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Category Archives: Our Team

New Year, Same Mandi!

One of my goals this year. Launching my bakery, bringing more pretty cakes like this to life.

The beginning of each new year is a time to reflect for me. What changes did I make in the previous year? What was the outcome of those changes? Should I make more?

I don’t make a plan that I will answer all of those and execute the answers on January 1st, though. I don’t “do” new year resolutions. Maybe it’s my rebellious nature still that says, “Everyone is doing that, so I can’t!”

I’m not really that bad. I just look over notes and review things. I make notes for everything. I do mean everything. Not just work, but home stuff too. It takes a while to go through everything, and figure out my next step.

Vlassic is learning to play the piano for the new year. They grow up so fast. *sniff*

The only thing I know for sure as of right now that I will continue to do is step out of my comfort zone. I’ve got some exciting plans coming up this year that are definitely not in my comfort zone, but are things that I have wanted to do for a good, long while.

None of it involves jumping out of an airplane with an over sized umbrella, or off of a bridge with a string tied to my feet. I might go zip tying though. I miss surfing. I don’t miss the beach reports a few days later and seeing the aerial photo of the sharks that were what I kept feeling bump into me.

I was actually very happy here, but really tired 🙂

I’d like to go to Port Aransas this year for the big sand castle thing they have every year. I’m sure the boys and I would love it. It’s the ocean and the beach. Come on! Who wouldn’t love that?!

I don’t know what 2019 will bring yet, but I do know what I’m going to set out to achieve. I will either achieve my goals, or I will adjust in finding something that does work. Probably a bit of both actually.

Happy New Year everyone!

 

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What Do I Want For Christmas?

My little great niece, Rosalynd. She would be a nice Christmas present. Just put her in my stocking, and I will take care of the rest.

That used to be a relatively easy question (albeit long) to answer. I think like the meme I have seen so often says that the older we get, the harder that is to answer because we want things that can’t be bought.

One thing that I wanted can be bought. That was Rattlesnake. I got that in October, which is Mom’s birth month as well. I was sitting in the living room a few nights ago and just looked around and thought, “Man! This is a beautiful house! Is this real life?”

Thanks to Lee, Sue Ann, Chris, Garry, David, and Kim. They brought her back to life. My Dad and I still have some things to do, and spring time will find phase two in full swing.

My second to oldest son, Matthew, got the driveway cleared of all the Georgia cane. It had gotten to where it looked like my driveway was only five feet wide. Now the whole thing is visible. It’s a muddy mess right now, because it needs road base and gravel brought in, but that is part of phase two.

Look closely to see Patsy playing with Phoenix. Fortunately, Phoenix didn’t try and join Patsy in the tree.

We are now a family of four kids, five dogs, and two cats. This makes decorating for the holidays (any of them) difficult. I decided to bypass ornaments on the tree. You can see why. I was also planning to buy a real tree to put in the living room for Santa to leave gifts under. I decided against that as well. I have seen really cute ideas to keep dogs away with picket fences, but aside from hanging the tree from the ceiling I am pretty sure I won’t keep Patsy out of it. It’s okay though. Really.

Holidays also remind me of days gone by of cooking, baking, and candy making with my Granny, Mom, and Mema. I finally perfected a peanut brittle recipe last year that breaks and is hard like it should be, but melts when you put it in your mouth. My Pa loved peanut brittle, but couldn’t eat it because of his dentures. It took me 12 years, and a lot of figuring out what didn’t work, but it finally happened.

My candy coated pecans. There are others like them, but these are my own specially made ones.

I experiment and do small things to my candy and cookies that make them my own and unique, like my pecans here. I’m glad to share the recipe that is the base for it, but not my method. My methods are secret and some only between me, Mom, Granny, and Mema. The Vickie Jane inventory of recipes expands every year. I think I may have enough to start it going all year part time. Maybe more on that in the future.

So, what do I want for Christmas? Well, a unicorn would be nice. Besides that, I have everything I could want. Really, I do.

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Building a Dream Team

So much cleaner! We’ll put more tables back out, now that we are waiting a bit to start the renovation.

Over here at the Cameron office, the Hermits’ Rest Enterprises team is expanding as our dreams expand.

The Hermit Haus Team

You may have noticed that we have the husband and wife team of David and Kim doing our renovation work now. Various members of Mandi’s family have been helping, too. Thanks to Randy, the basement is now clean enough to move our offices into temporarily, while we wait for the remodeling plans to get done. I’m now thinking of drawing pictures on the walls or something fun.

One set of stairs and a wall are gone in the baptismal area.

