Wednesday, June 19, 2013

5 weeks...

So, we have now owned this business for five weeks.  To be exact, five weeks and three days.  I had hoped that by this point I would be able to write a post about how much I have adjusted to living on an island that is not quite 20 square miles and has a population of roughly 4,500.  I had hoped that I would be able to tell you how things have gotten so much easier and how I actually wake up feeling confident and excited to go to work.

That post will have to wait.  There have been so many times since we got here that I wanted to quit.  I have had d-bag customers tell me to my face that I'm a failure as a manager because we were out of stock of an item.  I have heard from our attorney that several of her friends have been into our establishment and complained to her about being "unhappy".  We have been sucked into bureaucratic red tape at nearly every attempt to situate ourselves here.

 
However, we have also met some amazing people.  That horrible customer who reamed me out? The next day, one of our new friends who was in the store and witnessed me breaking down and running into our back office informed me that he chased that customer down to the parking lot and told him that there was no need to treat me like that.  He told him that if he wanted to give someone a hard time to find someone else to pick on.  I was speechless. This is a man who I had known for barely a month, and haven't socialized with at all outside of his daily visits to our store, and here he was defending me - certainly something that he had no responsibility to do.

In the process of trying to unload our shipment of things from NH that finally arrived, E was making countless trips from the warehouse to our house and back while I was at the store.  I mentioned this to another one of the friends that we have met since being here and he offered his time, his truck, his help AND the help of several of his friends to get everything to our house in one trip so that E could stop the back and forth.  Amazing.

We have been invited to countless social events and casual beach get-togethers.  We have been introduced around by the staff at our store to so many wonderful people. We have enjoyed (and at times, perhaps overindulged) in many welcoming drinks and meals, being accepted and assisted by people who didn't even know we existed 6 weeks ago.  We have been made to feel like part of a community, and encouraged to participate in local events, etc. Last weekend for example we had a great day hiking in the morning and attending the 1st Annual "Iron Bartender" competition with our kitchen staff in the afternoon, followed by a few hours of beach time.  How can you complain about that?

 Last week we closed on the sale of our home in NH.  My father in law attended it on our behalf since we obviously weren't about to travel for it.  On the morning of the closing, my mother in law was there doing some last minute cleaning.  I don't know what she was thinking,but she sent me some pictures of the house completely empty and cold looking.  Of course, I broke down - again. Seeing our house - our home - looking so completely lifeless was hard.  I know that change is a positive thing, and this was a necessary step, but I really wish I didn't have the pictures pushed in my face! The fact that I'm not at all in love with the house that we are renting here made me even more nostalgic for our house in NH.  Such is life, I guess!

So, after five weeks in, I feel more conflicted about this change than ever.  There are days when I know that it will work, days when I know that it won't, and days when I feel like I don't have the energy to care.  I do know that I cannot live here forever. I am just not an island girl at heart.  I still long for Starbucks, Target, farmer's markets, etc.  Life is all about choices, and I am going to choose to make the best of this!

Until next, time, I've finally managed to transfer some of the pictures from our first month...


Two dogs...one cat...one LONG flight later - we all safely arrived!



Barge ride from St. Thomas to our new home on St. John

Our own car finally arrived...only 3 weeks late.  It looks so strange without the NH plates!
One good thing about our rental - walking distance to a dog beach!
Happy Hour!