Step Into My Office

Even though my business card says "Owner," my daily job is much more than that. I figure I have shown a ton of cute Coffee Buzz pictures, now it's time for you to see the shop from my perspective.

OWNER
On a day-to-day basis the owner title doesn't really come in to effect, except when I'm talking to customers. A lot of them will see my business card and ask, "Are you Kristin?" After I say yes it opens a whole slew of questions..."What made you start your own business?" "How did you get in to the coffee business?" "Have you ever considered doing ______?" "Would you be interested in donating _______ to _________?" The best part of this job is most definitely meeting people and getting to talk to all different kinds of people but, being 100% upbeat, positive and polite 100% of the time is definitely difficult. Most of my actual "owner" work gets done here:

Yikes! I definitely need to get this bad boy organized. J is in charge of the finances and bookkeeping, which puts me in charge of the scheduling, placing the orders and creating/maintaining our super cute website: www.CoffeeBuzzMN.com

CASHIER

Another major aspect of the job is the cashier role...ringing people up, grabbing/making the drip brew coffee, getting their bakery items/sandwiches. The main purpose of this position is to schmooze! Likely, you're the first person a customer will see when they walk through the door, so you're their first impression. Sometimes you are the first person someone will see in the morning, which gives your the opportunity to set the tone for their day. J usually mans the register because he is much better at small talk than I am, plus I prefer being behind the bar.

JANITOR

The not-so-glamorous aspect of the job is all the cleaning. It's amazing how quickly things get dirty! And don't get me started on coffee grounds...they're EVERYWHERE! No matter what you do those little ground show up all over the place. There's a lot of wiping things down, washing dishes, sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms, etc, etc, etc!

BARISTA

Behind the bar in the barista role is where I spend most of my time and what I most enjoy. I love making the drinks! I get the chance to talk to people quite a bit but usually if they're standing on my side it's because J has already put in the time schmoozing and now we are able to have a real conversation. I absolutely love when there's a line. I totally strive when there's 2+ drinks on my screen! It makes it so fun and means my business is doing well!

So there you have it. The exciting life of a full-time business owner and a part-time everything else.

On another note, these next few days are going to be sooo busy and sooo fun! I thought I'd share my psycho jam packed super fun exciting crazy schedule for the next week!

Today: Working Open-Close, then going to my friend's housewarming BBQ
Sunday: Working Open-12, then going to the Twin's game @ 1:00, then dinner at my dad's
Monday: Working Open-Close, then babysitting, then I have a hair/brow appointment, then I'll most likely packing until the wee hours of the morning since I currently don't have any clean clothes and have no idea when I'm going to find time to do laundry!
Tuesday: Open at Coffee Buzz then head to the airport around 8:00am, then catch our flight to NYC at 10:00am. Land in NYC around 2:30 their time and then the insanity begins!
Wednesday-NYC craziness
Thursday: More NYC craziness
Friday: Leave NYC and arrive back in MPLS around 3pm, then head to my friend Brianna's Wedding Rehearsal and Rehearsal dinner.
Saturday:  Work Open-Close
Sunday: I'll be partaking in all-day bridesmaid activities then BRIANNA and MATT's WEDDING!
Monday: Memorial Day....i'll either be on a boat or in my bed. Depends on the weather!

Cripes! I'm getting tired just looking at it!

30 before 30

I found this fun little game on one of the fabulous blogs I follow (This is Katie) and thought it would be fun! It’s simple, just make a list of 30 things you want to do or accomplish before you’re 30! I am currently 25 (almost and a half) so I figure if I do 6 of these a year I’ll be good to go! It’ll be fun to look back at this list and cross these off as they happen and blog about them, of course! Click the link if you want to play too!

In no particular order….

1. Get Married to my best friend (J not Libby)


2. Have a baby. In a perfect dream world I would like to accomplish all 29 of these other things by the time I’m 29 ½  and then have a baby. Hey, it could happen!


