Goal #2: Tips

I think I was in college when some friends and I went to eat at this little dive in Provo. It wasn't really a "sit down and be waited on" place, but one of the employees brought us our meal. I decided to leave a dollar on the table for a tip. After we walked out the door one of my friends said, "Look!" and we looked back through the window of the restaurant and saw the guy dancing on the table with his dollar bill like he just won the lottery. It totally made his day.


This month I finally got blinds for the large windows in my house. I finally have privacy. I had the salesman from this company come give me a quote before Christmas. I told him I wanted to shop around before I made a decision. And yes, it took me this long to realize he had the best price. He came by a few weeks ago and said it would only take 45 minutes to install but it took him about two hours. After he put up the third set of blinds I said, "Yay! We're done" but then he looked at me and said, "no I still have the two for the windows on either side of the door." I was confused because I didn't remember asking him to order blinds for those windows. He looked at me half frightened/half confused. "You sure you don't want them up?" I had him hold them up against the window and I didn't like them at all. That was just too many horizontal lines on one wall. I know he measured a lot of windows to give me prices for them just in case, but there's no way I would have asked him to order blinds for those windows. He said, "It won't change the price if you don't want them." I had him show me the bid sheet. It was a bunch of nonsense to me but he said they were $45 each. I thought to myself, "Wait, I could have saved $90 here?" I was a little bugged and he was a little embarrassed. He admitted he was really tired that day. Turns out he forgot to order a valence for one of the windows so he'd have to come back. He said it would arrive in about a week. It took two weeks.

He finally came to install the valence on Thursday. He thanked me for my patience and asked if I changed my mind and wanted him to install the skinny blinds for the door windows and I said no thanks, I didn't like the way they looked. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to tip these guys (but I got the impression after last time that he was waiting for one even though he'd have to return to finish the job). I kind of didn't want to tip him because I kind of felt he cost me $90 in blinds I wasn't going to use. But the proof of the matter was, he did a great job on the install and he didn't make any extra money off me. His bid was the best one (even with those extra blinds that weren't included on the quotes from the other two companies) and he honored the discount he offered before Christmas. So I gave him a generous tip. He tried to give it back to me implying that I didn't have to do that but at the same time his face was all lit up. Did I make his day? I don't know. At least I gave him something he didn't expect and it made me feel good.

#33B: Dinosaurs

Goal #33 is to get someone to give me a tour of two of the newest museums in town: The Leonardo and the Natural History Museum of Utah.

I still can't believe I haven't made it to the Leonardo yet. But last Thursday I went to the Salt Lake Convention and Visitor's Bureau Annual Meeting at the Natural History Museum that moved last year from President's Circle to Red Butte Gardens (or up in that area). The building itself is amazing. I was there a month ago for a Museum Leaders Meeting but didn't get to stay very long.

So the annual meeting was a perfect opportunity to tour the museum. I didn't get a private tour, but I did get to tour it with my good friend Annie and her husband Shawn. Annie works for "The Bureau" and I love that I get to sit by her at these things. I also don't know how I get invited to these things. My name tag said "Salt Lake Gallery Association" which I gave up several years ago, but free dinner? free entrance to the museum? I'm not going to say no to that.

The museum is fun. It spirals all the way to the top floor. But you're having so much fun looking at the displays you don't realize you've been walking uphill for the past hour. There are of course a lot of dinosaur bones, but there are also a lot of interactive displays to play around with. Here are a few of them. You can make a rubbing of a fossil, draw a picture of a dinosaur on the chalkboards. You can be an archaeologist and search for bones and you can smell a forest (and other grosser smells). It's a great place for kids.

If anyone wants to bring their kids up, let me know. I'll come with you. I had a great time.

 

#17 Dress

I actually really like to dress up. This picture is one of my favorites from the "dress up" parties we'd have at our fancy house on Apricot. We thought we'd do serious faces.

I know there are a lot of people out there who have to dress up for work every day. I have friends who work for the LDS church and they're required to wear a dress or skirt every day (there was recently a lift on the nylon rule which is great). So dressing up every day isn't a big deal for them. But I don't have to dress up for work. I wear jeans a lot. Sometimes I even wear tennis shoes. You might have even spotted me in flip flops one day.

This past week I wore a dress/skirt every day and you know what, it wasn't a big deal for me either. I actually like to dress up. I just don't have a lot of dress up clothes. So a week wasn't hard. If I had to do this every day I think I would get sick of my dresses real fast.

I did take this to another level though and required the application of makeup for myself. That is a little more difficult. Some days I just get up and go. Most days I put on moisturizer, but most days I bypass the mascara and lipstick/gloss. I think I look OK without makeup, but it is kind of a conscious thing, kind of like wearing heels. You FEEL dressed up. You FEEL made up, and therefore you feel more awake and ready. So that was the reason for the goal.

So what did I learn? I didn't necessarily have to wake up any earlier to accomplish this. And I didn't necessarily have to make any sacrifices comfort-wise. I'm comfortable in dresses. They make me sit more like a lady which is a good thing. No one really noticed, except my coworker Jim who asked me on Wednesday why I was all "dolled up".

Sorry I don't have any pictures to prove it. I'm not really the type of person to take photographs of myself posing in any sort of manner. But I can tell you I wore my vintage 60's black dress on Monday, my Banana Republic jumper on Tuesday, my Anthropologie skirt on Wednesday, my Kingdom & State blue shift dress on Thursday and my yellow Shabby Apple dress on Friday. 

So am I going to keep doing it? Probably not. I might try to look nicer in general every day, but I guess it's kind of like the vegan thing. Why do it if I don't have to?