Year In Review: 2013

One thing I love about business is the sheer satisfaction of success at the end of a good day. Each moment is orchestrated to reflect the time and hard work the team poured into it. 

2013 was all round extraordinarily great.

It has been a year full of love, friendship, trials business-wise and glorious celebration when all went well. Many are the times I almost gave up on the dream. I would then look back to the better days we’ve had, dry the tears and put on the fighting shoes again.

It’s also a year I got to spend quality time with my best friends and with whom I got to share so many first moments.

We went Quad Biking in Lukenya for the first time 

..and it was exxxtremely adventurous

Spent a weekend at the Rhino Charge with awesome company

My Bff, Eve found her Knight in Shining Armor :)

These great friends and I dedicated most Sundays of the year to spending time and donating foodstuff to orphans at Priscilla and Chalk Children's Home

We got together for fun-filled times of Horse Riding

Participated in more charity work

And DK and I grew stronger every day of the year. 

But most importantly I cultivated a closer relationship with God. I’m so thankful to Him for the blessings throughout 2013 and I know 2014 is well on its way for a repeat.

Happy Holidays Great People.

A Ray of Hope

Every morning, I wake up with a prayer in my heart, "Dear God may you use me to make a difference, with the little I'm blessed with, help me put a smile in someone's life."

I know that in a small way, God hears me, and gives me wonderful chances like this one to serve him, to serve humanity, and to make a difference.

At the beginning of each year, my friends and I come together, identify a needy institution in our community then make it a calendar commitment to contribute towards the project. Come December, we visit the institution; share lunch and Christmas gifts with them then contribute towards ensuring their lives in the following months after our visit are easier lived.

We started this initiative in 2010, where we visited Meru General Hospital, Maternity Ward, shared gifts with the new mothers and their bundles of joy, presently to make their motherhood journey smoother. 

In 2011, we visited Njia Special School, a school for the deaf, mentally and physically disabled children. The management relies on Government Aid in running the institution, but as we would all expect, kids with special needs require Special Care hence their maintenance cost runs a bit higher than that of normal primary school going children.

Being a boarding school, the school had a greater responsibility. We spent the day with them, presented them gifts, enough mattresses, dry food, new uniforms, washing basins, learning material, sanitary towels among many other donations.

In 2012, we visited Kamatungu Special School for the deaf in Tharaka. The school had one text book per class, which normally, is the teacher’s copy. This is without doubt an uphill task. Learning sign language, the teacher explained, requires persisted practice and sharing one copy in a class of thirty pupils, well posed a great challenge.

After our visit, one copy would now be shared by a maximum of three pupils, something the teacher had been praying about since joining the school.

Last weekend, we were blessed to hold our annual charity event of 2013 at Machaku Special Unit, an institution that takes care of physically and mentally disabled children in the community. 

The children come from very humble backgrounds, and their parents cannot afford to provide them two meals per day, save for the special care and treatment that is required to cater for the children’s needs. 

The head teacher, Victor Mbaabu, was humbled when I gave him a call months back to let him know we were planning on visiting his school in December. He gave us a list of the school’s challenges, the feeding programme being the principal test. The 14th day of December, 2013 was finally here and we spent it with the kids.

We played:

Sung and Danced:

We ate to our fill:

Then we presented the little Christmas gifts we had. We bought the school teaching materials, charts and brain stimulators, dry food to last them a whole learning term, sanitary towels to last the girls the whole of 2014, each child got a blanket to carry home, every parent got 2Kgs of Chapati Flour to cook on Christmas Day and many other presents.

This is our ten percent. Sharing the little we have, makes a huge difference in the lives of these beautiful people of God.


This boy is physically and mentally disabled. I might not be able to permanently change that situation, but showing him he is loved, seeing this adorable smile, is a memory I will hold in my heart till the day I die.

18 and The Maji Beach Hotel

 You know how December is peaked with corporate end of year parties? Yes, I’ve been attending a couple of those the last few days and I must state it’s really humbling to receive invites to a party designed to appreciate you for being a loyal client.

