Getting closer

Finally heard back from the college about our restaurant proposal today. They left a message that they want to set up a meeting. We heard through the grapevine two weeks ago that they liked us. The delay may be due to the fact that they're worried about our finances and were contacting an alumni who may be interested in investing (at least that's what the grapevine says).

Meanwhile, one of Dan's co-workers is planning to partner up with us and take care of the front of house duties and marketing. His mother is the person we originally hoped to get an investment from. Now we've found that her current boyfriend is also a major local philanthropist, the kind of guy who gets campus buildings named after him. Hmmmmmm.

So, next couple of steps:

1. Wow the committee with our experience.
2. Actually see the inside of the building and find out what needs to be re-done and purchased to get to opening day.
3. Call around for estimates on everything from insurance to computer systems.
4. Finalize the business plan and financials.
5. Meet with all the various people who are chomping at the bit to give us money.

At this rate, we should open sometime in 2010.

Colder than a witches tit

A COLD AIR MASS WILL CONTINUE TO SETTLE INTO THE NORTHEAST UNITED
STATES TODAY AND ESPECIALLY TONIGHT. TEMPERATURES WILL FALL BELOW
ZERO TONIGHT AND WITH WIND SPEEDS IN THE 10 TO 20 MPH RANGE...
EXPECT WIND CHILL VALUES TO FALL INTO THE -20 TO -35 RANGE.

NOAA

This is the great thing about working part-time. It's going to be -15 in the morning, and I don't have to go out into it. Yay.

Nathan's Birthday

We had Nathan's birthday party on Sunday. Even as a low key event, it was still fairly exhausting getting everything planned. We had the grandparents, Ray & Kyle, and a local family with two kids come. Pictures!

Making the cake.




Unwrapping presents, with Mimi and Sunny's help.



Lunch time! I was trying to do a space theme, so they had little mini pizzas with provolone cheese cut into shapes of stars and rocketships. With Tang.


Finally, the cake. I don't think an outside observer would know it's the moon, but once you've been told it is the moon, the resemblence comes through. The candles were rocketships and alien spaceship. The craters are necco candies.



And one of the presents.


Whew, how many months until I have to do this for Claire again?

Day two

I wore the butterfly butt jeans today. Yay!

Co-workers are only meh so far. They are accountants after all, and also stressed with year-end paperwork and being understaffed. My boss basically sat me down with a ton of filing and copying my first two days. Not too exciting, but better than having to deal with the old stresses of getting payroll out. My job tasks are still in limbo, but it will probably focus on various expense reports and mileage reports from the field crews.

The best part is that it's 15 minutes from door to door. No more hour long treks turned into three hour long nightmares if there's a bomb threat, car accident, derailment, hazmat spill, power outage, snowstorm, etc. My one complaint so far is my boss's social skills. Shouldn't a boss take at least a minute or two to introduce a new employee to the co-workers and do a quick tour of the bathrooms and break area? I'm not holding my breath for more complicated explanations of where to save things on the network drive. (This may just be a symptom of the above year-end/understaffed problems) If I'd been hired for the job without office experience, I'd be feeling lost and neglected already. Luckily, I'm a "self-starter" and able to "prioritize and multi-task". At least that's what my resume says.

The kids are supposed to be in daycare two days a week and with Dan the third, but they were sick today. We're thrilled that one hour at daycare last Wednesday was enough to give them both nasty, rattling throat colds. Janet watched them for half the day today and last Thursday while we were at work. She's talked about doing it on a more full-time basis, but we want the kids out of the house and socializing more. And I think tying her into even one day of daycare is too hard with George's various health problems. We're just happy to have an option when someone is sick. Our last babysitter was pretty easygoing about things, but Nathan's first daycare would kick him out frequently over diseases that he'd most likely picked up there. It was a ton of fun the morning I brought him into work for a few hours and had to carry him around in the sling while I made copies.

Off to the kid's doctor tomorrow, what a treat for Nathan's birthday! Then to my doctor on Wednesday.

