Monday! I love them now that I help run a resort. Mondays are pot luck days. We have a pot luck at 6:00 p.m. every Monday in the summer. It is a good way for our customers to meet who is here for the week and is a fun get together. Tonight's pot luck was fun and, in fact, the majority of the group is still out on the deck partying. We almost didn't have a pot luck this week because 5 of the 7 cabins are one group (all related) and at first weren't going to participate. We always invite our neighbor, Harry, to join us for pot lucks in the summer. He is 80 years old, lives by himself, and loves to talk so our pot lucks are wonderful fodder for his tales. The only problem is most of our customers are returning customers so they've heard all his stories before. Thankfully, they don't mind too much hearing them again.
It's 10:55 p.m. which is a little late for our bar to still be hopping. We don't advertise the bar business because we want to have a life. So we hardly ever get people from the lake or town at our bar. We don't have set hours, don't stay open past 10:30 p.m. if no one is in the bar and we discourage people from staying in the bar all afternoon. Believe it or not there are some people who would like nothing else than to sit in the bar and look out the windows at the north woods instead of walk in them. Funny. We discourage that and sometimes that means they are unhappy. But we would much rather be outside taking our customers on kayak outings or talking with them on the beach then in the bar.
By early morning our internet was fixed and Wi-Fi is on again. John took a large group out kayaking on the up stream part of the Turtle River. Usually the water is not high enough to go up stream, but this year it is so he is taking advantage of that fact. The group was gone about 2 hours. Then John swam around and snorkeled with the kids and by himself. The customers really liked the outing. They saw an osprey dive into the water after a fish and on their way back on the river saw the osprey with its wings spread out to dry. They said they even saw it shake out a wing and water droplets fly off. That would be so cool. I've never seen that.
John enjoys kayaking and said that the kids made him laugh. They wanted to take turns sitting in the middle of John's kayak to be next to Senna, our golden retriever. She loves to kayak with John and in our 3-hole kayak, she sits in the middle, or queen seat. It is very cute. In fact, she loves to be by John no matter where he is. If he is snorkeling, she will follow him along the shore or if he gets close, will swim out to him and circle him in the water. If he goes too far out, like to the island, she will sit on the pier and watch him until he comes back. Buddy, our shepherd, never swims.
I always feel better if I get work done. So today I worked on my e-mails, did 3 loads of laundry, organized the basement laundry area, cleaned half our bathroom, vacuumed and swept the lodge, cleaned out part of the refrigerator, went to the grocery store and post office. I had to mail a shirt, hat and earrings that customers forgot in their cabin. This happens quite often. I had to get the huge laundry bin ready for pick up tomorrow morning. Lake Superior Laundry will pick it up on Tuesday morning and drop it off all cleaned, ironed, folded and shrink wrapped on Friday. That's a lovely thing. If I had to do all the sheets, I probably wouldn't have any life. That would be a full-time job in itself.
I also visited with a friend who moved away but was here for a visit. She used to be our neighbor and I miss her. But she is much happier where she is so that's the main thing. Friendships are hard to keep in this business because I cannot leave to go much of anywhere in the summer. The summer is when most other people can take vacations and spend time with others. So its hard. I have a wonderful, best friend who lives 4 hours away and I wish we lived closer. It would be so fun to be able to hang out or go to the movies or whatever like we used to when I lived by her. Oh well, I can't complain. I see a lot of people during the summer and I have a lot of social situations with the resort. It is a lot of fun. But a best friend is important too.
For pot luck I made a Greek salad, beef stroganoff and a salsa/chip snack. I put out grapes too. It doesn't have to be cohesive because its a pot luck after all. So I have fun picking out new recipes. If I make something and I don't like it, at least I won't be eating it for a week because at pot luck almost everything goes. The Greek salad was good but I don't think I'll make it again. It had couscous, walnuts, dates and goat cheese on lettuce. It was pretty plain tasting so I put some balsamic salad dressing on the lettuce and that made all the difference.
After pot luck a lot of people were gathered out on the deck right outside the bar door. They were talking, laughing, drinking, and had a lot of citronella candles lit. The mosquitoes are bad so I got out my new Thermacell mosquito repeller. It worked pretty good for awhile. Then I noticed what time it was and came in to do the blog. They are still going strong outside and its 11:17 p.m. now. They're getting pretty loud out there too. Its a good thing that they are all in a large group so no one cabin will get angry about the noise. So I don't have to worry this time. If they were doing this and someone was in a nearby cabin, I would have to tell them to quiet down.
Today John did a lot of paperwork. Every month he does the sales and use tax form on-line. That is the one thing I have never done. That's were we have to record all the tax we took in and pay back the state. He also did some bills and paperwork. I ordered some vacuum cleaner bags from Henry's in Woodruff. Our grocery store doesn't sell the bags our commercial vacuum uses, so we have to call and have them shipped to us. They weren't open last Saturday evening when I drove by around 7:30 p.m., go figure.
After pot luck John went around and got the recycling from the lodge and garbage from the house. Then he put it on our ATV/trailer and drove around to all the garbage cans and made a garbage run. The recycling dumpster comes tomorrow morning. Since we have recycle bins in the cabins, a recycling dumpster and a compost bin outside, we qualify to be a "green" resort. Only you have to pay $225 a year to be registered as a green resort to receive their green certifications. What a scam.
We didn't get out today to try to find the anchor that fell off our pontoon. So that's the only goal for tomorrow. Snorkel and find an anchor. What a job, but someone's got to do it.
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