The demolition crew has moved upstairs now, and they are working on removing the baptismal. We will soon have a nice, new rectangular room to use for future restrooms and such. It will be much easier to envision uses for the space with the big tub out of the way.

Speaking of big things out of the way, the huge dumpster is gone, replaced by a much smaller one that will be great for our business as it grows.

The Gillis House Team

While our current plan is to remodel the Gillis house as a residence, in the long run, we may find the need to use it in other ways, like to host people who are in town for our events. We also were looking for new ideas for the event venue at the Hermit Haus. Bearing that in mind, we brought in a consultant with lots of knowledge of both events and hospitality, local real estate guy Jonathan Deal. Jonathan has a genuine degree in hospitality management and experience running hotels. Plus, as the Director of Theater Productions at  Milam Community Theater and a long-time performer, he is full of much-needed creative ideas for events that would draw people to our little town.

Mandi has done theater work with Jonathan since he was a kid. Aww.

We had a great meeting with Jonathan at the Dutchtowne Deli (also getting ready for renovations) and showed him the house, which of course, got him excited. That’s because the house excites everyone who sees it! So, though he’s a busy person, he agreed to provide us with advice and input as we move forward with this project.

Getting Ready to Go

Today we’ll be spending time getting our stuff ready to move over to the Hermit Haus. We’ve loved our time in our current office, but we know the new tenants, Martha and Mike, will love living here and fixing the place up to be a home again. Our movers come next week, and then their movers will arrive. Look forward to some fun posts about all that moving.

If you come visit, we’ll be at the back door.

It’s getting real. We even filled out change of address forms! We’re heading to the basement. Whee. Just don’t call it a dungeon.

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Rattlesnake Fulfilling Her Purpose! And Is Another One on Its Way?

Our foster dog, Sweetie, asleep with my youngest Jacob, and Maggie.

What a wild couple of months! We have finished our move into the Rattlesnake house. What an adventure that has been! Nothing really major, just random things that kept me on my toes. In addition to that, I have opened her up to foster dog named “Sweetie.” She’s a great dog. That saying is true that I can’t save them all, but fostering comes close. Fostering is a great way to figure out what kind of dog you want and what temperament is a good fit for your family. I’m happy to help anyone become a foster or permanent family. There are many dogs that would love to call you “woof” which translates to Mom/Dad.

Our first Thanksgiving at home was wonderful! It was held the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Since we can be thankful everyday, I think it still counts. We had lots of family gathered around, and we had a great time.

This clock fell off the wall, but still worked. Rather than toss it, I made it art.

When I was a kid, the house we all went to for gatherings was the “cousin who lived in the country with the biggest house.” That torch has been passed to me. We have people who like to play horseshoes, musicians, and lots of kids in the family. I can accommodate all of that.

One of the appeals when I first saw Rattlesnake was just how big the inside was. Plus the surrounding yard and carport can hold A LOT of people! The original list of those invited was over 40. We had 14, and we had plenty of elbow room.

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Thankful for Our Community

Let’s see. Do I put the purple yam in the blender with these bread crumbs to make a delicious casserole?

Since the house tour I was supposed to take yesterday got postponed until tomorrow, I ended up cooking all day with my sister, Canova, to prepare for our community Thanksgiving at our ranch neihgbors’ house.

We made many things, like my favorite dressing and cranberry sauce (hint, if  you want your favorite things at a special meal, cook them yourself). She also made a gingerbread, where the main ingredient turned out to be missing from my spice cabinet (we used my very expensive Penzy’s crystalized ginger bits instead). And today is another day of cooking (I am making a ton of mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and some roasted onions, a new recipe. I wonder how those will be?

Our dogs are thankful that Mandi adds water to their odd little water dish.

It fills my heart with gratitude to be out here in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a great community that supports us in our work and play. Anita is on her way to Cameron (we hope) so she can make her “damned yams.” Mandi and I have been helping each other with various tasks as she prepares for her first Thanksgiving at the Rattlesnake house (which still doesn’t have cabinets, so it’s, um, “interesting”).

Carol and Russell are doing Thanksgiving with their dearest friends, so they are also surrounded by community!

How about you?

I hope you have plenty to be grateful for, whatever you are celebrating (we do have readers outside the US, ya know). Having our extended community to support us and keep us going is invaluable, and all of you readers, blog commenters, Facebook like-ers, and in-person supporters mean a lot to us. I’m actually picturing many of you in my mind right now.

It’s blurry, but you can see that the Ratttlesnake house is full of spirit!

So, let us know what you are grateful for this year. We do love hearing from you.

Tomorrow there will be more photos of progress on the house in Round Rock.

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