Like old times...

When I was in high school, and for the first few years of college, I had this whole punk-rock kind of style and mentality. I liked it. In all honesty, I still kind of do. It just seemed to fit me better than anything else, and over time, I've made it all my own. I liked crazy belt buckles, studded leather belts, my favorite band t-shirts, jeans so holey they were falling apart, and music that made me want to jump around or get in a fight.

For my high school prom, I wore my black leather studded belt and nautical star buckle with my red prom dress that I designed and made myself. I had long hair and dyed the tips of it red like the dress, giving me red curls in my up-do, along with strips of a different old studded belt woven through the curls. I think I looked pretty awesome, and my date made the look complete. He had a red suit with a black satin tux-style stripe down the side of his pants, black satin lapels, completed by a Rancid patch among a few others hand-sewn onto it in various places. He wore a black pair of Chucks. I wore a pair of high-heeled Converse-style shoes (that I still have because I love them so much). We looked fantastic! I wish I could find pictures of that night, because we were the best looking couple there and we stood out from everyone.

During my freshman year of college, I tried out fluorescent orange highlights once, and with my long hair, they looked awful. So I asked my friend who had dyed it to chop it all off. She'd been in hair school, so she knew mostly what she was doing, I think. Later on I even dyed my whole head that bright orange color. I loved it. And I somehow got away with it on BYU campus.

I've worn whatever I wanted for just about my whole life--well, from about 5th grade on, when I really started to become interested in clothing and fashion. I've dyed my hair numerous times, dozens of colors, had it in countless styles and lengths, and I've had a lot of fun doing all of that.

I've always liked the fact that people tell me they wish they had the guts to do some of the things I do. I guess I feel like I add flavor to the world, doing some things not many of my friends would, whether with my hair, makeup, clothing, or whatever else.

When I went on a mission, I put a lot of that behind me, because I needed to look the part of one of the Lord's servants and have other people recognize me as such. Short spiky hair and studded belts doesn't  really fit that criteria. So I grew it out, wore skirts, collared shirts, and sweater vests for a year and a half, and it was well worth the sacrifice. What an incredible time of my life those short 18 months were!

So I've been back in "real life" for over two years now. I've kept that former style of mine toned down quite a bit. But recently, I've just been having this.... this........ crazy urge to pick it up some more, once again. So here's my most recent splurge:

I got stop-sign-red highlights. 

I think it's fun. And my favorite part is noticing how people react when they see me with this color of hair. Some do a double take. Some point it out right away and make sure it wasn't some mistake my hairdresser made. My favorite is when people talk to me like nothing is different, not mentioning the elephant in the room while staring at it the whole time. So what if you wouldn't do this or think it's tacky? I think it's fun, and I like it.

I really just wanted to let everyone know, my hair is bright, bright red right now. 

It'll fade, but for now, it matches the color of my shirt.

I'm great at what I do well.

I'd just like to write about how great I am right now. Not because I'm full of myself. But this is my blog, and my self esteem has a history of being pretty low, so the fact that I feel great about myself today is very important to me.

Yesterday before I left work, my boss handed me the store key and asked if I'd open this morning.

See, the store opened almost two weeks ago, and there are about seven of us customer service reps who also design the fruit arrangements that we sell. Training took three or four days, and we've slowly been getting everything organized and going. By the middle of last week, it was obvious who the efficient, hard workers are. There are only about three of the seven of us who work quickly without jeopardizing product quality. You guessed it, I am one of the three. My boss even acknowledged it to me, asking my opinion on how the others work and what we can possibly do to improve things. The delivery drivers all see it too, and they all secretly tell the three of us that they like us better because they appreciate how we really work for our pay.

The problem is that once business picks up, instead of prepping the fruit until nearly 1pm and the afternoon shift only making five or six arrangements a day, we should be able to have all the fruit prepped by 10:30 and by about noon or so have up to 25 arrangements ready for delivery. Yeah, there's a lot of work for us to do until that point, myself included.

Last week, one of the girls took over two hours to slice up four pineapples. This morning, the guy I was working with took two hours to slice up four oranges. Granted, it's not just peeling and chopping or whacking off what ppl don't eat--things are cut into shapes and in specific ways, but with the machines we use and training we've had, they should be FAR quicker at prepping the fruit! I cut 2 oranges in a matter of minutes the other day, and I sliced two pineapples in about 15 minutes this morning. Really, what is taking them so long? I also came in the other day and found all of the strawberries skewered wrong. When Valentines Day hits, I'm afraid they might be the reason we don't get every order filled on time. It stresses me out. I know it's not my store, but I take pride in where I work and in the work I do there. It seems like they don't.

My boss also comes to me when we have an order for chocolate dipped fruit. Everyone got the same training on it, everyone has practiced it, but everyone agrees that I'm the best at it. (I'll admit, I'm no stranger to gourmet desserts and it's not the first time I've dipped something delicious in chocolate, so I was a step ahead of everyone else when we all got hired.) My boss will generally have me dip whatever needs dipping when I'm there, and when I come on for my afternoon shifts and someone else is dipping fruit she'll have me go back and see how they're doing, and teach them how they can improve if they need it. 

I'm also really glad I included so many of my random skills in my resume. 

We dip some fruit in peanut butter, and with how crazy peanut allergies are, we have to have to be incredibly careful, and have separate everything for the peanut butter dipping station. Every utensil and dish we use for peanut butter has to have an orange sticker label on it so we know to only use it for peanut butter. My boss wasn't sure how to keep the cloths and apron(s) separate for that station, especially with needing to launder them every day, because stickers + fabric + washing won't exactly work. I offered to sew on some orange tags to the cloths and an orange ribbon across the top of one of the aprons. She happily approved of my idea, and I think she likes my initiative too.

She also asked me to help her with the booth for a bridal fair we're taking part in, mostly because of my experience in weddings and fashion design. It's right up my alley.


So, back to yesterday. 

As I was rinsing off several pints of strawberries, in passing and completely out of the blue, my boss says to me, "Don't let me forget to give you the key so you can open the store tomorrow morning." 

I thought, 'Has she talked to me about this? Did she forget to talk to me about this? Did I forget that she talked to me about this? ...I guess I'm getting a key to the store.' 

I was pretty excited. I'm not sure who else or even if anyone else is getting one, but either way I'm happy she trusts me! I like to think I'm her favorite. 

So today I opened the store! It was flawless and I did everything perfectly! We even had four online orders from overnight. It was just me and the slow-orange-slicing guy, and I could hardly get any work done prepping fruit because I kept having to take phone-in orders, walk-in orders, and even another online order. I needed slow-orange-slicer to finish those oranges, so I was taking care of everything else while he took his sweet time peeling the off skin, then the pith, and then slicing two into even wedges and the other two into round slices. 

My boss came in around 11:30 and asked how it was going. 

I mentioned slow-orange-slicer, and how I wasn't sure what to do about him. Then I told her about all the business we were getting, and she half-jokingly said, "Well you should just open every day!" I just smiled, because really, I would like that. I would love to have enough of her trust to open and run the store without her should she want or need me to. It's important for me to feel needed at work, like I'm an important part of the business. It makes me want to work harder, to contribute more, and to be a part of the business's success. It's just a part of who I am and how I work. Plus, a getting a pay-raise is always nice and is bound to happen at some point, and I'd like to feel deserving of that should I get one. 

So I'm feeling happy today. I'm feeling productive, valuable, and skilled. 
It's nice. 

I'm sure at some point I'll have a bad day at work where everything goes wrong when I'm there. 

But for now, I'll just enjoy this day of bliss while I can.