Regarding my love for Technology

Please, dear readers, forgive me for my unexcused absence. It's been a whirlwind of craziness here at the Inn. Summer preparation is in full swing and BOY is there a lot to do! In addition to all the usual summer prep, miscellaneous this-and-thats [broken lamps, clogged showerheads, order placements and pick-ups, new bed deliveries and set-ups, power outages, and the pool situation, just to name a few] keep coming up here and there that need to be attended to. So unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of time for blogging in between all the chaos!

But I haven't forgot about you, I promise. In fact, for the last week or so, I've been working on a neat little slideshow about the aforementioned pool. As we've been repairing and painting it, we've also been setting out the pool furniture and putting in an entirely brand new fence. In short, we're getting it prepped for the big opening this weekend. Each day there's a bit more paint, a few more chairs, and a couple feet more fence. It's fun to watch the transformation. The pool is still on schedule to open this weekend (knock on wood!), so as of this morning I was almost done with my photo set and it was going to be a great post.

Also on the camera with the pool pictures were photos of the aforementioned dining guide, and photos of my birthday and the day that Dan and I spent with friends and family who visited us from NY. I wanted to upload the pictures of the dining guide so that I could [finally] blog about it, so I put the memory card in my computer and get ready to start the post. Then I realized that I had only taken pictures of the construction of the book and not the final product. So I took the memory card out of my computer (being very certain to use the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature), and put it back in my camera. I went out to the Guest Pantry, took a few pictures of the Dining Guide and a few more of the pool, and went back to my computer.

When I put the memory card in, however, all of the photos had somehow been corrupted. Everything was lost. The pool photos, the making-of-the-dining-guide photos, all of the pictures from my birthday, everything. It was all gone. Ugh.

I'll still do a post about both the pool and the dining guide, but unfortunately they won't be as complete.

Isn't Technology just grand?

With Love,
~Brande N.

This is Why I Make the Pancakes

I am not athletic. Or coordinated. I never have been. In fact, when I was 10 years old, my two-year old little brother could whoop my butt at Super Mario. That's how bad my hand-eye coordination is.

While many of my high-school friends were twirling and tossing banners in Winterguard, teaching the cast of the musical how to tap dance, or playing marimba in state-level band competitions I was reading Shakespeare, doing research papers, and performing in non-musical plays.

(Notice how these are activities that have minimal risk of tripping.)

In the grand scheme of things, I'm perfectly happy so long as I'm coordinated enough to pick up a book, turn a page and type a sentence. I might not be able to kick a soccer ball [without falling] but I can speak in Elizabethan dialect. And for me, that's far more fun that scoring a goal (yup, I'm weird).

On that note: When Dan and I started here it was sort of an accepted fact that I was going to be the cook. After all, I've always been the one to cook during our marriage and I've whipped up some pretty mean recipes, so it only makes sense, right?

It did, until I found out that this is how we make omelets:



If I had done that, the omelet would have landed about two-and-a-half feet to the left of the pan instead of inside it.

That's why he's the egg guy and I'm the pancake girl. We're a great team.

With Love,
~Brande N.

I Feel Your Pain, Little Guy...

This is the mug Dan got me for Christmas. When I gave him my Chiristmas list, my demands were as follows:
-Must be handmade
-Prefferably from Etsy
-Must be unique or quirky in some way
-Must be able to hold at least 14oz of liquid
-Must have a lid

All things considered, Dan got me a pretty a awesome mug. But I do need a lid. You see, one of the very first things I learned about being an innkeeper is that you should never expect to have a hot meal or drink between 1pm and 7pm. At least not if you're me. I have the absolute worst luck. I'll make soup and a sandwich or pour a cup of coffee or even just microwave a burrito and invariably, the second I sit down to eat, I'll get a check-in, a walk-in, a complicated 20 minute phone call, or some other crisis. Cold coffee and a a soggy, room-temperature grilled cheese do not a good meal make. Bleh.

So I set out to find a lid. I contacted the potter that made my mug, and she said that it would cost $10 plus shipping to make it and she couldn't guarantee it would fit. Bleh. I contacted another potter to see if he had a better price. Nope. He blatantly refused to do it, stating that it was too difficult.

So I decided to look for a universal lid. Something that I could just throw over my mug to give the coffee another 10 or 15 minutes of life, even if it didn't fit perfectly or match the mug.

And I found it! This fantastic, affordable, quirky website had a silicone (which I believe is a biodegradable material, but am currently researching) lid that was made to fit all mug sizes, was air tight, and was only $4! Yay! After finding that, I decided I might as well grab something else to offset the $6 shipping. I found this great little travel size metal spoon/fork/chopstick set. What a great way to avoid plastic utensils when dining on the road! And it was only $6! What a deal!

I submitted the transaction and waited for my beautiful, ecological, awesome, earth-friendly goodies to come. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Two and a half weeks later, I started to worry that I had been scammed. So I went to the website and hit the FAQ.

Ugh. Turns out that my wonderfully inexpensive, quirky online store was in Hong Kong. And my "beautiful, ecological, awesome, earth-friendly goodies" were being flown to the United States via air mail. I may as well have just poked a hole in the ozone layer myself! Ahh!

A week later, my package arrived:
And of course, it was in a plastic bubble envelope and not a cardboard box. *Sigh*

But there was good news! First of all, the utensil set was/is amazing and has already gotten used several times. And the lid? Fits like a glove. Totally air-tight and keeps my coffee toasty. Best of all, it perfectly reflects the way I felt about this whole messy transaction:
(Yes, that's right, there is a tiny, angry little man on my lid. He's actually the handle. Awesome.)

With Love,
~Brande N.

Snow, Finally!

I'll admit it, I was a little bit happy when it started snowing on Sunday. All this week, as Dan and I were decorating the tree and hanging wreaths and putting little candles in the windows, I couldn't help but wish that there was some snow on the ground. Everything just feels so much more Christmasy when it's covered in that blanket of white, you know? Christmastime at night is the best. I love seeing all of the lights reflect on the snow and cast pretty multicolored shadows.

So when I started seeing those flakes float down, my first reaction was (of course) to grab my camera and see what it can do!

This was the first picture I took, nothing too special, just a view of our driveway and the snow as it was starting to coat things.



If you click the picture you can see a few of the snowflakes up close. So pretty!



You can see the little snowflakes even better in this one.



The last remnant of summer's greenery falls prey to winter's cold.




This is probably my favorite. It's a view looking down the branch of a little ornamental tree in our garden. You can see some of the little snowflakes in this one too, and I love the touch of green.



And while the above photo is my favorite, this lovely little set shows my least favorites. The photography lesson I learned that day was:

It doesn't matter how hard you try, what setting you put the camera on, or where you focus; it is darn near impossible to take a picture of a single snowflake on your coat sleeve without it melting first.

...not to mention the fact that I must have looked really silly standing on our porch taking about a thousand pictures of my sleeve. Who would have known that I was taking pictures of snowflakes? But the good news is it's only December 10th. There's plenty of wintertime left to get more pictures.

With Love,
~Brande N.