Bayfront Marin's Pirate Rum Cake

Ahoy, ye maties!!!

St. Augustine's new pirate museum opened this week, and the hub and I were two of the first people in line. Look for a blog with more information in the next few days.

While you're waiting for that, I'm going to share something else that many of you have been waiting for.

It's the recipe for Heloisa's Utterly Amazing Rum Cake.

Renamed the Pirate Rum Cake (this week only) in honor of our city's newest attraction.

Now, if you're going to make this cake, I should warn you: there is enough rum in a slice of this cake to fell a mighty pirate. If you're a mighty pirate, or even an empowered wench--you should eat it at your own risk.

And the risk of the wimpy landlubbers around you.

Heloisa's Utterly Amazing Rum Cake

Cake:
1 butter recipe golden cake mix
1/3 cup of sugar
1 8ounce container of sour cream
1/4 cup of white rum
1/2 cup of cooking oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs (added to the batter one at a time)

Mix all ingredients, adding the eggs one at a time to incorporate.

Pour mixture into a very well greased bundt cake. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 350 F.

Glaze:
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of rum

Boil butter and sugar for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add 1/4 cup of rum.

When the cake is baked, let it cool for 15 minutes. Remove the cake from the bundt pan, and add half of the rum glaze into the pan. Put the cake back into the bundt, and pour the other half of the rum glaze over it. Set aside for 1/2 hour.

Remove cake from bundt pan onto serving plate.

Serve with good friends and lots of laughs.

Drop Dead Bread

My grandmother has been known to skip an entree entirely and just have bread for dinner.

When faced with a big bowl of glop, something that even the starving children in India might pass on, she has been known to say "A good roll could save this meal."

The rolls at The Tasting Room to Go, an offshoot of the wildly popular Tasting Room , could save more than just a meal. They could save humanity.

I'm sure you're anxious now to just run out and get one of these game-changing yeasty treasures. Not so fast, junior. It's not so easy to find. The Tasting Room to Go is at 39.5 Cordova Street, down a little path, behind the Floridian restaurant.

It's not a sit-down restaurant, although there are a handful of tables and umbrellas in the cute courtyard in front of the building. Inside, it's just a long deli counter. You order at the counter, pay for your meal, then go out in the courtyard and someone will bring the food when it's ready.

The hub and I went yesterday for lunch...and then we went back for take-out lunch today. Yesterday, he got the muffaletta, a salty olive-y mixture on one of the most heavenly pieces of big round bread you can imagine. I got the quiche of the day, a light concoction with a phyllo crust. Both were awesome.

Today, we both opted for cuban sandwiches and a long loaf of Italian, for dinner tonight. We also tried the lentil salad, which was even better than it looked, with crunchy pieces of onion and yellow pepper, and some soft feta cheese on the top. I'm not sure it's the traditional accompaniment to a cuban sandwich, but it was wonderful in its own right. (Note: you can tell that Mike was ordering--he of the "I picked up some brussel sprouts to go with the pasta tonight" fame. One time, when we were in St. Barth, he ordered some horrible combination of food and the waiter literally said "But no, sir. I can not leet you do zat." And then he proceeded to order something completely different for the hub).

But back to The Tasting Room to Go. My only complaint is that the counter closes at 4:00. And I'm just starting to think about dinner around 7. That would be a nice time to run over and grab some fresh bread (hint, hint, owners).

But, until they decide to have longer hours, I'll just have to write myself a note. And set an alarm for 3:00 in the afternoon.

No Thai Required

A couple of weeks ago, the hub mentioned to me that if he had only ever eaten Thai food in Florida, he would not like Thai food.

We've had some pretty bad Thai-ms since we've moved here. Which is a big darn shame because the hub and I love a good drunken noodle, a spicy dish of Pad Prik King.

So imagine our excitement when we saw a sign go up on Route One a couple of weeks ago: THAI HANA 2: COMING SOON. The restaurant is about 5 minutes from our house...in a real Thai emergency, we could walk there.