3. Go to Greece. I’m part Greek, so not only am I dying to go because it’s breathtakingly beautiful and filled with history but it’s my heritage.


4. Run a 5k (maybe a ½ marathon), my Blogging Bestie and I are planning on running one the end of June, a 5k that is. We’ll see how that goes before I even begin to start thinking about thinking of running a ½ marathon.


5. Coffee Buzz will be a successful, money making coffee shop and possibly be working on location #2!


6. Buy a house. I would love to buy a house we can fix up or add an addition to; otherwise I would absolutely love to build a house!


7. Start a Bridal Consulting Business, see HERE


8. Own a pair of Jimmy Choo’s (preferably the ones I mentioned HERE)


9. Travel to Boston, I’ve never been and have always wanted to go. I LOVE the east coast! Ideally, I’d like to plan a trip there while the Twins are playing the stupid Red Sox.


10. Become an awesome cook, I’ve definitely been getting better and trying new recipes but I’d like to be able to cook without having to follow every little step of a recipe. AND, I would really like cook more meals opposed to eating out, which we do a lot.


11. Travel to Australia and/or Fiji. I am obsessed with wanting to go to Australia. And I think Fiji would be the absolute perfect honeymoon! Glass bottom bungalow anyone?


12. Play doubles tennis with my mom. I spent a fair amount of my childhood in a Fitness Club daycare while my mom and grandma were playing tennis. I loved it! I’ve grown up with tennis, and although I’m not great, I think I could get better. My mom and I have always talked about playing doubles together. We’d have a blast!


13. Go to the Pac-10 Basketball tournament in L.A. Thanks to my darling boyfriend I am a huge Arizona basketball fan. I would love to take him to L.A. and go to the Pac-10 tourney at the Staples Center.


14. Go to frickin’ Target Field since I am the only human in Minnesota who hasn’t been there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


15.  Buy my own car. I have been very fortunate to have extremely generous parents who have given me my last three (yes three….there’s stories behind this) cars. I would like to actually buy my own car and I would like it to look like this:

(Except I want the blue one)

16.  Go to a Texas A&M football game. This one is more for J, but he would be sooo excited it would make me super happy too! Plus, every time they score we get to kiss!


17. Man up and get the breast reduction surgery I’ve wanted since high school but have been too chicken to get. Surgery scares the crap out of me and I am a complete wimp when it comes to being in pain. But I’ve been talking about this for years.


18.  Be debt free/Student Loan free


19.  Eat dinner at the table. Once I start cooking all my amazing meals I want to eat them at the table with J. We’re always eating by the TV or computer. I really want to have family meals when we have a family, so we might as well start practicing.  


20.  Go to the US Open. Again, I love tennis and I LOVE New York, so this would be an amazing time. It’s been on my bucket list since I was little.


21.  Hit my goal weight and stay with it for more than a day! Cripes!


22. Read more. I don’t have a number of books in mind, I’d just like to read more of them.


23.  Reach Super Star status on my blog and have 500 followers! Lame, I know. But I love my blog and I want everyone else to too!


24.  Host a holiday; I don’t even care which one…I’ll host Labor Day.


25.  Organize my pictures! I want to get ALL of my recent, college, high school and childhood pictures scanned and saved on to Shutterfly and then start printing and making albums


26. Get a sewing machine and re-learn how to sew (for some reason all those pillow projects in home-ec just didn’t stick)


27.  Go to the NCAA Final Four with my dad, I guess J can come too


28.  Go to one away Gopher football game every year! I’ve been to Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern and the Music City Bowl in Nashville. I’d also like to go to a game at all the Big Ten schools.


29. Learn to make Dolmades, Spanakopita, and Pastitsio, these are all of my favorite Greek dishes and my mom always makes them for Christmas. I know my grandma showed me how to make dolmades a long time ago but I definitely need a refresher so I can carry on the tradition.


