can't stop daydreaming

Don't know if you know - you probably don't - but T and I dream of opening our own restaurant one day.  We talk about it a lot, especially when we eat out at restaurants now because we discuss what we do and don't like about their restaurant to give ourselves ideas.  We also have a running list of places that we want to go visit to get good ideas as well as a list of ones that we want to sit down with the owners/chefs/restaurant people and have a little chat with.  Maybe over some coffee.  Or beer.  


We dream about the garden we'll grow, chickens we'll house, menu we'll create, and the community that we'll serve.  We try to imagine what the first steps would look like - getting small business loans, learning a thing or two about business, trying to figure out if we need a degree of some sort to do what we want to do, who our donors will hopefully be, which includes predicting which of our friends will become rich and, thus, becoming friends that we can mooch off of.  


We (maybe I) even have a location picked out already:

This is the McCracken-Mize house in Durham (read about it by clicking here).   When I first spotted it a couple of months ago (yes, it's actually been on the market that long), I wanted to live in it - and still do.  But as we've been talking more and more about the restaurant, I think I've decided to sacrifice it for that purpose instead.  It's perfect for how we imagine our restaurant to be set up.  Plus, it's absolutely gorgeous - especially with a little t.l.c.  To make matters better, it's owned by the Methodist Church next door (we grew up Methodist), who want a nice couple to move in that are committed to community.  Oh yea.  And to make it even better, there was an article written about it in which there were both church people and gay people commenting on the wonders of this one lovely house in need of owners in an up-and-coming neighborhood - and for that to be found in a North Carolina newspaper is solid gold for T and I.


Now we just have to figure out how exactly to get $350,000.  No biggie.  Especially with my school loans spinning us into an endless cycle of debt.


Still - a girl can dream.