Last evening, I was invited to Twiga Tours and Travel Annual Christmas Cocktail Party. The event was held at Apollo Centre, Westlands, and Shazmin, the Director, was in point of fact, the one receiving guests at the entrance. She’s a remarkably gorgeous and stylish lady, warm at heart, very social and exxxtremely chatty.

After giving an introductory speech, she joined our table, took a bite of the crispy coated prawns and quickly sipped on her soda. And I snapped, “what?” then she whispers, “It’s too spicy” and I go, “but you’re Indian!” and she whispers, “please don’t tell the rest of them”. And I think I just told the Whole World Wide Web now. Sorry Shazmin. Then we spent the rest of the evening talking about everything travel and DK even got a package for a honeymoon I didn’t know he was planning. So much with keeping surprises!

Next, there was a raffle competition. At the registration desk, every guest was given a ticket, each ticket standing a chance to win one of the seven possible prizes. And the prizes were huge! Some of those I can remember were tickets to Masai Mara, a night for two at Sarova Whitesands and Pedicure, Manicure and Facial vouchers to one of the leading Beauty Salons in the country. 

This is how the raffle played. Guests were randomly picked to draw a ticket from the bowl containing a copy of every number issued at the entrance.

And here is where the story gets exciting.

It was time for the last draw, and the grand prize of the evening. For a quantity of reason, everyone pointed to our table for one of us to draw the ticket from the bowl since we had been busy talking all night. And the Marketing Manager, Vincent, brought the bowl to us with an enormous smile on his face. I put two fingers in and pulled out the first folded number I touched.

“Eighteen” I told Vincent, holding up the paper.

“Number Eighteen” he announced to Shazmin. 

“And the lucky winner of the grand prize is holder of ticket number EIGHTEEN” Shazmin broadcasted. 

Silence. 

“Number eighteen anyone?” She repeated. “One. Eight?” “E.i.g.h.t.e.e.n?”

“Oh My God, I’m number eighteen!”  Pause. “That’s my ticket number!!” I yelled, raising my ticket up with both hands and jumping up in disbelief.

And everyone burst out laughing.

“You picked out your own number?!” Shazmin voiced though the mic.

“Haha You bet I did! I couldn’t let anyone else win the grand prize!!” I said with a prided laugh then ran to the stage.

“This is unbelievable, you have to go with me” she said putting on a serious face.

“NOOOO!!! Not with you!” I screamed as I jumped to the stage.

And there was more laughter.

“Ok, you earned it. People, she just won a fully paid return flight for two to Diani, Mombasa PLUS two nights at The Maji Beach Hotel full board accommodation courtesy of Twiga Tours and Air Kenya.”

I’ve spent all morning on their website..

 And I now even know which room number I want to sleep in when we get there,

CANNOT. Believe. It. I officially have a new lucky number 18 and I’m so grateful to Twiga Tours, Shazmin, the first Indian I’ve dined with who hates spicy food and her welcoming, sociable and engaging staff.

To learn more about Twiga Tours and to win amazing getaways please visit their website.

To join Joanne in envying DK and I, and see more photos of The Maji Beach Hotel we will be visiting, please click here.

Sorcery Illusion

I came across this piece on the web a few days ago.

Really, how uncooperative can your brains brain get.

Smokey White

Strange thing about owning a pet is, you’ve wordlessly agreed to live together. Till death do you part. You do not communicate in a language you would both understand but you’re mutually comfortable with that.

Smokey and I understand that the best we can do is try to read each other’s minds. I know when he needs to be fed, cleaned, stroked and he knows the difference between play day and labor day.

Then there are times I attempt to read his mind and he becomes an instant smile that sits squarely in the nucleus of my life.

Dear December, Please be Awesome

Since December is almost here, complete with its chilly afternoons, Ugg boots, and eating cookies in the office, I decided I needed a rest so I took seven days leave off work and all I’ve been doing is experimental cooking and lying on the couch, thinking about my unlucky colleagues at work.

