Oh, what a year it’s been.
So I just read the article I posted exactly one year ago today. All I can say is “Oh, what a year it’s been.”
What the heck happened?
We no longer live in Florida because they sold the house from under us and we essentially gave up on the small town of Carrabelle and moved to San Antonio, TX. Wait… what? That’s right, for the second time in a year and a half, our landlord, at the behest of her Realtor, Robin Hilton, put our house on the market. Since we were month to month, all they needed was 30 days to evict us. Last time, we still had the restaurant with an apartment on top, so I gave notice to the then tenant and started preparing to move in there. Well, they took the house off the market and we were told, “You can live here as long as you want.” Well as long as we want turned out to be 18 months when Ms. Hilton talked the owner into selling again. We didn’t wait for the deal to fall through, we started making significant decisions while we packed our stuff. We chose San Antonio Texas which I will explain later. Losing our house was just the last straw of an ever increasing load of discouragement and bad situations on the forgotten coast.
Long story short, I was eventually promoted to Executive Chef at a restaurant I wish I never heard of.
Suffice to say, I’m no longer the Executive Chef of the Crooked River Grill at the St. James Bay Golf (and pickle ball) resort. Wait, what? Yeah, I posted this before but last year I started at the resort as a machine operator on the golf course (cutting grass). The Executive Chef was forced to fire two lead cooks for substance abuse, lost another to injury and one more to retirement. I was asked to cover for them, and I did for six months. Long story short, I was eventually promoted to Executive Chef at a restaurant I wish I never heard of. It was one of the strangest chapters in my long life and if I shared the stories, you’d never believe them. (In hindsight, the whole Carrabelle chapter is one unbelievable story after another. I’m glad it’s over!!!)
I removed a dozen paragraphs about the craziness Carrie and I endured at St. James. Just know, that all senior executives have either quit or have been terminated. I walked when I saw that they would never do what they promised and were intent on exploiting me any way they could.
One story: I had just taken over as chef and all staff had been approved for vacation by my predecessor, nothing I could do right? Well, Carrie was on the payroll as a hostess so I tapped her and together we took on breakfast and lunch service and it was one of the biggest I’ve seen in 6 months. We burned through all our dishes and prep. Side note: there was an executive meeting I had to attend. They were all made aware of my predicament and was offered no assistance. No one wanted to help each other at all at this place. I digress, Carrie plowed through the dishes whilst I prepped for dinner. We burned through our dishes again and all the prep was consumed. All in all, I think it was $4,000 Dinner and $2,000 lunch. We did what we had to do. Then the owner came to me the next day, did not mention anything about the day before but did ask me to keep my labor cost low. I decided then, I was through.
Another very small chapter that turned out to be much more significant than I thought. In one short month, I met people, got to know them, and worked beside them and then poof, it’s over and they are no longer in my life. Such is life, I guess. Without getting into identifying details, I was hired by a very small restaurant to work 10 hours a day, 4 days a week in the kitchen as a cook. On my first day, I was told that I had to clock out for 1-2 hours between lunch and dinner, which brought my time down to 8 or 9 hours a day. I pushed back and was refused the opportunity to work through the required break. I learned quickly that I would be doing more cleaning than I would be cooking because everything was served from packaged and canned products. To top it off, they had a nut bag in charge of the stewarding of the kitchen. Basically, this ‘person’ expected a deep cleaning of the entire kitchen every night. That’s fine but I was hired to cook. Nope, too bad now go take out the trash and replace the liners.
Deep cleaning every day and it was still the most disgusting restaurant I’ve ever worked in to this day. They don’t know what sanitabs are. What? They are tablets you put into water that you use to clean surfaces and utensils to ensure they are sanitized and safe from cross contamination. I even asked if we could get some (I almost brought some in from home) and was told to put a small amount of vinegar into hot water. Nope… not sanitized and just streaked everything. But wait, there’s more. They never washed any produce the whole time I was there. I was told to cut Romain lettuce for salad, I asked where should I wash it and was told not to worry about it. Same for the cucumbers, tomatoes, and everything. Oh… and don’t worry about wearing gloves, just wash your hands. Don’t even ask me how they check for taste or temperature of the food.
THEN – when the health inspector did arrive, the so called ‘chef’ ghosted me stating his food handler certificate expired and poof, out the door he went. And the owner, who was rarely seen in the kitchen anyway, poked her head in and said, “you got this, right?” I was left in that disgusting (but “clean”) kitchen, trying to explain what this unlabeled bag of meat was on the top shelf of the fridge (turned out to be processed cooked pulled pork) and how long the pasta was on the table. I lied and said it was for lunch and would be discarded, it was used for dinner as always. Somehow we passed, but I’ve never seen such leniency by an inspector. I guess it’s who you know.
This is getting too long… in the end, I tried to quit in the first 4 days. I was encouraged to try to stick it out. Then, I tried to quit after 2 weeks and was told it would all work out. After seeing I would not be able to improve the food, or the unsanitary processes in the kitchen, I just did my job. Came into work on time, did what they told me, kept small talk to a minimum. Only to be rewarded with “this isn’t going to work out.” I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Then, when I picked up my last check, the “chef” wanted to make small talk (NOPE) and the owner left my check at the hostess stand. HA!
