Letting my Geek Flag Fly

I did this with the un-purchased house in the Adirondacks too. A complete version of the house we're buying in Sims2 style. The first floor is even to scale. Had some problems with the second floor, because Sims won't let me do the half story that we have there. But the downstairs is taken from the appraiser's measurements, so I think it's pretty accurate. I'm using it as a guideline to tell Dan where I want the furniture to go, since I'll be working on Thursday. I'm a complete wacko!

ah, relief

Things are getting sorted out. We're closing on Wednesday and moving on Thursday. Not exactly the ideal schedule I'd worked out a month ago, but at least we'll get it done.

The problem now is that it's beastly hot, and the worst weather for packing. It's in the high eighties, and without any breeze or air conditioning. We've got all the books and movies packed, I'll think we'll tackle the bathrooms and upper shelves of the kitchen today. The kids are off at the grandparent's today playing with the sprinkler.

We've been debating going to Dan's grandmother's for a get together this weekend if we got things packed enough. But I think instead we'll just try to turn off our brains for a few days and try and get out on a date. I think the last movie we saw was Cars, and it's been even longer since the two of us went. Although the reviews for Pirates and Spiderman are so mediocre, I'm not sure what I want to see.

Delays, delays, delays

So, we thought we were going to be closing tomorrow, but it's still up in the air. Our mortgage broker gave me bad information when we were gathering paperwork for the bank two weeks ago, and then she neglected to follow-up with us or her office. So on Friday, we found out we were still missing Dan's Employer verification and on Monday we found out we needed a letter from my Dad to verify some gift money.

We've spent the last three days sending faxes, calling Vermont, and emailing everyone involved to try and get this resolved. At best, it's probably going to take four more business days to close. I wish we could take this problem in stride, but Dan's already arranged time off. And worse, the mover can only move us next Tuesday or Thursday, after that, he's booked for a month.

We might be able to salvage things if the current owner will let us move in on Tuesday no matter what. Hopefully, we'll get some positive news tomorrow.

Another plug for Freecycle

I knew I was a slight packrat, but this is ridiculous.

I bought this dress when I was a bridesmaid in my cousin Jeanne's wedding. I'm trying to remember how long ago that was. Her daughter Maddy must be seven or eight by now. I must have been living in Georgia at the time. Which means this dress, which I only wore once, has been packed up and moved with me at least
1.Alexandria
2.Arlington
3.Germantown Apt
4.Germantown Townhouse
5.Saranac Lake House
6.Hannawa Falls
SIX TIMES. Ridiculous. And, it doesn't even come close to fitting me anymore. But it was always too nice a dress to just toss in the Salvation Army bin.

So today, I posted it on Freecycle and hopefully someone will take it off my hands before it moves a seventh time. (And I may be underestimating that, it could have moved once in Georgia too.)

But do you know what's even worse than me being a slight packrat. Somewhere, in my Father's house, is a nightmare in Mauve lace that I wore to my Junior Prom. I doubt anyone from Freecycle would want that.

Tired

I'm letting the kids destroy the house today. Not that it was in terribly pristine condition before they started. We had a small box full of packing peanuts and they've been tearing those up and making it snow. Now Claire is removing all of the magic markers and crayons from the box I store them in. There are more dirty dishes in the house than clean ones, and I still haven't put away the clean laundry from Tuesday. Ugh.

I'm going to make an attempt to get Claire to take a nap in a few minutes. If I'm successful, I'll then pop in a movie for Nathan and see if he'll let me take a nap too. Then, I'm calling Janet and seeing if she can babysit for awhile tomorrow. It's been a long week.

Another day, another $8,000 in medicine pumped into me

I now have another reason to lose weight. The Rituximab that I took in December has worn off already. Patients average 6 months of relief with it, but my doctor suspects that overweight patients lose effectiveness sooner. The dosage is adjusted for cancer patients based on weight, so it makes sense that weight affects it's efficacy. So I'm upping the dosage on my weekly medicine to compensate, and we'll check on the Rituximab again in September. I had a treatment two weeks ago, and another today. As a bonus, I also got a foot massage and parafin dip from the physical therapist while I was there. Next time, I'm going for the full massage.

Meanwhile, I need to get inspired to exercise and change my eating habits again. But I need the medicine to take effect first, because I'm very stiff these days and have some pain in my ankles again. But summer is here, and we have a wonderful, rural road going past the new house with almost no traffic. Time to go for walks.

Also, I cried through most of Gilmore Girls tonight. It makes me glad that they decided to cancel the show, because that was the perfect episode to end on. I especially loved how Emily was trying to bribe her way into continuing the Friday night dinners and Lorelei completely caught on to her. Very sweet.

Claire's Birthday

Well, I'm still not equaling my Mom in cake decorating skills, but I try. It's gotten harder since my hands hurt if I have to squeeze the pastry bag for too long. But I lucked out this week and saw that the store had some spray on frosting color in blue. So I cut out a picture from Blue's Clues and did a stencil on Claire's cake.


