How A Sailboat Helped Forge The Way

(Post From January 2018) A bit about my background and why I do what I do.

I recently went to a retreat where each of us in attendance were asked to share something significant from two years of our life from two pennies and choosing the year to talk about.

The years were given at random with a zip lock bag of pennies and I was given 2016 and 2017. I had to share what those years meant to me. Well in 2016 I did the craziest thing and in 2017 I did the scariest thing which are both directly related.

I got rid of everything I owned in the beginning of 2016 to move onto a sailboat with a guy that I really barely knew but I didn’t care and I did it anyways.

In 2017 I started my first business while living on that boat. I would definitely say those are two significant things in my life that had the greatest impact.

This was our home, a 1980 Cal39 with the skyline of San Diego in the background. Most weekends we would be out on the water sailing and relaxing.

You don’t think about the changes that you will go through while learning to live on the water in a 10 x 10 space with another person.

Mentally you have to think differently and adjust your day to day routine significantly.

Before a change of life like this you don’t think about how you will do laundry, take LONG hot showers, cook up amazing meals in a teeny tiny galley, how you will organize the small amount of things you have.

Or how grocery shopping takes longer, the walking up and down the dock if you forgot something in your car and most importantly that you actually have to empty the septic tank!!

Yes, you have to fill the water tank with a hose just to have running water, this runs out weekly. You are simply thinking about the adventure that you are about to embark on day to day.

Anchored over at Shelter Island. It was like camping on the water. No distractions, us, the water, a good book and a glass of wine of course.

After living and sailing around San Diego bay for over 8 months, living such a different life than I ever had before, I started to see that life is too short to be doing something you very much dislike.

I had my umpteenth interview for a new position that I didn’t get and came home in tears, not because I actually wanted that job but because I was fed up with my current. Justin reminded me that I was making the choice to live that life, that I was making that decision to be there each and every day.

The very next day I put a date on the calendar and decided to quit that job END OF STORY. I would rather be broke from not working and trying to do something else than be broke, working 40 hours a week and driving over 15 hours commuting for a job that was a “go-nowhere” type of position.

I enrolled at SDSU for Meeting & Event planning certification program, took internships, volunteered for different associations such as AMASD and MPISD with their event committees (where I am currently on the board of directors for MPISD).

Doing anything to stay busy and feel like I was bettering myself was my goal at the time. At some point in mid December I was working a catering job and realized I knew how to make that, decorate that and plan that.

The very next day I started on a business plan and got to work on planning for what came to be Sage Bleu Catering. If I were to look back at that business plan and some of the things I have accomplished now, I would realize that some of these things wouldn’t pertain to me now, but the most important aspect of that is that I WROTE IT, EXECUTED IT AND FOLLOWED THROUGH!

When I was having to brainstorm for making a menu, I would use cookbooks for inspiration and have my laptop up top enjoying the outdoors while listening to the seagulls. Sometime’s the occasional sea lion would swim by looking for fish from the fishermen or even a scrap from me. They are very smart creatures!

Exactly one year later I can say that 2017 as a whole was the best year of my life professionally and personally.

I have had event planning jobs, catering jobs big and small, and personal chef jobs for a variety of clientele. I have had ups and downs, huge achievements and small achievements, but the biggest one of all is that I am following my passion and doing what I love everyday the way that I want to do it.

NO LOOKING BACK! I am looking forward to what 2018 has in store for me, where the path will go and I am ready for the challenge.

Thank you for taking the time to read this if you made it to the end.

Keep on following that PASSION whatever it may be for you!

This picture was taken on February 21, 2016 before I had fully moved onto the boat and brought over actual dinner plates. You have to work with what you have and on this night it was paper plates.

This picture was 3 weeks after I left my job, anchored on the water for the night and this hammock was my new “couch”. I would read books, magazines and watch seagulls above and fish below. These times were the best times!