For those of you who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. I’m Toni, a flight attendant-writer-traveler-runner-dreamer-coffee-addicted-food-loving girl from the Boston area.

I started this project almost a year ago with the idea of sharing my travel stories and a window into flight attendant life. More than just sharing stories, A Wheel in the Sky was a way for me to start writing more consistently and deliberately, more frequently. I spent time composing pieces that would one day be blog posts. They ranged from trips I’d taken, things to do on layovers, tips for packing like a flight attendant, and of course the dirt on what is really up with the “mile high club.”

After a couple months of writing, I found myself in a good groove. The idea was to compile as much content as possible before going live so that I didn’t have to endure the stress of continuous deadlines, of constant pressure to find new, interesting things to write about. It was a good plan. Until the universe intervened.

While staying at a friend’s home in an upscale neighborhood of Boston, my suitcase was stolen out of my trunk, with my laptop inside it. This was a 4am surprise I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Unsure about what to do, I ended up going to work with nothing but a purse and a lunchbox for a three-day trip and buying underwear and a toothbrush when I landed later that day.

The initial shock of being violated and stolen from, of all my things being gone, lasted mere moments. The more pervasive sting, the one that stuck with me for months to follow, involved a more precious loss. Ideas. Words. Sentences strung together painstakingly until they sounded to my ear the way they felt in my heart.

I didn’t use the cloud. I didn’t back up my work.

I will NEVER make this mistake again.

It took a little while, but once I recovered from the shock of being robbed and the anger with myself for not taking the necessary precautions to combat such a preventable setback, I started taking steps toward moving on.

I bought a new laptop. A great one, actually. It’s lightweight and so much easier to cart around with me than my old one. (R.I.P. Samsung!)

I started writing again. I picked my memory for bits of what I’d already composed and I took all of my trips and layovers as inspiration. When I’d gotten just enough written that I felt like I was almost on track, that I could do it, I contacted Francis McGovern, an old colleague and friend, Founder of Literarytraveler.com and a Web Wizard.

He helped me each step of the way on this journey from encouraging me to get up early to write more, to picking a theme for this site, to doing basically all of the customization and navigation. Over months he found time in his ridiculously busy schedule to meet with me for this pet project, usually over guacamole and margaritas, and has answered sooooo many silly questions. (I’m a bit tech illiterate.)

Now, here we are. It’s months later than I’d anticipated going live. The year has changed, and I’m a year older. But through the setbacks, clawing my way back to writing consistently, and the slow, laborious process of learning WordPress, I’ve come to appreciate the process—and the company—behind this endeavor.

Francis—Thank you for all your help. I can only repay you in margaritas, guac, and shout-outs, but it will never be enough for how much work you’ve put in to help me.

And with that, I’d like to welcome you, whoever you are, to the result of this teamwork-fueled undertaking.

What you can expect from A Wheel in the Sky is tips and tricks for travel, insider information on life as a flight attendant, longer-form essays on formative travel experiences, and personal posts on goal-setting, bucket-listing or relationships on the road. You’d be right to expect humor and a touch of sarcasm. Above all, what you can expect is honesty. 

So poke around, stay a while, make yourself comfortable. If you want to know more about me, click here. Check out my bucket list, complete with updates. Or do your own thing, I’m not the boss. Please leave a comment if you’re so inclined, or constructive advice if you’ve got it.

A thousand times, Thank you for coming. I hope you’ll come back soon!