Small party this year. I wanted to do something last week, but the time got away from me. And with Dan working so many hours right now (graduations at the colleges and Mother's day) I didn't want to do a big party. Just me and the Grandparents. And lots of new clothes for Claire.

See how they've grown in a year. Actually, Nathan looks exactly the same. But WOW Claire has a lot of hair now. And we've really let the lawn go. Better work on fertilizing at the new house.

I just have to make sure it can vibrate

I'm looking for a cell phone plan again. In the last 10 years we've had cell phones three different times, but we never really got into using them much. The first was a pre-paid plan that we bought on impulse after going off the road one day. Since we only got one phone, we couldn't call each other and never remembered to take it with us. Then we tried again in D.C. and canceled our landline. Still didn't use it much, and eventually decided it was too expensive. Dan got us on another plan when I was pregnant with Claire, but we couldn't get service at our house here, so we canceled that one too.

Since we're moving again, I've decided to cancel our traditional phone and get VOIP through Time-Warner. And get a cell phone as back-up. It'd also be a good thing to have if I get us lost in the woods again. But I'm feeling like an old lady who just doesn't get this new-fangled technology. I'm fairly certain we'll have to go with Verizon, because I think they're the only ones with full coverage here. Do I need V Cast? Bluetooth? 3G? What does it all mean!!!!!

I expect that the most I'll use this phone for is sending Dan a text at work that says MILK. (It's such a pain that he doesn't have a phone/voicemail there) And yet, I can't help wanting to fondle the cute little LG Mint Chocolate with Video Messaging and Navigator.

Another interview

The job interview today was a lot of fun, and interesting. It's an office of four people who coordinate early intervention services for children under the age of six with developmental delays. Autism, hearing and sight problems, speech therapy, etc. They work county-wide with children from birth to five years. My job would be making sure that the employees who provide therapy and services are reimbursed, and that the county is then properly reimbursed by the state. All while making tons of copies for back-up, but also being careful to never, ever, ever breach confidentiality laws. I'd even occasionally go to County and State meetings, it's like an actual career!

I don't want to think about how complicated this month will get if they offer me the job. The woman who's leaving has only a week and a half left. Knowing that I should give notice at my current job, they'd want me to work my normal days off for the next two weeks so I can train with her before she goes, and maybe work Sundays too. I agreed to this, completely forgetting that I have an all-day Medicine Infusion next Tuesday and that Dan is working the next two Sundays with Mom's day and college graduations. Plus, I'll need a day off when we close on the House. Don't ask me where that leaves time to pack. And getting the kids switched to full-time daycare and also moving them to a Potsdam daycare has to be accomplished soon too, although Janet will help bridge the gap for a few weeks.

Finally, will it throw a gigantic wrench in the Mortgage process? I sent back our signed commitment letter today, but there's still a clause that the bank can cancel if they feel we won't be able to meet our obligations. Since the mortgage is almost entirely based on Dan's income anyway, I'm hoping they won't bother doing an income verification for me at the last minute. I'm going back and forth on whether I should tell the mortgage broker, or if it's the kind of things that she needs plausible denialbility on.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

And did I mention that Monday is Claire's b-day.

I didn't want to see Clemens back in a Yankee uniform. Not just because it may hurt the Sox this season, but because I'm sick to death of him. When he retired a few years ago, we baseball fans were treated to a constant stream of "Last game at Fenway", "Last game against Boston", "Last game at Yankee Stadium" (all qualified with an "unless they make it to post-season") And then they made it to post-season, so the adulation started all over again. I wanted to show my respect for a player that was part of the first team I remembered watching as a child, but I must say I was thrilled when he got chased out of his last game against Boston in the fourth inning. Heh.

Ooops

I came very close to being monumentally stupid today. We were out geocaching, in the middle of the woods, when I found that I'd dropped my GPS somewhere. Let's pinpoint the ways in which I could have killed us all.

1. No one knew where we were. I need to leave a note for Dan before we go hiking so he'll know where we are if something goes wrong.

2. I drove down a road that was marked as "Closed Due to Flooding". My thinking was that as long as I went slow, I didn't have to worry about getting stuck. But I should have learned from the tragedy of the Kim family in Oregon. If you get lost, people won't look for you on roads that are supposed to be closed.

3. We headed out into the woods on something that wasn't really a trail, it just looked like one. I was trying to decide if something that looked like a clearing ahead of us was the actual trail when I realized that the GPS wasn't in my pocket anymore.

4. The only smart thing I'd done was mark the location of the car on the GPS before we headed into the woods. That way, if we got twisted around, we'd be able to find our way back. Realizing that I no longer had the GPS gave me a twinge of alarm at my previous stupid moves. We were not far from the car, but it was very much out of sight, and we'd followed a twisty route as we went over logs and around bushes.

I depend too much on the GPS to sort me out if I get lost. Obviously, that isn't smart. I also have to realize that I could get hurt somehow. I need to be smart and not go on some of these trails without either Dan or Janet with me. There are plenty of places that have regular hikers or ATV users, I need to stick to those and not go bushwacking into the woods.

This trail, which was where we should have been all along, was much safer. And where the kids found lots of rocks to throw.



