The Solomon House

Once upon a time I owned a Bed and Breakfast. Yes, a B&B, if you will. I never liked saying B&B though, so I always say the full "bed and breakfast." I thought that was so cool until Lorelai Gilmore in the Gilmore Girls TV show said she hated Bed and Breakfasts. She owned an "INN." Evidently that is much more elegant and not so hokey and dreadful as a Bed and Breakfast. I did consider myself an innkeeper, though. So Lorelai, you should be at least proud of that. "Innkeeper" was even printed on our brochures. How quaint and charming! I really, really LOVED the house, setting up the business, our wonderful guests, the adventure of owning a business, winning awards, planning menus, cooking and decorating! I really, really, really, really hated cleaning. And I had to do LOTS of it.

The house we found to purchase in order to open up The Solomon House, as we called it, was a circa 1896, 4700 square foot New England salt box style home with a huge backyard. It needed LOTS of work when we bought it; yes indeed, just like The Moneypit. See the movie. The house was a lot like that one in the movie and my husband and I had very similar experiences with the couple in the movie who bought the "moneypit." However, everything worked out, just like a Christmas miracle! It was truly a wonderful life for a few years! I did not not know how wonderful it would be until I just jumped in and started going. There were planning and zoning meetings to attend, permits to acquire, lots of contractors to hire, scads of paperwork and banking issues to deal with, and inspections to pass. The whole thing was almost like an out of body experience. To this day I do not know how everything came together, except for the miracles that God planned for our lives.

I wonder if I'd do it all over again. YES! I miss it so much. Our lives were crazy, crazy, crazy, but we all learned so much. I'll have to post photos of The Solomon House and share more memories of those glory years soon. This might sound weird, but I still just cry when I even think about my Bed and Breakfast, The Solomon House, because I still miss it so much. We sold it seven years ago, and I often find myself looking online for properties and checking out deals in the newspapers and real estate magazines that I pick up at the grocery store. When we bought it and opened up for business my husband and I thought we would live there forever. Things change though, and we were offered an opportunity to work and live closer to my family. My husband's job changed so we decided it would be best to move, even though we did not really want to. Looking back, we wonder what would have happened if we were still at The Solomon House today. Since we sold it we have had many life-lessons and we probably needed to learn them all. Not all of the lessons were easy, but moving on forced us to accept new challenges and career choices that make us who we are now. Our kids have had great experiences in our new home, and we cherish our new friendships and the extra time we have been able to spend with family members. Holidays are not "business bookings," and we don't have "strangers, aka guests" in our home. I probably wouldn't be a teacher! And, I would be completely burned out by now. At times the Bed and Breakfast was a pain (when I had to clean, clean and clean some more) but I still loved it, even when I was so burned out I couldn't see straight. It was worth all of the trouble for the time we had it.

When I first started blogging just a few months ago I was obsessed with finding new dreams. My Bed and Breakfast dream was so HUGE, and it came true! I'm still trying to dream that BIG again so that I can fulfill that part of my entrepreneurship lifestyle. I'll not tell you about it now, but I think I found a potential dream! Check back in the near future for updates!
Hint: It is not a B&B. :(
But it could be just as interesting and adventurous. I'm super-excited to see if this little dream will grow and become an all out "opportunity of the decade" for me and my family.

Here is a little challenge for my two "blog-friends:"

GUESS WHAT MY NEW POTENTIAL ADVENTURE IS.

Share your comments and let me know what you think is buzzing around in this crazy brain of mine. Don't be shy! I'd love to hear your guess!

State Fair, Take Three

Just one last trip to the Fair! Friday night we went to the Fair again to see the Jessica Simpson concert. I scored two more free tickets, so why not? I saw Jessica, who I really do like a lot. Really, I always have. I'm not sure why, but she makes me laugh and I think she is really pretty smart in a dumb kind of way. Anyway, we also saw Tony Romo and Jason Witten. Jessica totally cracked me up when she said "to be man enough for me, you have to be the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys!" And, can you believe it, we saw the "backscratcher lady" again! Whoa. It was freakish. There she was, coming right at me. My husband says we were headed for a collision crash if he hadn't alerted me to her approach. She didn't talk to me this time; she was evidently on a mission of some sort. It was after the concert and she was headed right up to the stage. I figure she wanted to talk to Jessica, but I'm not sure. She might have wanted a free poster or a coupon for another jug of milk. She may have wanted to beat on the drum set with her backscratchers. Who knows?

We tried to come in the back gate to get us a free backscratcher, but we got the best parking place ever at the side gate! I can live without the backscratcher for another year.

It was another gorgeous night, and my husband and I really did have a fun night at our last outing to the Fair.

Now, on to another note: I am now constantly writing blogs in my head. I am now the narrator
of my own life in my head. I will think up ideas all day long, but then when I sit down to log on, I can't think of them. Here are some of the ideas I have had that I can remember for future blogging:

The Solomon House Adventures
Yard of the Month
Project Runway
Sunday Blues
REHEARSAL, OMG
Craptastic
Phenomeblog
Blogger-riffic
Let's move to New York, Elizabeth!
What's up with Mad Men?

OK, that should keep me busy for a while! At least my blog-tastic ideas will be stored here where they are handy for future reference.

See you next year, Big Tex and Ms. Backscratcher!

