Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter by Lisa Patton Page A

and it barely missed the bedpost, I can’t say I was surprised. Baker said it took all three guys two hours to get Great-grandmother’s canopy bed to fit. After they finally got it in the room, there was no space left for another stick of furniture. I could sit on the bed, reach out my arm, and slide open the closet curtain. Baker said we could use the windowsills for nightstands but we had to put our dresser out in the hall. It gave new meaning to the word “ bed room.”
    Even though I wasn’t expecting much, I still had a hard time when I saw it. The letdown in my gut, that extreme feeling of disappointment, told me I should probably put my mind on something else. It was the kind of thing you had to flat forget about, or you might lose your mind. So I turned my thoughts to Vermont moose and diamond earrings and tried to convince myself to be excited about our new, adventurous life that lay ahead.
    By now it was past dinnertime, the girls were hungry and cranky, and I was worn out from traveling with two children. It seemed the easiest thing to do at that point was order a pizza and Baker volunteered to go out and get it.
    “They don’t deliver here?” I asked, when I saw him grab his coat.
    “Well, uh, not the kind I like.” Baker ran out the door before I had a chance to say anything else.
    Hmmm , I thought, and stored it—for future ammunition, if you know what I mean.
     
    The Vermont Haus Inn was still closed down for Stick Season and we were gearing up for our grand opening in nine days. We had work ahead of us for sure. Apparently there are two downtimes per year: mid-October through mid-December, and April through Memorial Day. Let me try and explain. Stick Season is the time period between the leaves falling off the trees and the first snowfall. Nearly every day the sky is overcast and the landscape is drab and monochromatic. You’d never even know the sky had any color to it at all. The ski resorts open around Thanksgiving but don’t really get cranking until Christmas. So most of the inns stay closed for Stick Season. (We’ll get to the other interval later. But here’s a hint for now—it’s called Mud Season.) I’ll go on record right now as saying no one ever told me about either of these seasons before I moved.
    The Schloygins traveled back to their homeland for the first half of Stick Season. As far as I was concerned, this was the part of the Schloygin tradition I would definitely be carrying on—trips home!
    The moment I opened my eyes, after our first night at the inn, I was determined to put my best foot on the floor. No more sulking, no more regret. I had a mission and I had chosen to accept it. The Vermont Haus Inn was my new home. I had arrived with every curtain, every bedspread, every stick of furniture, and even some of the light fixtures from Memphis and I was determined to stamp my fingerprints on this place within a few short weeks.
    So, as I explored my new house, my first morning in Vermont, I had a new attitude. To make the unpacking more pleasurable, I carried the Beatlesaround with me from room to room, and cranked up the volume on my small, but powerful, pink boom box. I was peeking into drawers, examining the wall colors, even checking out the locations of the bathrooms for the first time. The one thing I had going for me was that I love to decorate, and this old place was the ultimate challenge. It was in desperate need of a face-lift and I couldn’t wait to perform the surgery.
    There was more charm than I had noticed when I was first there in the summer. A small dining room with a tremendous fireplace was the focal point of the house. The old wooden beams protruded from the ceiling and a big bay window brought the beauty of the snow-covered yard inside.
    The wallpaper in that dining room, however, was horrific. It was red-and-white checked, just like a tablecloth, and resembled a cheap Italian eatery—at least I felt like it did. Now I don’t profess to always have