Give thanks

I realize how important social interaction can be. The holidays make me feel a sense of love, togetherness, and family.

I hope I can adequately show my friends and loved ones just how much they mean to me. I appreciate how each person has helped me develop and grow.

Thank you for making me examine my desires and goals.
Thank you for showing me my potential and my unique abilities.
Thank you for sticking with me through all the trials I've had to suffer.
Thank you for guiding me through my dark periods.
Thank you for allowing me to explore my creativity.
Thank you for helping me become me.

Thank you!

Fear of the Unknown (in Business)

Many of you know that I have been throwing business ideas around for the last, oh.... 3-4 YEARS. I've talked a big talk about starting a business, but never felt like I was good enough or knew enough to actually  do it. Well, this month I'm actually doing it. I stepped out of my comfort zone and took the first baby step towards a new career and a new me.

For those of you that don't know- I cook. And I cook A LOT! And I've always thought about doing this for a living, but never had the guts to move past the "dreaming" phase. With the help of my mother and my husband, I spoke with a friend of the family who owns a catering business and told him my ideas. He listened and gave me his honest opinion. He encouraged me to try things out and see what happened.

He asked for a sample of my work so he could taste my creations. Monday I baked like I'd never baked before and took a plate of my half moon pies (pineapple-filled pies most often found in Hawaii) down to his catering kitchen so he and all his staff could weigh in on my work.

I was SOOOO scared about showing my work off to someone outside my immediate family. Especially someone who cooks for a living!

And guess what? HE LOVED THEM! He loved them. His wife loved them. His kids and all the staff loved them. In fact, they loved them so much, they want to feature them as a dessert in their restaurant and asked for a price list so they could work my pies into wedding quotes for their catering business.

I was on cloud nine. I never really thought I would be taken seriously by professional cooks. And now? Well... now I am more determined than ever to make my dream a reality.

Look out world! Sani is cooking her way to success!

The Saga of the Furnace

For those of you who know our continuing issue with our furnace over the last year- you will all be happy to know that we now have a working furnace. Not a NEW furnace, just a working furnace.

Here's how it all started:

We bought our house last year in August. The house was built in 1957 and the furnace is the original that came with the house. It is built right in to the wall of our closet. No ducts or vents in the house, just this centralized dinosaur that made me wonder if it would heat my house or burn it down.

Cue Winter 2009-

We tried to start the furnace and it didn't seem to be working. We could hear the burners turn on, but never heard any blowers start or anything like that. We figured it was broken. Because our funds were low last year, we braved last winter with space heaters and LOTS of hot chocolate. But we endured knowing we would install a new furnace before next winter.

Cue Winter 2010-

The winter started early and freaking FROZE everything under the sun! It's like the Polar Ice Cap down here. Single digit temperatures and biting winds make for terrible days and worse nights. Well, we had been saving all summer for this furnace, but had continued to put off calling for quotes. We started up our space heaters and were determined to get a new furnace installed ASAP.

The quotes started coming in and my eyes started popping out of my head. I couldn't believe how much companies wanted to charge to put in a new furnace. Blaine was not happy about the prices either. So, he just decided to light the pilot light this hope that the burners would somehow help with heating the home- if even just a LITTE bit. We had closed our door the night before to keep some of the warmth in our room as we went to sleep. We woke up the next morning and opened our door and voilà-a WARM HOUSE!

Apparently our furnace is like a radiant heat furnace (which we didn't know since our house did not come with an instruction manual) and it had warmed our house to 70 degrees over night.

Now, we feel a little silly that we didn't have it running all last winter. But I don't care. My house is now warm. It hasn't burned down. And I can finally emerge from my blanket cocoon to get some things done.

Time to Blog

So, I've never really been good at this whole blog thing. I've been fairly hesitant mainly because I feel like if I'm going to be writing some of my thoughts and experiences down, I'd want to write ALL my thoughts and experiences. And some of those really shouldn't be shared with just anyone.

So, I'll try to do a little self editing and keep things interesting and worth while. Does anyone else feel like this?

The Old Man and the Lav

As I was boarding passengers for a short commuter flight, I had a passenger approach me before we left and asked to use the lavatory. Of course I said yes since our flight was only 35 minutes. I hoped that would be the last time I saw him. 

Unfortunately, as we were in flying, he approached me again about using the lav. I told him he was standing at his own risk since the seat belt sign was still on. But of course, he had to go. Now, it's not easy serving a full plane in turbulence-trust me on this one- but having a shaky old man trying to stagger his way down the aisle while the plane is rocking back and forth doesn't make it easier. And to top it all off, as we were descending (and I was already in my jumpseat) someone pushes the flight attendant call button. "Ding!"

Are you kidding me? What would someone want now?!? You guessed it-Mr Bladder had to pee again. What am I supposed to do? I assessed the situation, informed him we were landing, but he insisted he could not hold it. So, what did I do? I let him go. I'm not going to make him hold it. We've already seen one incident in the media about flight attendants not letting someone go to the bathroom. But that didn't make me any LESS frustrated with him. 

I'm sure it wasn't his fault. I'm sure he didn't WANT to go-his body just TOLD him to go. But all I could think about was what kind of mess he was probably making in the Lav during turbulence and how I would have to clean it. Yuck!

At the end of the flight, the man handed me a tip and thanked me for helping him with his delicate situation. I immediately felt guilty for calling him Mr. Bladder in my head and thinking how much he was bothering me during the flight.

The moral of the story- don't always think everything is about you. I was focusing on how much his problem inconvenienced me and how much work he was creating for me. But now I realize that my little actions made a big difference to him and you never know when little actions will pay off big time.