Filth

Word to the wise: If you ever purchase an old butcher shop, expect to uncover some extreme nastiness in your walk-in coolers.

Chris and I started on some of the real, dirty clean-up this weekend. Of course, once we scratched the surface a little bit, we discovered that things were a little yuckier than they appeared at first glance. I'll spare you the sordid details, but some of the things we found in the walk-ins, under the steam table and behind the walls made me gag. Much of that stuff is gone now, but I'm sure we'll find more. The garbage dumpster in back is piled high with trash bags.

Chris also started looking behind some of the odd built-in structures in the public area. There's some cool salmon-colored formica behind the particle board, very mid-century modern, but it's far too damaged to restore - cut up, slapped with tar, etc. I also want to tear out some of the cupboards in back - they just seem like good places for mice to hang out. I want everything to be out on shelves in the light where we can keep an eye on it. Fortunately we have lots of wire shelves left from the previous tenant. They need to be scrubbed down of course, but they're basically OK.

The walk-in looks very homemade. We'll have to do some real fixing up there. I'll take some photos of that soon, because you kind of need to see it to believe it.

I opened up the bank account today, rescheduled the Verizon visit, other odds and ends like that. My to-do list only gets longer. I'm starting to understand what it really feels like to be a business owner - there's always something I should or could be doing. I have a zillion things going through my head when I go to bed at night. This is probably a tiny bit of what it's like to be a parent.