30. Go to a puggle meet up so my dream of being surrounded by tons of puggles can be fulfilled. There’s a website: www.meetup.com where you can create and join different groups based on different interests (for example Coffee Buzz has hosted a couple of coffee meet ups). Well, I recently joined the puggle meet up and they hold events at different dog parks and word on the street is that there can be up to 50 puggles at these events! On that note, I’ll leave you with this: 

 My little Bailey getting a bath! Look at those teethies! 

(Not so) Thoughtless Thursday...Robyn!

Today celebrates the birth of one of my favorite people on the planet, Ms. Robyn Salter. Robyn and I met in college through the fraternity where we were both dating boys and spending about 95% of our free time. Robyn and I became fast friends and have grown closer and closer over the years. Whether they want to give me credit or not, I am proud to take full responsibility for Robyn meeting her current boyfriend of three years! Brad is a friend of mine from high school and through my excessive party-throwing at my apartment senior year of college these two met, fell in love, and now owe all of their life’s happiness to me! I look forward to celebrating with Robyn this weekend as it will mark the One Year Anniversary of the absolute funniest night of my entire life. I couldn’t even begin to try and tell the story and if I did it certainly would not be funny, so consider this an inside joke shout out to Robyn, Sarah and J. Happy Anniversary and HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBYN! I love you!

 Me and Robyn @ J's Birthday last summer

Robyn, Sarah, Angie and I up at Sarah's lake house last summer

Robyn's Birthday @ Chino Latino last year a.k.a the funniest night ever

 I know she loves me because she listens to my stories (Rob-I know this is one of your faves)

The Sharks. Robyn and I dying laughing--per usual

 Robyn, Sarah, Angie and I celebrating my birthday

 My friend. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Weigh In and Wishful Wednesday

Yes! Success! I restarted this weight loss/get in shape/get healthy plan on Friday and since I have already lost 1.8 pounds! Wahoo! On top of that I get to cross 19.73 miles off of my 500 mile goal!!! I am super excited and super proud of myself---even though my legs fee like complete moosh! That’s right, moosh! On Monday I even beat a personal record! Now, this may not sound like much but for someone who hates running, never tries to run and has a personal record of 1.2 miles without stopping 1.59 miles is a HUGE deal! I don’t know where it came from, but it felt great. I tried to run this morning and made it just barely over half a mile and my legs gave out on me. My friend Carolyn and I have also decided to commit to running a 5k then end of June. This way, hopefully, we can keep each other on track while training AND more importantly have a running buddy during the race!

I have also decided to start a 12 week program to help me lose these last pounds and get healthy. The program is called Transitions Lifestyle and the basis of the program is education, which is exactly what I need. I don’t need a crash diet or to spend all my time counting calories or points. I need something that will teach me how to be healthy and stay healthy. They pride themselves on teaching you how to eat not what you can or cannot eat. Like I said, the program is 12 weeks and each week is a different lesson teaching you how different foods affect your body and how your body breaks down those foods. I will have a coach and meet with a group once a week.  I have agreed to have the meetings here at Coffee Buzz to give us some exposure AND because of it my coach is hooking me up with the program for next to nothing! The only scary part is the first week is a cleanse! Luckily, I love fruits and veggies but it’s going to be tough. We’re planning on starting June 1^st, so be looking for updates on this program. I’m excited to get started!

So, some of my favorite blogs (Life in the Fulmer Lane, Life, Love & Puppyprints, and The Seattle Smith's) play a little blog game called "Wishful Wednesday" each week and I decided since "Weigh In Wednesday" is definitely my least exciting post of the week, I would play along and add some fun into my Wednesdays! So...

Bedrooms!

To be honest, I got pretty stressed out by this topic. First of all, Coffee Buzz's air conditioning is broken so it is about 95 degrees in here, so any kind of thinking/decision making is incredibly difficult for me as I am sweating through my brain. Second of all, I kept trying to find a picture of what I wished I could make my bedroom look like, which I realize is not the point! The point is to find a bedroom that I would never create for myself but WISH (key word here) I could have. Now you all know full well that I'm not just going to post one picture. So here are some I wish I had....