The restaurant opened last Friday night, and we were right there. Along with about 100 other people. The very nice hostess said that she could seat us, but it would be at least an hour before we could eat.

We left with mixed emotions..disappointment, of course, because I cannot eat dinner after 9:00 at night, and it was already after eight. But also pent-up excitement. The huge crowd of people surely were there because they were familiar with Thai Hana 1, we said in the car. It must be excellent, we enthused.

We went back last night. The parking lot was substantially less crowded. But it was a weeknight, so we didn't take that as a bad sign.

We were psyched.

The restaurant was welcoming, lined with booths and a nice mix of dark wood and a light space. The only odd part was the "theater" seats at the front of the restaurant. I understand that some folks like to watch the sushi artists make the rolls, but these seats and tables are about 15 feet away from the kitchen. So all they were really looking at was us. And worse...we were looking at them. I wouldn't want to sit there.

Before I get to the food, I have to mention the staff at the restaurant. As we were ushered to our booth, no less than four people welcomed us and thanked us for coming. The hub and I looked at each other--if the food was half as good as the staff, we were going to be Very Happy in a couple of minutes.

We started with a bowl of Tom Yum and one of Tom Ka. These soups are kind of the canary in a coal mine for us...if they're not good, the meal will not be good either. If they're excellent, the canary starts to sing.

My Tom Ka was good, but the Tom Yum was not completely yum. It was, in fact, a little bland. It didn't taste like lemon or tomato, or anything else really. It tasted like broth.

But not so bad that the canary was dead. He was just coughing a little.

We headed further down into the mine shaft.

We ordered two dishes: the first, Hot Basil with chicken. It sure sounded like Pad Prik King to us, although our waitress wasn't sure. The menu promised green beans, basil leaves, snow peas, and a very spicy sauce (it had the little asterisk next to the listing, in case we didn't notice the word "spicy" in the description).

The second dish was a house special, Pad Thai with lobster. We don't usually get Pad Thai because it's too pedestrian. But, given the amount of almost inedible Thai food we've had in the last few months (we had a Pad See Ew last week that is still coagulated in my stomach), we thought playing it safe might be in our best interest. And the idea of lobster mixed with noodles sounded pretty good.

The Pad Thai wasn't pretty good, but it was okay (which is really good, if you're grading on the Florida Thai Curve). It didn't taste like Pad Thais we've had in the past, but we soon adjusted to the taste and were happy with the firmness of the noodles, and the very small amount of peanuts (they were what they're supposed to be--an accessory to the main event). And who could say anything bad about the lobster...there was a ton of it, with big pieces of claw meat (in several instances, it was the whole claw).

We both decided that we didn't love it, but we could eat it again.

The Hot Basil, however, was a huge disappointment. It wasn't spicy (no asterisk required); in fact, it really didn't have much taste at all. If it tasted like anything, it had that vague stale taste of those tiny ears of corn. Now there are people who love those, and they might love this. But anyone who ordered the dish because it was purported to be spicy is going to be wondering if they have suddenly lost their sense of taste.

Of course, there were lots of things we didn't try. We didn't try any of the curries, so those could be better. And we didn't try the sushi, either.

All in all, we're definitely not going to race back there. But we're not going to avoid it either. The other day I met a man who moved to Florida from New York. He said that, once you're here a while, you start to forget how good the food used to be at home. You begin to lower your standards.

Maybe that's when I'll start to eat Thai again.

You Light Up My Life

I love Christmas. Last year, I had eight trees in my house.

This year, I have 3750 lights on my bed and breakfast (not including the icicle lights). To be honest, I was surprised by that number when we added up all of the boxes.

I had guessed it was closer to about 40,000.

Nights of Lights has begun in St. Augustine. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry...if you come to town from November 20 through January 31, you're not going to miss it. There are literally millions of tiny white lights everywhere. (We have heard rumors that you are NOT ALLOWED to use any colored lights, so we didn't. But I am tempted to use some on our outdoor tree and see if I'm really thrown into the Old Jail).