Now for a laugh. The hike tired Claire out so well that she fell asleep in the middle of a diaper change. I was going to post a picture of her little bare butt sticking in the air, but I've decided to spare her that.

Baseball and Apple Pie

Neither Dan nor I have particularly green thumbs. My philosophy is that I want to plant things, ignore them, and hope they don't die. So I don't think we're ready for intensive gardening yet. But we really like flowering trees and fruit trees. I loved the two big apple trees in the back yard, and the crabapple, dogwood and forsythia in Meriden. And Dan's parents have a very nice sour cherry tree in the front yard.

I happened upon the National Arbor Day Foundation website today and they have a fantastic tree store, which is easily searched by growing zone and type of tree. Plus, every order today received two free forsythia. But that's not all. If I paid for an Arbor Day membership I also got a free Red Maple tree. Cool. So we're going to have all this in our new yard.

Red Jonathon, a late apple good for everything


Lodi, a earlier apple good for cooking. Mmmmm pies


This is a sour cherry. It's pretty, and it combats arthritis.


Pretty forsythia


Lovely red maple


Of course, for the first few years, they're just going to be sticks in the ground. If I don't kill them first. I think there is a forsythia in the yard now that hasn't been pruned properly. And several ancient Sugar Maples. I wish I'd taken a picture of them with the sap bucket this spring. There's a farmer up the road who taps all the trees in the area, boils the sap, and then returns some finished syrup to the tree owners. Yummy!

And just to have my title make sense, GO SOX!

They like me, they really like me

I'm experiencing something completely unprecedented in my 20 years of job-hunting, I'm being sought after. It's very strange.

Way, way back in the fall I took the County Civil Service exam for Senior Accountant. Back in January, they started sending me letters asking if I was interested in part-time work, but I declined. Now they have full-time positions available, and I got a high enough score that I'm being considered for three jobs right now. I've interviewed for two, both in the County administrative office. The third interview is for the school district.

The tricky thing is that of the first two interviews, I think the second job suits me better. Do I dare decline if the first job is offered to me? Also, the first two jobs aren't technically permanent, but the third one would be. And how much should the fact that I love this building and want to work here play into things. You should see the foyer, it was built during the Craftsman period and is floor to ceiling glazed green and yellow tile. Gorgeous. But the third job is closer to the new house and the school the kids will be going to.

Do I need to consult my mortgage broker before accepting a new job? I'd think that a full-time job with 30% more pay would automatically be a plus, but I'd hate to screw up the mortgage if I switched jobs between now and the 24th.

Wash that gray right outta my hair?

I've been thinking about my gray hair lately. Back when I was a stripling of twenty, before the the first white hair reared up, I thought I knew what I'd do. Dye it. Dye it until it reached the tipping point, then stop dying and do some form of frosted hair instead.
But now I'm unsure. I actually like my white hair, because it's coming in very silvery, and adds some interest to my hair. I also think that it's all my old copper highlights that are going first, so if I lose the silver, it will all be a dull brown.
However, I imagine that at some point soon I'll reach a tipping point. Like when you're growing out a short haircut. For a few weeks it seems an unmanageable mess, and you're sorely tempted to hack if off and forget about having long hair again. I imagine that's how I'll feel when I get to 30% gray, but once I start dying, there'd be no going back. I'll try to hold out a little longer and see how things go.

Luv, twue luv

Nathan is in Love. When I went to pick him up, he wanted to stay and "play chess" with Joelle. The game seemed to consist of them trading pieces back and forth across the board. I didn't feel like making a fuss to get him to leave, so I told him I wanted to go to McDonald's as incentive to get going. He and Joelle immediately seized upon the plan of meeting at McDonald's and eating together. Then, in the car, he told me
"I love girls. I love their hair, they're so pretty."

Luckily, Joelle's mom was very much into the idea of Micky D's too, and they arrived a few minutes after us, at which time Joelle enveloped Nathan in a big hug. The two of them sat as close as possible through dinner, talking constantly. She's five, an older woman, and according to her mom, Nathan's not her first. Heh. Now he's running around the house, picking out the toys he wants to give her for her Birthday. Had they had their way, she'd be here right now playing.

But once again, I think I blew it. I should have gotten their phone number. The Mom is a single Mom who moved here in September. She'd probably like having another Mom around who isn't busy spending nights and Saturdays with a husband. I just feel like things are going to be too crazy with the upcoming move to start a new friendship. However, if Nathan keeps talking about Joelle constantly, I may have to re-think that plan.

House Pictures

This was the first time I'd done a house inspection, so I was just about ready to back out after an hour of problems after problems after problems. But cooler heads have prevailed. I just have to keep repeating the price tag in my head to remind me not to have high expectations.

We may try to knock some more off the price because of some electrical issues. It's only wired for 100 amps, and some of the wiring in the circuit box is screwy and needs to be re-done. Plus, the part of the house that is relatively newer is all ungrounded outlets.

These are horrible pictures. Oh well.


Small country kitchen. So small, that there is not a dishwasher. Every time I bring that up, Dan points to me.

