Am I Just Plain Crazy?!?

As I have been busy in Portland trying to find a place to live, finding the crew lounge and figuring out where to shop, eat and whatever else we need to do to survive, I have hardly had a chance to think...BUT, I have had a chance to read a few of my favorite blogs and that, my friends, has returned me to my reality...well, whatever my reality is these days...before I go on, I want to share this blog address with you. Check it out, you won't be sorry http://www.lefolauga.com/ .

Since I have undertaken this HUGE life-changing career at this late stage of my life, I have found that I have, on occasion, found myself questioning myself with expressions like, "What on earth were you thinking?" and "Seriously, did you undergo a lobotomy and just not remember the procedure?" OK, just to set the record straight, I am THRILLED to be back in this crazy industry and anxious to get things going...BUT...

A lot has happened. If not for the companionship of two sweet new friends, things would be very different for me right now. These two amazing women and I have ridden the MAX (light rail), tromped in the rain looking for shoes to work in and found a crash pad to live in. They are my sanity right now and I am ever grateful for them!

While I was in training, one of our instructors was totally into inspirational thoughts. He shared one with us from the famous German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I was cleaning out my flight bag this morning when I ran across it...it couldn't have come at a better time:

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates a climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of fortune or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal in all situations. It is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a person humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” ~Goethe


What more can I say?

The Perfect Time

Well here I am in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Yes, this is my new domicile with SkyWest Airlines! Of course I want to be based in Salt Lake City because that is home, but I'm here until my transfer comes through and that's that!

I have blessed to be here with a dear friend, Jen. We met in training and somehow, we just clicked. We are sisters at heart and together we have found a crash pad, conquered the MAX (light rail system) and found our crew lounge, gates and other necessary info in order to become functioning Flight Attendants in PDX (that's Portland!)

I read a great thought on Facebook by a darling gal whom I have known for years....and yes, she's a Flight Attendant too (but for another company). This thought resonated with me:


"There is no such thing as the perfect time or the perfect situation. It is through our efforts that we try to make the perfect situation and through the time it takes to get there that we learn and grow and are refined into people who a little closer to being perfect."

I have found that way too many people wait for "the perfect time" to find peace and happiness. Life is ever changing and I personally feel that the only way to get through it with any sense of success, is to find happiness and joy in each moment. Now is the time to be happy because in one second, "now" will be gone and it will be wasted if it's not spent in joy...easy to say, harder to do. I'm a work in progress, but, as an eternal optimist, I choose to make the most of my time here. I've lived long enough to know that "right now" fades into "a long time ago" in the blink of an eye!

So as I have embarked on this new adventure in what are supposed to be my "Golden Years"...(REALLY?!?) ...I am trying to make this the perfect situation and, at the very least, make the very best of it. It's beautiful up here...I have a safe place to live...I have a great job...I have a wonderful family waiting back home for me...and I fly FREE!!

Stitches and Smiles

So it finally happened. My littlest *Little* fell off a chair and gashed his forehead open Friday night. I was sitting in a cold, lonely airport in San Francisco when I received a picture text of the little guy's wound. Aja was a real trooper! She realized that this is probably the first of many visits to the ER with this little fella whom I so affectionately call "Bam Bam" (for all you who remember the Flintstones...) He is the roughest, toughest little man and his escapades have finally caught up to him.

What impressed me the most was the smile on his precious little face as he waited to be stitched up (they ended up gluing his wound back together.) Here he just gashed open his head, bled profusely, and most assuredly had some sort of a headache, but he managed to eek out a sweet smile and even said "cheese" to his mommy when he saw her hold up her phone to take his picture.

See, he has no concept of the future. I'm sure that in his little mind, he knew he would be just fine because nothing can impede his concept of life as a 20 month old. As I mentioned above, I was stuck in the SFO airport with air conditioning blasting like it was 110° outside ( it was 58° F outside) and I was SO cold that I actually bought a blanked while I was at the airport...I was tired and I was cranky. I had just come off of a 3 day trip from hell rife with extreme weather delays, flight cancellations, reflows (reroutes) and even survived a hail storm that took our plane out of commission! All I wanted to do was GET HOME! I was miserable and yes, I wanted to throw myself down in the middle of the concourse and start crying.

(Glued back together!)
So when I received the pictures of my smiling *Little* with his "before and after" shots, I realized that I too would be just fine. I WOULD get home and I would eventually get some sleep. A sweet little 20 month old taught me that our futures are in our hands. No, we can't control everything that comes our way, but we can smile while we wait for our "stitches".

My New Chapter

I'm Baaaacccckkkk! And now I am officially a SkyWest Airlines Flight Attendant!

It has been a grueling 30 days of training and I SURVIVED! You would think that being a Flight Attendant for a major airline would have been advantageous for me when going to a regional carrier...and in some cases it was, but seriously...I got my butt kicked!

Training was intense, long and tiring. BUT, the payoff is so great. I finished my IOE (Initial Operating Experience-the airline world is rife with acronyms...it's their own language) which was another complete blog post in and of itself! (Seriously, it was the trip from hell...but I survived and I passed!) I feel ready to get back into the aviation world and anxious to really begin my career. All in all, I'm glad I embarked on this new journey. I have made some amazing new friends who will be in my life forever! THAT is a blessing!

So I head to PDX (Portland, OR) tomorrow, my new domicile. Hopefully my transfer to SLC will come through and my time in the beautiful Pacific Northwest will be short-lived. If not, then at least I am "stuck" in a beautiful state that is rich in culture, diversity and great seafood! Life is full of changes and even though there is a bit of trepidation on my part and maybe even a little fear of the unknown, I did survive NYC when I came out of Delta's training many years ago...

So please keep checking back. I will post more as I can. My schedule is guaranteed to be a bit crazy, but I have missed the blogging world and look forward to sharing some of my adventures with all of you.