It's a great time of year, and it's wonderful to see so many people throw their recession fears aside and just ring up spool after spool after spool of lights down at the Home Depot.

The best way to see the Vegas-style town is to buy tickets on one of the trolleys--either the Holly Jolly Trolley Tour (904.829.3800) or Ripley's Big Red Christmas Train (904.824.1606). The Holly Jolly Trolley (which is just plain fun to say) is $23 for adults and $10 for kids, which gives you a pass for three days; Ripley's is $21.99 and $8.99.

Of course, for my money, you can't beat the FREE trolley ride offered by--guess who?--the Bayfront Marin House. If you stay two weeknights, you automatically get tickets. As they say, FREE is good.

The other thing that's good is the photo opportunities in the town right now. It's beautiful weather, and perfect for walking (or trolleying) and enjoying the romantic lights with your partner and your camera. The shot at right was taken by a professional photographer (duh); I snagged it off of a Florida tourism site (http://www.orlando-tours.com/). But bring a tripod, and your walking shoes (this shot is taken with a great zoom from Anastasia Island) and really--the city will do the rest.

I have to admit, I've never hung lights before in this kind of quantity (and technically, I didn't do it this year either. Brian and Emery did all the heavy staple-gunning). It took longer than I thought it would. But the results were well worth it.

Even though I had the Debbie Boone song stuck in my head for the two weeks that we were working on the lights. (You give me hope...to carry on!!! You light up my days, and fill my nights....WITH SONG!!! IT.CAN'T.BE-E.WRONG. When it feels, so right. But you.........you LIGHT UP MY-EYE-EYE-EYE-EYE....L-I-F-E).

It's not a Christmas song, but gosh darnit, it should be.

So, if you're in St. Augustine between now and January 31, check out the display. And spend some money while you're here--go out to eat, buy some Christmas ornaments. The sound of the cash register will help to drown out the sound of the town's electric meters spinning round and round like a pinwheel in a tornado.

Debbie Boone and electric bills aside--come on down and enjoy the lights.

5 Great Reasons to Gain Five Pounds in St. Augustine

One of the reasons that the hub and I wanted to move to St. Augustine is because we loved the idea of being able to walk to dinner, and to the bank, and the post office, and pretty much anywhere we'd want to go.

I'm a big fan of the walkable town. When you walk you get a chance to really see the details of a place (and the Ancient City has plenty of details to share). You connect with other people. And you can eat dessert every night without feeling guilty at all.

Even if you aren't burning off calories like an incinerator during the day, there are plenty of reasons to have dessert in St. Augustine. Here are five of them:

1.The key lime cheesecake at Creekside (photo at left).  Even our waitress admitted that she had it every time they put it on the menu. If I worked there, I would force them to make this dessert every single night.

2. Pastries at the Bunnery. My mother-in-law discovered this place., so I want to give her the credit. Last time she was here, she bought a whole box of little delicious fruit and chocolate thingies. Every time I tried one (and I tried several), I thought it was the best.pastry.ever.

3. Chocolate and caramel covered rice crispie bars at Kilwin's. I know it's a simple dessert...heck, my five year old nephew could make it (if I made sure that the entire kitchen--and Jack--were completely covered in plastic wrap first....because There Would be a Mess). But it was the very first dessert that the hub and I enjoyed in St. Augustine--years ago--and it still has a soft, sweet spot in our heart.

4. The bread pudding at The Raintree (left). Now, people can get pretty darn territorial when it comes to bread pudding. There are contests, and smack talk, and occasionally a duel (well, maybe that last part is a little exaggerated). But the best bread pudding is exaggerated...it should be the richest, densest, craziest dessert on the menu. And it should come with a bourbon sauce, which it does at the Raintree.

5. Heloisa's rum cake at the Bayfront Marin House. Now, you're going to think I'm biased...and I am. But not the way you think I am. I *hate* rum. I have ever since high school, when I poured out half a can of diet coke and refilled it with rum then threw it back like a cowboy in 1867. You can imagine how the evening ended. Anyway, suffice it to say I don't like rum. And yet, despite the bad memories, I ADORE Heloisa's rum cake. Our guests have literally taken a small bite in an absent-minded way, only to exclaim crazily "OH MY GOD THIS IS GOOD!!!" And then they take a huge bite. And then a second piece, to take upstairs for later. And then they ask for the recipe. Honestly. It's That Good.

