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shitpostsfromtheinvisiblelibrary · 3 years

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13 Kairene and 14 FrostStorm?? Please🥺

…discreetly (Kairene)

The various speakers at the conference seemed to drone on and on. Irene knew that it was rude to keep checking her watch but the occasional glance of the clock on the wall told her that no, it wasn't that they had over run, it was just so dull that it seemed like time was going slower.

She knew that she should be paying attention, it would all be useful information to have. Sterrington was scratching away at her notebook so at least one of them would have notes, Kai looked just as bored as she felt.

When they finally took a break, Irene tried to not exhale too loudly. She was eager for a nice hot cup of coffee and to also not have to listen to someone’s droning voice for maybe fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of peace would be very nice in fact, maybe she could find a shady corner of the hotel gardens to hide in.

“I need coffee, how about you?” Kai said, nudging her in the side with his elbow. “You look like you’re on another world entirely.”

“Is it that obvious?” She asked, rubbing at her eyes. It had been hard to sleep in the unfamiliar bed of her hotel room, not even with the sense of comfort that Kai provided her with when they slept nearby as there was no chance of him sneaking past the bedrooms of several dragons and then several Librarians in order to join her.

“I can’t blame you.” He said as Irene shoved her barely used notepad into her handbag and got up. He grabbed her coat for her. “Come on, my treat.”

“It better be, my purse is in my coat and you have just stolen that.” He smiled and gave it to her. She gave him her bag to hold as she pulled it on. They were in the last few to leave the room, Kai took the opportunity of everyone having their backs to them to grab Irene’s hand and give it a quick squeeze before dropping it again.

“Shall we go to the cafe across the street? We should have time.” Kai checked his watch. “We can always sneak in the back.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Irene muttered, smirking when she watched Kai’s cheeks burn bright red. “Sure, why not. I went yesterday and their coffee is definitely better than the hotels.”

They dashed across the road, through the busy mid afternoon traffic and ignoring the honking of mildly annoyed cars. Kai pulled the door open and the bell above the door chimed loudly. Two minutes later and they were drinking coffee at one of the tables in the back corner, a piece of carrot cake between them with two forks stabbed into it.

“At least this is a break from the normal work.” Irene stirred a packet of brown sugar into her latte, dragging the spoon through the foamed milk and tracing swirling patterns into it (the height of her artistic ability) before putting the spoon down.

“I’d rather the normal work and our usual bed.” Kai said, he reached over and touched the back of Irene’s hand, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. “I think responding to letters of demands but the ability to curl up next to you each night is far better than listening to talks but sleeping all alone.”

“You are a sop sometimes, do you know that?”

“I think you mentioned it before.” He said before leaning in to kiss her. As he sat back with a self-satisfied smile, Irene grabbed one of the menus that they’d ignored and propped it up, blocking their view of the rest of the cafe. “What is that for?”

“Just in case anyone else decides that they want to get coffee here.” Irene said before kissing him in return.

###

…casually. (Froststorm)

“If we can turn our attention back to the screens, I have some graphs that show a visual representation of this quarters finances?” Ao Shun was reluctant to look away from Li Ming, who was doing his due diligence of tapping away at a sleek laptop and assumedly making notes on their fourth meeting of the day.

“The profit margin is very high.” Ao Shun remarked, drumming fingers onto the desk. “That doesn’t look right.”

“Well, the three paintings that we sold and two further that were donated means that there was a tax reduction as well as the profit that we turned, they went on auction and sold for more than double what we were expecting.” His financial advisor said. “I can show you the breakdown if you”-

“Half of those profits should be invested.” He said. “the rest can be charitable donations. Find out if the artists had an Alma Mata and send a portion to them, the rest can go into… Li Ming, what was the name of that charity we were looking into the other day? The art therapy one?”

“Art for Mental Health, I believe.” Li Ming said, not looking up.

“Yes. Send some of the money to them.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to have the money put into the rainy day fund? Increasing savings means that in years that are less profitable then there will be a buffer to fall back on.” The advisor looked between the two of them.

“I’m sure.” Ao Shun said tiredly. “I have enough put into savings already, I don’t need the excess. It is better being put into the community.”

“Uh, yes, sir.” The advisor looked back at the screen. “I will make those changes to this quarters budgeting and predictions then. Are there any other changes that you want to make?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.” Ao Shun said, checking his watch. “Send me the predictions and I will read over them and arrange another meeting, I have to get to another meeting.” He stood up and bent over to kiss Li Ming. Li Ming finally looked away from his laptop to tilt his head back and meet his lips.

“And I will see you later for dinner.” He said to Li Ming with a smile. “I will try to be on time.”

“We have reservations, so you better.”

#The invisible library #incorrect quotes

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kittyramblesalot · 4 years

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Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Want You To Know, A Year In Review 2006

