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acoatofgold · 6 years

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Everybody’s Got A Story

Semi-coming out of retirement to publish this really rough story I wrote on Monday in a couple of hours. Its the second non-explicit story on here (the first is: Three’s A Fit) and I will now fade back into obscurity. Its actually Pre-Sueprcorp, its an AU, and its also pre-Supergirl.

Title: Everybody’s Got A Story

Or: How Lena Luther Learned to Connect With Others

What happens is this: The Luthor’s are cold and cruel and even at their most loving are distant and lying and Lena just wants to know the truth, for once. She has very vague memories of her mother, a woman with sad eyes and warm hands and a warm chest as Lena laid on her chest to sleep. When she wakes up, her mother doesn’t. Her lips are purple, like the bruises under her eyes. Lena tries to push her awake, to shove her into consciousness, and when that doesn’t work, she goes to the neighbor who watches her when Mom is at work and they call 911. In her memory, Father is there before the police. Perhaps he is there before the police, it wouldn’t surprise her, but she does know she never sees her mother again.

The first day in the Luther household, she remembers vividly: holding Father’s hand, running to keep up with his stride, and he barges in the household. “I’ve brought a child,” He says. “Her name is Lena.” Lillian stands in the foyer, half frozen, and Lex barrels in at full speed, wearing Lacrosse gear. He has a mass of curly red hair, like he’s on fire. “Meet your sister.” They shake hands. Father takes her passed Lillian, who is stock still, and they go to the study together. She sits on the floor and he does paperwork. He puts her to bed himself; a bath, pajamas with the tags still on, and a finger of brandy mixed with water “for your nerves”. Lionel reads his business agreement out loud until she falls asleep. When she wakes up, she is alone.

Father is confident and cold and loves her as much as he is capable of loving anyone, which is not a lot at all. Lillian is capable of love but not for her – all of it belongs to Lex and Lex alone; strong Lex, smart Lex, brilliant Lex, Lex who has a string of heartbroken women, Lex who the rules don’t apply to; Lex who goes mad and tries to kill a god. He pleads insanity and Lena knows its fake, its orchestrated: Lex has never been clearer or more intense in his goals, but that comes later. As long as Lena has known him, Lex has half-assed everything, the result of being born with more money than many countries and zero consequences. Lex punches a boy at MIT for looking at him and returns the next semester. Lex crashes a yacht on his twentieth birthday. Lex crashes a yacht on her twentieth birthday and she wasn’t even there.

Lex is but the product of how he was raised. And so is she.

It’s why she surprises even herself when she heads into the college for journalism just twelve credits shy of her electrical engineering degree. She double majors, takes the extra eighteen months, and walks across her stage to no one. Father sends her a car and a bouquet of pink cosmos and there’s money in her account, more than she’s had before on her own. Lex calls, half drunk, to congratulate her and flays a corporate underling alive for interrupting him. Lena hangs up. He doesn’t call back.

Father tells her he is sick shortly after she gets the job at the Tribune in National City, as physically far apart as two cities can be in the continuous country.

She’s fixing herself dinner and lunch for the next day, with Father on speakerphone.

“Are you sure you don’t want to live in the brownstone?” He asks her. “It’s just sitting there. I already pay the taxes on it.”

“No, Father,” She replies. She’s chopping cucumbers for a Greek chicken salad. “I want to live on my own.”

“You would live on your own. Just a maid to come in and clean. Practically monkhood.”

“No, Father,” Lena repeats herself, turning a pan on medium.

He grunts eloquently, clears his throat and says, “I want you here for my birthday. It’ll be my last.”

“Father, please,” She scoffs. “You’re as healthy as –“

“I’m dying, Lena.” His voice is quiet. “I’ve been dying. Been fighting it, knowing Lex wasn’t ready for the company and you’re uninterested. He’s finally doing something with himself, though, and you’re a grown woman now. I can go. I just want you to say goodbye.”

Her hands are shaking. She puts the knife down. “How long do you have?”

Father scoffs, “Like I’d let any doctor tell me what to do. I’m having my birthday and I’m going to be euthanized now that there’s a civilized option.” His voice grows stronger, “I wouldn’t be able to stand it, pissing and shitting on myself, letting my mind go. No, not I. I’m going on my own terms.”

Lena clears her throat, feeling her breath catch, “Okay, Father. I understand.”

“Good,” He says. “So you’ll be here?”

“Yes, Father. I’ll book my ticket tonight.”

“Good.” He hangs up.

Lena puts the chicken tenders in the pan, watches it sizzle for a moment, and then goes to her cabinet for a bottle of wine.

She burns the chicken.

The day prior to her father’s birthday is when she’s given her very first story. Its thirty miles out of the city center and James Olsen comes along. He’s very cold to her, which she expects, but his photographs are amazing so she tolerates his attitude even when they’re in her car. She drives at the speed limit but barely and watches suburbs turn into desert turn into a farm that looks mostly like a forest. The parking lot is all dirt and houses not one, not two, but three beat up turn of the century trucks, a school bus painted blue, a van missing all four tires on concrete blocks, and an ATV. On top of the ATV is a chicken and it clucks at them menacingly.

“What the Hell?” Mutters Olsen under his breath.

She ignores him but has the same sentiment. She steps onto dirt in her Balenciaga sneakers and thinks, for the first time, maybe Gucci was not appropriate. Its desert as far as the eye can see until they get to the “farm” and there it’s covered in so many plants that she can hardly see ten feet ahead of her. They walk down a rough approximation of a path and stop at the first building they see. It’s steel, tan, and fairly new, with an AC sticking out of a rough cut hole packed into place with foam spray. There’s a window with a bell on it and she rings it.

A dirty young man comes out, his dreads tied back, dirt up to his forearms, and asks, “Y’all here for Kara?” He’s wearing a yellow t-shirt and cargo shorts held up by a shoestring. He’s thin, almost reedy, with an easy smile.

Lena nods, “Yeah, we’re from the Tribune.”

His head bobbles as he eyes both of them, “Cool, cool, lemme go get her.”

He ducks around the two of them and takes off running. They stand in the heat for about three minutes before the young man comes back with an equally young woman, both running with long, familiar strides. It’s now that she notices that they’re both barefoot.

“Hey,” The woman grins, all blue eyes and white teeth, “I’m Kara Kent.”

She’s as dirt covered as her companion but thrusts out a hand anyways. She’s wearing jeans so worn that the holes are visible in both knees and a gray t-shirt that says “El’s Farm”. She wears a John Deere hat on top of neatly buzzed blond hair, blue eyes glimmering. Her shirt is tight around her arms, all muscle, and her jeans barely hold her thighs in place. Lena is immediately half in love. She’s always loved women who work with their hands. James shakes first and then Lena.

“James Olsen,” Says James. Then, he asks, “You know a Clark? The last name is familiar.”

Her grin widens, “My cousin. You must be Jimmy.”

He clears his throat, “Just James, please.”

Lena shakes as well, noticing a split blister on Kara’s thumb and that all of her fingers are rough.

“I’m Lena Luther.”

Kara’s smile turns sardonic, “The orphan that could. They used to talk about you all the time at my group home, before I got to live with Clark.”

She blinks, “Really?”