And if you're good, netties, I'll print the recipe here later this month. Consider it my gift to you.

That, along with the gift of a couple of pounds on the ol' scale. Trust me; it's worth it.

A Big Wet Kiss for our Veterans

Happy Veteran's Day!

Here at the BMH, we celebrated the holiday with a free night for the first member of the military who called and reserved a room, and discounts for any other veterans who stayed with us this evening.

As much as we love the idea of a special geared to our veterans on Veteran's Day, we can't take credit for it: most of the bed and breakfasts in St. Augustine participated in the promotion.

In honor of those vets, and all of the others who have protected/are protecting us around the world, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on one of St. Augustine's most recognized landmarks: the Castillo de San Marcos. It's the fort that "welcomes" you as you come into town. It's been "welcoming" visitors to St. Augustine since 1672.

The fort was built by the Spanish, like most of St. Augustine. It's the spitting image of two forts I toured in Puerto Rico: the Castillo de San Cristobal and Castillo de San Felipe El Morro.

The Castillo de San Marcos was designed by Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza using the "bastion" system. That just means that it's got diamond-shaped projections (or bastions) at each corner of the fort, so that there were no blind spots for the guards. Speaking of guards, they all hung out in the garitas or sentry boxes at the corner of each bastion. Whenever they were under attack, they shot from those garitas. Because of the shape of the fort, they could shoot at a target from several different angles without shooting each other.

The fort is owned by the National Park Service, and is open for self-guided tours. Each visitor gets a walking tour pamplet and a map, both full of some surprising facts. Like the fact that the walls are up to 19 feet thick at the base of the fort, and they're made of blocks of coquina, a sedimentary rock comprised of shells, that's found in Florida. The coquina is actually soft when harvested, and has to harden for one to three years before you can build with it (there goes my plan for a coquina-built cement pond in the back yard). Once used in a building, the rock retains some of those soft qualities, so when it gets hit with a cannon ball, the cannon ball sinks into the rock like a big butt sinks into a Tempurpedic mattress.

To give you an idea of the size of the fort, you should know that it was built with over 400,000 blocks of that coquina stuff.

And as big as that number is, it's only about 1/3 the number of active military personnel we have in the United States. And it's half the number of people in the reserves. That's a lot of people. And a lot of  forts.

I don't have enough space here to thank all of our country's veterans. If I were to buy a red carnation for every man and woman who have served through the years and then placed that carnation in the Castillo de San Marcos, I'm sure that the fort would be overflowing with flowers (and I would be completely broke).

So I'll simply say "thank you" to the selfless veterans who have served through the years. All the way back to the men who protected St. Augustine in the Castillo de San Marcos 300 years ago.

Thank you. And happy Veteran's Day!

Happy Halloween, St. Augustine!!!

St. Augustine, they say, is one of the most haunted cities in America (it is the oldest, after all, so I suppose it's had the most time to acquire ghosts).

Donna, who works our evening shift, swears that our Inn is haunted by its original owner, Francisco Marin. The other night, the front door to the Inn was open every time she walked out to the dining room (three separate times). On the third time, she says she said "Okay, Francisco. Stop playing with me!!" And then the door stayed shut.

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it's hard not to believe in snack-sized candy bars. We bought a bunch last night, so if you're in the area, stop by and show off your costume!!

(Here is a shot of our first trick-or-treaters: Melissa, Dave and Holly from the Green Trolley. But they turned the tables on us and brought US treats!! How cute are their costumes?????)

Tasty Little Morsels

We got a nice note from Tony and Rebecca B. a couple of days ago.

They stayed with us earlier this month, and fell in LOVE with one of the appetizers we made for happy hour. "I would love to have the recipe!" Rebecca said.