I like the little octagonal window in what will be Claire's room.

The neighbors to the right have pigs. We'll have to keep an eye on how the wind blows.

Bloody good soup

I don't talk about Dan as much as the kids, but I liked this story from the kitchen trenches that he told me last night.

He has a cook working for him, who has made progress in the past year, but was high on Dan's list of useless cooks when he first started at the restaurant. The big problem was that he insisted on making the special soup, often ignoring Dan's instructions and branching off to try something "creative". It rarely went well. Dan's talked to him in the past about it, and is encouraging his interest in pastry, but the soup issue reared it's head again last night.

Dan went in at lunchtime, and found that the soup of the day was Roasted Carrot and Apple. Ummmm. That really doesn't sound that great to me, but even if I did want to give it a try, it shouldn't be served on a spring day. Especially not the first day we'd had sun and sixty degree weather. Plus, he'd worked on it for over two hours. The customer response ranged from "I didn't not like it" to "Gawdawful".

Dan knew he couldn't serve it at Dinner too. But he was so busy with prep work, that it was after six before he could give another thought to soup. And glancing around the storeroom, there wasn't much available to use. Except for one thing. The bar had accidently gotten a case of Bloody Mary mix. Dan added some heavy cream, stirred in some goat cheese, and had a soup done in three minutes that the customers raved about all night.

I miss Fenway

Drat. I missed this yesterday because I was a stupid work instead of doing one of my all time favorite things, watching the Patriot's Day home game at Fenway. Even if you've seen a clip of this, you have to watch the whole 4 minutes with Jerry Remy, it's toooo funny.

Dude, you said POTsdam

My kids are gonna be stoners.



See, Potsdam has always been known for it's Sandstone quarries. At some point, they picked Sandstoners as the school's nickname, with a burley guy holding a pickax as the mascot. But no one ever says the Sandstoners.



Maybe we should have bought a house in Canton.

Inspection is scheduled for Sunday.(finally) I dropped off Nathan's application for Pre-K today. I also wanted to do other errands and get their blood drawn for the yearly lead poisoning test. That was NOT fun. Nathan fought through the blood test, but then settled down quickly. Claire did not settle down quickly, but instead screamed, pulled my hair, arched her back, stole my glasses, pinched the skin on my face and flung her arms around all the way back to the car. Then the fun really began as I tried to get her in her carseat. Dan is doing it next time.

Who are you?

Not identity theft. Experian just decided that since we had the same name and lived in Lewiston at the same time, that Amy E. McFarland and I must be the same person. Never mind that we had different Social Security Numbers and that I had had a dozen different addresses while she'd been quietly paying a mortgage in Lewiston.

So, I got that untangled. Although I might regret dropping her perfect payment history on the mortgage. That probably helped my score more than the delinquent medical bill hurt it. A lesson to you all to take advantage of your yearly free credit report.

The new mortgage application will be winging it's way to the broker tomorrow. It's a slightly higher rate than the program that takes forever to close. But given how little money we're paying, the change in percentage is only adding about $20 a month.

And, I have a job interview tomorrow. Waaaaaay back in October, I took a civil service exam for the county. I finally started getting "letters of interest" in January, but it was after I'd started at the tree company and they were only for part-time work. A few weeks ago I got one for full-time, working in the purchasing department while the county builds a new prison. I'd really, really like to have employer paid health insurance again, so wish me luck.

Maybe I should shred more often

Weird stuff with the mortgage that is freaking me out.

A. We wanted to use a state mortgage program that would cover closing costs (with the cost completely written off if we stayed in the home for 10 years) and had a very low interest rate. The woman at the bank had never done a mortgage with this program before. After we signed everything, she called Dan and told him that it would take 100 days to close. She must be WRONG. Yes, it could take an extra week, but there's no way that it's going to take three months. So I think we're going to have to cancel that application. And since we don't think this woman has a clue, we'll have to go to the Mortgage broker that the realtor recommended and start all over again.

B. After getting all the signed paperwork home, I decided it would be a good idea to read it. Lo and behold, there is craziness in our liablities. It's showing that we have a $6000 loan from a bank in Lewiston, Maine and owe $100 to a firm that Google told me was a collection agency in Portland, Maine. Eeeek! Identity theft! I couldn't wait to talk to the bank tomorrow, so I ran a free credit report. Two of the agencies don't show this at all. The third wanted me to verify my identity by doing a multiple choice about which banks I had loans at. Since I didn't check off the Maine bank, they are taking 24 hours to verify that I'm who I say I am before I can see the report. It's so odd that it's in Lewiston, where Bates is, and dates to 1993. Dan thought that it could be some old student loan, but how is it possible that it didn't turn up in previous years? And I never had a Maine bank account, everything was done through Connecticut. But it wouldn't be dated to 1993 if it was identity theft, would it. So weird.

I'm dreaming of a White Easter

We didn't have snow for Christmas, but look what it did for Easter. There's been snow in the air everyday for the last week, and now there's a winter storm warning in effect for Thursday. Dan was kind enough to tell me that he once had a blizzard for Mother's day.