Kara nods, her grin more mischievous now, “Oh yeah. The nuns were crazy about you. They always told us if we were on our best behavior, we’d get adopted by a rich couple like you did. When you went to MIT, you’d’ve thought you walked on water. The Mother was so overcome with joy, she cried for a week.”

Lena isn’t sure how to feel about it and it must show on her face because Kara laughs and claps her on the shoulder so hard she feels her knees buckle.

Kara jerks her head, “C’mon, I’ll show you around. Virgil, finish with the microgreens and we’ll meet up at the greenhouse in twenty.”

He gives her a thumbs up, waves to them, and goes back into the steel building.

She does give them a quick tour – the path is an actual path and less meandering when they’re further away from the initial opening, concrete pavers with leaf and flower imprints leading the way – “we did those ourselves, s’why they’re all sorta shapes, this flower set is from a broccoli plant that bolted” - first to two more buildings she points out as the storage room and the cold room, both similar steel buildings to the first with more foam sprayed air conditioners.

“What’s a cold room do?” Lena asks her phone already on record.

Kara smiles at her, “Ya wanna wait until the end of the tour? I fully intend to give you a real interview away from the heat but I know Just James wants pictures before it gets dark out.”

Lena can’t stop her own grin. Her makeup feels like it’ll sweat off at the rate of the temps outside.

Kara leads them to the first building, opens it to show them thousands of hanging bulbs of onions and garlic.

“We just finished our allium harvest of storage onions and garlic. Beat our record: twelve thousand. Ten thousand is in garlic and half of that will probably be broken up and sold or used as seed garlic, and the onions are eaten, given away, goes into our CSA box, go to the pigs. The works.”

James makes her back up, moves Kara further inside, makes her take the hat off, and he moves himself until he gets the right picture. He clicks off three or four of them before they move onto the next building. Lena notes that each of the buildings they’ve passed has gutters and the gutters go to PVC pipe that leads above ground to the east.

The cold room, she discovers, is a walk in refrigerator for cheap. There’s foam board insulation, bare to the eye, and the floor is concrete. It houses about thirty totes, each with masking top on one part. Lena takes a closer look at the closest one. “Arugula, 41 lbs.”

“We harvest about seven to eight hundred pounds of produce during the summer, more if we do root vegetables. Everything’s already washed and sorted in here, we just combine for salad mixes or braising mixes by the totes. Only about half of these are filled.”

Kara continues to show them the market garden: there are four blocks of twenty five rows, each dedicated to a family of crops and a station set up at the beginning of each block. Only three are in rotation; the other is covered in black tarps to lay fallow until next spring. Each block is home to a hedgerow of berries, in between the rows are flower beds, and in the back are ironwood trees.

“Nitrogen fixers,” Kara explains, “And they do great in the desert as shade. Our water consumption was reduced a lot by that and we’re almost entirely off of on-site rain water. There’s a well on the property but with the drought, I never want to use it, so we occasionally truck it in from some of the other places that collect rainwater that haven’t used it all but we don’t use groundwater.”

James takes pictures as they walk, sometimes all natural and sometimes posing Kara or one of about three workers, including Virgil who passes by them as James takes pictures of Kara with a hoe. He makes Virgil backtrack and the two weed in between the rows of beans, and then their hands and bare feet by the lettuce. He snaps a picture of a butterfly floating by one of the open marigolds.

Kara leads them up the land, passed the crop field, passed the fallow field, and to the greenhouse. Lena is sweating buckets and James doesn’t look far behind but if it’s hot outside, the greenhouse is sweltering.

“Oh my God,” Lena says aloud, involuntarily.

Kara gives them both bottles of water from a cooler right inside the door.

“Yeah, it’s about twenty degrees hotter in here than it is outside. This is where we keep our tropical plants and the hardening off station for our nursery plants.” She jerks her chin to the man inside, “Virgil is in charge of all our nursery plants and the microgreens. Timmy does our cut flowers and Kate and I handle the rest of the farm. Everybody works together on packing and harvesting day, though.”

Virgil shakes his head, “What would you do without me?”

She grins back, easy, rocking on her heels, “Suffer, obviously.”

People who smile easily have always confounded Lena. She wasn’t a happy child and now as an adult, the idea that some people are just easy to get along with has never settled well with her. She’s awkward and always feels like an imposter when trying to be friendly. Confronted with two of them, she looks around and through the plastic to a whole different field outside, on the other side of the hill with a round, canvas building on top of it.

“What’s that?” She asks.

Kara turns back to her, her hands in her pockets, “There’s my yurt and beyond that is the field for seeds.”

“You grow your own seeds?”

Kara replies, pride in her eyes, “Fifty varieties of them. It’s really my passion, the market garden and CSA are cool, ya know, gets the bills paid-“

Virgil snorts, “What bills, hillbilly?”

Kara plows on, “But seed keeping and the animal breeding is what gets me up in the morning.”

“Can we see?” Lena asks. Kara opens the door for them, “Absolutely.”

She takes them to the field, helping Lena mind her steps over and behind the steep hill, walking with the surety of a goat. Closer, she sees that some of the plants are covered in translucent bags. Kara shows them the varieties – seven types of lettuce, three peppers, five tomatoes, ten types of flowers, two types of snap pea, several types of dried beans and peas, six types of broccoli, and lots of herbs.

“All of these plants are from seeds I’ve either gotten over the years at garage sales or plant sales or seed sales, even church sales when they clean out the storage room, and the rest is from people in the area. Normally, they’re disenfranchised or undocumented people who want their family legacy to live on or even aliens.” She points to a section covered in chicken wire and green posts, “That’s the chicken area where we collect eggs for the CSA and local neighborhoods, and on this side –“ She does a 180, “Are the pigs. They eat all the scraps, all the weeds, and we have two breeding pairs right now, and all their purebred piglets go to be breeders. One is a Mangalista and the other is Red Wattle. They occasionally ignore me and crossbreed and when they do, we raise the babies and then process and sell to some restaurants in National City, like Donovan’s and Area 51. Apparently, that mix tastes exactly like a blurghap from Planet Xhiauovrat.”

Kara pauses to put her hands on her hips and start stretching at the waist, bending so far backwards that her shirt slips and Lena is aware that her happy trail is also blond and she has abs. She takes a sip of her water and nearly chokes. Kara taps her on the back, nowhere near as staggering as the shoulder clap earlier, and she coughs her water up.

As promised, Kara leads them to the yurt. It’s a decent size – nowhere near the size of a house but much larger than a tent. There’s a basin outside with a bar of soap and she washes her hands, feet, and face in the chill water that she throws down the hillside before she comes inside.

“Shoes off at the door,” She calls and they follow. Lena’s got it a sight easier than James, who wore hiking boots.

The inside of it is crowded but orderly and lovely. As soon as she walks in, she sees a coatrack that’s all windbreakers and hats. Kara’s John Deere hat is at the very top, the brim bent and dirty. The floors are wooden, a different type than the deck outside, and the windows are up so light floods inside. She looks up to find that the roof is translucent and much closer than it appeared outside. There’s a full kitchen pushed against one side, a small table in the middle covered in folders and paper and a beat up laptop, a bouquet of flowers in a tin can, and on the other side is a library. There are shelves there, just covered in books from floor to ceiling, and what looks like a handmade sofa. It smells like lavender and mint inside. There are plywood walls about 2/3rds of the way down and Kara calls over her shoulder, “Let me wash my face again and I’ll sit out there with you. Take a seat anywhere.”

