Monday, June 30

Monday, June 30, 2014

Once again I am going to try to promise to be more consistent in my writing. So much has happened within these past couple of months.

The first three weeks of May had me spending hours putting together the Summer Guide for the InterTown Record. I went to Ruggles Mine in Grafton twice. Once for the interview and I returned on opening day for more photos. What an amazing place to visit! This year’s Summer Guide is the best yet, even if I do say so myself.

June had me getting ready for an estate sale. I finally decided to bite the bullet and get rid of a lot of possessions. I’d tried off and on for a couple years and didn’t make any headway. This time, I hired a professional estate sales lady, Valerie Hickey of Estate Sales by Valerie. She was amazing! I’d get downstairs and pull the “I don’t know what to do” wail. She’d grab a box; set it in front of me and say, “Go through this.”

She was great at keeping things separate, remembering what was to sell and putting away in the closets the items I am keeping. Then a few days before the sale, she brought in a couple of helpers and they set up tables, arranged everything, and put on prices and labels. She advertised, put items on Facebook and Craig’s List and put out announcements to her regular clientele. She set up canopies outside and had things out there. I am really impressed by the work she and her team did and when it was over, they put everything away.

I finally finished my book Too Cold for Alligators and it is now in the production stages at AuthorHouse. Next step will be to go over the galley when I get it to make any corrections before printing. Yikes, this is finally going to happen! I so want everyone to see what I’ve worked on for the past year and a half.

But the biggest news, for those of you who don’t know, is that on June 24, I became THE EDITOR of the InterTown Record Newspaper. Holy crap! Me? The editor? I am honored, excited, and pleased. Wow. Now I am trying harder than ever to be a better writer and editor.

And in between all this, I’ve been running pictures around to various shows. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do anything new. But it will come.

Today I went off to take photos for a consignment project. I want the customer to be happy with the result. I decided to have lunch at the Flying Goose Pub in New London while I was in the area. The waitress totally impressed me. She remembered me from last month and as I watched her interact with a group of people who were at the restaurant for the first time, I realized that Lindsey Aliengnea of Sunapee is the ultimate waitress.

She was 100% focused on her customers. She knew the menu and was able to answer all questions and give advice on the food as to degrees of spice and “hotness” because she has personally tried most the dishes. She was knowledgeable about the beer menu, too, and could talk about the various brews without having to refer to the menu or notes. (The Flying Goose Pub makes their own beer. My personal favorite is the oatmeal stout, but then, I’m a Guinness fan.)

I watch a lot of the cooking and restaurant shows on the Food Network and Cooking Channel and Aliengnea has all the qualities of star waitress!