On to the inspection

Hmph, should have posted sooner. Now Christy's stolen my thunder. We got our offer accepted on Saturday, so we'll be in our new house soon too. Although not until the end of May. Apparently, someone else had also put in an offer before us, and we should have been told that but weren't. But we must have hit the sweet spot with what we offered because it was almost immediately accepted. Dan was bummed, thinking that we could have gotten away with offering less. But now that we know someone else was lurking, it's good we didn't. It's still going to be a criminally low mortgage, something I'll have to keep in mind as I shell out money to redo the roof.

And in the "it's a small world" category, I was looking at our local Freecycle website and the current residents are chucking a lot of stuff, so I called and put in dibs on some of the decor that I liked. And that also gave me an opening to talk and get friendly with her, so that if we have questions later, it should be easy to give her a call to see why things in the house work the way they do.

If you have a local Freecycle, check into it. I'm planning to give away a lot of baby things before we move, and I always see things of interest being offered. Clean your house without going through the trouble of a tag sale!

More house stuff

Why am I buying a house in a place where it SNOWS in APRIL!!! At least it's not accumulating here, but the flakes have been flying around for two days now.

We put an offer on the house today. Contingent on inspection, well test and septic test of course. I'm really regretting not bringing a camera with me, because I'm finding that I don't remember the details, like whether or not there's a dishwasher. Or if there's carpeting in the bedrooms. Our house inspector is going to be on vacation all next week, so even if the offer is accepted, we probably won't get inside again until after the 15th. Which is probably good, because there are currently tenants in there, but they're buying a house and will be gone by then.

I'm not feeling like I'm "in love" with this house, but I think that's a good thing. I know that the type of house I would really love will cost three times more, and probably not come with a large yard. This house is a 5-15 year house, not a lifetime one. I've told Dan that when the kids are gone and my knees are gone, I want a Craftsman bungalow in the village. Whether there's another house in between this one and that one depends on how long we last with only one bathroom.

Can I just say I love technology. Anyway, here's another view of the house. Zooming in just turns everything into a green blur. But it should be pretty clear that when I say we'd be surrounded by farms, I wasn't exaggerating. To the right, you can see the St. Regis River. Just on the other side of that is a small, protected forest where I've gone walking a few times. Wonderfully fragrant scotch pines there.

Photo Album

It's been awhile since I posted pics of the kids. Enjoy.


Whenever we take a picture of Claire doing something cute, we have to take a picture of Nathan too. Even when he's being more obnoxious than cute.



Claire, really enjoying Papa's birthday cake.

These are pictures from Canton's Easter Egg hunt on the village green.

Nathan, doing a surprising good job at "bunny hopping".

Awwwwwwww

Going to the Dogs

No, we haven't gotten a dog, yet. But this picture of a dog at the local shelter is too adorable not to post. Riggs is about ten months old, Labrador/Border Collie Mix, and he's spent half his life at the shelter. They have a large outdoor yard that we visited on Saturday, but the dogs are still chained or caged and probably spend most of the winter outside. Poor guy.

The desire to get a dog is driving the desire to get a house soon. The house we saw on Saturday was really perfect for us. Although as I begin to list the problems, you're probably going to think we're crazy. But the price tag of $72,500 makes a lot of things forgivable.



It's an small 100 yr-old farmhouse on a very quiet road. Surrounded by a farm, with a few close neighbors. There are some ancient Maple trees in the yard that had full sap buckets hanging from them. It's almost one acre. The side yard is open and flat and perfect for practicing lacrosse or playing fetch with the dog. The downstairs is only three rooms, with wide plank floors and a fireplace in the living room. The kitchen is big and sunny. Upstairs is a bit cramped and "pokey". But there are three bedrooms, and the MBR is big enough for the King Bed, so that's all we care about. Although the fact that the bedroom doors were missing is something that needs to be fixed soon. Only one bathroom, oh well.

One big problem is that the back deck rotted away, so that needs to be replaced. And half of the roof was redone, so there must have been leaks, and may be more soon where the roof wasn't redone. We also don't know what the electric amparage might be. There are still homes in this area with 100 amp service, instead of the current standard of 200 amp, and I don't think our computer and microwave would like that.

We're going to take a look at a 1980's log cabin tomorrow. And another house that is in a higher price range. But we could very well put on offer on this one by the weekend.

Town and Country

I called a realtor on Tuesday and she immediately put the kibosh on the boss' house. Apparently the foundation is absolutely horrible. In the abstract, I still like the idea of buying an old house and "saving" it, but I know that my Bob Vila gene is not developed enough to do that now. I'll have to wait until I need a retirement project.

We're going to look at three places on Saturday. This is the only one I've seen the exterior of. Wonderful location on a fairly quiet road with only two neighbors in sight. We'll have to test the air a bit to see if we mind that one of them is a farm that sells pigs. Although my foodie husband sees that as a plus since he'd like to try raising a pig. And the pictures on the site disguise the fact the the rear of one of the barns is pitched at a 30 degree angle and about to collapse.