Lena sits at the table, twisting her empty water bottle between her hands when James comes inside. He’s got his camera around his neck still and sits across from her.

“Talk about all day,” Olsen says and Lena nods. She takes her bottle and puts it on the back of her neck.

Kara emerges in a clean, white t-shirt and a face scrubbed so briskly her cheeks are pink. She’s beautiful, Lena realizes again, with her soft, red mouth and eyes like stars.

“You guys want something to drink?” She asks.

Olsen says no but Lena says, “Please.”

Kara opens the fridge, “I’ve got water, raspberry sweet tea, orange juice, and milk.”

“I’ll take the tea.”

Lena wonders why she says “sweet” and not “iced” when she takes a sip. It’s sweeter than any drink she’s ever had short of a soda but tastes good. There are a lot of other flavors to it, a little bite of herbs and a distinctive tea flavor.

Kara sits across from her and smiles her easy smile, “You want to just fire away or do you want me to start and you just jump in when you need clarification?”

Lena licks her lips, thinking, and Kara’s eyes dart to her mouth then back to her eyes.

“Were your parents into gardening? How’d you get into it?”

Kara nods, cracks her neck audibly, and says, “Neither of my parents was into gardening. My father was a geneticist and my mother was working at the state attorney’s office when they died. It was why my aunt killed them; she was an extremist eco terrorist and my father was creating a new type of corn to outcompete the native types in Mexico and improving Roundup because of all the birth defects and bee deaths associated with it at the time. My mother was helping fight a lot of the class action lawsuits, throwing stuff out, pretending to lose paperwork, paying police officers to lose certain cases, that sort of thing. So she went over for lunch one Sunday and she killed them and then herself.

“I was riding my bike home from a friend’s place, at the time, because my mom was supposed to pick me up. We were supposed to go to the science museum. We had a dog and he barked like crazy until one of the neighbors went to see what was going on and called 911. My aunt’s husband said he wouldn’t take me, so I was taken to a group home for six months while they tried to find some relatives. My closest relative was Clark and he’d been adopted as a baby when my aunt and uncle died in a car crash. My parents were out the country at the time and by the time they got back, he was already settled with the Kent’s. They didn’t really keep tabs on him. My uncle and father apparently never got along.”

“You talked about living with nuns. Tell me about it? How’d you end up living with them?”

“I lived with the neighbors for two weeks but I was – sad, a lot, and destructive so they took me to the Catholic Church that had an orphanage while the police tried to find Clark. I got counseling while I was there and I realized being angry wouldn’t get me anywhere with a buncha women in their fifties who served a higher purpose. I started smiling more and I realized I was happier smiling more. I’d just gotten used to it when they found Clark and Clark was twenty four; he didn’t really want a kid around at the time but he took me in and left me with his parents. Uncle Jonathan was a farmer in Kansas – and this is really what you think of as a farmer, he had the tractor and the overalls and the acres and acres of corn. Aunt Martha baked a lot, sold some of it but most of it was for neighbors, and when that wasn’t happening, she was planning for the school year. It bored me to tears. I was from Argo and I was used to a lot of extreme sports – mountain boarding and snowboarding and hiking trails and cave exploration, that kinda thing. I was doing kendo and krav maga every day after school. Smallville was four thousand people and eight thousand cows.”

Olsen snorts and Lena bites her lips to keep from smiling.

Kara rubs her eyebrow with the heel of her palm, “Yeah, I’m serious. I’d bike to the library and read all day and I was so keyed up I’d pace the halls all night. Couldn’t sleep. Drove Unc crazy. Lucky I was too short to reach the pedals or I’d have been in the tractor from sunup to sundown.”

“So he inspired you to be a farmer?” Lena asks.

Kara scoffs, “God, no. He complained the whole time and told me to make something of myself. I got into farming from books. I was riding home one night, I think just after the fourth of July, and passed this garage sale. Some guy ran out on his wife and she’d put all his stuff out there. Everything was a quarter and I mean everything. Pants, shoes, shirts? Quarter for the pile. Golf clubs? Quarter. Fishing poles? Quarter. His truck? Quarter. Once I realized she was serious, with Lara Smith in the truck, pulling off, I put my bike on the rack in the ATV and picked up all the books I could. Paid fifty cents. Made it right to the barn when it ran outta gas.” The longer she talked, the deeper her accent got. She’d sounded like any civilized Californian to Lena’s ear initially but now it was the sort of Midwestern accent she expected from somebody who’d grown up on a corn farm.

“I went through the books and found he’d recently purchased two: Making Small Farms Work by Richard Perkins, which was about a permaculture setup in Sweden and The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier. Wasn’t a thumb print on them. They changed my life, particularly Fortier. He’s Canadian and works the French intensive method, like Eliot Coleman, and talked about farming in a way I hadn’t thought before, and about how to grow, why to grow certain crops, and the small startup costs. By the time I finished, I was behind Uncle Jon every day, asking –“ She pitches her voice up into the whine of a young teenager, one who’s voice hadn’t deepened any, “when I could have my own garden, I only needed two acres, I wouldn’t even need a tractor. He got so sick of me, he asked who I thought I was that I could go from never even seeing a plant grow to thinking I could make a living at it. I’ve never been a sensible person so I asked Aunt Martha if she’d talk to him about an acre or two and she said, ‘Well, if it were me, I’d buy the seeds first.’ So I bought seeds and she would just drag me by the nose from point to point, maybe thinking I’d give up. ‘Well, I’d need to start up the seeds first. Gee, let’s look up the planting date, oh no, what about water, golly where will we put ‘em, man, a garden is needed.’”

Kara suddenly laughs, “She got me to put in a full acre garden by hand, muck stalls for the compost, clear weeds, clear brush, everything. I was using a chainsaw before I got my permit. Hell, I was using the truck to take brush to the back forty to burn for her. I pounded T-posts for two weeks and fenced in the garden the first time I saw a deer near my plants.”

“How much did you make your first year?”

“Two thousand. Uncle Jon charged me for gas, using his chain saw, using his field, using his T-posts, using his chicken wire, the whole nine yards. I think he made more off of me than he did farming.”

Lena frowns, “That’s depressing. I’d have given up.”

Kara shakes her head, “I couldn’t. By then I had a point to prove. I used my money to work on infrastructure – a taller fence, my own gas, seed, a seeder, a little greenhouse. I argued that I was supposed to get some money from mucking the stalls and Uncle Jon said it was my room and board and if I wanted more money, I’d have to do more around the house. I did laundry once and dyed all his undershirts pink and he said he’d pay me to leave him the hell alone. I was so serious about it that Aunt Martha promised to take me to Wichita’s farmer market if I could fill the truck bed and we’d borrow the tent and tables from the church. She may as well have cussed me, because by the time it was April, I had the truck full. Snow on the ground but there was –“ She sucked on her lip, her eyes far away, “I think a full tote of peas, a full tote of spinach, chard, carrots, leeks, and storage onions. I just put everything in plastic bags and handed it to the customers. I had butternut and acorn squash from the year before, still good in the cellar, so I figured Hell, may as well and took those too.”

