have the person who takes the main back seat and sleeps all the way home. You have the people who pop in headphones and doesn't speak. And then there's the group who keeps a conversation going so that the driver doesn't get sleepy. These conversations can go in all directions.

A small example of that nights conversation.

Brennen: " I wish I could just teleport home."
Tony: " You need to work on buiding that teleportation device"
Brennen: " I am working on it, I have the legs built"

Maybe it was because it was so late, maybe it was because we were all tired, or maybe it was just because Brennen just cracks me up. But I laughed for quite a long time at this. It still made me laugh as I was retelling this story, so I think Brennen just entertains me..lol.

A small part of me  would have liked to have been able to tell you some crazy story about the first show that I blogged about. But there are sooooo many shows that goes crazy fast that I enjoy the calm, no issues show. So a bigger part of me is glad things went pretty much the way should have.

Again, thanks for coming along and reading about The Life and Times of The Boss Lady .

My Royal Caribbean Cruise on the Jewel of the Seas

Hi All! I just recently returned from a four day cruise on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas.

 This was our third cruise but our first with Royal Caribbean. We had previously cruised with Carnival, but felt like it was time to try a different line. We have a couple of friends, Sam and Mashonna, who have sailed with RCI several times so we thought we would try them. We had originally booked our cruise in February but had to change because a Rascal Flatts show ended up being booked the same week. So because of work we had to wait til May. But it ended up working out great, because now we were able to cruise with Sam and Mashonna.

Tony and I drove to Tampa. I love the road trip and think if it as part of the vacation. We took two days there and back. We took our time and just enjoyed the trip!

Our hotel shuttled us to the cruise port, and we were on the ship in no time.

And I loved this ship. It is hands down the prettiest ship I have ever been on. It was built that with glass everywhere. So you could see the sea just about everywhere you went. And I fell in love with this Centrum.

Our one port for this cruise was Cozumel. We had been to Cozumel on both of other cruises and had went to Nachi Cocum, a private beach that only allowed 100 people a day. We really enjoyed it and decided to go back there again on this trip. We were the only ship in port that day, so we were pleasantly surprised that there was a total of 12 people there including us.

Our little spot of paradise for the day.

We had the perfect beach day. The weather was great, the beach not crowded, and  the food was delicious. I could have spent a few days there.

One of my highlights from the cruise was getting invited to tour the bridge. I was able to learn things and talk to the crew. They even let me drive the ship...lol.

It was a fantastic cruise and it went by way too fast. Good thing I have another cruise booked for August!

If interested, I wrote a long detailed review that can be found at Cruise Critic at this link
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1845239

Thanks for tagging along with The Boss Lady!

My First Ever Blog

Welcome to My First Ever Blog. This is something I have wanted to do and decided to finally take the time and figure out how to do it.

I thought I would use my First Ever Blog to tell a little about me and why I decided to write these blogs.

My name is Terri. I will be 42 in July. I feel like I have already lived a lot of life but still have SOOOO much more to do and see. I am married to Tony. He is a musician, and when we were first married he played with a band that ended up traveling a lot. I wish I could have blogged during those days, oh the stories I could tell.

Here's a pic of the two of us in Nashville during those days.

We have one son, Tabor. He is 20. And a musician also.

Present day we are still involved in the music industry, just differently. We currently own TubeFi studios (Tony's recording studio), bt Media Group (Our production company and a whole lot more), and bt Event Services (our stagehand labor company).

Not only do I own bt Event Services but I am also a steward. In the stagehand world that boils down to that I am the boss.  So over the years the guys have started calling me Boss Lady. I have said many, many times that I could write a book about things that have happened at shows. I am not disciplined enough to actually write a book, so I thought, "Hey I could blog about it!"

I also LOVE to travel....For fun now...and not following a band around making sure they get to their next gig. I just got back from a four day cruise on Royal Caribbean (I will do a blog on this trip in the next day or so), I am headed to Honduras for a week to work in an orphanage, I have another cruise booked in August, and several other smaller trips planned this summer. Tony has declared this summer to be the Summer of Terri..lol.

My blogs will contain reviews of these trips, stories from backstage at the shows I will be working at between these trips. and just random thoughts.

So now you know a little bit about me and how I chose my blog name.

So I hope you enjoy my upcoming blogs and have a little fun while reading about...

The Life and Times of the Boss Lady