Through 2006 I have written a number of articles known as the "Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Want You To Know" series which has long been a consumer oriented series of information to help home purchasers and sellers protect themselves when conducting a real residence transaction. These articles are a natural extension of courses I have written known as "Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Want Your house Buyer To Know" and "Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Really want A Home Seller To Know". The first book written through 1990 was called "Everything A Real Estate Agent Doesn't Want You to definitely Know" and it had a fair degree of national success, extra than I thought it would, when I introduced it towards the media during 1991/92. We sold the book in each state in the U. S. including Alaska, Hawaii and since far as Pakistan and Japan. This was not a damaging performance for a self-published under-funded author. I wrote the book because I was a licensed real estate agent in the talk about of Ohio and, more importantly, I was a readily available mortgage banker for a few years and I saw a large number of home buyers and sellers experience financial damage as a result of dealing with inexperienced and unethical real estate agents. Many of the agents happen to be either totally incompetent or so self interested that they would certainly mislead buyers and sellers, anything to get them to indication a purchase offer or a listing contract. Many of these family home buyers and sellers who were cut through the neck and also didn't even realize they were bleeding because they lacked understanding and insight into how the real estate game is competed. These books have always caused friction between real estate agents and myself because many agents resent the heading of the books and the ill conceived premise that the position is that all agents are bad crooked people today, which is false. In fact , whenever I did a media gig I always made it a point to clarify this is NOT a baby blanket indictment against real estate agents. There are good, honest, knowledgeable, full time mum real estate agents in the business who are highly professional. The problem is they are the particular minority and not the majority. The major problem with the real estate market place as a whole is the ease with which a person can get a realty license. While the educational requirements vary from state to state, normally, anybody can get a license to sell real estate in about 90 days. This just doesn't make sense to me. Consider that many realtors are little old women who operate part-time, do not have business or selling background, go to school for 33 or 90 days and are licensed to represent home owners in property transactions from around $50, 000. 00 and up. I mean, a lawyer has to go to school for more effective years to get a license to write a fifty-dollar will or perhaps represent somebody in a petty traffic accident. But silly-sally can go to school for 30 days and list the $250, 000 house for sale? That does not compute in my thought process. What kind of representation will a seller get from a in someones spare time agent with one toe in the tub? And the full-time pros know what I am talking about. I have had many close interactions with agents while I was in the business and the the important point is that part timers are often the weakest relationship in getting a deal done, unavailable for showings, etc . The bottom line, part time agents give part time results if you are a buyer, seller or a full time agent attempting make a living. And the truth is that most people, especially first time residential buyers and sellers don't know what is going on... not really. How you find an agent to sell a home, the nature of contract law as well as negotiable elements of listing contracts, purchase contracts, etc . will be way beyond most first time buyers and sellers. The actual result is that sellers sign stupid long-term listing agreements with the wrong agents and the wrong companies and individuals pay way more for property then they would if they received more insight into the workings of real estate transactions including commissioned real estate sales agents. I didn't originate the problem, I identified the problems and the solutions for home buyers plus sellers. CAVEAT EMPTOR is legal jargon which means "buyer beware" and it means what it says. Whether you happen to be a home seller or home buyer, you better determine what you are doing when you are making decisions and signing contracts for the reason that, it is your duty to know and ignorance is no alibi under the law. If you do a stupid real estate deal, it will be your fault. Which is a shame because buying or selling a home is actually a BIG business decision. It is a business transaction composed of individuals, emotions, contracts and cash and those are all the compounds for legal and financial pain if you don't know what what you are doing, and most people don't. And how are people likely to get access to this information that will protect their legal and personal interests before they buy or sell a home in any case? THE POWER OF THE NAR OVER GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA The things many people don't know is the National Association of Realtors Ò (NAR) is one of America's largest special interest categories who have incredible lobbying power over our politicians to put in writing real estate laws that benefit the real estate industry, not even consumers. Thus, the caveat emptor clause... state as well as federal real estate laws are written in the interests of this local real estate company and not you. Something else people are un-aware of is the tremendous advertising influence the NAR seems to have over print and electronic media to manipulate the news you will read, hear and see because of their advertising dollar power. There may be an article written by Elizabeth Lesley of the Washington Journalism critique called Demand Happy News And Often Get It and it exposes the corruption and manipulation of the news consumers trust in to make decisions about buying or selling a home. I strongly encourage everyone to read this article. Real estate is like the stock market utilizing some ways. When you hear of a fad like "flipping" you may be probably at the tail end of that gimmick bubble, kind of like the dot. com days... everybody jumped in as they quite simply thought it was hot and it was really the end of the us dot. com bubble. A lot of people have gotten caught with their dirt bike pants down on the flipping angle. Home foreclosures are " up " across the U. S. because real estate agents and the lenders what person cater to them (the real estate industry has tremendous determine over the lending industry because the are the source of so many place loans) have qualified otherwise unqualified borrowers, by positioning them in gimmick loans. In the mad dash for you to milk the market, people have been steered in to interest primarily loans, negative amortization loans or attractive teaser borrowing products like low interest adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) and other mindless financing that is NOT in the best interest of the buyer. Consumers many of the foreclosures are happening. Naïve and gullible individuals were sold a bill of goods based on unrealistic place values. The market got hyped and the agents and providers were right there to exploit buyers and sellers. Does some people make money? Sure. But many people have found themselves with wall with too much "house", too big a payment along with a housing market that looks pretty bleak for a while... All you will need is one ripple in our fragile economy to turn the estate market into a landslide. Here's a news flash: Typically the economy is on shaky ground. The economy has long been kept strong by housing sales and corporate profit margins and both are an illusion. The real measure of typically the economy is durable goods, like automotive sales, which you'll find in the tank causing massive restructuring and layoffs. Individuals can't afford to buy cars because they are scraping the enameled off their teeth trying to make house payments... So , whoever you are, and you read my real estate articles, take into account the reason I have done what I have done, and will perform what I do, is because I am on the side of the consumer. Now i'm on the side of the person who wants to be a better, more up to date consumer. I am on the side of the person who wants to save a handful of thousand on their real estate transaction by being smart and about the more level playing field with real estate agents. And you really know what? By educating people and teaching them how to achieve deals more intelligently, how to weed out the piece timer agents from the pros and save a few dollars in the process, I am actually helping the professional full time providers. The truth is that honest agents won't have a problem with my place because it will get rid of the riff raff.

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aswithasunbeam · 5 years

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Champagne and Scratch Tickets

[Read on AO3]

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: Eliza gets up at the crack of dawn each morning to work at the corner store, doing all she can to keep things afloat after her parents' death. The one thing cutting into her profit margin: the cute boy from the barber shop across the street, who she can't seem to stop giving free coffee to.

A Hamilton/ In the Heights Mashup with Eliza as Usnavi, Alex as Vanessa, Angelica as Nina, and Peggy as Sonny.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Bess. Maybe I should just drop out.” Angelica heaved herself up onto the checkout counter with a sigh.

“Absolutely not,” Eliza said. “Whatever happens, you stay in school. It’s what mom and dad wanted.”

“When my grades come in, Stanford might not give me any choice.”

Angelica’s legs dangled in front of the alcohol and cigarette age disclaimers, mostly bare but for her high cut shorts. Thomas, loitering around the magazine rack, shot Angelica an appreciative glance, Eliza noticed. James noticed, too, apparently, because he gave Thomas a swift smack with a newspaper. Eliza cut her eyes to her sister, and they shared a look of stifled amusement.

Eliza gave her a companionable pat before turning back to stocking the scratch tickets displayed on the other side of the register. “We’ll figure something out, Ange. I promise. We’ll find some more money for you, so you won’t have to work so much. Then you can focus on your classes, get through finals.”

“You don’t have any more money to send,” Angelica said, eyeing the peeling linoleum floor.

True, Eliza granted silently, thinking of the stack of overdue bills on the kitchen table, their bright red final notices practically glowing on the envelopes, not to mention the broken refrigerator on the far wall, still waiting for the repairman to give an estimate. But their parents would turn over in their graves if Angelica didn’t finish school. Conjuring a smile, she said, “We’ll find a way.”

A long, slow whistle of appreciation came from the front window, where a group of two guys and a girl had their heads tilted, peering over the sign announcing a sale on Doritos. Following their eye line, she saw Alex bent over in the refrigerator, his rear beautifully framed in his tight blue jeans. Eliza felt her own head tilting sideways. Alex glanced to the side and threw up his middle finger at the window, prompting the group to walk hastily away.

“What are you looking at?” Angelica asked mischievously.

Eliza gave a flustered start.

Just then, Peggy skidded to a stop in front of the counter, still tying her apron around her waist. “What are we talking about?”

“I’m worrying about my future,” Angelica said. “Eliza’s checking out boys and pretending to care.”

“I care,” Eliza insisted.

“No judgment here,” Peggy said, openly staring at Alex, who was now standing upright with his cell pressed to his ear. “That boy is fine.”

“Shut up,” Eliza whispered.

Alex spun on the spot and his voice raised in volume. “No, no! I’ll definitely be there. I’ll see you this afternoon. We’ll go over that lease. Thanks.” He hung up and grinned to himself, a dimple appearing in his cheek.

“Good news?” Angelica asked him.

His head swiveled towards them. “I have a lead on an apartment near campus.” He pointed to Eliza. “You owe me a bottle of champagne.”

“You’re moving?” Eliza heard herself asking. She could only hope the heartbreak didn’t come through in her voice.

“If all goes to plan.” He plopped the Pepsi on the counter to check out. “Your fridge smells pretty bad, by the way.”

“Yeah, it’s broken,” Eliza said, hurrying to pour him his customary morning coffee. “It’s been so hot, they’ve been working overtime. It must have finally given out last night.”

“Oh.” An awkward pause followed as he eyed the coffee. “Is the milk okay?”

“I used condensed milk. You know, from the can?”

“Clever,” he praised, clearly impressed.

“My mom’s old recipe.” She shoved a piece of hair back away from her sweaty face. “You’re good to go. It’s all on the house.”

That sweet, warm smile of his fell on her for a heart stopping moment. “Thanks.”

“So, you’re going back to school?” Angelica asked.

“Yeah. I got accepted to Columbia. With scholarships and the money I’ve saved up working at Mulligan’s, I might just be able to afford it for a semester,” Alex said. “Watch yourself Ivy League. You’ve got competition.”