This is a good time to discuss our Village/Country debate in more detail. Until Dan was eight he lived about a mile from the above house and has very fond memories of he and his friends roaming the fields and woods like extras in a Lil Rascals movie. Then they moved into the village where they shared the street with two sororities and had to deal with drunken frat kids making a ruckus on their way home from the bars. And once vomiting in Dan's unlocked car. WHY!!!!! But seen from the Mom's perspective, being in the village means not having to drive the kids home from after-school practice and being able to walk to the store/library/playground. So in addition to the above house, we're going to look at this ranch that's only a few blocks from the school.

At least it's got a great kitchen

This is the house that currently has our attention. An old Victorian on a large lot in Colton, NY. Colton is a very small village up the road. A few churches, general store, tavern, not much else. Except for a fantastic walking trail along the river and a state park with swimming and boating up the road a bit.

The house is currently vacant, so my Dad and I poked around it this morning. The interior looks fantastic, with a great kitchen and hardwood floors downstairs. But there were lots of issues with drainage around the foundation. I'm glad we went on a rainy, muddy day so that it caught our attention clearly. There's quite a lot of wood rot at the ground level. Who knows how bad it could look from the basement. Also a few issues with the standing seam roof that we'll have to make sure isn't leaking. And the deal breaker would be if the old wiring is still in place. The barn and the front porch have old knob and tube wiring. If that's in the rest of the house, we shouldn't buy it.

And the final complication is that the house is owned by Dan's boss. Which could be weird. But it also means that we have some insight into his psyche. We could probably get a better price if we went to him directly and cut out the realtors, but I really want a buffer between us to do the negotiations. If we do the negotiations. Because buying the first house we look at would probably not be a good idea. Although it does fit our usual way of doing things.

Another view circa 1903....

What's Plan B?

So, the restaurant isn't going to happen. The discussion at the meeting basically came down to "We think that your idea won't sell here, and we won't lease to you unless you change the menu to something more casual. Or you can come up with $300,000 to buy the building and you can do whatever you want." Drat. We're actually feeling pretty good about decision to walk away. Here's how we rationalize "feeling good"....

1. We never meant to do this so soon. When we moved from D.C., our five-year plan was to get decent jobs, buy a house, build equity and savings, and then try for a restaurant when the kids were older and both in school. We're going to go back to that plan, although we're a year behind now after the fire and after all the futzing around we've been doing working on Palmetto for the last four months.

2. When we got caught up in doing this, we thought that Ryan would be able to bring in a significant amount of cash. That never materialized. And as we began to look at how much debt we'd have to take on, it seemed less likely that the profits could handle the extra interest expense. And personally, I was NEVER happy that Dan decided to bring in someone else. Yes, we needed front of house experience, but I want the restaurant to be "our" restaurant, and having a partner was always going to rub me the wrong way.

3. A lot of people were doubting that our menu and prices would work in Canton. In contrast, we don't think that the alternative ideas will work in that building. It could be good to see what someone else does there. I don't really want the next occupant to fail, because I'd like a decent place to eat in town. But maybe in a few years they'll want to sell, and the town could be ready for our plans then.

We'll keep our eyes open for other opportunities. If we start with something smaller, it will be much easier to get it off the ground. This was an ambitious plan, and could have quite easily swamped us. It was a good experience, we learned a lot, we'll know where to start next time blah, blah, blah. I'm just kicking myself for quitting all my online classes. Whoops.

Now that I'm not spending hours each week fiddling with Business plans, I'm looking for a new job instead. My part-time gig is boring, boring, boring, boring. And pays crap. Hopefully something better will come along.

Where the heart is

Have you all been waiting for news about the restaurant? Cause I don't really want to talk about that right now. I don't know what we're doing yet, and can't decide which path will lead to happiness.

So instead, I'm looking at houses to buy. Which is kind of fun and mostly frustrating. I remember being sooooooo overwhelmed in D.C. when there were thousands of listings in our commuting area and hundreds in our price range. How could we possibly narrow it down? I still don't quite know how we ended up in Germantown. Although it was a pretty easy step to go from our apartment there to the townhouse, which was essentially across the street.

Now we have to think about school systems and winter driving conditions. I'd like to be in either the Canton (Dan's hometown) or Potsdam (where Dan works) school system because I'm more familiar with those villages. They also have a higher concentration of parents who are professionals because of the colleges, and higher family incomes. But it probably doesn't make that much of a difference in the great scheme of things if only 1/4 of the class is poor as opposed to 1/2. Although I think we'll try to stay away from the Neo-Nazis in Parishville.

We also have many debates about whether we want a country home or a village home. I'm pro-village, I want to walk to get milk and have the kids be able to get to school with a minimum of hassle. Dan wants the country to he can have a meat-smoker in the backyard and walk the dog without having to pick up poop. Not that we have a dog, but that's apparently the next step. A sampling of choices.....

1.
2.
3.