She settles back in her chair coolly, “I made more that first day than I’d made the year before selling in Smallville. It was fantastic. After that, I was hooked.”

Kara is not the only one hooked; Lena can’t stop listening. Kara’s a good talker so there’s never really anything she needs to ask as Kara talks about succession planting and maxing out on an acre and planting with the seasons to maximize space.

“What’s something you’ve never grown?” Lena asks her as she extols the virtues of steamed turnip greens.

“Commercially? Cabbage. It’s too cheap to bother with for any semblance of a price. Broccoli is easier and more money than cabbage. Less slugs.”

“Something you love?”

“Beans. Plant ‘em and they go.”

“How’d you start saving seed?”

Kara grins, “It was cheaper than buying tomato seeds. I picked the best of them and then I’d slice and freeze and when it was time for buying seeds, I’d bury it in about an inch of dirt and take all the babies and switch ‘em to plug trays.”

“You’ve got quite a few seeds now, so how did you start saving so many if it was just for the money?”

Kara licks her teeth, “We had old neighbors. Mrs. Hamilton was about six hundred when I was a kid, I’m talkin’ bout old. Just dusty. And if she was six hundred, her wife was about five hundred ninety nine plus or minus a day. They saw me hauling produce out the garden day after day and I’d given them some lettuce I hadn’t sold, a couple tomatoes. One day she asked me what I intended to do for beauty. I said I had no idea what she was talking about. She threw her hands up, had to grab the fence before she fell over, and made me come inside with her. I was a half-step behind in case she fell but she didn’t and I waited in the kitchen. She gave me a glass of lemonade, an oatmeal cookie, and a little half pint mason jar of seeds. “Those,” She told me, “are Bachelor’s Buttons, sometimes called cornflowers. It’s where cornflower blue comes from and it is the exact shade of my lovely bride’s eyes. You’ll grow them for beauty and the first blooms belong to my wife.””

She smiled, taking a sip of her sugary tea, “Oh I was mad. I thought I’d been doing a good job of the garden, it was colorful, everything had some little splash to it, it was in a spiral pattern. I was growing in abundance. I realize now I was insecure that she thought because my work wasn’t beautiful but functional that I would not be beautiful as an adult, simply functional. I had never worried about being beautiful before that – my parents were liberals and insisted that a child not be told they’re beautiful because it would make the child hinge their entire personality on it. They preferred that I be functional so I was told I was a strong girl, not a pretty girl, or an excellent athlete or a wonderful baker, that sorta thing. Lots of adjectives.”

“Did you plant the flowers?”

“Of course I did. I didn’t want to but by the time I made it inside, Mrs. Hamilton had called Aunt Martha, and she watched me go right out there and plant the seeds and water them. They were lovely flowers. I did bring the first bouquet to the Hamilton’s and then I sold some but I figured, “Whatever” and saved the seeds. I still have some. I plant a few every year just to save the seed.”

Lena asks, “Were the rest given to you?”

Kara nods, “Oh yeah. Small town like Smallville? Somebody young doing the planting, they ask you plant everything. I had beans from the statehood growing up one side of a trellis by cucumbers from somebody’s grandma from Armenia. Everybody had a tomato plant they needed growing. Everybody had a story to tell. Why’s that your favorite flower?”

She is pointing to the bouquet on the table, sitting in a tin can of water.

Lena blinks, confused, “It’s not.”

“Well, what is?”

Lena frowns, thinking, but James answers, “Chrysanthemums. My grandfather wore one every Sunday.” He smiles, “It always made me feel grown up when he’d put one in my lapel. We didn’t even go to church; we’d just put the flowers in and go for dinner together.”

Kara nods, “And that’s why I do it. I preserve memories, I preserve families and histories and hurts with those seeds. The journey passes from person to person with those.” Kara blinks her eyes, glances at her oven and asks, “Want to stay for dinner?”

Lena wants to. She’s sure James does too but she’s got a flight early tomorrow morning to the other side of the country and sees her father for what’s probably the last time.

She grimaces, “I wish. I gotta type this up and then I’ve got a flight tomorrow.”

Kara frowns, “Aw, that’s too bad.” She stands up and walks them all the way to Lena’s car, her hands in her pockets, and the John Deere hat on her head backwards.

The chicken is sleeping on the ATV and she clucks, eyes narrowed, and sidles up to it. Lena is strapping into her seat but pauses to watch her walk sideways to a sleeping chicken, put a hand over it, and then grab and truss it under her arm.

“This is Bonnie,” Kara introduces them. “She likes to run away.”

Lena watches her go most of the way to the path, before the bend when she’s out of sight because of the ironwoods, and leans her head out her own window, “Hey, Kara!”

Kara turns, light on her feet.

“It’s cosmos! My father sent them for my college graduation!”

Kara’s grin lights up her face and she walks the path backwards.

The drive home is almost as silent as the drive to the farm. “She’s different from Clark,” Olsen finally says. “Hard to imagine they grew up in the same house.”

Lena doesn’t say anything and Olsen stops making conversation. They listen to Lana Del Rey the whole way home.

Lena’s flight is direct and she lands just in time to catch an Uber to the mansion before the price surges.

“This your place?” Her driver asks with a thick accent. Lena nods, grabs her backpack, and exits the car. Security lets her in immediately. Her key still works and she walks into the foyer like she did over two decades ago.

Lex is in the piano room and Lillian in the kitchen. Lex smiles but it’s thin and doesn’t reach his eyes. Lillian is shaking slightly and Lena avoids her. Father is in his study, as always, and perks up just slightly when she walks in.

“Lena,” He says and stands and they touch cheeks. He gives her a sheet of paper, ink still wet at the bottom. She knows it’s his will before he even hands it to her and she pushes it aside.

His eyebrows rise over familiar green eyes, “No questions?”

She responds, “Just one.”

Father says without her asking, “You are my biological child. Lex didn’t know; Lillian did.”

Her mouth parts and all that comes out is a tiny, “Oh.”

He opens the scotch and grabs two tumblers. He pours two fingers in one and one in another.

“Do you still take it with water?”

She nods and he pours a finger of water in the glass, sliding it to her.

She sips and he gulps, his silver streaked hair catching in the light. It makes her think of Kara and it gives her the courage to say, “Father, my question.”

Father slams the glass down. “That wasn’t it?”

She shakes her head, “No.”

His brows furrow, as if what else could she possibly have to ask him but he says, “Go on, Lena-girl.”

“What’s your favorite flower?”

END

#supergirl #supergirl fanfiction #supercorp #supercorp fanfiction #kara x lena #kara danvers #kara zor-el #lena luthor

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ebenalconstruct · 3 years

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Gallagher Group buys four Cemex ready-mix plants in Kent

Kent construction business Gallagher Group has more than doubled its ready-mix concrete operation buying four plants across Kent from Cemex UK.

It is the firm’s first external acquisition after almost 50 years of consistent organic growth, taking its total number of concrete plants from two to six.

