Since the last two months, we have been busy with our small online business. We sell our products in our subdivision. Thankfully, it is doing better than what we expected. Pau is working from home. We decided to do a little extra for the little one. We have been praying intently for a business before COVID-19 happened. So we ventured into selling. The idea came from him who is definitely in love with cooking. Yes, we are selling his home cooked food and my dessert (his idea as well. :D). We are also helping friends with their products.

One of the things we are selling is baked sushi. You have probably seen a lot of posts related to it already. It is the current craze after Dalgona coffee. Being on my third trimester, I cannot do a lot of movements (but I’m doing a lot better than when I was on my first!). So I am in charge only with cutting, slicing, and dicing of ingredients: cucumber, crab sticks, cheese, mangoes.

I have not been fond of cuts/wounds and blood. Show me one and you’ll see me go white immediately. That is why I am so careful whenever I am using a blade. I tend to use the smallest knife at home to avoid having cuts. I feel like I can control it more than those of others. We have six knives at home; we bought them as a set. If you are familiar with the brand Stoneware, that’s it. They look great and safe, but they are really sharp. I’m using the smallest from the set, which is around 3 inches long.

Crab sticks are around 5 inches long, I think. Whenever doing them, I would cut a piece into four parts and then slice them down into thinner pieces. That’s because my three-inch knife cannot slice them in a single blow. I was doing that for quite a time until my husband joined me in cutting one time. I noticed that he was doing it faster than me. He did not divide a stick into four, just into two, and then slice them down. That was faster! How did he do it? He used the longer knife, a five-inch one. So the next time I sat down to cut my ingredients, I tried to be braver and used the longer one. Definitely, I finished earlier! No cut whatsoever. Whew. It made the work easier for me.

This little realization made me wonder: how many works did I actually delay just because I did not use the right tool? How many opportunities did I let go because I am afraid of something or with exploring new things? How many “tools” did I accidentally make dull because I am not using them properly and appropriately? I think it will not hurt if we will ask ourselves once in a while whether we are using the right tools for the job or things we are in.

How about you? Are you using the right tools? 

“Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.” 

Ani DiFranco