So, months go by without additional postings.  Let's just start fresh, shall I? We opened our doors after months of cleanup and renovations on the first weekend of July 2011. It was a complete disaster. The waves of folks kept coming and we had no idea how to train the kids out in the front of the restaurant while we were working the kitchen and trying to stay afloat under a sea of yellow order forms piling up in the "order in" basket.  By the end of the first week, we knew changes had to occur fast. We were putting in seemingly 16 hour workdays with absolutely no end in sight. It was exhausting and confusing and I desperately wanted to cry, but that was not an option for so many reasons. Number one being that all these lovely people in my family were in this mess because of me! How could I be the one to break down?
On our second Sunday the one waitress we'd hired to help us was a no-show. That afternoon, I had a "milkshake birthday party" coming in after hours for my niece's 8th birthday. I believe there were 9 littles in that party. "D", one of my sister's best friends, who'd had a restaurant of her own and was now all-hands-on-deck helping us, told me to pick up the phone and hire Carrie. Asap. We didn't hesitate. This is the conversation per my memory:
me: Carrie?
C: yes.
me: this is Kate from The Country Girl Diner. I NEED you to come work for us! Please, say you will!
C: Be there tomorrow morning.
me: There is a God in Heaven.

That was the start of calm and normality. Carrie walked in and started helping us set things to right. We started to breathe again. She is a voice of reason and one of the hardest workers I've ever met in my life. We have an agreement with each other. If she ever quits, I will schedule her as normal and expect to see her walk through the back door. If I ever fire her, she will just show up for work the next day anyway. It really works for us.

Next was a visit from a family who lived up a dirt mountain turnpike. Oddly enough in this town of 3,000 in the south of Vermont, their daughter was about to start her first year of college at Covenant College, Lookout Mtn, GA. Which as life would have it, is where one of our daughters was about to start her junior year. The family came in to introduce themselves and to give us Barnaby for the summer as an intern. I don't remember him being offered to us. I remember him being thrust into our kitchen as a dishwasher. He was a Godsend in a bowler hat and suspenders spouting strange dinosaur noises and singing tunes from the twenties.. For the entire summer he showed up as often as he could and worked himself right into an indispensible part of our Diner family. He is quirky and positive and funny and absolutely perfect as himself. He never left and it will be a heartbreak the day he does take off for college.

Our staff continued to grow. we added a few other dishwashers and cooks and servers. You'll meet them in these words in coming posts. A few have moved on to other parts as they continue their life growth. But, always now with our blessing and good wishes.

I now love walking through our door. I've grown to love the regulars who grace our seats and share their lives with us. And, I love waking up and realizing that I don't have to wait, for the perfect time, season, place or anything else to try anything new. I never did have to...I just let myself get stuck in the expectations of others, real or imagined.
I have so many new mottos in my life.
We are now working to live, not living to work.
And I am not going to wait for myself anymore. If I want to try something new and adventurous, I'm going to do it. Sometimes that simply means setting up an easel in the backyard and painting grass. Sometimes it means taking a box of smashed Emma Bridgwater Pottery I've been toting around for five years and mosaic-ing it into a framed mirror. And sometimes it means renting a paddle board and getting exercise while making an unbalanced fool of myself while wearing a bathing suit. In public view. I'm not waiting anymore. I'm moving on my thoughts and making them happen.
And if I fail? So what? There will be a lesson learned on how to do better the next time. Failure is not bad. A little failure is actually really good thing. It gets us to think outside the box (or outside our own perceived notions of what we think we should be doing, acting, behaving etc.) What a freeing lesson to have learned in my second half of life.

