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| Make yourself right at home, Brendan. |
And by "boys" I mean all the males, aged 6 - 42, that live in Casa Martin.
If You Dribble When You Piddle
I can remember growing up with only two brothers, and one of my sisters making a sign to hang in the bathroom that said "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, Please be neat and wipe the seat" which I thought was weird because there should never be pee on the toilet seat. I mean, girls sit and boys stand but they lift the seat, right? Well I can tell you, having potty-trained six little buggers, that they do not necessarily lift the seat because they are lazy and then the girls have to deal with the consequences. Is there anything worse than sitting down on a wet seat? Ick! I can remember seeing Maggie wipe down the seat before sitting back when she was just a young sprite and thinking "Tell me you have brothers without telling me you have brothers." Also, boys' aim is not as great as they think it is, and they always think it is great.
King of the TV
If there's a sports game on, don't even think about watching anything else on the tv. They also love wielding their power by holding the remote. I don't understand it but I can't deny it.
Full Belly, Full Heart
You've all heard the saying that the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach? Truer words have never been spoken. You should see the way their eyes light up when I come home with groceries. A full fridge and pantry equals a full heart for my guys. And when supplies are running low, and there's "nothing to eat!" you can actually see their heartbreak. Does mom just not love us anymore? A homecooked meal at the end of the day or an offered snack while studying or a packed lunch for them to grab makes them feel so loved. Whenever I'm grocery shopping, I try to pick out some of their favorite things and they truly appreciate it.
Ya Filthy Animals
There's no sugarcoating this one, boys stink. They are so active and bathing is mostly just a waste of their time. I never thought I would have to remind someone to take shower or put on deodorant or change their clothes or brush their teeth as much as I have to. Thankfully, this changes once they notice other girls. Not their mom or sister mind you, only potential girlfriends. They keep their rooms a mess, can't find anything and hate doing chores with a passion. Also I have said the phrase "No feet where we eat" and "Put on some clothes!" and "There's no maid that lives here" more times than I can count.
I was watching a tv show about a group of guys and girls and it started snowing out and all of the guys ran outside to go sledding and the girls watched them from the window, tumbling and laughing and acting dangerous. One of the girls sighed and said "Wouldn't it be so nice to be that simple-minded?" Wouldn't it? They just seem so much less complicated and can live in the moment so much better. I remember once going through a particularly stressful time and telling Phil about all of my worries and he said "Just don't worry about it!" I was like "Oh, wow, wish I had thought of that!" How do they have that ability to just not worry about so much? Perhaps it's because they have a lady in their life that they know is handling that role.
Use Your Listening Ears
Something that is such a pet peeve of mine with males (in general) is that they don't listen as well as females. They forget things I've told them or only do something if I remind them often enough. I hate having to nag like that, but I feel like it's the only time they will do it. Maggie will so easily see my stress level at having company come over and pitch in to help, but I have to reach a breaking point to get the boys to help out.
My husband likes to tell me of some fun fact he "heard somewhere" and I stare in disbelief as HE'S REPEATING BACK TO ME THE SAME THING I TOLD HIM EARLIER.
It's me, hi, I'm the person, it’s me.
Part Four here
When we last left off, we had just been told that the building permit was never pulled for the *already worked on building*. We called my brother who said he had indeed pulled the permit, then realized it was under the address of the restaurant next door (because we share a deed/property with them) and once that was settled, we paid the exorbitant permit fee and we were all set. No fines, phew! While finishing touches were happening on the building, there was still lots of work to be done behind the scenes. Fortunately, behind the scenes is where I shine.
I needed to finalize a menu and flavor list so that I could design the signs and order them. The signs would go outside so they had to be waterproof and would be unchangeable, unlike an indoor chalkboard sign, which made the decisions about what items to carry and how to price them very overwhelming. We were "setting in stone" our offerings before we even opened and had a good handle on what would be popular or what the price points would be. We drove around to a lot of local shops and took photos of their signs and prices to get ideas.
One thing that became obvious to me was that I wanted really clear, classy signs. So many shops have messy, disarrayed signs all over the place and it's hard to see all the options clearly. I wanted one sign with flavors and one sign with the menu and prices. I learned a lot about design when creating the signs, like how to find a hex number (not a curse/spell) for the navy paint color we used on the trim outside and then match the sign's navy blue to that. I could look up paint colors and find the pink that looked like raspberry sorbet and then get the hex number for that to use in our lettering. If I could go back in time, I would have designed the logo with this knowledge gained from making the signs. I would have picked colors more precisely so that the logo colors and the sign colors would have matched, and I would have used more common fonts in our logo that I could then easily match to our signs and anything we printed. Lessons learned for the next time!
I also had really envisioned The Cottage with shutters on the windows and was disappointed to realize that we couldn't because of the placement of the support beams holding up the awning. Bummer! This process was nothing if not humbling. Maybe one day I will figure out some narrow custom shutters to hang.
We needed a big sign that read "The Ice Cream Cottage" for the top of our building, and I reached out to a few companies for quotes but they were so expensive! The ice cream shack owner casually mentioned to look into the vocational schools to see if they would take on making a sign as a project. I looked up the head of carpentry at the local vocational school and emailed him asking if his students would be willing to take on this sign as a project. He was very nice but emailed back saying that it was too late in the school year to add a project, but that they could do it for us in the fall. I replied telling him that we needed it at the beginning of May and I totally understood his students couldn't do it but could he recommend any sign company to me instead? I figured all these wood working guys know each other :) He wrote back asking details about the sign and I sent him a photo of a sign I wanted to emulate with the measurements and colors and wording. He wrote back saying that it was a simple enough sign that he could do it himself in time. Wow! Great! He said he had a piece of wood big enough and we would need us to provide the paint that we wanted. A few weeks later he said it was done and he could drop it off, and I told him to bring it with the invoice so that I could pay him. He came by with this beauty...and told us it was free! We were shocked and so appreciative and of course told him to come back for ice cream anytime.