Frak

We're not really smiling anymore. I don't think this guy would be a good fit for us, which in itself isn't too bad. But, he's also been talking to SLU on his own, and could end up being involved whether we like it or not. He's considering buying the building. I think he'd only do that if he then wanted to work with us to run it, but I don't think he likes our restaurant style. The local Lobster House came up in conversation a lot. And the scarier part is that he was indicating that his opinion on our menu and restaurant concept might also be shared by the people making the final call at SLU. It's entirely plausible that they'll hook him up with another interested party and we'll be out for good. If we can only get in by agreeing to be a Ruby Tuesdays clone, then we'd rather be out.

Dan looked pretty grim before going to work. I hope he doesn't drive himself crazy over the next day.

La la la everything's going great la la di-da

Okay, where were we? T-bone's steakhouse was trying to steal our restaurant and we had no money to counter them with. And meanwhile, complete silence from SLU even though we knew they were having a trustee's meeting and we expected to hear from them within a few days of that.

Developments since then......
1. Various family members have confidence in us to the tune of $50,000. Yeehaw!!!

2. SLU called and wants to meet with us Thursday. No more details on why or what may happen at that date.

3. A local man, who made a bundle working private security in Iraq, has returned home. His family owned a popular restaurant that had been closed for years, and was in fact just torn down. He's friends with the County Chamber of Commerce Pres, she's friends with Ryan. We're having lunch with him tomorrow to see if he wants to be involved somehow.

4. As a bonus, the bank manager did not laugh me out of his office when I approached him with our business plan and total lack of collateral. I'm sure that the $50,000 (plus?) will help grease the wheels there if I go back later this week.

Dan is smiling. I would be smiling, if I didn't have a persistent cough, runny nose, headache and ear infection. C'est la vie.

Boule de Jeu!!!

Joined another Fantasy Baseball league this year. Instead of joining Yahoo Public #985763 I found a league named FNBA, Food Network Baseball Association. Team names include
The Spam Kings
Waffle House Junkies
Duck Lorange
and Palmetto Po-Boys (guess who that is?)

And here is a sampling of recent messages.
"Je serai a Paris des vacances. I'll be back before the season starts, though. I'm looking forward to baseball!"
"Enjoy Paris! Mangez un bon nombre de bonne nourriture."

Boule de Jeu!!! Play Ball!

Crap

Things with the restaurant have been at a standstill this week. We were hoping to hear from SLU after last weekend's trustee meeting, but no word yet on if they will give us the lease. I called an insurance broker about some questions, and he let me know that there was an article in the paper about the building today. Some choice excerpts.

"There are two proposals that are being evaluated," said Kathryn L. Mullaney, SLU vice president for business and finance. "No decisions have been made."

Mrs. Mullaney wouldn't identify the potential tenants, but one is Thomas M. and Tracy Williams, the owners of Amigo's, a Tex/Mex restaurant in Massena's Harte Haven Plaza

"We have given St. Lawrence all the numbers and menus and are waiting for them," he said. "We've come up with a name, T-Bone Steakhouse and Sports Pub."

Should I laugh or cry? Looks like it's money vs. style, we'll see who wins.

Clean-up on Aisle 10

I'm not sure we should let this child anywhere near our restaurant. You're lucky I didn't have the camera when she had a forkful of spaghetti the size of her fist that she was trying to fit into her mouth.

This and That

We were very tempted to send Claire back last night. She started having a dry cough around 11 pm and it didn't let up until 4:30 am. It wasn't painful, she wasn't crying, but every few minutes it would come through the monitor and keep Dan and I from falling asleep. Multiple infusions of water and milk did nothing to stop it, and just led to a very wet bed this morning.

So, I played hooky today. I couldn't face work on that little sleep, and I wanted Claire to have a good nap at home instead of going to daycare. We still sent Nathan over, and I managed to get a lot done today for the restaurant.

1. www.palmettorestaurant.com is registered, and I'm already sending email from it. I was worried that once we filed LLC papers, some cyber-squatter would scoop it up, so I'm glad to get that out of the way. And I like amy@palmettorestaurant much better than myname1@twcny.rr.com which I can never even remember.

2. Sent out some emails to those of you who have generously suggested they could help. We'll see how Roxy does on a Logo, try to get some Joy Bristol painted pies on the wall, and we can already thank Christy for the handholding while getting the domain name.

3. Claire and I met with the Director of Economic Development for the town. Claire spent the whole time tearing everything out of my purse, but other than that it went well. She's going to help us apply for loans from a local Development Initiative. And, she's lived and worked there a long time, and knows a lot about what will work in the area. She loved the business plan, and will really advocate for us.

4. Spent some time fiddling with a POS system demo. The POS market leader charges about $15,000 to set-up and maintain a system, so I'm hoping that this less expensive option from Dell will meet with Dan and Ryan's approval.

Dan just came home, so I have to fill him in on the day's progress.

Palmetto

Back of the House

This is the room I fell in love with. The billiard room, used for mid-size parties. See the dark lines on the ceiling, those are circles strung on string that were used for keeping score. One wall has a cue rack with about a half dozen cues still on it.


Dan in his new home.

Aaaagh, Nooooooooooooooooooo, hideous.