Angelica laughed, though Eliza noticed a distinct tightness in her face.

“How’s school going for you?” His voice was colored with hope, his dreams clearly pinned on Angelica’s recent escape from the neighborhood.

“Great,” Angelica replied, strain apparent. “Really great. You know, lots of tests, lots of papers.”

“Right.” He sighed wistfully and sipped at his coffee. He raised the coffee cup in a salute to the three of them. “Well, I should get to work. Mr. Mulligan won’t wait forever.” A patent lie. The fatherly barber would starve to death before letting Alex go.

“Bye,” Angelica said.

“See you,” Peggy waved.

“I love you,” Eliza said.

“What?” Angelica, Peggy, and Alex all asked in unison.

“What?” she echoed, face flushing. Oh dear God, had she said that out loud? Grabbing blindly, she laid hand on the pizza dough for the little personal pizzas she put out at lunch time. “Dough! I love dough.”

“Dough?” Alex repeated.

“Yeah. It smells amazing. Nothing like pizza dough to start the morning.”

“Mm,” he hummed, leaning closer to inspect the lump. She closed her eyes, inhaling the smell of his spiced soap on his skin. “Looks good. Maybe I’ll come back for a pizza this afternoon.”

“Yes!” Too eager, she scolded herself. Way too eager. Pull it back. “Yeah, I guess. You know, if you want to.”

He smiled again as he backed away. He was so pretty she wanted to cry. When the door swished shut behind him, Peggy punched Eliza lightly on the arm. “Oh my God, just ask him out, you freak.”

“No!” Eliza looked askance. “I can’t do that. Look at him.”

They all watched him crossing the street towards Mulligan’s Barber Shop.

“I don’t see a thing wrong,” Peggy said.

“He’s…he’s him. And I’m me.” She gestured to her stained apron and messy hair falling out of her ponytail. “All I’m good for is taking reports of broken fridges and giving away free coffee.”

“That’s so not true. He should be so lucky as to get a girl like you,” Angelica said seriously.

Eliza fought not to scoff.

The door dinged when Alex walked in that afternoon.

“Hey handsome,” Peggy greeted, jumping down off the stool she’d been using to stock granola bars on the highest shelf. Eliza sent her glare across the store, to which Peggy gave a careless shrug.

“Hey Pegs,” Alex replied, heading towards the convenience items near the register.

Be normal, Eliza instructed herself as he approached. “How’s work going?”

“As good as sweeping up hair can be,” he replied, rifling around in the candy bars. “God, I can’t wait to quit.”

“Everything’s moving forward with Columbia, then?”

He crossed his fingers and held them up over the shelving for her to see.

“Good. That’s good.” It wasn’t good at all. Her chest hurt at the thought of not seeing him every day.

He headed towards the spinning food heater displaying hotdogs and pizzas, and finagled a pizza onto a plate for himself to go with his Milky Way bar.

“Hey, Alex?” Peggy asked, sauntering over to him.

“Yeah?”

“My sister over there with her tongue hanging out? She’s wondering what a gentleman such as yourself might be doing this evening.”

Eliza’s eyes widened and she hissed, “Peggy.”

Alex glanced over at her, amusement glittering in his pretty, pretty dark eyes. “Does your sister dance?”

“Eh.” Peggy tilted her hand back and forth. Eliza felt her cheeks heating up with mortification.

Alex only laughed. “Well, maybe her and I could check out a club tonight. You know, if you think she’d like that.”

“Oh, I think she’d like that.”

Eliza sunk down behind the counter. It was as close to the earth swallowing her as she could get. She heard footsteps approaching, and, peeking up, she found Alex leaning over the counter. “I need to pay for these.”

“Just take it,” she said, waving him away.

“Ok. Thanks.” He sank his teeth into the pizza, chewed, swallowed, then winked. “You’re right, by the way. This dough really is amazing.”

She groaned and rolled forward, her forehead pressing against her knees.

He laughed again. “See you tonight?”

“Yeah. See you tonight.”

Peggy scooted behind the counter as Alex left. “You know, you might be able to afford to help Angie out more if you stopped giving Alex free stuff all the time.”

“I can’t believe you did that.” She stood back up, wiping the dirt off her jeans. “That was humiliating.”

“But now you have an actual date, instead of mooning over him from a far. Progress, Bess. Progress.”

Much more progress, and she was going to have to change zip codes.

The music from the club was so loud she felt it in her ribcage more than a block away. Her legs felt sore and rubbery as she struggled down the stairs through the crowd, and she cursed the damn refrigerator repair guy who’d made her heave the two ton monstrosity across half the store. “I need better light,” he’d said. She’d been half tempted to beat him senseless with his own crappy flashlight.

“Alex!” A platinum blonde called from across the room, waving frantically.

Alex didn’t seem to notice. His hand was warm where it pressed against the small of her back. He probably gave amazing back rubs, she considered, biting her lip in anticipation.

“Do you come here a lot?” Eliza asked.

“I wouldn’t say a lot.”

“Hey Alex!” A different girl shouted from the bar. At the same time, a guy stopped in front of them, gave Alex a full head to toe appraisal, and mouthed, “Nice.”

When she glanced back at him, he shrugged. “I like to dance.”

She winced. “I hate to say this, but I’m pretty sore from work. I don’t think I can do much dancing tonight.”

His smile made her heart skip again. “That’s okay. Want a drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He gestured at a table where Gilbert and Jack were already sitting as he pushed through the crowd towards the bar. The two usually exuberant men looked oddly glum. Taking a seat, she asked, “What’s wrong with you two?”

“The car service is under new management,” Jack said. He handed her a shot.

“Is the new manager bad?” she asked, gulping it down with a shiver.

Jack took a shot too. “Wouldn’t know.”

“We’ve been ‘restructured’ right into the unemployment line,” Gilbert explained.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“It was a crap job anyway,” Jack said with a shrug. “We’ll figure something out.”

Ah, that old, familiar refrain.

She looked out through the sea of people and saw Alex with three different pairs of hands grabbing at him as he leaned over the bar. Seeming to sense her eyes on him, he craned his head back and smiled again. Her heart felt like it might pound right out of her chest.

“So, you’re here with Alex, huh?” Jack was smirking.

“Yeah.”

“Took you long enough,” Gilbert added.

Her responding look of indignation faded when she remembered she hadn’t actually ever gotten up the courage to do more than hand him free coffee and drool over him when he walked away.

Alex hadn’t even sat down in a chair when someone paused before the table and offered, “Hey, want to dance.”

“I’m here with someone,” he refused.

She winced again. She didn’t want to be the wet blanket holding him back from a fun night out. “You can, if you want.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, sipping at the fruity drink he’d brought her. The concoction tasted exactly like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Was there even alcohol in it?

“You might want to be careful with that,” Jack warned after she’d sucked down half the drink in two sips. “Those things are lethal.”

She scoffed and took another long sip. Alex had four different people attempting to dance with him on the floor. They’d formed a circle around him, and he turned in place, not seeming to care which of them he was dancing with at any moment. Were people that interchangeable to him? Was she interchangeable? Or was he trying to make her jealous?

After finishing the drink, and stealing a few more shots from Gilbert and Jack for good measure, she pushed back from the table and headed towards the bar, the floor a little more unstable than she remembered. Her legs felt better, at least. She swayed her hips as she approached the bar, where she ordered another one of the watermelon-Jolly Rancher-thingies.

A girl was grabbing Alex’s ass when the bartender slid the drink across the bar to her. Well, she didn’t have to just take that, right? She could make him jealous right back. Turning to the right, she saw a gorgeous guy leaning against the wall near the bar, glistening with sweat, his shirt unbuttoned all the way to his belly button.

