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?