Backscratchers

What in the world? We went to the State Fair of Texas and had quite the adventure. My husband thought that we could ride the DART from Mockingbird Station right to the front gates of the fair. No parking fees, no waiting in the long lines to park, no walking forever from the parking lot and getting all worn out before you even get into the fair. Yay! It would have been great, but we missed the train by "that" much, and then we missed the shuttle bus by "this" much. Then when we had all the fun we could stand at the fair we had to wait for the bus again for the voyage home. We really did have a great time! Some of the highlights of the night:

Being at the Fair with my wonderful husband and three fantastic kids!
It was a beautiful night! Perfect weather!
The Fair is fun at night with parades and lots of lights!
The Fletcher's Corny Dogs were hot, fresh and delicious!
I didn't ride the Texas Star Ferris Wheel. Boo. I chickened out.
Tyler and I walked around, saw my old kindergarten, bought the traditional taffy, and got some scrumptious Cyclone Potatoes while the three brave family members rode the ginormous ferris wheel that we were too scared to ride!
Overhearing a very interesting cell phone call all about backscratchers. Here is my memory of the cell phone convo as heard on the bus ride back to Cityplace Station on the way home from the Great State Fair: "Libby, are you asleep yet? Are you going out to the fair tomorrow? Bring your lotto ticket, I've been hittin' it all week. I got $19 yesterday. Yea? They are giving away free backscratchers! Yea -- I said backscratchers, backscratchers, you know, they scratch your back; they're free at the back gate, they're givin' 'em away free. Yeah, backscratchers. I said BACKSCRATCHERS. I got me two already. I said BACKSCRATCHERS, you know BACK . . . BACKSCRATCHERS, the kind that SCRATCH YOUR BACK-- AT THE BACK GATE. THEY ARE FREE. Ya haf to come out and get 'choo one. I said BACKSCRATCHERS - FREE. I SAID BACKSCRATCHERS, BACK-SCRATCHERS, YEAH, BACKSCRATCHERS!"

Each time she said "backscratchers" her voice got louder and louder. It was hilarious to me and my family. This backscratcher woman was so funny. She had all kinds of interesting tales to tell. She talked non-stop the entire time we were in her presence, if not to me, to anyone within earshot. She talked about backscratchers, the price of milk and how many jugs she bought that day, and that she was gonna save one to eat with her cereal tomorrow morning, what kind of cereal she liked, where she got her purse and how much it cost and where I could get one just like it if I wanted for $2 cheaper than the ones they were selling at the Fair, where she got two new umbrellas and why she traded one in because it was cracked and it might have scratched her hand (not her back) and that she was going to give one umbrella to her diabetic friend who could NOT have a cracked umbrella handle because she is diabetic and can't have scratchy umbrella handles touching her hands. She talked all about the bus and the train and hollered out to everyone on the bus alerting them to empty seats that were available. She rambled on about winning the lotto prizes at the fair and her friend who complained to the State about so many of the same people winning over and over again and how that just wasn't right. We left her getting off the bus to head to the train and she was practically screaming into her phone . . . "I SAID BACKSCRATCHER." If she said it once, she said it 50 times. "Backscratcher." The word is so funny to me now! I crack up at the thought of it.

It was quite a night. We had a blast at the fair. The backscratching show was totally worth the price of the DART DAY PASS! And the free tickets to the fair were definitely worth it!

I can't wait to find out what they will give away at the back gate next year. It won't be as good as a free backscratcher! I promise you that!

Table Talk

College Days. Once upon a time I was a college recruiter. It like a dream job; plus it was my first "real job!" I got to travel around to all the high schools and set up a cute little table, drape a collegiate-looking tablecloth over the table, arrange some well designed (and expensive) brochures on that table and then stand behind (or in front of) that same table. Then I would smile and talk to prospective students by that table. My work life revolved around a table in those days. After the college fair, I would go out to eat with all the other "roadies" and sit around another table and laugh and get to know all about the other colleges and their recruiters.

I like tables now. All kinds of tables interest me. Small tables, big tables, end tables, dining room tables, coffee tables, breakfast nook tables, round tables, rectangle tables, oval tables, doll house tables, banquet tables, chrome tables, wooden tables, glass tables and my favorite, English tea tables.

I took my daughter to her College Night last week at the local high school, and we looked at all of the pretty brochures on all of the cute little tables all lined up, draped with collegiate-looking tablecloths. It was beautiful. I was suddenly swept back in time remembering my own College Night days.

I analyzed the recruiters trying to decide if they were "real" admission counselors (which was my official title back in the table days) or if they were alumni stand-ins. We chatted with several of them and I watched and listened how they interacted with my daughter. It was interesting to imagine myself back in the day doing the same thing that they were doing. I wanted my own table again with my own tablecloth! Heck, I want my own college to promote!
Texas Shamrocks University -- Go Rocks! Green and White!

It was completely overwhelming to my daughter. If we based her college decision on our best experience with an admission counselor that night, she would be going to a school that doesn't even have a program that she is interested in! She is now ultra-confused about what she wants to do when she grows up, much less which college she will attend. She was very excited about meeting someone behind the "Rice Table," but when we found the table, alas, no one was there. No brochures, no smiling admission counselor, nary a brochure nor a cloth. There was just a plain, empty, sad little table with a sign that said "Rice." I thought that Ike, the hurricane, probably was the cause for the no-show that night. Who knows. I'm pretty sure it was the only empty table at the school that night, though.

I wonder if I was ever a no-show. I don't think I was. I can't bear the thought of disappointing a prospective student.

Well, I've decided that my daughter will have to decide for herself where to go to college. I can't base her decision on the best brochure or the friendliest admission counselor. She would never do that anyway; that's my deal!

I think I'll sell all of my tables to pay for college for my daughter.