“Hey,” she said, trying to smoothly get the guy’s attention. Her heel turned under her, and she had to catch herself on the wall next to him. That did the trick—the guy looked down at her with a quizzical expression.

“Sí?”

“So I’m kind of psychic,” she said, tongue clumsy on the ‘s’ sounds. She touched a finger to his chiseled chest muscles. He looked down at her finger, then back at her. “I looked into your future, and saw me on you.”

He shook his head. “No hablo inglés.”

Only then did the full horror of what she’d just said occur to her. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered to herself, cringing as she began to back away. “Sorry!”

When she started back towards the table, she saw Alex had finally returned. He didn’t look happy, though, she noted, sliding back into her seat. He had his head down and he was slowly banging it against the table over and over.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was still a little slurred. “Was it that guy? Cause that didn’t mean anything.”

Jack slid a piece of paper over to her. “This got delivered today. I promised Mulligan I’d bring it over to Alex. It’s uh, not good news.”

Trying to make her swimming vision focus on the words, she made out Columbia’s logo on the top. The financial aid office, she recognized after a moment’s more squinting. The word “denied” jumped out from the first sentence.

“Your father’s income is too high for you to qualify for the aid package you applied for?” she asked after far too long trying to comprehend the message. “I didn’t know your father was helping you?”

“Yeah, me either.” He picked his head up off the table. A big, red mark stood out prominently on his forehead. “Maybe they could forward me his address. He hasn’t bothered to keep me updated on his whereabouts for the past fifteen years or so.”

“God, Alex,” she sighed, putting the paper down on the table. “I’m sorry. You’ll get it straightened out, I’m sure. Even if you have to wait another year—”

“I don’t want to wait another year!” His voice went up an octave. “I want out of here. Don’t you get it? Don’t you want more from your life then selling coffee and candy bars to people in that money pit of yours?”

She frowned, sobering up immediately at the dig. Plenty of people thought that about her, she knew. Sweet, dependable Eliza, if only she had some drive, some ambition.

Her displeasure must have shown on her face, because he said immediately, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a money pit,” she said. “That was my parents’ store.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

She cast her eyes down at the table. His chair slid back, barely audible over the driving beat. When she looked up again, he was dragging his fingers through his hair.

“I’m gonna go. I’m not really in a dancing mood anymore.” He gave her a pained look. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she said, voice chilly. “Sure.”

“You should be gentle with him,” Gilbert said after Alex had left. “He’s very insecure.”

“Insecure?” she echoed with clear disbelief. “He got felt up by everyone in the club and then insulted me. And you’re telling me I need to be gentle?”

“He likes you. A lot,” Jack said. “I gave him the letter to cheer him up after he got all weird and mopey because you were talking to that guy at the bar. Though that clearly didn’t work so well.”

She fought off a wave of lingering humiliation and frowned down at the letter again. “Well, he shouldn’t have gotten all weird. I didn’t get weird when those girls were all over him.”

Jack snorted.

She glared at him and stole another shot.

“There’s no power,” Peggy announced, flipping on the overhead light in Eliza’s bedroom the next morning.

Eliza rolled over, covering her eyes with her arm as she groaned. Her mouth was dry and her head felt like she’d been trampled in a stampede of wild horses. Those watermelon drinks had packed a punch.

“I thought you said you were opening for me,” Eliza grumbled. “Go open. And turn off the damn light.”

“Fun night last night?” Peggy smirked.

“Horrible night,” she corrected, tossing a pillow in Peggy’s general direction. “Light.”

The light turned off. “I can’t open. The store has no power,” Peggy explained.

Eliza rolled back towards her, squinting. “What?”

“No power,” Peggy repeated again, more slowly.

“Why?”

“Well, I found the bill. It’s way, way overdue. That might be why.”

Eliza swore and sat up. As if they hadn’t just lost enough money with the broken fridge, now they risked losing even more product. “I’ll call.”

Sitting on hold with a hangover had to be one of the circles of hell, she decided, holding the phone far from her ear to minimize the volume of the delirious circus music blaring out at her. She laid with her head down on the table for the first ten minutes, then doodled on a pad, and then rifled through the old mail while she waited. Alex’s letter sat on top of the stack, slightly crumpled from her pocket. She must have taken it with her by accident.

She read it over again in the sober light of day. Pissed as she was at him, she couldn’t help feeling a little bit bad. He was so close to getting what he wanted. To have it snatched away at the last second like that, seemed too cruel to bear, even if he had danced all night with other people.

Jack’s words floated back to her, suddenly, the memory foggy as it fought through the drunken haze of last night. “He likes you. A lot.”

She smiled. Did he really like her, she wondered. She had told him it was okay to dance with other people, she supposed. And he had gotten sad and jealous when she’d tried to talk to another guy. (Oh, God, that poor other guy, she thought, humiliation crashing over her once again.) Still, maybe the night hadn’t been a total disaster after all?

She read the contents of the letter again, more closely now, dragging a pen under the most important parts. She’d dealt with a maze of financial aid nonsense for Angelica last year. The ladies in the office had fawned over the young, sweet, orphan girl trying to help her big sister. Alex would probably shout at them. Maybe if she made a call, she could help?

“Ma’am?” A tinny voice cut through the circus music at last.

“Oh. Yes. Hello. I’m calling to get my power turned back on?”

Eliza kicked her legs impatiently against the store counter as she waited for the power to flip back on. They assured her it would be back within an hour after she’d made the payment, using money meant to cover rent. (Oh well, one crisis at a time.) It was now going on two hours. After a crazed morning of having Peggy rush over with coffee pots from their apartment to serve their most loyal patrons, she’d put up a sign announcing cash only sales and hunkered down to wait.

The bell over the door dinged when she was bent over, looking for a chocolate bar to pass the time. “Cash only, no cold goods,” she announced by rote.

“What happened to your power?” Alex, she identified, snapping back up to look at him.

“Went out. Apparently that’s what happens when you don’t pay the bill for three months.”

“Gotcha.” He held up a curvy green bottle and a scratch ticket as he approached. “I got you some stuff.”

“Champagne?”

“Hair of the dog,” he smirked.

“I don’t think champagne’s what bit me last night,” she replied. At least, she didn’t think so. “What’s the occasion?”

“Partly an apology. I’m sorry about last night. That’s not how I meant it to go. I shouldn’t have gone off dancing with other people.”

“I said it was okay.”

“It was dumb of me. I was just so nervous and flustered. I was worried if we just talked I’d say something stupid. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a real date.”

“Seriously? You practically have to beat people off you with a stick.”

He shrugged slightly, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “Then, when you said I could dance with that girl, I thought maybe you didn’t really want to be out with me.” He was blushing now, perfectly sculpted tan cheekbones turning pink with embarrassment.

She couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped. He really was insecure as Jack claimed last night. At his wounded look, she leaned forward, pecking him on the cheek. “I’m sorry, honey. That’s just ridiculous. I have never wanted to go out on a date with another person more in my entire life.”

Butterflies took flight in her stomach at the adoration she saw in his eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah. But I appreciate the apology.”

“I’m also sorry about what I said, about you and the store. It’s great, what you do here.”

She sighed. “I know it’s not fancy or impressive, running the store. Not like you and Angelica.”

He opened his mouth, no doubt to contradict her, but she waved a hand to stop him.

