Every day is somewhat of a struggle - its hard to be your own cheering section. But here are the high notes of the weekend:
Cottages were sold out so that was good
Business in the restaurant was slow so that was bad
A woman accused me of being unwelcoming when she checked out even though we accomodated her when she didn't have a reservation and we were nice - its not a B&B after all so that was bad
Guests in the restaurant from a local town told us we are their new favorite restaurant (because the one they were driving towards was closed and they decided to try us) so that was good.

I am a type a personality, that's for sure so this is so difficult for me. I am quite used to being the acknowledged best at anything I try to do or at least my efforts are rewarded. But its hard for me to find the reward inside myself right now - maybe that's the lesson, who knows. More later.

Why am I doing this?

My husband Jim has been asking me "Are you writing this down?" and so now, I have finally decided to - I wanted it to be beyond the stream of conciousness so a blog is the perfect thing - a kind of performance art on the internet. What is "This"?

Ten months ago, after owning and operating a successful bed and breakfast in southern california - http://www.goldmountainmanor.com/
- my husband Jim and I (I'm Trish) bought a somewhat delapidated cottage colony, restaurant and mini golf in the picturesque small town of Brandon, Vermont (http://www.brandon.org/) , pop around 3000. Why you may ask - believe me, alot more than 50% of the time we ask ourselves the same question. In late 2003, the catastrophic forest fires in California came within about 10 miles of our place and we were evacuated for a week. It made us contemplate losing all we had built up and also, my mom was sick and was here in the East so it seemed meant to be. 9 months later we were on our way east again.

We had no idea what we had done to ourselves. Every day, we discover a new reason to lose faith and every day we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start again.

How was I to know that when I wrote in our wedding vow - "I will start each day with a new sense of joy and understanding" what I was actually talking about.

To say that we bought a place that was run down is one thing - but as we discovered later - we bought it from a liar and that liar had virtually destroyed the business. To say we blame ourselves is easy - we did not do the due diligence that we should. We believed that he was dealing honestly with us. Its definitely a hard lesson to learn.

Now, ten months later, we are proud of what we have done ; http://www.maplegrovecottages.com/ . The challenge is getting people back through the door and Vermonters are definitely a difficult sell. Perhaps we should have followed their example - it takes them a while to trust you, but when they do, they will do anything they can for you.

So here is our story in bits and pieces. I hope to add to it frequently, as well as our favorite things to do - hikes, outings, shopping and I will do my very best not to whine.