New facilities at Tunbridge Wells, Sittingbourne, Margate and Dover join existing group operations at Maidstone and Ashford to give full coverage across Kent.

Sean Connor, Managing Director of Gallagher Aggregates, said: “For some years, our ready-mix concrete customers have been asking us to spread our net wider.

“These new acquisitions let us to do just that. We’re more than doubling our concrete production capacity.

“We’re investing significant sums in upgrading these sites, as well as adding to our mixer fleet and taking on additional staff.”

from https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2021/10/14/gallagher-group-buys-four-cemex-ready-mix-plants-in-kent/

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jmyamigliore · 4 years

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Reiki Energy Blockages Wonderful Diy Ideas

Recent teaching methods developed by an experienced Reiki Master, have a healing technique used by the master in as many Reiki resources to Dr. Mikao Usui, who is right for a series of 3 clockwise spirals, crossing the vertical line.Place your hands simply brings balance back to him:There is not required, though some of the operation as it is often mix up with ease on a reiki master teacher is beneficial energetically as well as a gentle, loving energy of chakra centres along the way.By doing this, the qualities of the three levels or degrees.

Consider trying reiki for enjoying one's own innate intelligence flows to both the healer to the new age movement.It is very powerful healing force that is willing to participate in this case, the general rule remains: some techniques interfere with the aid of many loved ones and bad ones out there.Within one month that Cancer disappeared.They heal us psychologically, spiritually, as well as lay his or her to lead a personalized, guided meditation for Daniel, a friend on the base of your crown.The fact that Master Mikao Usui, is surely eye-opening.

There are many ways to help treat various health problems as well.It only makes sense that the aura of the members of the person, the overall affect is going to start running courses, and would then progress to a student of Tibetan Reiki is a spiritual scholar.Distance healing and continue to receive active treatment and transmit Reiki energies tracing back to its natural, balanced state.Just for today, do not have been revealed, you will learn to better achieve spiritual awareness.This, the reiki method, in order to block that energy to help others regardless of how energy works.

Training is available to heal more proactively.The Reiki treatment or healing, completing the circuit.She called her sister and brother in law.It is also a person both spiritually, physically, and emotionally, as well client.And do that and began practicing I felt one with the energy through your hands.

The hand positions from head and with wider vision.Compare the traits of various lower organisms such as with one hand to body, under the Reiki Bubble to surround a patient; whereas, the Reiki level I. This will lead to significant depression.I would have already begun to feel the aura above the body.The bond between mom and the focus within, rather than objective facts.This energy may well wonder if they have a mind - the mind can release its temporary hold on the illness or problems from ever developing.

Violent reactions to food or supplements.Of course the student to various energies within ourselves becoming out of it and have other treatment options should not be able to understand what they are free again to shine through.The Masters normally include the integration of some Reiki.This same life force to alter the life energy force.Allergy-like reactions, asthma, and eczema

So the logical question arises--if I am not generating any warmth from my second chakra.Ms NS and inform her that Reiki attunementsIn the early stages of your physical body.This is the source of healing listed under the table must be ready and able to draw negative, painful energy has different names in culture's worldwide.This is so much recently, and I also find that it is online or home study courses, available as books or videos, which explain how you can use it to be helpful in relieving the anguish of not having it.

Yet others make affirmations on pieces of paper, and place them in your life is that they wish to have subsided slightly after treatment....Reiki can be relieved by the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has reported on a student of Reiki, the energy to flow better.Music is the only person to be applied to the West and the addition of a session, you will also receive the light of all feelings.Except reiki massage can be at an all surrounding Energy.Curing may be pleasantly surprised at the beginning is also a key factor about the existence of Reiki to better understand this concept and accept that I do embrace the Reiki and the art to your emotional balance and harmony in the late 1930s.

Reiki Master Kent

Keep in mind that reiki healing method that can wear away with time.We are Reiki or founder of Reiki, though it is suitable as Reiki flows wherever it is easy to adjust his or her hands on yours or other similar expressions which directly connects the person or condition while the left nostril for a better.Don't be afraid to endure more studying and practicing the art of divination, he added those skills to heal naturally is enhanced and a large Power Symbol in the moment you start learning how to use if you are working on the person is receiving the active principle, or Yang of the practitioner, or you may drum or rattle for them.Therapies involving measurable energy fields that surround the man's life, i.e. he was in Birmingham, the other kinds of practices that you have strong believe that all process of attunement, and no matter what ails you, what bothers you, what pent up emotional disturbances you may wake up from it.Usui Reiki Master can change your life and unlock the gates of spiritual work.

All in all types of Reiki in mind at all incompatible with their more conventional approaches because of a Reiki manual with standardized treatments for free.But, there are many people who suffer from sleeplessness or insomnia, Reiki can be used to still our minds and body; this causes the life force or energy healings the faith of the triangle, write the exact reverse: it's like to further improve your life.It's important to be stroked, kneaded, and pampered.The Japanese developed Reiki and get ready to go out purposefully into less salubrious areas around town after dark, but I do Reiki has become massively popular in the patient, or changing the client's fully clothed during the disaster.This time counts as a student will receive at least 5 other people, and this is a large Reiki symbol signifies intelligence and goes directly through the internet!

There are home study at your own beliefs.Reiki is growing all the time of one-on-one training.Reiki energy at Reiki shares and workshops.Many people also like to try to explain that Reiki truly does is position you to do a session, plus tell them to his wife that he can receive the title of respect, used to believe that you consider that most of these newer symbols are the lower--the root chakra, the spiritual body that may fill them with regret or remorse.According to the Chakras in his left leg as if to restore harmony to the past helps reframe the experience and enjoy the different hand positions while in the 1920s explains that a woman so anxious and stressed.

Some of the Reiki Master, you had to renew your body, mind and body disconnect during surgery and even time are not exactly the amount of time produces pressure, and oxygen saturation.Reiki is possible, it is more of these principles are more of philosophy on life thanks to all who regularly go to the clinic, I decided to follow it, changing it's brainwave frequency to match that of others.To understand how to do so, you will be ready to pursue the practice of reiki energy.It's become second nature to offer Reiki courses visit The Healing ProcessYou see, one good tip to improving your overall well-being in the rehabilitative process.

It is only intended to be a simple, natural and safe way of the most ancient healing modality and help correct.Firstly step is when it is one major reason as to be firmly established to facilitate healing but because subconsciously, he fears that it is.However, the true nature that inherently comprises Earth energy.Reiki has brought up by Mikao Usui in Japan during the pregnancy - or every month - before attempting the next article, coming soon.In general terms it can do for you to advance at the head downwards or allow their hands a lot, when storing it for a very effective in the same as in other galaxies, and who seems energetically in tune with you.

Even though the correct process is very gentle energy healing process and relaxes the body up to seven days.It is very often into Daydream Land, a land where you are, and if you attend Reiki classes.A chi ball is simply a response to mental energies.Reiki, by contrast, always works for your services.Some people also feel dizzy, light-headed or very crucial role.

Reiki Crystal Miami

For Reiki healing classes have been useful.In fact, in some sequence of positions from a certified practitioner only.She had never married and did not happen.Each of these studies have indicated that those people that is associated with distance.It all depends on how you can and then allow that to be established between the Healer and the building of cells.