Gainfully employed

I have to go to work tomorrow. Yikes! It's been over 20 months since I worked. Hyatt employed 350 people, with 14 people in my accounting office and another 50 or so that I was on a first name basis with. This company does employ about 150 people, but they're spread over 3 states. I don't think more than a dozen actually work at the headquarters. Quite a change. I'm just going to work 3 days a week, for abysmally low pay. More details when I actually know more.

The big news is that I can wear jeans tomorrow. (I won't, but I can.) This is an astonishing change from my prior dress codes.

Hyatt-Women could only wear pants if they were part of a suit (same fabric and color), no off-beat hair colors, no open-toed shoes

Sea Island - even more conservative, skirts and dresses only, uniformed employees weren't allowed to wear colored nail polish (so guests could see that hands were clean)

Best Western - boring hotel uniform

Trapp Family Lodge - itchy wool skirt and vest. Luckily I wasn't there for the summer, when they wore flowered dresses that were supposed to evoke the feeling that Maria Von Trapp had torn down some curtains and made them herself. Not Kidding.

Old Sturbridge Village - Nothing will ever top this. Cotton Cap, Bonnet, Dress, Petticoat, neckerchief, shawl, apron and handmade leather shoes.


I'll probably still wear skirts to work, because that's what I own. I only have two pairs of jeans, and one has silly butterflys on the butt.

Slipping and Sliding in the Snow

Had fun in the snow yesterday. Until it started freezing rain. Winter is definately here. Tonight's temp is going to be in the negatives, and the high tomorrow is only 8 degrees. Brrrrrr.

Denver still has us beat

 

Someone is a wee bit excited that we finally have significant snow today. Dan switched his day off so he could stay home today, and the two of them are outside now. Probably the first outing of several today. I just wish I'd gotten snowpants for Nathan already. Putting my trust in layers, and regular doses of hot chocolate.

Imelda Marcus I'm not

Finally had to retire my Croc's for the winter. Not really a good idea to have holey shoes when there's snow. It's been ages since I had lace up shoes for everyday, I've always like clogs instead. But I bought these primarily so I could try out one of the dozens of shoelace tying styles that I found on this Ian's Shoelace site a few months ago. Whaddya think?

Timber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally got another job interview lined up, the first since mid-october and only the third I've had. I'm trying to do some research on the company, but they don't seem to have a website. Not uncommon around here, Dan's restaurant doesn't have one either. It's a tree service company. My first thought was that it would be pretty small landscaping company, but I've managed to find some references to them having huge utility company contracts. One newspaper article from last year said they got a $27 million dollar contract that would allow them to add 40 new jobs. Hopefully, I'm one of them.

Also got a call from a staffing firm that saw my resume online. They have a postion available too, although I'm thinking it could be the same job. Doesn't hurt to get on their list too. The other staffing firm I'm signed up with certainly hasn't been much help yet.

Bedtime

 

Both the kids have been sick and snotty this week. Me too, for that matter. Too little sleep and too much travel last weekend. Hopefully, we'll get some rest with Dan home tommorrow.

Must find job

I've gotten sidetracked lately, and need to get back to some real work. I was very gung-ho about looking for work back in September, but after waiting by the phone and only going on two interviews I found the job search to be an irritant instead of interesting. Then I started classes in November, and that got my brain working again, but I've fallen behind now. Partly because of the weirdness of the Nov-March term and partly from my classes each having a different idea of when X-mas break starts and ends. And then getting into the restaurant plan in December sucked up a lot of time that should have been spent on my necessary goals.

So, back to work. I applied for three jobs today. There's a fourth job that seems to be posted in three different places where the candidate "must" have quickbooks. I've been ignoring it for weeks, but maybe I should apply anyway. They seem to be getting desperate, and I have done the quickbooks tutorial on the website. That's good enough, right?

Just so you'll see what I'm up against, these are the jobs in the weekly newspaper, and typing in my zip of 13647 will show you what else is around on this site. Not very encouraging.