LOVE! This would be perfect in a downtown loft! Total girl! This would be a wishful pre-J bedroom.

How serene and gorgeous and beautiful is this? I could never have this in MN though! There is nothing worse than trying to sleep with the sound of a mosquito buzzing around your head! But I love this nonetheless. 

Leave it to Nicki Hilton to create my total dream bedroom! If you know me at all you know that my color palette doesn't extend much past black and white (you should see Coffee Buzz!) I love this! I am super into gray walls right now and I think a lighter slate gray would go really great with this room. I'm sure J would feel right at home in here! ha!

This one is a more realistic idea of what I would want. Like I said, I'm in to gray and I LOVE the teal accents.

I really love the bookshelves instead of night stands! How fun!And...more gray!

Only thing I like about this one is the amazing headboard and the wall color. 

And I love this one for the rug, bench & pillows and of course the chandelier. If you read this: Lights. Chandelier. Action, than you know I am obsessed with chandeliers!

So there you have it! My far fetched Wishful Bedrooms and my maybe someday Wishfuls! Go check out the other blogs I mentioned to see some more amazing bedrooms! And check out The Seattle Smith's if you want to play along!

Four Christmases

Saturday night I got home from work around 5:30pm and was completely exhausted, so I hopped into bed and ordered the movie “Four Christmases.”

Google

I absolutely adore Reese Witherspoon and love Vince Vaughn, so I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen this movie yet. It is about a couple who every year for Christmas lies to their families about going on some sort of service trip, when in fact they are taking a fabulous vacation and avoiding seeing their families. When their trip to Fiji gets canceled they are forced to travel to four different parents’ homes and face celebrating Christmas with their dreaded families. There were some funny parts, there were some cute parts but for the most part I was hugely disappointed by this movie. The end was really abrupt and really stupid. I think it would have been much better with a little more substance, it was like the film makers were trying to pack too much into too short a time. I will say, though, that Kristin Chenoweth (who played Reese Witherspoon’s sister) was hilarious, as always, and was the best part of the movie. Overall, I don’t recommend it.

Despite the fact that this movie was borderline awful, I did relate to it, to some extent. J and I have to deal with Four Christmases and Four Thanksgivings every year, as both sets of our parents are divorced. We, however, love these holidays and would never imagine taking a vacation during them. I will say, it’s a lot of work and can be exhausting but we have four sets of parents who love us, so we’re lucky. The only thing that really stinks about the whole thing is we have to spread ourselves so thin, it’s hard to leave holiday events early or come late. But, after three years we have it down to a science.

Christmas Eve afternoon we go to my dad’s and spend time with his side of the family. We usually have some appetizers, open presents, maybe play a game or two. The worst part of having four Christmases (for me) is I have to miss dinner at my dad’s which is my grandma’s amazing stroganoff.

 Me, My dad, J, my brother Nate and his girlfriend Tate. Not at Christmas, obviously.

Then, Christmas Eve night we go to J’s aunt and uncle’s and spend time with his dad’s HUGE side of the family, which is always a blast. After that we go to his dad’s to open the Christmas Eve present of “jammies!” They have a tradition where every Christmas Eve everyone gets new pajama’s that we wear Christmas morning. Which brings me to Christmas Day…we spend the morning with J’s dad and have breakfast and open gifts.

 Me and J with his dad and step-mom, Kevin and Judye

Then Christmas Day afternoon we go to my mom’s. She always makes a big Greek dinner which I look forward to for the 364 days following Christmas. It’s so good!

My soon-to-be step-sisters Marissa and Natalie, my soon-to-be step-dad, my mom, me and my brother

 

Finally, either on Christmas Day or the day after we head up to Milaca, MN to spend time with J’s mom. We don’t get to see them nearly as much as the rest of our family so we’ll usually stay overnight. Christmas in Milaca usually consists of a delicious brisket dinner and a trip to the nearby town of Bock, population 106, which is home to the most amazing small town bar, Roy’s.

Me and J with his mom and step-dad, Lisa and Deward