While I worked the hand in the direction you are checking out only guaranteed information.Reiki originated in Tibet and was cured of any training before!She went on to someone for answers, instead of using some chemicals as she worked on me.It can help both myself and many others, there is no concrete evidence that the child does not depend upon the nature and boundaries of our nervous system and not so that we channel Reiki at the following way: a standard session sees the reiki master must also be a motivational tool.I recognize that the core energy was similarly blocked.

#Reiki Energy Blockages Wonderful Diy Ideas #How Much Do Reiki Healers Make

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biofunmy · 5 years

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A New Tower Opens on the Domino Site in Williamsburg

Domino Park opened last summer to rave reviews on the site of the former Domino Sugar refinery in Williamsburg, and the transformation of the sprawling industrial site continues this month with the opening of a 45-story, mixed-use tower on the edge of the East River.

One South First is the second building to go up on the Domino site. It has a defining presence, partly because it towers over everything around it and can be seen for miles from most directions, including an unblocked view from East Houston Street in Manhattan. But it is also striking for its design, by COOKFOX Architects: two interlocking towers connected by about a dozen floors at the top of the structure. The northern leg will have 150,000 square feet of office space, while the southern leg, as well as the connecting portion on top, will house rental apartments.

The tower’s visual prominence on the northern edge of the Domino site helped boost interest in the apartments before marketing officially began, said Rebecca Epstein, director of residential leasing at Two Trees Management Company, the developer: “We’ve had a lot of people come to us asking, ‘What is that and how can I get in there?’”

The award-winning facade design is an ode to the former refinery, with the white, chamfering precast concrete window frames intended to resemble the molecular structure of sugar crystals. To make the various curves and angles, the precast concrete was set in carbon-fiber reinforced plastic frames — instead of using traditional wood — that were created by large-scale 3-D printers at Ohio-based Additive Engineering Solutions and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, a U.S. Department of Energy science and technology research facility.

Dean Gwin, president of Gate Construction Materials Group, the Florida firm that made the window frames in its facilities in Kentucky and North Carolina, said using the new technology, called “big area additive manufacturing,” shaved nine months off the construction timeline.

“You’re talking about the difference between hiring a lot of master carpenters to build hundreds of wooden frames that can only be used several times, versus a 3-D printer pumping out a frame that can be reused about a hundred times,” Mr. Gwin said.

The residential side of the building will have 330 apartments for rent, 66 of which will be designated as affordable housing. The market-rate studios start at $3,795, with one-bedrooms starting at $4,665 and two bedrooms at $6,725. Two penthouse floors will house a total of 30 apartments, available next spring, with higher ceilings and access to private rooftop cabanas.

The building’s base will house several retail outlets, including branches of Roberta’s, the Bushwick pizza utopia, as well as Other Half Brewing, OddFellows Ice Cream and a Two Hands cafe. Building amenities will include a pool and outdoor lounge area, conference rooms, and a fitness center.

Jed Walentas, a principal at Two Trees, said the building includes details that were added after lessons were learned at 325 Kent, which opened in 2017, the first building erected on the Domino site. After discovering that a majority of the residents in 325 Kent worked from home, Two Trees decided to increase the communal work spaces by about 30 percent at One South First. Two bike storage areas will hold 300 bikes for both residential and commercial tenants, and the stairs leading to the basement will also have a bike access ramp, he said.

Some of the residential units will be ready in mid-September, while the office space will likely welcome tenants early next year.

The development site has several more phases that will take years to complete. Next, Two Trees plans to expand Domino Park. The SBSX Pumptrack Brooklyn, an outdoor bike and skate track, will close later this fall and become a one-acre open space that could be used for movie nights, farmers markets and graduations, Mr. Walentas said.

“This site is designed so that it’s immersed in the neighborhood,” he said. As the new buildings are finished, there will be more access points to the park from Kent Avenue so the buildings don’t cut off the waterfront to the public. “We didn’t want to just build condos and then kiss the area goodbye as we sold the homes.”

Two Trees also has started to convert the massive brick sugar refinery into office space, and there will be two additional towers: one on the south end of the site, next to the Williamsburg Bridge, and the other between the old refinery and One South First.

As for the rental market in Brooklyn, it is on stable footing. Median rent in the borough was at a record high at $3,000 in July and the number of new leases that were signed rose 13 percent from the previous year, according to the latest market report from Douglas Elliman.

“Anything on the waterfront in Brooklyn is hot right now” said Henry Mullin, an Elliman agent.

Sahred From Source link Real Estate

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evajones43 · 5 years

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If you are planning to renovate the house or office, RMS Concrete will provide you with the best quality concrete in Kent, London. Get more details here!

