Today is Day Seven of the monthly Blog Challenge!
I am so excited that we’ve made it this far, and to be honest, have really liked the daily challenge to write about this business. I struggled a bit when I saw the topic for today, as I feel like I am still getting my head around being a innkeeper, or what my role is in running this business.
Today’s blog topic is Pet Hates – We all have things that sap the happiness out our day, what are some of yours?
Then the answer for my writing today came to me in a memory from a conversation with a new/good friend Kelly. (That is the one of the beautiful things in moving to a new city/country…once you meet someone that you know you can be friends with, it seems like it’s quite immediate. OK – you’re normal and pretty cool, sold, now we’re friends, lets get to the heart of the matter.)
Kelly asked how I was doing, as she knows I’ve been pretty tired, and that we’ve been tapped out trying to do our day jobs and then coming home to running Hosking House. We knew the first year would be tough as we try and get our name out there and my partner truly sets the tone as he has tremendous energy and is able to just put his head down and get on with it. (He literally wakes up on a Saturday morning as says, “I’m going to build that table for 12 you’ve been wanting.” And goes out and does it. I’m all like, “OK babe, that’s great, I’m going to sit here, and drink this coffee, and then I’m going to get dressed and brush my teeth…but you have at it out there and shout if you need anything.”)
I was pouring my heart out a bit and letting her know that I was struggling, that I just wanted to devote all of my time to Hosking House, but couldn’t, and that we had so far to go to get the business up and meeting our goals.
My friend spent the next few minutes reminding me of all that we’ve done in the past 8 months….moving in, construction, decorating, website, branding, marketing plus working…and that we were actually doing it! We were running Hosking House. Yes, we may not yet be at full capacity, but that would come.
That conversation lifted the cloud that had been shadowing the reality of what we had achieved. It was like a light had been turned on – and I realized that the the only thing standing in the way of my happiness at puttering around and enjoying the running of the business was me. And the way that I was looking at the situation. I was my own pet hate, and I was the one robbing myself of my own daily happiness.
We’ve gone from this:
To this:
From this:
to this:
and this:
to this:
But most importantly, we’re running this business. We’ve had guests, have been able to take good care of them, ensure they’ve had steaming cups of coffee, or a cold water to greet them after a long journey, or even a cold beer as they were getting ready for their wedding….
Although we have not yet hit all of our goals – we should not overlook those we have achieved. Back a bit to being able to look at the garden and not see the weeds!
Thanks for the perspective my friend!