THE WEEKEND!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, mine was pretty great. I had a few ok shifts at work including, a crazy 8 am to 9 pm shift on Saturday. I was able to make it out alive though and spent the last two days just relaxing and preparing for another week ahead.

I spent Sunday with my boyfriend Bradley, we did the stereotypical thing, "SHOPPING!" After we got done at the mall we headed over to Tupelo Honey Cafe, a wonderful place in Market Square, of downtown Knoxville. They make everything from scratch and use all free range and antibiotics free meat. A definite must visit if you are ever in downtown Knoxville.

The following morning I got to experience what few seem to these days, the joys of sleeping in! After I got up though I made a healthy lunch, cheated on my snack, and played Gears of War 3 with Brad. I spent most of the rest of the night exercising and playing games. That bring us to today, my first work day of the week, I so far have slept in, plan on doing a work out before and after work and just spent some quality time reflecting on my life.

I plan on updating this Blog more often with some recipes and other reviews, but at least this gets you caught up on my world. Wish me luck tonight!

New hope

Tonight I was given new hope in humanity by the form of two wonderful guests at my table. One was an older woman who worked for the Blount county library system and the other was a retiree from HGTV of 29 years. They showered me with compliments and praise and even told my manager how she was wasting my talents and time.

This selfless act single handedly made my night possibly my week. They implored me to put in applications elsewhere and even told me they would put in recommendations for me. I have waited so long to feel this kind of appreciation, it truly makes me feel great. This is what people need in their lives. People need to feel appreciated in whatever job they do, it's not an easy world to live in and sometimes all you need is a thank you or a hug and it will somehow make everything better.

I would love to hear about your stories regarding selfless acts of kindness or charity. Feel free to leave a comment below!

~Ben

A wonderful addition....

As we continue on...

     After pulling myself up I wasn't content with where I was so I set off to work towards a goal. My end goal is to open a business (preferably a restaurant) and prosper. I do this goal to not only help further myself but also those around me that have helped me during this great journey we call life. I never forget those who help me even if it is just giving me a compliment, because sometimes that's all I need.

    I began my next semester of college and started working more diligently towards opening a bakery with my friends Tiffany and Stephanie, they would prove to be two of my closest friends during college. We worked through the nights and weekends, doing everything from sketching out possible bakery layouts and signage, to building menus, to writing the business plan. We traveled around Oak Ridge, TN (where they live), looking for the perfect place to open up shop. We finally found somewhere that was somewhat affordable, the only downside being it was previously a finance office and didn't have even the slightest inkling of restaurant readiness.

     So we began the build out needed, we were fairly broke during this time and therefore did a majority of the work ourselves with the help of friends and family. This took almost a month to complete but in the end it was worth it. We opened up on April Fools Day of 2012. It was no joke. This would begin a very important chapter in my life and would provide me with more hands on learning than college would ever come close to teaching me.

     to be continued....


If anyone has any comments or wants to share a story of there on, I invite you to do so! I am always on the look for others who wish to share their experiences and lessons.

Thanks,

~Ben

Continuing on...

     First off, I apologize for my lack of  a post these past two days! I have started my oh so fun work week of 4 doubles in a row.

     I want to continue where I left of the other day and expanding on it with some very real experiences. After finding myself jobless I felt that I had finally hit the bottom of the barrel. I started skipping classes and getting down on myself. I was also single at the time which only further added to my negativity. After applying for unemployment I finally felt that I could sympathize with all of the middle class Americans that fell shorter and shorter on their bills after the recession hit.

    I decided to do what any problem solving entrepreneur person would do, I shifted my focus from the negativity to the future. I started going back to class and with the help of my friends and my director (at school) I turned my failing semester into a new start. I ended the semester with a new job and a B+ average.

     This just goes to show you that sometimes in your darkest hour if you can just shift your focus and maybe, just maybe distract yourself a bit from the reality around you. You then begin to open up and allow people to help you back to your former self if not better.

    I am going to cut today's blog just a little short, but I will try to post more and continue some more of my back story as I work this weekend.

Thank You,
~Ben

Working Through It

    Today I want to talk about a situation that happened to a young man as he was nearing graduation and didn't know quite what to do.

    This young man didn't particularly know what he wanted to do with his new degree or what path he would take. He had tried in the past to make strides in his part time job and perhaps even form a niche role that he could fill post graduation, thus turning his job into a career. This didn't look like it would quite pan out for him so he decided to band together with two of his close friends from college and start to form an idea for a business that they could start up. The first idea they had was to start a restaurant, well this idea seemed to be in the distant future as they were all pretty broke (as most college students are). So they started doing what any good entrepreneur would do and they shifted their focus.

     With their focus now shifted they started to work on the idea that maybe they could start up a new business that would fulfill some of their wants to have a restaurant and be successful. That's when they began work on a bakery/cafe concept. They worked tirelessly through the nights both after school and on the weekends. All the while they were working on internships for their respective degrees. The young man quit his part time job, and decided to work more at his internship as it was paid and showed promise. Then tragedy struck and without notice the young man's internship was told to lay off some new hires in preparation for a shift in management. In a blink of an eye the young man was jobless.

The young man mentioned here was me, I faced these very real and very common problems that an upwards of 53% of college age people and college graduates face in these hard times. I would like to elaborate more tomorrow on how you can pull yourself up from a seemingly bottomless pit of problems and negativity.

~Ben