Well, getting recipes around here isn't always easy. The women in our kitchen aren't the types to use measuring spoons. Mary, who mans the stove five days a week, has been working in the restaurant business since she was a teenager (her parents owned a restaurant in North Carolina). She stopped measuring things a long time ago. Heloisa cooks two days a week...she has a background as an engineer, but she's not so precise in the recipe department either.

Anyway, the appetizer Rebecca loved was one of Heloisa's...a crunchy little toast point with a creamy, gooey topping. I call it Heloisa's Cheesy Toast Appetizer (my creativity knows no bounds). I spent a couple minutes in the kitchen this morning as she said "I take some big spoons of mayo..plop plop (she pantomimed putting them into a bowl), then some parmesan cheese--this much (she pulled out a jar of cheese and showed me a couple of inches". It wasn't an exact science, but I think I got the gist of it.

If you make the recipe before Heloisa does, let me know how it turns out!!

Heloisa's Cheesy Toast Appetizer

6 tablespoons mayonnaise
5 tablespoons parmesan cheese (we usually use grated but shredded works too)
1 small onion, chopped very fine
1 pinch baking powder
black pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together (it will be pretty gritty).

Cut any kind of bread (white, wheat) into
the shape you desire (we usually do triangles--but Christmas shapes could be fun), and place on a cookie
tray. Top the bread with a small amount of the mixture.

Bake at 400 degrees until the top is golden and the cheese mixture puffs a little.

ENJOY!!!

Don't Even Ask Me about the Secret Handshake

Since I've paid my first mortgage, I guess I'm officially a small business owner.

I know I've said this before, but I never really thought of a bed and breakfast as a small business. I didn't think of it as a business at all, just like I don't think of people who sell vitamins or jewelry as small business owners. (Sorry to all of my friends who do that. It's not that I belittle the work; in fact, I tend to think of you all as industrious people with a part-time job. I just don't think of it as a small business).

But I've been told I'm wrong about that. We are all Small Businesses (in capital letters), and we comprise a vital part of the country's economy.

You can imagine how excited I was when the media declared two weeks ago that Congress and the president wanted to help small businesses. I stayed up all night at the bed and breakfast with a toilet brush and a bottle of Greenworks. After all, if Congress really wanted to help me, Nancy Pelosi could swing by and clean one of the rooms. And Barbara Mikulski looks as if she could really scrub out the inside of a Jacuzzi; she's small enough to get in there underneath the faucets.

Needless to say, Nancy and Babs never came.

Then I scoured the mail, assuming that help would come in the way of a nice check to help me "jumpstart the economy."

Again, nothing.

I was starting to think that being a small business owner pretty much sucked.

Until, that is, I learned about "the cult".

The cult of small business owners, that is. The secret society of people who have to pay their taxes every single month. The sleepless cell of business owners who answer their emails at midnight, shop only when things are on sale, and do their "books" in a corner of the tv room.

Now, being pretty slow, I didn't "get" what was going on at first. I just thought people were being nice. Like the green trolley people, who sent over a nice plant welcoming us to town, along with an invitation to happy hour. And the ghost tour people, who invited us to a VIP tour, along with a cute bag full of homemade soaps.

"Southerners sure are nice," I thought, as I pocketed the soap and put the plant in the Marin's dining room.

But then, I went to Meehan's on Matanzas, and something started to click with me. When the bill came, it didn't include our drinks (being the big drinkers that we are, it was just a single iced tea, but still). So I pointed it out to our pleasant waitress, who said, "Oh, that isn't a mistake" and she gestured towards John Meehan, the handsome owner of said restaurant. He smiled like Robert Redford, then gave me the ol' finger slide down the side of the nose. I was suspicious that something was going on, but then I just assumed that he had nasal problems.

A few weeks later, I got a nice note from Stacie at the Green Trolley, who said that she'd be happy to drop off a Yellow Pass. It was free entry to almost every.single.venue in St. Augustine.

"That way," she said, "you can talk first-hand about the different activities with all of your guests." Activities like riding the Green Trolley through town (which I do highly recommend, incidentally, but more on that later).