“I wanted to go to school, too, you know. Certainly not an Ivy League school, but maybe just community college. Or maybe travel for a year. I don’t know. I hadn’t worked it out yet. But then my folks died. Someone needed to step up, to be the grownup. Angelica was at Stanford already, and they were so proud of her. Peggy’s just a kid, still. So I did it. I stepped up.”

“You’re a rock,” he said. “You keep this place running. You anchor the whole neighborhood. That’s pretty impressive to me.”

“I’m not curing cancer or anything, but I like keeping my parents’ legacy alive, reminding everyone they were here, giving Angelica a place to come home to. It feels important.”

“It is. More than I think you even realize.” He heaved himself onto the counter beside her.

“What’s the other part?” she asked.

“Mm?”

“You said it was partly an apology.”

“Oh, right. The other part is celebration.” He smiled at her. “The funniest thing happened today.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I called Columbia to try to straighten things out with my financial aid. I was raring for a fight with them, too. But they told me they’d already talked to my sister, and she’d explained the whole situation regarding my father. So everything’s back on track with my aid package.”

“That’s pretty great.” Relief swept over her that she’d been able to accomplish at least something useful this morning.

“It is. The funny thing is, I don’t have a sister.”

“Weird,” she said, trying for deadpan.

“Really weird.” His hand touched her knee, fingers tickling lightly over her skin, leaving little goosebumps in their wake. “It’s also honestly the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“What are you thanking me for? I’m definitely not your sister.” Grinning at him, she grabbed the champagne and started working at the foil. The cork popped with a resounding bang and bubbles rushed up the neck of the bottle. “Cheers.”

She took a swig and handed it over to share. They traded the bottle back and forth a few times. “You didn’t lose that apartment in all the financial aid craziness, did you? The one you were talking about yesterday?”

“No. But, um, I’m thinking about turning it down.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll stick around here. Mulligan said I can keep living with him, working part time. I can take the train to classes. That way, I might even be able to afford a whole year of school.”

“I thought you wanted to get out of here?”

“I did. I’m starting to see the appeal of this place, though.”

“What changed your mind?” she asked. He’d seemed pretty dead set on leaving the night before.

“I think it was that dough of yours.”

She punched him on the arm.

“I mean it. I think I’m falling for it.” He winked and leaned in to kiss her.

His breath was warm against her cheek, and smelled sweet from the champagne. Their lips touched, chaste at first, adjusting to the sensation. His goatee felt scratchy, but she couldn’t say she cared. She leaned in, placing her arms around his shoulders to pull him closer, her mouth parting to invite in his tongue. She moaned softly when his arms wrapped around her in return.

They pulled apart minutes later, both slightly out of breath.

His hand landed on the scratch ticket as they disentangled themselves. He held it up to her. “You gonna try your luck?”

“I don’t know. It hasn’t been so great lately,” she said, gesturing to the darkened store. “You sure you don’t wanna try?”

“No way. I never win shit. You go.”

She fished a nickel out of the take-a-penny tray and starting scratching away the gray boxes. As the little pots beneath became visible, she felt her eyes widening. One-two-three pots. She squinted, sure she wasn’t reading the ticket right. Electricity surged back through the store.

Alex clapped at the restored power, then tapped her shoulder. “Did you win?”

She nodded, mouth parted with shock.

“Cool. How much?”

“96,000.”

Their eyes met, gazing at each other in stunned silence.

#hamilton fanfic #hamilton/in the heights mashup #hamliza #alexander hamilton #eliza schuyler #angelica schuyler #peggy schuyler

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harvestmoonconfessionsv2 · 7 years

Note

I just started Trio of Towns :D! It’s really great so far, but does anyone have any tips to get started?

TIPS TO GET STARTED UNDER THE CUT!

1. In this game, you can’t catch/sell bugs but Dessie will give you rewards (gems and fertilizer, for example) when you “find” them. Face the bug and click A, it will tell you its name. Save before finding the 100th bug and reload the Dessie reward event until you get 3 gems, which sell for about 11-13k (a big amount at the beginning). info

2. Buy and plant a lot of crops, and if you have spare money fertilize at least one (1) square. You can sell all the low-level start crops OR cook them before selling them. Keep the higher level star for the Harvest Festival or to make seeds from it with the seed maker.

3. You can also win the first Harvest festival with just the fertilizer you can buy at the shop. Plant the seeds but not water them. As long as it stays at the seed stage, it will not wither. Even if it sprouts, it will last several days without water too. So if you plant them as soon as possible (use potatoes, they take longer to grow that radish, and you are sure to get several rainy days during the month) you can easily get crops with the first parameter almost full at the end of the month. Since you cannot get the seed maker until summer, this is the best way to get crops with parameters as high as possible during the first spring.

If you can water it twice a day start watering it on the 26th, if you can only water them 1 time a day, start on the 23rd.

4. Do as many job requests as possible. At the beginning, you will have a lot of free time each day since stamina goes down quite fast in veteran mode. There is a job offered by Ford where you have to try some medicine he prepared (save before you take the job; the effect of the medicine is random, but some replenish your stamina fully, which is useful if your current stamina is almost zero), with base payment of 1500. So if you have been completing jobs regularly, you can get around 3k easily (plus stamina recovery). info info

In addition to money, you get items and food as payment for the jobs. The food you get is something the giver likes. And in occasions is his/her favorite thing or someone else’s. For example, Frank sometimes gives you pizza, which is his favourite thing. Ford sometimes gives you a dish, I don’t remember the name, which Mitra likes the best.

Always save some crops and flowers for job requests and save basically every milk/egg for job requests.

5. When mining, if you wait 3 or more days before mining again, you will get better drops that mining everyday. And save before mining and if you don’t get the ore you want reload and try again. But at first, is better to mine everyday, since you get black stone and iron easier, and that is what you need for the first tool upgrade to reduce stamina consumption. Get 45 black stones before upgrading your hammer (Don’t upgrade your hammer’s efficiency too quickly because if you blow past ex. efficiency lvl 3, black stone gets shunted out of the “loot table” for the most part. I ended up having to buy a second hammer to keep at a lower level). And save 5 jade and 5 black stone to improve the range of your watering can to 1x2 if you have a lot of crops. info info which ores to sell or NOT info DON’T SELL BLACK STONE AND BRANCHES AND DON’T CONVERT THEM TO ROCK AND LUMBER. D O N O T.

But honestly DON’T sell your ores, save them. You will need them. You can get a lot of money doing other things.

6. Get a cow and chicken asap. In this game, animals have some “stats” you must level up if you want to get better byproducts info

When buying your first livestock, don’t worry about buying the milker and brush; if you do, Frank will give you 2000 G and if you don’t he will just give you the items for free so you don’t lose anything in this situation.

Try to get one of every type of livestock.

Get 2 herding pets ASAP.

7. Town link ranks info if you want to plan ahead of time which crops/items you need to save so you don’t get stuck waiting until the NEXT YEAR to unlock a rank. But SAVE 20 SWEET POTATOES FROM YOUR 1ST FALL.

8. Once you get 5,000 FP with a villager or 10,000 FP with a marriage candidate to be invited to eat when you talk to them while they’re eating. info

list of items to gift early in game

9. Soft soil makes crops grow faster, as well as watering twice a day.

10. Pressing L button while walking or running next to someone counts for the “daily talk” friendship boost. It doesn’t work if you’re riding your horse.