I actually walked into Nakumatt on Saturday to buy ingredients to make cookies at home, but when I started to realize just how much butter, sugar, and secret, fattening awesome stuff goes into them, I walked out empty handed. Instead I'll just buy them pre-made at Paul’s Cookie man’s and pretend I HAD NO IDEA THEY WERE 24 GRAMS OF FAT PER SERVING.

Oh, the holiday and its blind spending bliss is five days away, along with my love for all things Charity...

My Bee Eff Effs

Oprah once quoted, "Lots of people want to ride with you in a Mercedes, but what you need is someone who will take the bus with you when the Mercedes breaks down." Now, if I didn't already love Oprah, this quote alone would make me want to be her best friend. I secretly pretend we're BFFs in real life and if she'd let me come over, I'd braid her hair and her chef would make us a delicious meal. Then we'd watch America’s Got Talent and cry at all the good parts.

Speaking of good parts, my real best friends are made of a million and one good parts. No, amazing parts. They're beautiful people who make my life better and challenge me to think beyond myself and to dream BIG. This past weekend was my 23rd birthday. Oh you thought I wouldn’t write about it? Why, what would you do if you had friends as awesome as I do, hide them in the closet? No. I have to kill you with the thought of imagining you’ll read about them, again.

So DK, my Best Friend, and my Bee Eff Effs (I know, can’t help it) threw me a surprise party. 

So I cried

..and cried, and thanked God for them

We started our maiden voyage with a birthday toast and since I was a waitress for many years; (in my kitchen) I professionally popped the cork with style. Or so I bragged.

 

 

The party was officially on and my friends were there to celebrate with..

Joanne is ultra-talented. We’ve been best friends for ten years and not only is she one of the hardest working and smartest women I know, she has a creative eye for beauty and a passion for photography. She's currently working with PrintsCharming, and does photography over the weekends.

This is Dan and Judy, DK’s little siblings. Judy recently got attached at KMS and she’s getting trained and poised for a new position while, Dan, is in first year of college. We were so excited he cut his homeless-person afro we threw him a party. In our hearts…well, not exactly but you get the point.

Anne and I have known each other since high school and it was always interesting when we joined the same Campus everyone thought we were exceptionally fortunate to be best friends and share a name. She’s hyper, tattooed, very compassionate but sometimes, pretty wicked. 

This one time we bought Eve a passion fruit cake for her birthday so Judy tastes it and goes, “wow, this totally tastes like passion fruit” and Lynn says, “Yeah, well because it’s a passion fruit cake” and Judy goes, “but it really tastes like passion, the fruit, passion fruit” and we all go, “…...” then she still presses on, “guys, I know it’s called passion fruit cake, but really it has the taste of passion fruit, honestly, it’s so unbelievable.”Anne has never let it go and is always making this mean joke that Judy forgot to pay her brain bill.

I met Sophie October last year through Joanne and she recently landed an amazing job in the Banking Industry we’ve been celebrating it every Friday since. She's funny, talented, kind, extremely bright, and we’re without end happy for her to be scaling the heights of success in style.

On my right, is my cousin Rita and on my left is my brother, Vickie. She’s always the light in a party and no matter what gender you are, Rita will call you dude. Vickie is graduating December while he’s currently pursuing Criminology at Egerton University and working part-time at some cool Printing Business he says I wouldn't know about. In brief, what he basically says is I'm uncool. Love him to bits.

DK is my Better Half. No, really. I feel like the luckiest girl being with him and I can't wait to celebrate another year of life.

Risper is my cute cousin and the nicer half of them all...truly. Her life mission is to save the world. And she's doing it. She works with Nazarene Hospital and she speaks to us about giving a hand to mothers getting adorable babies in their arms and her joy in seeing her patients get better. She's an amazing soul and I'm lucky to call her my sister.

Kevin, probably thought he was funny making fun of me...but little did he realize I'd post this photo of him on the web. Boom, redemption.

At this point into the party, I believe I was thinking how lucky I am to be blessed with such amazing people in my life

Having hours to spend with my friends makes me feel exceedingly lucky and I know they'd be willing to take the bus with me any day.