Category: Life

Life, Love

On Life Changes

Tess

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[the setup – and yes, he was smart enough to bring booze AND chocolate]

Here’s the deal: this is going to be a quick-ish life update post, and then we’ll have the funnies and the eats coming quickly thereafter. Deal? Deal.

For those of you that have somehow managed to avoid this news (and kudos to you: I have been most persistent), My Man and I got engaged about a month and a half ago. It happened in gorgeous, perfect Moab on a gorgeous, perfect evening (well, it was cloudy – perfect to me) while some weirdos watched from a nearby RV (yay!), and I am very, very, very happy.

There is something very seemingly “grownup” about the process of getting engaged – suddenly, people seem to think that you are capable of making huge life decisions and that you know what you want from your future, and that maybe you can afford to buy furniture or a house or something. Allow me to be clear: we don’t and we can’t and we have no idea what is going on. We are both still just as confused as we were a month ago, except the difference is that we know we’ve got a buddy (is it weird to call him a buddy?) to work through the confusion with moving forward. And that’s kind of nice.  Tell me more!

Food, Life

How To Not Be A Jerk, and also Green Smoothies.

Tess

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I’ve been thinking, guys.  Dangerous stuff.

Over the course of my lifelong quest for perfection, I have found many things.  First of all, the very act of being on a lifelong quest for perfection has a tendency to turn any human into an awful, anal-retentive beyond belief totally stressful bore. It’s a bummer.

But what does that mean?  Continue to strive for perfection, but relax sometimes?

Okay. How hard is that? For me, REALLY hard. I can compare this in some ways to the Atkins diet.  Please come along with me on this metaphorical exploration. Let’s go!

Life

Zen, and the Art of Life/Body Maintenance.

Tess

Since I’ve never really tried to pigeonhole this blog, I’m not going to qualify this post at all – I’m just gonna jump in.

2012 so far has provided a lot of challenges for me in almost every area of my life – my family and relationship thankfully being somewhat exempt from that trend.  However, I spent the first few months of this year going up against some pretty major challenges with both my job and my health.  Since my health keeps me on my feet and my job keeps me in cute shoes for those feet (etc), both of these obstacles have required a ton of energy, more than a little stress and a boatload of determination to navigate. Deep stuff, man…read more

Life

People I hate at the gym.

Tess

This is a life update, so don’t expect anything epiphanous.  Epiphanary.  Ephiph…never mind.  There are NO EPIPHANIES in this blog post.  Okay?

I know that I haven’t really deigned to post about anything other than my vacation that was now five months ago since that happened, and that’s significant mostly because it’s one of the more interesting things that’s happened to me since last October.  That’s the truth.  I wouldn’t lie.

However, this post isn’t here for me to apologize, otherwise I would probably just keep on living my life.  Instead, I have chosen to write about the place I have been spending the 2nd most amount of time since January – okay, third, after my house and work.  I’ve kind of been on what you might call a “health kick.”  And by that, I mean that I “still eat Chinese food.”  I just “eat less.”  And “run afterwards.”  You know?

Anyway, spending a lot of time on cardio machines has given me a really valuable chance to reflect on the kinds of people I don’t like at the gym.  After a recent conversation with some co-workers, I realized that the list has grown rather long.  And that’s okay.  Because I have a blog – otherwise known in this particular scenario as the place for me to record these gripes for other people to read or not read at their leisure.  Work it out, I love reading

Business, Life

The Best Customer Service Experience, Ever (or one of them)

Tess

I don’t usually do posts like these, because this isn’t a business blog and I’m no expert.  But I had an experience today that I feel deserves a blog post, and as I have reminded you so very many times before, this is MY blog and I do what I want.  Okay?  Great.

Today, one of my co-workers asked me if I was interested in grabbing lunch at Larkburger, a local burger joint that is SO much more than a burger joint.  Since I moved to Boulder a few years ago, I have long admired Larkburger for their incredibly high-quality food, great service, and attractive interior (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a nice appearance – but as a rule they go much deeper).

My co-worker, Christina, had an experience a week or two ago where her order wasn’t perfectly executed – she took some of her employees out for lunch and a few things came out wrong.  After her experience there, she emailed the restaurant to let them know.  The manager, Ceasar, sent her an email apologizing, and encouraged her to come in for a meal on Larkburger whenever the urge might strike.  I want to jump in here and say how much I love this tactic – giving someone a free item that encourages them to return to your place of service is a great way to get their foot back in the door if they’ve had a bad experience.  Christina was in no way threatening to leave them as a customer forever, but simply had a worse-than-usual experience – but they treated her with all the glory of someone who puts up a legitimate stink AND got her back in the door.  It’s a great way of doing business. I want to know about the burgerz