11. If you want to chop a lot of rocks/branches: GO TO INVENTORY > LOOK FOR THE ITEM YOU WANT TO CHOP > PRESS A > SELECT PLACE > CHOSE THE AMOUNT YOU WANT TO CHOP > CHOP THEM ALL AT ONCE

12. SAVE WEEDS!!!! THOSE ARE FERTILIZER YOU CAN USE WHEN YOU GET THE FERTILIZER OR AND LIQUID FERTILIZER MAKER!!!!

13. Giant crops give you 5 dishes when you cook them.

15. Eat fish pie if you want to restore stamina. It’s 500G in westown’s restaurant. (But you can eat for free with villagers, but it’s nice to know other options)

16. GROW AND SAVE COCONUTS AS SOON AS YOU CAN (year 2 - summer) you’ll need 15 of them, so save them.

17. You can pick up stuff around your farm in the “arrange farm” mode. Saves time!

18. If you have some wilted crops or it’s the end of the seasons go to the… THING where you can arrange your farm and return the fields to the inventory and place them again it will return clean and you will have to plow the soil again tho.

19. FARM CIRCLES YOU SHOULD BUILD ASAP. INFO

Seed Maker

Unlocks: You complete Farming Tips 1

20,000 G, 20 Lumber, 10 Small Lumber, 10 Glittering Stone, 3 Topaz, 2 Ruby

MAIDEN WITH SHIELD

Unlocks: Complete Farming Advice 2, and have two friendship hearts with Dessie.

2100G, 50 Black Stone, 3 Diamond, 15 Emerald, 3 Platinum, 1 Philosopher’s Stone

Effect: Increase quality of maker products in 4 directions, affecting 3 fields in each direction

Chicken King Statue

Unlocks: Spring of Year 2 and you have completed Farming Tips #2

2800 G, 50 Black Stone, 20 Gold, 15 Ruby, 5 Adamantite, 5 Crystal

Effect: Small increase to animal product level

20. HOW TO MAKE MONEY COOKING

IN THIS GAME YOU CAN COOK BATCHES AND IT ALL COUNTS TO THE TROPHIES. EVERY COOKING TROPHY YOU UNLOCK IT WILL GIVE YOU A BOOST % IN THE SELLING PRINCES OF THE MEALS. COOK 100 TO GET THE FIRST BOOST. INFO

Buy a pudding recipe. Use 1 egg and 1 milk, and the pudding is worth 858G. That is like quadruple what they were worth ingredients alone. And it is an easy recipe to get almost full stamina back.

Westown: Once you get the Corn Bread recipe from Brad in Westown and can purchase Corn Meal from a vendor in Westown for 336G a piece you can sell the made Corn Bread for 432G

Tsuyukusa: Once you have the Rice Porridge recipe from the Teahouse (D rank) you can purchase Soy Sauce and Rice (not the stalk, the second one) from Ittetsu for 196G and 105G each and turn it into Rice Porridge which sells for 540G.

Lulukoko: Once you have the Sashimi recipe you can purchase Soy Sauce from the vendor in Tsuyukusa and a medium fish from Caolila for 245Gand sell the Sashimi for 648G.

The profit for a stack of Corn Bread is 9,504G, for Rice Porridge it’s 23,661G and for Sashimi it’s 20,439G.

Corn Bread is a loss for Veteran mode, but Rice Porridge has a 7,920g profit per stack

For an even higher profit margin you can make Smoothie. You need Lulukoko at A rank OR to ship 100 dishes to Lulukoko to unlock it and the ingredients are milk (purchase for 245G), yogurt (purchase for 245G) and a fruit (lychee is the cheapest I have unlocked and it’s 436G). The smoothie with the 100 recipe bonus sells for 1380G but it still has a profit without the bonus. The profit per stack is 44,946g. You could also just use your own milk from your cows for a larger profit, but buying allows you to sell in bulk. This recipe also has the money discount buff!

Purchasing ten stacks of corn meal/soy sauce/medium fish/etc. (ten stacks of anything really) will give you enough town link rating to get to the next lock, and if you cook these in high quantities you’ll be increasing your cooking skill while cutting a profit.

There you go a lot of tips from a lot of sites lmao but I’ve used all of them in my file so yeah if you need more just message me at @aegeanfarm :D -Admin Alex

#add more if you want #answered

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ecotone99 · 4 years

Text

[HM] Santa Gets Consulted on His Operation

"Santa. Hello. How are you? Well I hope. How's Misses Claus? Rudolph? Also well? Good.", the man in the crisp navy suit bulldozed through niceties, as he stepped into the conference room and set his alligator-skin briefcase down on the long, brown table with candy-cane trim. His young female colleague pressed her lips into a flat smile and smoothed her skirt as she took a seat across from Santa. The man walked back and shut the door, with a bit too much force, causing Santa to jump.

"Where can I plug in?" The man asked as he pulled out a razor-thin laptop and scanned the length of the table.

"Excuse me?" Santa replied, confused. He looked toward the woman for clarification. She blinked with her lips still pressed into a forced smile.

"A dongle. I need a dongle. Do you have a dongle?" The man implored, uttering the last sentence slowly and deliberately while shaking his laptop at chest level. "In order to present OUR findings on THAT TV, I need a dongle."

"Oh, ho ho. I see now. I'm sorry, that TV is closed circuit only. It turns on when a child is being exceptionally good!" Santa said with a glowing smile. Then his face soured and his tone grew serious, "Or, exceptionally naughty. Ho Ho Hooooo!"

The man stood motionless, waiting for Santa's uproarious laughter to finish. "Ok then. No dongle. We'll have to do this the old fashioned way. Luckily Alexa brought printouts. Alexa?"

The young woman bent over and brushed strands of blonde hair behind her ear. She popped back up with a stack of papers as thick as a shoebox and laid them on the table. The man cut the pile in thirds and handed one to Santa, who accepted it with a bemused look on his face.

"The first 30 or so pages are legalese and preamble, which I'm sure you'll read through tonight. Let's flip to page 38 outlining your problem statement and the scope of our findings," the man said, flipping to the exact right page in one turn. "We at McKinsey Consultants understand that you, Santa Claus, are experiencing slimming margins due to an increase in new entrant competition, as well as an increase in the cost of labor and materials. Is that right?"

Santa squirmed in his seat and furrowed his brow. "Well, sort of," he replied hesitantly.

"Good. Moving on to page 42 you'll see a summary of our findings. We've categorized them according to operational efficiencies, i.e. reducing costs to return to profitability, or business expansion, i.e. revenue uplift through new services and product lines."

Santa looked up at the young woman, Alexa, to see whether she was following any of this. The same elastic smile was stretched across her face, and she nodded along robotically.

The man continued. "As far as operational efficiencies go, your workshop appeared to be a tightly run ship, at least it did from a 30,000 ft view. When we actually dove deeper into the machinations of your workforce, however, we were appalled at what we found."

"My workforce?" Santa asked, pushing his bifocals back up his cherry nose as he looked up from the page. "You mean my elves?"

"That's right. We spent three days performing an efficiency study, and found the elves to be as efficient as wiping your ass with a dog turd."

Santa winced.

"Each elf produces approximately 0.83 products per week. The only reason you're able to even come close to quota is because you have a workforce the size of Japan -- if only they were as competent as the Japanese."

"Well, they mean well. They have big hearts!" Santa said in defense.

"Enlarged hearts, maybe. But we will get to their health issues in a minute," the man said ignoring Santa's growing concern. "We've found that the majority of an elven workday is wasted: Eating cookies, splashing around in the toy parts that they are NOT putting together, throwing snowballs, eating thrown snowballs, breaking into perfectly choreographed flash mobs, licking icy metal poles, sitting on shelves, playing Red Dead Redemption II, and eating ornaments... glass ornaments.

"Yesterday we watched in horror as the elves shirked their duties for the entire day. Instead, they spent 9 hours trying to write a new hit Christmas song. When it was all said and done, they realized they had just rewritten the exact melody and lyrics of 'Up on the Housetop'."

