Too Much Time On Your Hands

Do you ever see something and wonder, “who thinks up this stuff?” I know I do. I’m a fairly creative person when it comes to certain things. But other times, I’m just clueless about how to make something happen. I think that’s why I love Disney so much. Everything Disney does just amazes me with the creativity and the engineering and the use of colors and music. But sometimes I see something and think, “why?”

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Phantom Reviews

Being an innkeeper is not without its challenges. Or its rewards. And sometimes its not without its surprises. I have to admit, not much surprises me these days. I’m a true skeptic, believing nothing I hear and only half of what I see. It’s hard to impress me. It’s hard to scare me. It’s hard to surprise me. It’s hard to convince me. But sometimes . . . .

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Assigned Seats

I’ve been an innkeeper for going on six years now and I think I’ve developed a pretty good routine and managed somehow to keep things running smoothly. Of course, there are always those unexpected things that crop up and sometimes throw me off kilter, but I think I’ve learned to be pretty flexible and accommodating if at all possible.

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A Lesson From The Birds

The deep south recently experienced a winter storm for the record books. It wreaked havoc on millions of people in various ways. I was shocked and amused at the same time at how ill-prepared the state of Mississippi is for this type of event. The entire town essentially just shut down. Our mail didn’t get delivered for an entire week. An ENTIRE week! All the government offices were closed. Most restaurants were closed. Even the grocery stores and casinos (which never close) were closed. Hotels along the interstate were overflowing because the highway was shut down and people were stranded. It was epic.

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2020 Was Just The Appetizer

I think we can all agree that 2020 was not the year any of us expected it to be. Unless the conspiracy theorists are right and somebody did viciously release the coronavirus on purpose, then that person(s) had an epic year. But, it for sure was a pretty crappy year for the majority of the populace.

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It Really Is The Little Things

A few weeks ago, I was in a baking / cooking kind of weird mood. I don’t think I was bored exactly, just looking for a creative outlet other than writing. My hubby and I have been trying to eat sensibly so I thought that if I pre-made some meals, we could have half the portion now and freeze the other half to eat later. It was a good idea and it worked, until I stopped pre-making the meals and we ran out of the frozen stuff. Now it’s back to “what are we going to have for dinner tonight?” (sigh)

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Hard To Believe I Was On the Honor Roll

All through my years of schooling, I maintained consistently high grades; honor roll every year. Except for algebra my junior year of high school. That ruined my GPA for one entire year. (Stupid math.) I did redeem myself in college though. While still struggling with numbers, I managed to get a B- in algebra my last year. I had to pass that class or I wouldn’t graduate. But I did. Again, with honors. Whew. But, I digress. At present, there are many days I do some incredibly stupid, not A+ or even B- things, and certainly not honor roll things. It’s like my brain forgets to do its job. I used to be “with it.” I used to not need notes to remember things. I used to use common sense and logic to figure things out. Nowadays, not so much. Some days I don’t even recognize myself because I do some really dumb stuff.

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More Observations of an Innkeeper

This is a re-post.

About three years ago I wrote a blog post about some interesting things I had noticed about innkeeping and inn guests from my two years experience in the business. If you’re interested in reading that, here’s the link:  https://jansenschmidt.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/observations-of-an-innkeeper/

While it’s still sometimes hard to believe that we’ve been doing this for five and half years already, I am even more amazed that I continue to notice quirky and interesting things that happen frequently. Therefore, I present to you, Observations of an Innkeeper – Part Two:

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Let The Countdown Begin!

Well, it’s the final week of 2020 and almost a year since we started on our journey of frustration, confusion, boredom, angst, and trying not to go bankrupt. We’ve come a long way. We’ve learned things. We’ve adapted. We’ve grumbled and complained. We’ve cried. And cried some more. We’ve prayed. But, above all else, we’ve carried on.

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Bitten By the Baking Bug

Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.com

I don’t normally do a lot of holiday baking like some folks. Not because I don’t enjoy it, but it hardly seems worth the effort since I have no one to share the goodies with. Well, that’s not true. I have my husband, who loves sweets and baking for him is totally worth it, but you know what I mean. He’s actually really happy with plain ole peanut butter cookies most of the time anyway. I don’t have to go to the trouble of chilling and rolling out dough and letting yeast rise and chopping fruits and nuts and all that other fancy stuff. He’s not into the ornately decorated sugar cookies or gingerbread men that are so popular this time of year. So, it feels like a wasted effort to spend the entire day baking fancy holiday goodies.

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