         As those middle years approach and then pass by, the realization hits that it's time to expand this life. Not that raising the kids and handling the mundane daily chores aren't important.  Obviously, they are. It's simply that, as the other side of parenting comes into sight, there's more to be done. There's more that should be done. When marriages are new &  fresh, the possibilities are so open! As the children arrive and the mortgage payments set in, life kind of settles around us. Sometimes life wraps around us softly, snug and cozy, and that's all nice, well and good, but for the honest, sometimes, not always or on-going, but sometimes, it is a plastic bag suffocating us. We don't know how to stop the daily train-ride and have it turn in another direction. So, very often, we wait till there's a slow down and we either jump-off completely or we at least try to. I tried to. I was for a short time, a train wreck. And this will be that story. If you're there, at that point, maybe this can help you to turn the train onto another track without the drama. If you're young, and just starting,  maybe this can help you to know in advance to make the turns smoothly. I have that second chance now with my husband. With my family. All intact. All trying to be honest that it isn't always smooth track ahead. Key word: honest. If we're not being honest with ourselves we can't be honest with those around us, now can we? The big societal word these days is authenticity. Don't knock it. Try it. It's hard. We try so hard to be perfect families with big smiles and happy lives that we miss so much of each other. I will never be in wonder of a family that seemingly has it all. Cause I don't believe it anymore. People thought we had it all. My husband thought we had it all, but I was dying inside. I think he was too. He just didn't realize it.  So, when it all came fast and furious, tumbling out that I wanted out, I had a man who stood fast and fought for us. He went with me to a communications course weekend 4 hours away. He dragged me to marriage counseling. He came north to my family in Vermont with me (something for the most part, that I had always done myself with the children, while he stayed behind in Maryland for work).While we were in Vermont that January weekend, which was at the time covered in multiple feet of snow, we passed by the now-closed Diner where I had grown up going with my grandfather for treats, and had always made a point of taking the kids to when we visited my mom and siblings. Understand, my husband had not so much as cooked an egg in the years we'd lived together. But now he suggested we call a realtor and have a look at the inside. So, we did. Immediately.We climbed over about 4 feet of snow to get through the door, and when it was pulled open the stench of the kitchen almost knocked us out. When the owner had shut the door for the last time, months previously, he simply shut the door on a pile of dirty dishes and food on the counter.  The little pie room off the kitchen had a 2' pile of rotten potatoes in the middle of the floor, and the snow was melting in through the pie room wall. What was not to love?We put an offer in the next day.Surely, you've heard what they say about married couples opening a restaurant together? That it is like marriage therapy? Right. We had also heard the opposite. But, we were in such trouble, why not try a whole new tact? We were going to turn all those theories on their heads. When we returned to Maryland and told the marriage counselor what we had done, he kinda glazed over and looked a wee bit stunned. And I think the words, " not a great idea" may have been uttered. And then we told our children.....I think, once again, the words, "not a great idea" may have been uttered, and the 14 year old son who was home kinda glazed over and looked a wee bit stunned. The twins were told via phone calls to their dorms. I think, perhaps, the words, "not a great idea" may have been uttered doubly there. I don't know whether their eyes glazed over as they were hundreds of miles away. It wasn't encouraging, but for some reason we found it all exciting and people's reactions kinda funny. Maybe it's because we were terrified and it was nervous laughter. 

Thom and I had started meeting after his workday for a beer at the little pub that had just opened in the small town we had spent the last 21 years in.  It felt like we were having dates. He would take off his glasses and lay them on the bar and look at me. And we would start talking. His hand would find mine under the bar and we would clasp our fingers together. Like when we were in our twenties. All the plans of our new future would start flowing forth. Just weeks before, the future looked like it would be happening separately. Now, it looked like we might start a new foundation, because we knew this couldn't just be a patch-up kind of repair. This wasn't just age cracks, it was an earthquake and we were committing to rebuild.

By February we had closed the deal on the diner and started telling our friends and family we were headed north. We made another trip and found a house in our new town which was just right for our family. 
Our daughters came home for their respective college spring breaks to say goodbye to the town they had been born and raised in. When the school year ended they would be coming home to Vermont and helping us with the renovations of the diner.