"Oooh that's a good one," Santa chimed in, bobbing his head.

"Normally we'd recommend that you fire 80% of them to save on wages, and then pursue robotic process automation, but it's come to our attention that you don't pay them anything. As much as it pains me to say this, it may be in your best interest to have them copulate just so there are more of them. This is, of course, at the risk of further watering down the most inbred gene pool we've seen outside of the hills of West Virginia."

"Ho Ho Ho, my elves don't reproduce! They just... well... I have no idea what they do...," Santa trailed off, sliding his hand over his chin and mouth.

The man let Santa's imagination run for a long second before cutting back in, "You don't want to know. Trust us. We've seen it. Anyway, the only way to cut costs that we can recommend at this point is to pull their healthcare."

"Pull their healthcare!" Santa exclaimed. "But I can't afford to have a bunch of sick elves running around!"

"Actually, it's the only thing you can afford. The amount of healthcare claims your employees have made in the past few years is staggering, and all of this expense trickles back to you. You're worried about them, but they aren't worried about you! If they were, they'd change their diet. They eat nothing but cookies, and - as I said earlier - the occasional ornament. Regarding the latter, they have no pretense about being able to digest the ornaments. They just get swept up in the Christmas spirit and turn into little Yuletide gremlins, devouring everything in sight."

"But sugar is what keeps them filled with the Christmas spirit," Santa defended, his voice lifting at the end, as if beginning to question his own reasoning.

"If by 'Christmas spirit' you mean 'Type II diabetes', then yes. You are spending a fortune on insulin shots for these guys. This whole place is brimming with sugar. I poured myself a hot coffee in the break room the other day, and when I took a sip my teeth almost fell out. Turns out it was just a pot full of chocolate syrup, which the elves refuse to mix with milk," the man said with a grimace and outstuck tongue.

"Well...," Santa said as he scratched his chin, "maybe we can work our way onto some fruit. Let's start with pineapple and mango."

The man pulled a pen from his breast pocket and scribbled a few notes. He flipped a few pages ahead, scanned the page for a second, and started shaking his head. "Ok, let's talk about business expansion - page 56."

Santa fumbled with the pages for a minute, his white gloves severely limiting his precision motor skills. Alexa reached across and flipped to page 56 for him, then smiled a smile that her eyes did not care to participate in.

The man started again, "We understand your primary business is the production and distribution of playthings; your distribution model is global; and your customer demographic is all children, aged 2 - 16."

"Believers, yes," Santa interrupted.

"Believers? Ok..." The man's patience grew thinner, "I can't imagine CitiBank dropping me as a client if I suddenly grew wary of their existence, but I'll grant you this one. The point is, you're sitting right in the murdered middle here. You're doing a little for a lot of people, but not enough for anyone. You either need to niche-down or scale-up."

"Sorry, do you mean nice-down, because I only deliver to the boys and girls on my 'nice list'."

"No!" The man burst, quickly catching himself and smoothing the lapel of his suit as he regained his composure. "No. Niche-down, as in aggressively target a more engaged and more profitable customer base. For example, only serving preteen boys who play competitive soccer, and who's parents are High Net Worth individuals."

"But the song - Here Come Santa Claus - says that I have toys for ALL the girls AND boys. And that I don't care if they're rich or poor... I love them all the same."

"We can work with marketing on that. Change it to...," the man began snapping his fingers arrhythmically, and in a low, droning sing-song, "He doesn't care if you live in Orange County or Beverly Hills, he'll... something something something." He turned to Alexa and motioned for her to write that down, apparently pleased with himself.

"Anyway, I'm not sure that niche-ing down is the way you should go, Santa," the man changed his tone.

"It's not? Oh that's good!" Santa said, relieved.

"No. With the production capacity you have here in the workshop, it'd be a crime not to scale up - to take on the big guys... Amazon... Alibaba... Walmart."

"Ok, well, how do we do that?" Santa asked.

"Easy. You serve everyone everything. You'll become the one-stop-shop for everything from coffee pots to garlic presses to replacement windshield wipers. Your name will become synonymous with ecommerce."

"But I want my name to stay synonymous with Christmas!" Santa declared.

"And it will! But instead of delivering gifts once per year - to children only, mind you - you'll get to deliver them every day to every person on the planet. It'll be Christmas in July, and, hell!, it'll be Christmas on Halloween, Easter, and Thanksgiving!"

"Ridiculous! I don't know what adults want for Christmas!" Santa exclaimed.

"They'll tell you! Through the app!" the man barked back, getting heated once again.

"You don't get it! Adults aren't able to communicate with me at all - only those who believe! But... there is one adult left on Earth who still believes."

"Pffffbt, now that's ridiculous, Santa," the man said in an overly mocking tone. "Nobody with half a developed brain buys this nonsense."

Santa stared at him a moment, then turned to Alexa, "Now, now, Wayne. I'd believe that if Alexa had said it. Her parents told her when she was 7, and so she's been staring right through me ever since she showed up."

The man now sat with his hands across his brow, shielding his eyes from Santa's view. His bobbing shoulders belied the deep sobs that began to form.

Santa flipped to the last page of the document, and said in a voice as warm as a pot full of chocolate syrup, "I see you've slipped your Christmas list in here on page 198, Wayne. Why don't you come sit on Santa's lap and we'll read through it together?"

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mreugenehalsey · 5 years

Text

How to Plan For a Financially Successful Coffee Shop

Keeping your customers happy? That’s the easy part of running a coffee shop. Up to 60% of cafés and small restaurants close in their first year of opening, for reasons such as market saturation, inadequate capital, industry inexperience, and a lack of business planning.

So, how can you plan for financial success as a coffee shop owner? What are the most common financial mistakes and how can you avoid them?

I spoke to Jim Starcev and Mark Calhoun of PerfectCube and Chris Deferio of the Keys to the Shop podcast to get their advice. Jim and Mark are presenting on Real Numbers in Your Café: The Financial Side of Running a Successful Business at Coffee Fest New York 2019 this March 3rd to 5th, while Chris is presenting on The Top 10 Ways to Lose Employees. (You can book your ticket here.)

These talks are part of a range of free and paid workshops in Coffee Fest’s Business Operations Track. Topics include Business Owner Bootcamp, Pricing Strategies, and Cut The Waste & Save Money. The International Restaurant and Foodservice Show of New York is also taking place alongside Coffee Fest.

Here’s what Jim, Mark, and Chris had to say about running a financially healthy coffee shop.

You might also like Owners, Here’s How to Diversify Your Offerings & Increase Your Profits

Don’t judge your profitability by your popularity.

Understand Your Costs & Profits

It’s one thing to know your cortados from your piccolos, but do you know the difference between your fixed and variable costs? As a café owner, understanding the ins-and-outs of costs and profit models will help you shape your business plan.

This knowledge is also useful in discussion of litigation and legislation, when consulting with an accountant, and when deciding if you should invest in new equipment or open a new site. Most importantly, it will help you isolate which factors you need to focus on or streamline to increase your profitability.

“Thankfully, coffee does not have any special terminology to speak of when it comes to business metrics,” Chris says. “This means you can talk to someone about setting up a good system of metrics to track in your shop and it requires no translation whatsoever.”

So, here are some common financial terms that you should be familiar with:

Profit margin: The amount by which revenue from sales exceeds costs. When considering adding a product, you should factor in the costs of materials, waste, and labor. This will allow you to price the product so that all these costs are adequately covered.