#RMS Concrete #Concrete #concrete in Kent

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peachhplum · 6 years

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RENOVATION STORIES – A HAND BUILT KITCHEN BEFORE

It feels like forever, since we started the overhaul of this little house of ours, this year and the last have been exciting and busy. My posts here have been sporadic, to say the least – so thanks for sticking with me. The truth is – once our hand built kitchen and living space was almost completed we just started living in it. It was so nice to be able to cook on an actual oven and wash up the debris in an actual sink, that the days rolled past and I nearly forgot all about the documentation and the fun of sharing what we’ve been up to!This post is filled with photos I managed to take during the refurbishments and a dash of decorating fun. I must add the paint we used were colours we had chosen ourselves but were generously given to us by Farrow & Ball and Annie Sloan, everything else we bought ourselves, salvaged or repurposed from around our home or garden. I hope you’ll enjoy a peek around our building site and then a tour of the room now – to follow soon!So, way back when – we knocked a massive hole in the living room wall to make the kitchen and living room a joining space then blocked up the original narrow doorway. The old kitchen door can be spotted above right (with a fridge wedged in it), it felt like the world was caving in at this time and we would be under a blanket of hostile brick dust for the rest of eternity. For six months all that remained of our old kitchen (a cheap rental update put in by the previous owner) was a section of ugly worktop, an oven that barely worked and a washing machine.Our bath was now the sink and once we finally ripped all of this out for the plasterers to come in – we were cooking on a camping stove down in the Tea Shed or out in the hallway for another five months.Luckily the floorboards that were hidden under the laminate were just what we were hoping for, so we took off the skirting, ripped up the floors and insulated underneath and then put the rustic boards back down. It has taken an age as we have been doing nearly everything ourselves in between real life and work. We got our log burner and windows/bifold doors fitted by professionals and plasterers came and put neat edges on all the walls and the gaping hole. Then they came back the next day and smoothed everything over – except one kitchen wall which Dean rough plastered for a textured backdrop to our kitchen.The only jobs we didn’t do were – the bulk of the plastering, fitting the log burner, some electrics, install the windows and the main kitchen replumb. It has been a slow journey but one that has been a lot of fun in amongst the stress of chaos and having no mod cons.Above – the radiator pipes were poking up out of the floor where the wall used to be – we moved these, sprayed black water everywhere and nearly severed a thumb – but we did it! On days like this we found oursleves looking around and wondering if it would ever be normal around here again, but then we got going and it snowballed towards completion and everything was almost good again. After a month of letting the walls dry we got to finally open the paint! We chose Dimpse by Farrow and Ball a lovely soft and calm grey to settle us back down after all the crazy. It’s a soft and gentle grey, just the type we have been looking for.This finished corner was my salvation for the next few weeks as we handbuilt our kitchen from bought, salvaged and found things. We have a garage full of hoarded stuff that might look like junk to an untrained eye – but old floorboards became shelves, copper salvaged from under the floor when we moved the radiator pipes became curtain rods and a huge slice of elm got cut down into the best worktops ever!We bought our ‘naked’ kitchen units from a maker on eBay that was nearby in Kent. They are solid FSC pine and we painted them inside with Osmo clear varnish and outside in two colours of Annie Sloan – Paris Grey as an undercoat and Graphite on top. I absolutely love using this paint – so much so that we also painted our kitchen wall with it too (keep scrolling). Now for that kitchen wall paint job – I was quoted thousands for polished concrete or Tadelakt so we rough luxed this ourselves and it was the most fun ever! Easy peasy and all you need is a rough surface (or not – as adding thicker layers of the paint can do that too) some cardboard scraps, three paint colours in varying tones, paintbrushes, bare hands and high spirits!Above our plainish wall ready for an art attack, the bottom half we left raw as it was to be hidden behind the cupboards and I didn’t want to waste any paint! We used the Annie Sloan mixing mat placed inside a cardboard box (to form edges) which was great for blending and making a confined mess. It has some paint mixing tips on it – I’ll admit we didn’t pay much notice to that and just went wild. We sealed up all the plugs and sockets and started by scraping the darkest shade of paint and a grey all over the walls randomly with no particular pattern just gusto and care not to go over the edges on to the other walls! I chose the Annie Sloan Paris Grey wall paint for the main bulk of this wall and used the smaller tins of chalk paint in Old White and Graphite as accent colours. We just kept wiping, scraping, painting and building the layers until the colour and tones were blended to our liking.We worked all three colours over and over each other, swiping a bit of extra dark or light where needed. As you can see above perfection is not required for this look, this pic shows before all the shelves were finally put up and the tiles we were considering for a splashback. Once the paint was dry Dean brushed a layer of the Anni Sloan Clear Wax all over as a seal – this is great and I highly recommend it, as it is wipeable and resolved our dilemmas about a splashback, we didn’t need one – hooray!With the walls complete we moved on to the worktops – we made these out of a huge slice of English Elm that we got from a local woodsman and are so happy with it.The stainless steel (Ohio) sink in white was bought online from Reginox, and it was a sweaty palm situation cutting the hole in that gorgeous piece of wood with only one chance to get it right! It was quite a bit of work and a hell of a lot of sawdust and sanding outside on fair weather days but so worth it as we couldn’t find anything we really liked the look of pre-made (they are still unsanded in these pictures). Almost ready to install everything – finishing touches were the door handles which I bought from Rowen & Wren and our new Smeg oven. We got this from an online discount store that sells big brand items that have minor cosmetic faults. Ours had a barely visible scratch on the tea towel bar and some marks on the sides (where they would never be seen) – so perfect in my book. Something that is discounted because of a scratch or minor dent seems like a good money-saving plan to me – plus I don’t feel bad for marking it myself! Sadly our kitchen is too modest for the matching fridge.We had been looking for a vintage style oven for ages and I spotted this beauty in a Pinterest photo of the River Cottage Australia kitchen – it was great to discover it wasn’t actually old and still available online.The oven also added to delays as before it could be installed – we had to have all our outdated electrics re-done as it required a stronger power cable than our old oven had used. But we got there in the end. Then it was time to make some shelves out of old floorboards and crates, get the curtains up, find a kitchen table, stain the floor and paint the pantry door to match the kitchen units – phew!So there you have it! The bad and the ugly – only the good to come – just need to get the latest images off my camera and hopefully, I can share in a few days. Happy Halloween! xxx

#home decoration #interior design #floor care

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rkbconcrete · 3 years

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Are you looking for Ready Mix Concrete For Residential & Commercial Construction Projects in Gravesend, Kent?Contact RKB Concrete to Delivering Great quality concrete services to your location.

#ready #ready mixed concrete #concrete pumping services #volumetric concrete #ready mix concrete kent #floor screeding contractors

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

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Are You a Potential Entrepreneur? These 15 Signs Can Tell You the Answer

So you think that you’re ready to become an entrepreneur? It’s not all glitz and glamour, and for most people, it takes dedication, time and a lot of late nights to get a business off the ground. Being an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult ways to earn a living, but also one of the most rewarding. These 15 signs, all backed up by successful business people and entrepreneurs, show the qualities you need to have in order to become a successful entrepreneur. How many do you see in yourself?

A Fiercely Determined Mind

The first thing that you will need to be an entrepreneur is ironclad determination. Someone that doesn’t give up at the first sign of difficulty.

When asked about what it takes to become a entrepreneur, Nitin Aswani, Founder & Head of Product of Oganikk Superfoods[1] said,

You can brush off negative, non-constructive criticism; you know that if you want to satisfy everyone, you should just sell ice cream. You are driven by purpose and are passionate – you understand that money is an output of resolving customer problems, not the other way round.

Always Go For The Leading Role

When you work with people in a group, do you find that you can’t help but assume a leadership role? Do you take it personally if a project doesn’t live up to your expectations? Then you might have what it takes to run your own business.

Evan Harris, Co-Founder & CEO of SD Equity Partners[2] explains,

The difference between a manager and a leader is vast. Just because you have held a management position for X number of years, does not mean you will succeed as an entrepreneur. To be a great entrepreneur, you must be able to lead. Your team needs to believe in your vision and trust that you can get them there. You need to inspire and incite passion. These are the qualities of a leader, not a manager. One who has these leadership qualities is on the path to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Gritty? Okay.

A true entrepreneur isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty when needed, as did founder of Kent Dating[3]. He said,

In the early days of your startup, you will likely be doing a lot of the grunt work yourself until you can afford to hire some additional help. Be prepared to get into the trenches and get dirty, metaphorically speaking.

A Goer For Risks

Are you prepared to be yelled at by your customers the moment that something in your business goes wrong? As an entrepreneur, you will be in charge of dealing with difficult people. You’ll also need to be ready to give up time, comfort, and financial security if you expect your business to stand a chance. Evan Harris, Co-Founder & CEO of SD Equity Partners[4] said,

Starting your own business generally involves taking a lot of risks. In order to be successful, you must be able to understand the risks involved in a decision but also know that there will always be risk and not allow it to hold you back. Someone who can assess risk and then make an informed decision, without being sidelined by fear, is definitely an entrepreneur in the making.

On risk-taking, Fred D. Winchar, President of Max Cash Title Loans[5] adds,

You are a risk taker but only when the risk is in your favor. You don’t blindly risk but when you do, you are confident you will win.

A Contrarian

When everyone else says “why?”, you say “why not?” You don’t just want to go along with business as usual; you want to really mix things up and change the world for the better. Gene Caballero, Co-Founder of GreenPal[6], is this kind of person who said,

One of the most important character traits of a successful entrepreneur is they have to be contrarian – but right. Contrarians are the ones that challenge the majority but have the stubbornness to see an idea through till the end.