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| All signs hung! |
Next up was getting all of the permits and inspections. Mother's Day was fast approaching on Sunday May 14th and we wanted to open a few days before.
May 8: The fire inspector came by and we passed the inspection but he said we needed to post our building number on the front of the shop within the next 30 days. Whoops, a detail we didn't think of but no big deal.
May 9: The plumbing inspector came by and said that with our new *required* three bay sink, we would now need a bigger water heater, and with the bigger water heater we would need a different outlet installed. Ugh! Phil worked with the developer to quickly get an electrician and plumber in the next day to do the work and went out and bought a water heater. Somehow it all came together the next day but with a very hefty price tag.
May 10: Health Inspection - passed with flying colors, thanks to hours spent cleaning and painting and organizing. Phew! We had two priest friends come to the shop that night and enthrone The Cottage to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts.
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| Let's get it together Martins! |
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| That's better! |
May 11: The Building Inspector - We had tried to pin this guy down to come back and give us the green light to open, but man was it hard. We had wanted to open on this day, Thursday May 11, 2023 because it would give us a couple of days to work out the kinks before Mother's Day, which was supposed to be a very busy day according to the other ice cream shops. The building inspector said he would come by on May 11 but never said a time. The shop was ready to open, we had all the products ready to go and literally just needed his approval. Around 3pm he finally came by. He told us we could open, and then asked me when the big day would be.
"In one hour!" I replied.
He said "you're going to open today? In one hour??"
I replied "Yup! We've been waiting for your approval and we are ready to go!"
"Good luck!" he said and I immediately posted the following on social media:
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| The one against the wall was cursed, maybe the hex was a spell after all. |
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| Phil took this screenshot with our security camera of the freezer being repaired while we were open. |
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| Before and After |
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| All clean and ready to, uh, clean. |
Part Three here
So there we were, meeting with the owner of the ice cream shack that we had previously planned on buying one day. Phil and I were anxious because we had to tell her that the potential deal was now off the table as we decided to buy a shop in our own town. She had been so nice to us and open about her business that we didn't want to let her down. She began by nervously talking to us about the negative events that had happened in her life, which we had been completely unaware of, and now we were feeling even worse that we were about to let her down even more! Then she said that because of everything going on, she needed to keep the ice cream shack open to help her family out financially. She felt so bad that she had led us to believe we could buy the shack but now had to pull out. We sympathized with her about what she was going through and then excitedly told her not to feel bad at all because we were getting our own place. She was so relieved! We were so relieved! We had both been dragging our feet to talk to each other because we didn't want to be the bearers of bad news, and in turn it worked out perfectly for all of us. She has become such a mentor and friend through this whole process, and we have been able to help her out as well. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.
Okay so at this point we had an agreement with the ice cream wholesaler, a signed lease, loaned money in the bank, and we had told family and friends and informed the other shop owners that we thought it might affect negatively (but it didn't, yay!) and everyone was on board. I posted our first social media post:
The developer saw the post and called the local radio station who reached out to Phil and wrote an article about The Cottage and talked about it on the radio. The local newspaper heard about it from that source and Phil and I did an interview with them over the phone. I wrote up and sent the newspaper journalist the history of our family's ice cream business and he put together a big article that really got the word out. In his article, he mentioned that we would open for Mother's Day weekend (we had said we really hoped to be open but no promises) so now we were in a big rush with a six week deadline.
They worked fast, and Phil and my dad were so great at scheduling electricians and plumbers and getting equipment delivered fast. Our biggest expense of the whole project was buying two dipping cabinets for about $8000 each. The company that we bought them from didn't deliver, so we had to set up delivery with another company who would only deliver them to the shop but not take them off the truck because of their weight and size. We had to ask quite a few friends (one with a bobcat) to help us get those off the delivery truck and into the shop, and that was only the beginning of the dipping cabinet saga *cue ominous music*.
The building was in rough shape, dirty with gross equipment. We scrubbed what we wanted to salvage, painted walls, had the floor cleaned and waxed, installed new windows and doors, resided the front of the shop, installed lights and redid plumbing. We found equipment second-hand when possible, and had some family members and friends willing to help us, for which we were extremely grateful.
The shop had a two bay sink, but the Board of Health requires a three bay sink (one to wash, one to rinse and one to sanitize) so we bought a sink from someone from Facebook marketplace and had it installed by the plumber. The plumber configured the pipe in a way that took up a lot of room in the shop, so we had him redo it, which he was not happy about. The electrician had his work cut out for him too, as installing outlets in an old building is never fun. My dad not only oversaw the whole renovation, but also worked on his own finishing touches to The Cottage, like building a cupula to light up at night, making uniquely shaped shelves in front of the windows, and installing a fan to blow out the waffle cone scent to customers waiting in line.
My mom kept busy researching recipes, shopping for things we would need, and making her famous Maggie's hot fudge for us to use. How lucky we are to have their guidance and help, and I think this shop is bringing them joy too. Much like a grandchild comes with all the good parts of parenting and none of the bad, they get to enjoy the shop's success without having to work there everyday. Though they do tend to visit daily, to water flowers or get a treat or just see how long the line of customers is :)
Things were moving along fast, and it looked like we might hit our Mother's Day goal, when the Building Inspector showed up one day to inform us that we had never pulled a building permit. Um, excuse me? My brother pulled it for us. Nope, he looked in his computer again, there was nothing pulled for this address. But we had already done all of the building work, what now? Have you ever felt pure dread flow through your body like ice? Yeah that's how I felt hearing those words, only a few weeks from opening day...
Part Five here