Land of mis-matched furniture. Formerly a bowling alley in the basement. That's a scary place BTW, but with tons of storage and a wine cellar.

Front of the House

I need better photos. Ryan was using our camera and it wasn't on the right setting for indoor. Here's the grand entry, and we're off.........

This room is off the main hall. It WILL NOT stay this color. This room leads into the bar and we'll use it for casual dining and small meetings.

Where everybody knows your name. Twelve tap lines for beers. Hello, microbrews.

Aaaaaaaaaaagh, Noooooooooooooooo, Why are those murals there?!?!?!? Otherwise, we like the paint color well enough.

Finally, the main dining room. From this angle, it looks kind of small. It's not. It's HUGE. I don't know why it is full of the crappy tables and chairs when there are hundreds of the leather chairs floating around.

Still fussing about the name

We're still going back and forth about the name. Claire's got tarnished a bit because Ryan tends to think of ladies names being more closely related to diners and family style restaurants. There's a Caroline's diner in Potsdam, and a place called Phoebe's (Steaks and Italian) in Canton. We want to stand out from those

Although I'm glad we kept the name Claire's on the Business plan, because the guy running the meeting has a grand-daughter named Claire Grace, so that started things off well. This is at least the second Claire Grace I've heard of, and that was nearly the middle name we chose as well, since Grace is Dan's Grandmother's name. I really hope that Claire isn't a fad name the way Amy was in the early 70's.

Dan likes Benne right now, which is a type of bean used in southern coastal cooking. But I think that people will think it's meant to be the Italian and that we don't know how to spell. I was thinking of something with three or trio in it, since there are three of us running the restaurant. Tupelo came to me during the night a few days ago, I've had "Tupelo Honey" in my head ever since. The former owners have a Beatles fixation, and named it Glass Onion, with a music shop they own in the next town called Stawberry Fields. Maybe we should do a Van Morrison theme and open a bar named "Moondance" and a "Brown Eyed Girl" coffee shop.

I'm trying to pull myself away from the computer and do something non-restaurant related for awhile. I've spent hours and hours over the last two days bookmarking sites on POS systems, furniture, banks, uniforms and on and on and on. Must stop before brain explodes.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

I think I've come down finally. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. We're (almost definitely) going to get the restaurant. I think if we'd gone in last year it would be a shoe-in, but they're feeling burned after renting to a guy who was only in business for 10 days before skipping town with bad checks and arrest warrants in his wake. It's people like that who make it hard for real restaurateurs to get funding. Anyway.....

The rent is going to be on very easy terms, and we basically get to keep (or not keep) every bit of furniture, plateware and cooking equipment that is already there. Huuuuuuge savings for our start-up costs if we don't have to replace things. I'll have to take the camera next time, but I'll walk you through.

To the right of the main door are two small dining areas that will be our lounge. They're separated from the bar by pocket sliding doors and one of them has a fireplace. Lots of windows everywhere, wood floors, gorgeous tin ceilings. The bar is a beautiful long mahogany piece with an honest to god copper top. Never seen such a thing before. Most of the tables are heavy with dark wood, the chairs have black leather cushions, with brass tacks.

To the left is a large dining room that has been used for functions. Occupancy Max is 300. Right now there is a raised stage that's carpeted, I'd like to pull that up, but I may change my mind. More gigantic windows, 6 feet maybe? This will usually be the main dining room, but can be used for functions with the restaurant shifted to the lounge for the night.

The kitchen is not too big, but Dan says it's enough. And there's a gigantic server station that could be used as a prep area too. Okay, that's the ground floor.

The tour continues upstairs with the billiard room. I swear, I just about fainted when I saw it. Floor to ceiling wood paneling, wood floors, tin ceiling and a little area in the back that will have a wet bar (currently MIA). There are another three rooms in various stages of repair. One will be an office for me and Ryan(have I told you about Ryan yet?) I'm not sure about the other two, one may be set up as a sitting room for people who want a break from events in the billiard room.
There's a third floor too, and attic, which are not fit for public consumption.

The basement has the remains of a 4 lane bowling alley, which is now just a land of broken furniture and banquet tables. One of the previous owners wanted to set up a second kitchen for baking down there, and that may be do-able sometime.

Bathrooms are an issue though. I, like DG, am a stickler for a well-maintained restaurant bathroom. The main floor has a women's room and a co-ed/handicapped room. But wherefore is the men's room? Our tourguide said it was the one in the basement, but we'd prefer that for employees only. It's also hell and gone from people at the bar. There's one on the second floor, but it's outfitted as a residential bath, with a shower, clawfoot tub and bidet. Let me repeat that, a bidet. WTF?

We have to do a bit of painting. They have some gawd-awful fake windows looking onto a seascape in the bar. Blech. And there are bits of chili peppers here and there. But other than that, we can really open very quickly. I think we'll push to be open in time for May graduations, then take care of other issues (like the bathrooms) in the summer when it's slower. And try to get the catering business ramped up in time to do Christmas parties.

Brain exploding. Bye-Bye

Boring

I'm here, just have nothing to write about these days. More on Friday after our meeting with SLU about the restaurant.