When you're exactly where you belong, exactly where you're supposed to be, you know it. It's that sense of fitting in, that feeling in your gut that everything is finally just as it should be.

Marianne Brown had that feeling when she walked into Whidbey Coffee and Caf in October of 2005 and asked for a job.

There was just one tiny problem. They weren't hiring.

Well, scratch that they weren't hiring just anybody.

But when a resume arrives with a homemade latte-shaped candle, well, that's grounds for a second look.

"I just wanted to work there so badly," Brown said of her innovative approach.

Owner Dan Ollis interviewed Brown and hired her within a month.