The boob tube

Roxanne and I had a "You watch Battlestar Galactica too?!?" moment at her party. Which led to a quick discussion of other shows we watch, like Top Chef and Project Runway. I'm always looking for good T.V. This is what I watch now, should anything else be on my Tivo season pass? Why?

Ugly Betty
Gilmore Girls
Veronica Mars
Cold Case
CSI (only the original)
The Office
Bones
House
The Amazing Race
Rescue Me
24 (more for Dan, I got worn out after the second season)
Lost

Dan's accolades

Dan got a mention in a newspaper's Top Ten list this year. The Watertown Daily Times covers all of Northwestern New York, not just our local area, a population of at least 250,000. I don't even know seven of the other restaurants because they're in areas that are 2-3 hours from here. The whole article is here. The number one restaurant is near us as well, and we had a great Dan's B-day/Anniversary dinner there last week.

The misspelling of the restaurant name is intentional.

mMaxfields in downtown Potsdam has been a destination for eclectic American cuisine for a quarter century.

mMaxfields is a large, open room with high ceilings. A 100-year-old antique bar occupies about a third of the room. The rest is devoted to dining space; attractive tables are highlighted against the original interior brick wall.

Executive Chef Mike Hayes has been overseeing the food operation for several years. Chef Dan McFarland, a veteran of the upscale kitchen at Lake Placid Lodge, recently joined mMaxfields' cooking crew.

At mMaxfields earlier this year, we enjoyed crab cakes in a sherry cream sauce, hand-rolled spring rolls, potato-crusted salmon and lobster and crab ravioli in a rich cream sauce.

Recently, Dan has totally revised the menu and perhaps taken the food to a new level. I had a stunning and savory veal osso buco with a wild mushroom potato "bone" in a perfect sauce. The potato "bone" took the place of the veal shank bone — mashed potato formed to resemble a bone was stuffed with sautéed wild mushrooms. A spectacular dish.

Their large Greek-style house salad is always a hit, a generous portion of fresh greens, julienned carrots, sliced red onion and cucumber in a balsamic garlic vinaigrette with crumbled blue cheese.

Road Queen

Over the river and through the woods, and around the mountain range, and across the lake, and over the mountain, and over the mountain to Papa's house we go. (And next time, we need to remember the camera)

Had a good trip east this weekend. Went to Dad's house on Friday, and got to spend time with him and "Cousin Kyle". I think Nathan thinks that cousin is his first name, because we can't seem to break him of always saying "Cousin Kyle". The two of them played some old-style video games on the Nintendo system we got back in the 80's.

We were supposed to see Ray and Kathy for breakfast on Saturday, but we woke up to the unexpected sight of snow, and they turned back after having trouble driving. This gave me pause, because the trip to Roxanne's would be two hours, and doing it in the snow would not be fun. But we checked the weather reports, and figured the snow would lessen as I went east, so it'd be okay.

Signs I should have turned back.
1. Fishtailing as I went down Dad's road.
2. Seeing our first accident before we'd gone ten miles.
3. Driving less than 40 mph on I-89, with one lane closed by snow.

But, I'd gotten this far, I didn't like to turn back. Although it tried my resolve when we got stuck for 30 minutes just outside Concord because of an accident. Turning back then would mean going back through all the snow, so it seemed better to push on for the last hour and wait out the snow at Roxanne's.

We got there an hour late to find the party.... hadn't started yet. Mark and Rosemary don't have the grit of us North Country folk, and had turned around after getting as far as Lowell. Some friends of Roxanne's came a little while later with their three kids, so the madhouse began. Many conversations were started among the adults, few were finished. Lot's of yummy food was spilled. Roxanne's house was admired by all, especially Alina's newly decorated room and the spacious master bedroom addition. Ellen and David made their way over from "the apple of their eye" that they are in the process of tearing to shreds. Once the water view is moved from the bathroom to the kitchen, things will be perfect.

We considered staying the night, but that would have made Sunday's drive even longer. At least the weather was fine yesterday, and both the kids slept a little in the car. The scenery was fantastic, with the pine trees holding onto the snow as if they had been frosted with sugar. We had lunch here, isn't it charming?