Still Pluggin' away
Working on my memoir
Where have I been?
I know I haven't been around lately and I really miss all of you and your wonderful articles. But I've been very busy. Not only with the bed ad breakfast (this is my high season) but also with my memoir. I'm on the third writing and trying to finish it up. I had no idea that it would take so long. It hasn't been tedious though, I've really enjoyed the journey. Fortunately being a little OCD and a person who revels in attention to detail, has helped me with all the re-writing and careful self-editing I've had to do.
My bed and breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky
This is how it begins
That day, standing under the original gas-light chandelier in the Victorian parlor, I made a decision that would change my life forever. I decided to do something I knew absolutely nothing about. I was about to spend every cent I had saved for years, my annuity and my severance pay from the Chicago Public School System on an historic home in Old Louisville, Kentucky. And I was going to turn it into a bed and breakfast. I had no idea how to run a bed and breakfast or even that a bed and breakfast was a business. Furthermore, I never wanted to be in business.
I was a teacher in Chicago for nearly thirty years teaching art, music and creative writing. I was using my right brain doing lots of creative things and loving it. Now I had to get used to the idea of switching to my left brain. The word entrepreneur started ringing in my ears. Am I crazy? I always said I would never go into business. Business was very unappealing....no color, no excitement, no fun. I moved to Louisville because it was so much cheaper than Chicago. It was a friendly town, laid back, with lots of amazing restaurants.
I had a friend there, Maggie. We had taught school together in Chicago. Now she was helping me find a place to live.
"What am I going to do with five bedrooms?" I asked Maggie as we stood face to face in front of the 1882 fireplace. I kept thinking this house is amazing. I have to have it, stained glass and all.
'Why don't you open a bed and breakfast?"
"Hey, that'd be fun" I said, not realizing that owning a bed and breakfast was being in business.".....
(excerpt from my memoir: Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen: An Innkeeper's Tale)