Moving on…
Amazon: The Influencer and Vine efforts continue. Our monthly income from onsite commissions is steadily improving but much slower than anticipated. I had hoped to be at $300 per day or higher by now. Not yet! We just keep plugging away to see how this plays out. It keeps improving, we’ll get there!
San Antonio Texas. Yeah, who’da thunk I would want to be a Texan.
Okay – San Antonio Texas. Yeah, who’da thunk I would want to be a Texan. Well, there are no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no snowstorms and very few, if any, tornados. Heck, they don’t even have state income tax. Oh, and the cost for insurance is less than HALF that in Florida which was one of the main reasons for leaving.
After being a tenant and living in the situation that I could be displaced at the whim of a real estate agent, I knew I needed to buy another house. When considering home ownership, you need to consider a lot of things. The cost of energy (very high in Florida), the cost of property taxes (high in Florida), the cost of insurance (any insurance) (extremely high in Florida (if you can get it)). The risks to your property such as crime (relatively low in Franklin County), weather such as tornado (moderate), flood (high), fire (moderate in Tates Hell), hurricane (inevitable).
On the topic of hurricanes, in the 3 years we lived there, we had 2 hurricanes threaten our area. So what are the concerns? Total obliteration of your home and belongings, and floods taking what’s left out to sea. Or at least, power outage for days or weeks. I didn’t think the threat of hurricanes would weigh as much on my mind as it did, but it was always there. I didn’t like it, so I made a change. Oh, and yes, we could still be affected by a hurricane in San Antonio, but nothing like the Forgotten Coast of Florida.
Oh, also when considering where you want to live out the rest of your life, you consider things like comfort. The climate in central Texas is moderate to hot. We have done Alabama hot, Kentucky hot and Arizona hot… I think we got the hot part covered.
But one thing that has been a relief in the two months we’ve been here is the bugs, or lack of them!!! In Florida, we could not go outside for any amount of time without being attacked by mosquitoes, gnats, yellow flies, and the dreaded no-see-ums. Just mowing the yard in Florida, I would get going and have to run inside to spray bug spray into my ears. Yes, the bugs in Florida fly into your ears when you’re mowing the grass. It’s terrible. I’ve mowed the grass here many times and I literally noticed and enjoyed the lack of ear attacking gnats here in the Lonestar state. Our beigest issue here so far is house flies and we are learning about ways to combat those little disgusting buggers. I’ve been told the buggy season has yet to arrive, but so far, I’m happy. We did see one little tiny mosquito on the wall, such a cute little guy. It bit Carrie and I smashed it.
So really, why Texas? Opportunity! That’s why we chose San Antonio, Texas! There are 2.5 million people in the market here. There are 1.5 million in the city plus another million or so in the MSA (metropolitan statistical area). That’s a lot of events to cater, or events to promote, or homes to private chef in. There are jobs on every corner and homes to rent when you need to (not cheap but available). There are attractions, museums, a zoo, an aquarium, gardens, parks and you may have heard of our world-famous River Walk. Sure, in Florida we had the beach, but there is so much more to do here in SA!
We’ve been here two short months and we are still getting acclimated. I’ve gone on a few interviews and have been offered jobs. I’m testing the private chef market this week with hopes that it gains traction so I can rebuild our catering business. I am going to another interview today at a residential rehabilitation hospital. I’ve been looking at extended stay or nursing homes as a way to reduce stress and offer some more time to work on our other efforts such as Amazon and YouTube.
Oh, how’d we get here? We did yet another DITY move. That is an Air Force acronym for do it yourself move. We went with Penske this time and saved $3,000. The truck and car hauler, unlimited miles and keep it for a week was less than $1,500. Just be careful about the turn in day, there is a time listed and I missed it by 5 minutes. They fixed it for me. I hired some help with furniture in Florida but all in all, I loaded and unloaded it myself. Oh, I injured my shin right before we got the truck making it difficult to lift my toes, try that on a loading ramp. I probably should have gotten stitches, but I plowed through and practiced good wound management. It never infected. ANYwho… With the exception of a little help with the sofa at the back door, I was able to keep Carrie from unloading anything too heavy. We got unpacked and moved in quickly. It’s a big house, 3 big bedrooms, and an extra loft area upstairs. Livingroom and two dining rooms and a kitchen made for filming videos!!!
My plans for the future are as diverse as this post. I may elaborate in the future, or, not. I’m still drawn to the publishing business, but my love for food and cooking is strong. I enjoy being on camera too. The Amazon adventure continues and it’s paying off. As for the drone business. It was a lie! I signed up for the work on all of the websites and never got any. A commercial drone pilot venture was a waste of time and money. I have a nice drone and I know the rules but I could have skipped that chapter. I guess I’m still figuring it all out. Likely, catering is my future. Something I can build from the ground up is what I need. I’ve done it several times and I can do it again! In this market, catering could be a multi-million-dollar venture.
We shall see.
We are still recovering from some of the emotional drama that Florida offered, and recover we shall.
My May 21, 2023 post was “The twists and Turns of Life.” Oh my goodness, how that has played out. We’re still twisting and discovering ourselves. We are still recovering from some of the emotional drama that Florida offered, and recover we shall. We are still learning, loving, laughing and growing. Even at our late age, life is an adventure and we are doing our best to enjoy the ride.