So here's the deal: it seems that being a small business owner is hard. Really hard. And we're all pretty interdependent on each other (is that even a word?) So...I send someone to Raintree Restaurant, and recommend the seafood chowder; they send someone to the Bayfront Marin, and recommend having breakfast in bed. I suggest taking the Schooner for a sunset cruise; they recommend the sangria at our happy hour.

It's all very mason-like, isn't it? Without the confusing symbols, of course (although there are all of those quatrafoils around the town).

Of course, I'll probably be thrown out of the club, or shunned socially, for mentioning this society to you. But I feel like I have an obligation to take you on this ride with me, and that means sharing everything.

So, to all of you non-small business owners...I feel sorry for you. As you sit back and enjoy your company-paid holidays and flu shots, I have a perk that you don't have. I have peeps...comrades in arms...buds. I am a member of the *club*, baby. And I have a yellow pass, which is just as good as having keys to the city. (Better, actually, as my keyring is already overloaded with all the keys to the b and b).

I'm going to do as many of those free things as I can. (And maybe even a couple that I have to pay for--in the interest of being thorough). I'm going to visit as many restaurants as possible, too, and report back to you on what to do and don't do in this beautiful old city of mine. I'll try new drinks, dinner specials, and more historic tours than most people could stand.

It's going to be hard, netties. But I'm willing to do it. Just for you. And the free drinks, of course.

Congrats to our Honeymoon Winners!

Mayport FL Couple Wins National Honeymoon Contest

Their Story Wins Grand Prize to The Bayfront Marin House

St. Augustine, FL (October, 2010)       Mrs. Debra Roman submitted a story to the Inns of Elegance, a collection of historic bed & breakfast inns in St. Augustine, Florida…thinking that she would like to surprise her daughter Marisol by winning the Inns’ 2^nd Honeymoon Contest 2010. Much to her surprise, she did win one of five luxurious 4-night Grand Prize 2^nd honeymoons that the Inns are giving away throughout the year.

The winning couple will be staying at the Bayfront Marin House, a bed and breakfast that offers luxury and romance right on the Matanzas Bay.

According to Roman “I want to reciprocate some of the generosity that my daughter Marisol Riddell and her loving Husband Mark Riddell have shown to me. They are a dedicated Navy family with a 13-year old daughter; when they married, they never got to have the honeymoon they had planned due to Mark’s call to duty.”

Marisol and Mark are overwhelmed with their Grand Prize. “As a military family, we are often asked to give up certain things, like our first Wedding Anniversary, Christmas & Thanksgiving due to Mark's deployment overseas. Winning this award means so much us. First, we feel loved and appreciated by my Mom. She is a precious member of our family. People didn't used to live so separately from their elders. It is a blessing to our family to have her.  Secondly, we are grateful to Inns of Elegance for offering us the opportunity to experience a true honeymoon. We feel lucky to live so close to such a romantic destination and to stay in such luxurious accommodations. THANK YOU!!!!”

Winning an $1800 2^nd honeymoon will give the Riddell’s (living in Mayport, Florida) something magical to remember forever, when they check into the Bayfront Marin House, one of the five Inns of Elegance.  Inn owners Sandy and Mike Wieber couldn’t be more delighted since their historic Inn specializes in honeymoons and romance.

The ROMANCE IS INN THE AIR prize includes the following:

1.       4-night Accommodations at the Bayfront Marin House

2.       Champagne & Chocolate – upon arrival

3.       Dinner For Two at Bistro de Leon – St. Augustine’s popular French bistro featuring Chef Jean-Stephane Poinard’s exquisite cuisine – a romantic little corner table of course!

