"Jill's Returning to Her Childhood"... or... "Candidate for Husband-of-the-Year"

In order to fully understand this saga, you need to know what the Starbucks "uniform" consists of: black or khaki pants; white or black collared shirt; black or brown closed-toe shoes; Starbucks hat or visor; Starbucks green apron. Because of what I already had in my closet, and because I'm rather frugal (tight, some would say) I wear khaki pants and either a white or black shirt, usually white, 'cause I don't wear much black (it makes me look older, I think.) The green apron, as you probably know, covers most of the shirt and pants. However, not all...

For many years, Dwayne has been helping with the household duties by doing the laundry every weekend, and I must say, he does a great job of sorting, treating, washing, drying... the whole 9 yards. Since I've started my barista career, it's provided him with new challenges, i.e. chocolate on shirt sleeves; coffee stains all over the bottom of the pants legs; and just about everything served at Starbucks on the green aprons (whipped cream, sticky syrup, coffee, chocolate, pastry residue, etc, etc.) Recently, marker stain on white shirt was a good one.

Last weekend, as he was starting a load of laundry, and very efficiently pre-treating garments, Dwayne was heard to lament, "Since you started working at Starbucks, it's like having a little kid again, with stains all over her clothes... only, Julie and Jessie were almost never this messy!"

So, although I'm thoroughly enjoying my barista-ing, and happily wiping messy hands on my apron as I smile at and chat with customers, and typically spilling just about everything on myself (have you seen me in my own kitchen?!)... this has created more work for Dwayne. So, to my faithful and hard-working spouse, I say "THANK YOU, DWAYNE, for supporting me in my job. Not only by not not fussing when the alarm goes off before 4 AM, but also by continuing to be such a great 'helper' in the laundry room!"

If every barista had such a supportive partner, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.

Also, just a note... I took a required food-safety-handling course this past week. Yikes! The information dispensed was enough to convince you to NEVER eat out again! Just want you all to know that at Starbucks, we only handle your food with gloves on and using utensils, and we NEVER allow any germs in any coffee, frappuccinos, or any other beverage. So, just don't take any of those courses... what you don't know can't hurt you! ;-)

Where does the time go??

Wow - I can't believe it's been a month since I posted anything! I didn't intend to be so lax about this.

I was just wondering recently, why do I really like this job?! I'm getting paid less than I have in over 2 decades, the hours can be crazy.... but, I really do enjoy coming to work! So, I've been thinking about it... I've always enjoyed entertaining in our home; I love coffee; I really like being around young people; I love visiting with friends and meeting new people; my psyche is a lot happier when I'm out working than when I'm staying home most of the time...it goes on and on. So working at Starbucks satisfies just about all of those -- it's like having people over for coffee, making new friends... AND I get paid for it! What a great job for this aging grandma!

One of my newest hobbies is quilting, and I recently made Jessica a "coffee" quilt for her birthday. Some of my partners saw it before I took it to Denver for Jessica, and I'm now going to make a couple of wall hangings for our store with some leftover fabric. I've attached a pic so you can see what it looks like. Whenever I get a chance to make them, I'll post a pic of them in the store. But, since I'm working 2 part-time jobs now, it's taking me a lot longer to get to any quilting! I'll just have to make some time for it!


Thanks to all of you who are interested enough to read and comment to this blog. It's a challenge for me to figure out how to make it work, and what to say, and it's fun to read your comments. So, I must go now so I can make time to make a couple of coffee wall hangings!