Please Forgive Me

Please forgive me on many levels. First, my husband always criticizes my grammar, but its a freakin' blog. I'm not writing a thesis. This is in my own words, deal with it.

Second, its been almost two years since I had to make the hard decision to close my businesses. I was heartbroken and felt defeated. The sad part is that is wasn't my fault. Of course, my businesses didn't bring in enough to pay for the mortgage or other bills. I was just able to stay a float, but my husband was the one who paid all the bills. He is the one that works a 9-5 job, so that we can have a roof over our heads, food on the table, lights and water. He was in a very unfortunate circumstance, where he believed there was a chance that he could be fired at any time. If that were to happen, we would go into foreclosure and everything would be taken from us. So, he did the responsible thing and started to look for a different job. Unfortunately, Maine is just small enough for his line of work (web developer) to be an issue. So, he expanded his search to Boston. 

Fortunately, for our future he was able to find an awesome job, but it was in Boston. That meant we had to leave Maine. He stayed at a friends house a little bit closer to work, but it was still an hour and a half commute everyday. He would come home on weekends. He then tried commuting for a couple of months from Maine, working on the train for half a day. He didn't come home until after ten at night. The long commute started to weigh on us. There were a couple of other issues going on too, but that's another blog, I'm afraid.

We had actually decided to try to put our Bath, ME house on the market the summer before all of this job thing, because I was only able to really make enough money to break even (if that!) with the food truck around Portland. Due to a few horrible real estate agents (a whole other book is coming on that subject), we were not able to sell the house we had fallen in love with. So, with great hesitation and fear, we rented the house out.

It was at the end of October 2018, that Brian and I had to part ways for awhile. Since we didn't have a home lined up, he had to return to his friends in New Hampshire and I stayed with my parents in Vermont. Why didn't we try to rent a place- you may ask? At the time we had 4 dogs and a food truck. What landlord would rent to us?!

It only took 2 days for our lives to dramatically change (I know suspense, but again, it's a whole other blog post). So, long story short, too late, right? We were apart until about the end of February. 

We desperately tried to find a home in Massachusetts near the train line so that I could also run my bakery. Guess what- the houses we could actually afford in MA, where so messed up- I just can't even describe it to you. That's when we decided on Pawtucket, RI. 

The cottage laws don't exist there. I even attempted to do a community kitchen which had a separate area for gluten free, but the costs were way too much. We were barely getting by. So, I put my business plans on hold. I basically did a whole lot of nothing. You know how crazy you all are getting during this quarantine? Try doing that for a year! 

I did try to get a job. I'm not sure if it was because that I had owned my own business for the past 5 years, or because I can't shake people's hands anymore, but I was never hired. I applied to jobs that I could have done in my sleep, and I was willing to get sick again to be able to do something in a kitchen. Again, the whole point of me starting my business was to not be sick anymore due to my celiac disease. 

So, anyway, I had enough. We originally were going to try Connecticut. We put our RI house on the market and started looking. The one catch was, I wanted land. No more being on top of neighbors and dealing with all the noise. I also wanted goats. We had thought we found the one, but... Have you ever seen The Money Pit, with Tom Hanks? Need I say more?

So, we ended up selling our RI house, but had no place to go. Luckily, my parents were super accommodating. We were only going to stay with them for about a month or so. HA! The pandemic hit. We were stuck. Again, it could've been worse. At least we were with family.

Everything changed. My husband's job decided to go remote. He will be able to continuously work remote, which we are so grateful for. We thought, where were we the happiest? It turns out to be Maine. Of course, we can't move back to our Bath house. It was still being rented out and there was no land. Luckily, we finally ended up selling that house (a month ago- it only took 5 real estate agents and a pandemic). 

We searched for awhile to find the right kind of house and land for us. We thought we found the perfect once, but we had a lazy agent who didn't actually want to help us achieve success with that house. So, we found a different agent (yay, Erin!) to secure another house. Again, real estate is another one of my passions and I will be working on some books about that later on. 

We swore we would never be those people who bought a house sight unseen, but crazy things happen when you're cooped up for months.

We are coming to Windsor, Maine. I know its hard to be able to trust me again for your gluten free needs. You finally find something you like and then suddenly without much notice, it disappears. I'm so sorry for that. Please believe me when I say, I had no intention of leaving anyone high and dry. We are coming back for good this time. Things will be a bit different, because I am a different person, but the baked goods will be just as good, if not better!

I will be starting the bakery aspect first, the farm and more will follow. And the food truck will be making a grand comeback. I hope to see you all soon!