In a couple of weeks and no, I do NOT HAVE A DATE YET, which is of course frustrating for me and all those who keep asking, my life will be changing dramatically.
My first and probably only restaurant will be opening in the beautiful little hamlet of Historic West Middletown PA. Along with Poor Johnny’s and Pour Johnny’s, I am starting a business revolution in this amazing space.
The last 7 to 8 months have been all about planning, purchasing, curating in my mind, cajoling people to sell me antique furniture at a good deal, charming bankers for credit and loans and designing, planning, creating, producing, lifting and storing and more. It has been an exciting and nerve-wracking journey and a terrific learning experience. I have a feeling the learning is only beginning.
I honestly have no idea how to run a restaurant. I feel like I am faking this and could end up feeling like a complete fraud. Who am I to open a restaurant while we are still dealing with a pandemic, when the economy is seemingly hurtling to a recession and the cost of goods is sky rocketing?
Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash
Then the other part of me says hell yeah, I CAN DO THIS!!! So, as you see, I am waffling back ‘n forth on the confidence wagon. I believe if I wasn’t a little terrified, I would be foolish, so hoping my self-doubt and worry is all just normal human stuff. I am naturally an over-achiever, only child who doesn’t like to ask for help and someone who always wants to do her best. I will be fine. I will be exhausted, but fine.
For the past few years, I have really made my own schedule. I have woken up, fed all the animals, made Mitch coffee and gently woken him most of the time. I usually am up first and like the routine of my early morning rituals.
After all the animals are fed, I make my decaf coffee and start doing the million things that need done. I usually exercise too, run errands, hike and swim the dogs, then start on the other million things that need done. Then I make us something to eat, we have some “TV time” to cuddle and enjoy togetherness, then we sleep after loving up all the animals, cleaning the kitchen, whatever honestly.
Often, I like to joke that the only time I sit down during the day is when I have to go to the potty and even then, I mostly just hover. There is SO much to do. That hovering is a great exercise too by the way.
Anyway, so the garden looks like S*#t this season and won’t be producing nearly anything for me to take to the restaurant, but I am looking for help for that for next year. There has got to be an Ag program or FFA group who would like to farm 14000 feet of amazing garden space for me for a fee and for learning about sustainable agriculture and maybe get some credits. I did this myself with a job in college and turned it into 3 credits by writing a paper on what I learned. BRILLIANT! 😊
I have not been able to successfully clone myself, so something had to give. This year it was the garden,
Photo by Amanda Hortiz on Unsplash
In good news though, the berries are MAGNIFICENT this year and I am taking every available minute to pick and freeze berries that I can make into delectable pies soon. We are currently into blackberries and elders are on deck. WOOHOO! Next year, I WILL be harvesting elder flower though from the top of the bushes as the birds have totally eaten every visible berry while they are still green. The underneath berries will be able to be harvested, but those darn birds, have really devastated anything on top.
Photo by Matteo Paganelli on Unsplash
The Department of Agriculture put the cabosh on our using seeds we saved from a previous crop to grow this year’s hemp, so we have to destroy all that we planted. Lots of bureaucracy. I won’t say anything else about that, but I am making great batches of my homemade CBD products and spent real money on fancy labels and will be selling all those fabulous natural skincare products in the retail portion of my store. We grew lots of high-quality hemp and my products are all natural and sooooo awesome. I love them all. Not all of my products have hemp in them. I have two last items to produce; a facial scrub and an itch soap which is terrific for all bug bites and contact dermatitis caused by weeds that irritate the skin like poison ivy and oak, stinging nettles, bug bites etc. Nature was the original healer!!!!
So, the title of this blog is prisoner of my own making and I have been thinking about this idea a lot.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
I have blogged about my unhappiness with working for 7 years at Merrill Lynch after college. I feel a little bad about saying that as so many lovely people who worked there then, STILL work there now and LOVE it. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, but I am GRATEFUL for what I learned there. For the entire time I worked there, I did really feel like a prisoner because I HAD TO BE THERE at my desk, and I really didn’t like that.
From that job on, even with the hardware store, I was able to make my own schedule and come and go as I pleased, or my schedule allowed. I like that kind of work A LOT!
So here I am again at 54, chaining myself to a place where I will probably be 10 hours a day 4 ½ days a week. Will I LOVE it because it is mine? Will it not feel like work because I am living my dream?
As I go about my usual errands and chores, I am consciously aware that in a few weeks’ time, I will be handling things differently. Perhaps I will rely on Chewy.com to bring the voluminous amounts of pet products to the house. I will save those boxes to carpet the garden next spring.
I will have to alter my workouts to be quicker, the dogs will be hiked earlier and then I will be gone for most of the day.
We have talked about Mitch working from the restaurant either inside or outside so we can be near each other, and he can have faster, more reliable internet. I have installed fiber optic WIFI that is still not available at the farm 4 miles away. I really do like being near my man. When we both work from home, it is sweet.
We will have dinner at the restaurant then head home to love up the fur babies and settle down to our truncated “TV time”.
It is all going to be fine. I keep telling myself that!!!
Thoughts from my loved ones and readers???? #selfmadewoman, #restauranteur #renaissancewoman, #newrestaurant, #historictowns, #fearoffailure, #eatrealfood
Recent Comments