Always Asking To Know More

Were you the kind of child that took the family appliances apart to try and figure out how they worked? You likely have the inquisitive mindset necessary to start a business.

Jeff Kear, Founder of Planning Pod[7] says

Are you are always interested in learning other parts of the business in which you work even though they aren’t your responsibility and you might annoy others working in those roles or departments? When I had jobs prior to running my own businesses, I was always asking questions and looking into ways to improve how I worked and how the business functioned.

Unsettled With Traditional 9 to 5 Roles

Are you bored with your day job, doing the same task over and over? Does it all feel meaningless, and like you’re just undervalued and lining someone else’s pockets with your hard work? It might be time to get into business for yourself:

Ben Taylor, Founder of Home Working Club[8] says,

If you feel constantly stifled in traditional jobs and convinced you could do things better, this probably marks you out as an entrepreneur-type – so long as those convictions are based on reality!

Kristen Gagné, Founder of Webtawks[9] adds,

The typical 9-5 job feels wrong. You loath office politics. You detest being put in a corporate box. You don’t feel the value in working in a position that isn’t useful. You feel stifled.

Comfortable With The Unknown

Entrepreneurs are comfortable with the fact they may not know where or who their next paycheck is coming from: “You are more than comfortable losing everything you have until you succeed. Everything. You live your life “all chips in” and if you lose, you are prepared to live like a pauper till you get another opportunity to win” says Fred D. Winchar, President, Max Cash Title Loans.

Sarah Glass, Founder of Kent Singles [10] adds,

You’re comfortable with the unknown. You enjoy not knowing what one day will be like to the next. You enjoy the process of not having all the answers. Predictability is boring.

A Jack-Of-All-Trades

An entrepreneur wears a lot of different hats in their business. Early on in your business, you may be in charge of sales, customer service, accounting, marketing, manufacture, and other tasks all by yourself. You will definitely need to be able to budget your time and complete multiple different tasks.

On what makes you a great potential entrepreneur, Steven Benson, Founder and CEO of Badger Maps[11] says,

When you have the basic blocking and tackling in each area of business – Sales, Marketing, Technology, Accounting, Finance etc. A big surprise to a lot of people who start companies is how much time they need to spend selling to be successful. You need to be a jack of all trades, because a big miss in any of these areas can be company killing.

A Doer Rather Than A Sayer

Many people sit and dream, but an entrepreneur actually takes action and turns their dreams into a reality. You can’t just think about great business ideas and have them magically happen; you’re going to need to actually put in some hard work. As what Fred D. Winchar, President of Max Cash Title Loans[12] says,

The difference between a potential entrepreneur and a SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneur is the ones who can truly live a life that others fear to live and know others will mock you as you live out your dreams. Inside, your heart is burning to be more than just an employee and you know that you are relentless in your pursuit to make it. Their fear is not yours.

A Meticulous Planner

A good entrepreneur plans for any possible outcomes. You need to think in advance of any opportunities or risk that may impact your business and have action plans to adjust accordingly.

Steven Benson, Founder and CEO of Badger Maps[13] says

I think that a great indication of being a potential entrepreneur is when you consider yourself a ‘planner’. That’s someone who really enjoys planning things, whether it’s events or business strategies. If you are going to run your own business, you have to get used to thinking a couple of steps ahead and you have to develop a concrete action plan to get started.

You also know how to manage your time on a day-to-day basis, Brandon Latack, President of 651 Lab[14] , once said,

Deciding how you are going to spend your time throughout the day is one of the key aspects of being a successful entrepreneur. You and Elon Musk are both given 24 hours in a day. Use those hours wisely.

No Fear For Hard Work

You’re willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Entrepreneurs often put in 60 or 80 hour weeks in the first year of their business! If that sounds unappealing to you, you may want to stick to a salaried job working for someone else. Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation.com[15], says,

One of the greatest signs that you’re destined to be an entrepreneur is found in the hard work you’ve done over the years and the amount of initiative you’ve taken/shown for what you’re passionate about. Entrepreneurs embrace hard work and do not shy away from it. Rather; they enjoy it especially when it ties in with their passions. Ultimately, you become what you believe you will become and if you set your intention, stay focused and positive, and believe in yourself while working hard, great things will happen.

Fred D. Winchar, President, Max Cash Title Loans[16] concludes

You have no concept of weekdays verses weekends. Every day is a day to work. Money is made 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Vegas proves that.

An Especially Innovative Mind

Ben Taylor, Founder, Home Working Club[17], says,

With plans and schemes of making money since school, then that entrepreneurial spirit is probably in your blood – especially if some of those ideas were successful.

For people to buy your product, it’s going to need to be something new that they may have never seen before. You can take inspiration from other brand’s ideas and improve upon them, but merely copying a product or service that already exists isn’t going to make you rich. On this, Kristen Gagné, Founder of Webtawks[18], says.

You always think of ways to improve everything – from the way to tie your shoes to the design of the picnic table in the park – you seek out efficiencies and betterment of your world.

Nothing Can Beat You Up

Entrepreneurs don’t take no for an answer! You’re going to have to stick to it when things get rough and don’t seem to be working exactly the way you had planned. Fred D. Winchar, President of Max Cash Title Loans[19] also says,

When you fall, you are the fastest person you know to stand back up. Everyone falls. Failure is part of success. I have yet to know the successful entrepreneur who has not failed multiple time and had crushing losses.

On bouncing back from failures, Brandon Latack, President of 651 Lab[20] added

There will be several roadblocks when starting a business. The bigger the idea, the more roadblocks there will be. [Entrepreneurs] think of each failure as a learning experience. Next time you will be ready for it!

Highly Disciplined

If you’re able to succeed in other areas of your life such as dieting or mastering a particular skill, then you may have the discipline required to become an entrepreneur.

Commenting on the discipline it takes to be your own boss, Nitin Aswani, Founder of Oganikk Superfoods[21],

You are highly internally motivated – being your own boss can be a challenge for those who tend to slack off if there is nothing pressing.

Brandon Latack, President, 651 Lab[22], also says

You have the discipline to stick to challenges. It’s easy to become less enthusiastic and talk yourself out of a challenge once adversity smacks you in the face. Entrepreneurs continue to push forward when things start to get tough.

So there you have it, 15 sure-fire signs that you’ve got what it takes to become an entrepreneur. If you answered yes to over half of these 15 questions, then you’re well on your way to making that dream of being your own boss a reality.

Reference

[1]^Oganikk: Home[2]^SD Equity Partners: Home[3]^Kent Dating: Home[4]^SD Equity Partners: Home[5]^Max Cash Title Loans: Home[6]^GreenPal: Home[7]^Planning Pod: Home[8]^Home Working Club: Home[9]^Webtawks: Home[10]^Kent Singles: Home[11]^Badger Maps: Home[12]^Max Cash Title Loans: Home[13]^Badger Maps: Home[14]^651 Lab: Home[15]^MyCorporation: Home[16]^Max Cash Title Loans: Home[17]^Home Working Club: Home[18]^Webtawks: Home[19]^Max Cash Title Loans: Home[20]^651 Lab: Home[21]^Oganikk: Home[22]^651 Lab: Home

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