4.       Lunch For Two at Columbia – The Gem of Spanish Restaurants, celebrating its 104^th Anniversary

5.       Dinner for Two at Raintree – One of the legendary romantic restaurants in St. Augustine

6.       Old Town Trolley Tickets – unlimited train transportation throughout the Historic District for length of the 4-day Honeymoon

7.       Tini Martini Bar – a Welcome Honeymoon Cocktail  in St. Augustine’s newest chic bayfront cocktail lounge

8.       Claude’s Chocolates – European gourmet bon bons featuring passion fruit filled dark chocolate hearts

9.       ‘Fountain of Youth’ tickets – World famous archaeological park ‘where history began’

10.    Schooner Freedom – Romantic Sunset Schooner Sail

11.    St. Augustine Lighthouse – One of the grand working lighthouses & museum in America

The Only Time I Have is Growing in An Herb Garden

Hello again, netties. I know it's been a while since I've written, but it's not as if I've been sitting around drinking sangria and baking cookies all day.

Oh wait. I actually have been doing that. At least in the afternoon, which is when I head over to the bed and breakfast to give the hub a break.

We've owned the Bayfront Marin House for about six weeks now, and we're starting to get into a routine. We get up in the morning, make a list of things to do, the hub goes to the bnb and I go to my home office (I'm telecommuting to my job of 10 years at Farm Credit), the hub gets a hundred phone calls, I plug through my emails, the hub comes home for lunch, asks me to help him with some things, I start crying that I can't be two places at once, he goes back to the bnb, I go back to my computer, we reconvene for happy hour, hang out and visit with our guests until 7, eat something in a drive-through, go shopping for the next day and then start the process all over again.

You may have noticed that at no point during the day do we ever look at the list of things to do that we make first thing every morning, If you did notice that, then you are very astute. Just the kind of person who would make a list then actually do the things on that list.

You are not only astute, you are possibly super human. Or, you simply don't own a small business.

When the hub and I talked about buying a bnb, I never thought of it as a small business. I thought about it like a hobby, I think, or a pen pal coming to visit. It would be cool and exotic, and a nice break from all of the mundane parts of my life.

Right.

No one really owns a small business. The small business owns you.

And right now my owner is at full capacity (30 guests--yay!!), and demanding another pitcher of sangria. Which I'm going to go fill immediately. Even though it's not on the list.

See you at Wal-Mart later tonight.

The Fourteenth Year of a Five-Year Plan

Well, hello netties!

If you've come to this blog from Historic Traveler, then you already know a little bit about me and the crazy adventure I've just begun by buying a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine, Florida. You can skip today's posting and just jump to the next post, where things start getting good.

If you don't know anything about me, here's a quick run down: fourteen years ago, the hub and I decided that sitting in a cubicle was lots and lots of fun, but we might prefer living on the beach (even though it wouldn't have that nice view I had of the upstairs ladies' bathroom).

Because the hub and I were both good corporate doobies (and because some manager or other had forced us to read "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" every two years for some improvement initiative or other), we immediately sat down and made a plan to detail how we were going to get from business meetings to surfside greetings. We came up with a five year plan.

That was in 1996.

Since that time, life was pretty much normal. We went to work. We pretended we loved it. We held our traditional annual parties--the football party in January, the movie party in March, the Christmas party in December. And at every party, we'd say to our friends: "This might be the last time we'll be here to have this party". Or "Next year, we can have this party at the beach."

A couple of years ago, our friends started telling us to shut up. They no longer believed it.

Well, believe it now, baby, cuz we are living the dream. Our dream, anyway. And yours, if you have drempt of getting 5 hours of sleep each night, visiting Wal-Mart at least once a day, and dealing with broken Jacuzzis, daily beer runs, and guests who wish their mattress was harder/their pillows were softer/their sangria was colder, and whatever else they want that would make their stay with us just perfect.

It sounds like I'm complaining, but the truth is that I love it. When a guest says they haven't been on vacation for years, and that the past two nights have been the best thing that's happened to them since cable, well...it's hard not to be pretty darn happy.

Working right across from the water every day doesn't hurt, either.

That's assuming, of course, that that water isn't dripping from your ceiling. Which is what is happening today in our storage room. Nothing's been ruined, but I should probably go move the boxes of shampoo and conditioner just to be sure.

I can tell already this is going to be an adventure. I hope you'll hang out here, netties, and experience all of the fun with me.