Your profit and loss statement (PNL) versus your balance sheet: Both of these are financial statements that companies issue on a regular basis to demonstrate the financial health of their business. A profit and loss statement breaks down the revenues, costs, and expenses incurred during a specific period of time. A balance sheet is a record of a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity at a specific point in time.

Cost of goods sold (COGS): The direct costs of production of goods sold in a company. This includes the cost of the materials used as well as the direct labor costs involved.

Prime costs: The direct cost of a product, accounting for the materials and labor involved in its production, excluding fixed costs. Jim says, “I like prime costs as a number because those are your two variables that you control – COGS and labor.”

Variable versus fixed costs: Fixed costs often include rent, buildings, machinery, etc. Variable costs are those that vary with output. “Your variable costs [are] what your COGS and your labor ratios are [combined],” says Jim. “Your fixed cost is your rent and your overall occupancy costs. [These are often] the three drivers to determine if your coffee shop’s making [profit] or not, in most cases.”

Food costs: How much it costs you in raw materials to make a dish as a percentage of how much revenue you generate from that item. This helps you price your menu appropriately. “It’s also a way that you could venture into tracking waste,” says Jim. “I know exactly what an item should cost me to do; I [also] know this is how much of [the item] we sold. [If] my ideal food costs were 22%, and my actual COGS were 24%, I know I have exactly 2% of waste.”

Return on Investment (ROI): A measure of the gain/loss generated on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. “You want to make sure that every business decision you make – buying a piece of equipment, discounting, etc. – is going to be worth it and whether you’re going to get your investment back on every dollar you spend,” says Mark.

Cost of growth: The cost of financing your own growth and expansion, usually sustained over a period of time.

A busy café can still fail if it mismanages its profit margins and costs.

Wage War on Waste

Tracking, managing, and minimizing waste is a key part of financial success. But what should you focus on to reduce waste, especially of bulk perishables like coffee, milk, and in some cases, food?

All my interviewees agree that it’s important to manage your inventory well. “You should be keeping track of inventory turnover and basing how much you have on the shelf on how quickly you can move it,” says Chris. “Overstocking the storage closet will tie up all your cash that could be used to serve other needs in the café as they come up.”

“[With] inventory management, there are just a lot of nuances you really have to understand, particularly, ‘what is the shelf life of all my products?’” adds Jim. “If my pastries last two days, having a week’s supply of pastries is a very big mistake; coffee lasts two weeks, but carrying two months’ worth is a problem.”

Chris says, “Keep track of how quickly you go through a five lb bag on bar, and the retail bags too.” When it comes to restocking the bar, look at your retail shelves for bags that are aging out for customer sales (two weeks is a good general rule). Then, brew that coffee on your bar instead of ordering a new five lb bag of the same beans.

“The worst that could happen is you end up with a ton of coffee that is too old to brew on bar because you can’t move it and then end up donating it or giving it away,” Chris stresses.

Additionally, it’s important to balance what storage will cost you versus what it will cost you to always maintain a fresh and lean inventory. “You don’t want to have too much inventory unless it saves you more money in the long run,” Jim tells me.

For example, there may be a delivery charge for your milk. “If I’m paying a delivery fee and suddenly find milk is going to cost $5 a gallon versus $3 a gallon every time I do this, I’ll suddenly start thinking, I could do one delivery a week [instead of two],” he says.

Know how much milk you need to have in stock – and how much is being poured down the sink.

Recognize Your Hidden Staffing Costs

Tracking most product wastage is relatively easy. But what happens when you are wasting things that are either less tangible or harder to isolate? Can you track how much these factors are indirectly eating into your profit margin? What are some of these hidden costs and how do you mitigate them to the best of your ability?

Some hidden costs are caused by a lack of staff training. Costs can rise as a result of bad portion control – small amounts of milk, food, and coffee add up over time. “[Often] you’ll have someone make a latte and [they use] as much milk as they need and steam it, fill the cup and… there are two or three ounces left that are just dumped down the sink,” says Jim.

“Things that result from a lack of training and therefore accuracy are [coffee wastage when] dialing in, brewing too much, back-up brewed coffee, breaking service vessels, not keeping up with the preventative maintenance of equipment, etc,” adds Chris. The answer, he tells me, is to train yourself and your staff to be knowledgeable, detailed, and intentional.

“Staff costs are one of the biggest factors to consider when looking at the profitability of a shop,” he stresses. “Training staff needs to follow a robust onboarding system that invests significantly up-front in order to properly equip baristas for success long-term. Cutting costs by cutting training never works in the long run.”

Good staff training can result in the efficient use of time and resources behind the bar.

Schedule Smartly

Another common culprit is overstaffing, which Chris jokes is a hidden cost that isn’t quite so hidden. “Owners sometimes never think to look at the number of people on a shift because their workflow is built around a particular number,” he says. “But if the numbers don’t justify three people, you need to adapt and adjust.”

“When people are busy, they tend to overschedule the beginning and ending of [busy periods],” Jim adds. “But… if it’s 15 minutes in front, and 15 minutes behind, that’s 30 minutes. 30 extra minutes for three people working [adds up to] 1.5 hours. If that happens five times during the week… it makes up a massive difference to you.”

Mark also cautions against letting your feelings dictate your staffing levels at any particular moment. “We’ve seen this a lot: before they get busy and right after they’re busy, [café managers] keep the staff levels high because they feel busy, but they’re really not,” he says. “They need to start letting people go home.”

This can be difficult for a number of reasons, especially for small coffee shop owners. Often owners and baristas have a relationship bordering on friendship, and owners know that their staff needs the hours. Additionally, there may be laws in place restricting employers from cutting hours that have previously been contracted.

What’s more, cutting hours has the added negative impact of increasing staff dissatisfaction. This could exacerbate turnover in an industry already notorious for its high staff turnaround levels.

The solution, Mark and Jim think, is smart and predictive scheduling. This allows staff to predict busy and quiet periods, and allows owners to be transparent about when baristas might be expected to stay longer or leave earlier. It permits a greater level of flexibility with which to mitigate hidden labor costs.

In addition, fair compensation, clear communication channels, and a culture that both cares for and challenges employees to grow can reduce turnover.

Read more in How to Keep Your Best Baristas From Quitting

Empty tables and no line mean fewer staff members are needed behind the bar.

Manage Your Menus & Pricing

No matter how efficiently your coffee shop runs, you will still fail if you don’t have a sufficient profit margin per item or a menu that draws in customers.

According to Chris, it’s essential that your shop offers variety – but not so much that you end up sacrificing quality. “There are staples that people will come in for daily, like coffee drinks, beans, and tea,” says Chris. These are your main business drivers and need to be both high quality and highly profitable.

“Don’t offer too much to try to please everyone. You won’t,” advises Chris. “Keep it simple and excellent.”

Yet don’t pare your menu down too much: it’s still a good idea to offer added-value items, like food, that also attract people. You can also choose to sell retail items.

As a general rule, Chris believes that the acceptable profit margin for beverages should be around 70% after factoring in all the material costs. For retail items, he recommends doubling what you paid to start with and then adding a bit more in order to profit from the sale.

When considering your pricing strategy, Jim and Mark emphasize that it’s also important to implement small incremental price increases at least annually. “It’s just a healthy way to run your business,” says Jim.

“It has almost no effect on you losing customers. Most coffee shops are scared of price increases because there’s one irate customer and they worry that everybody’s thinking that way. But the truth is that 95% of your customers probably didn’t even notice.”

Jim and Mark tell me about one of their clients who used PerfectCube’s technology: the client raised their prices 5% and, as a result, lost 1% of their customers. However, this still resulted in an additional US $1,300 of profit.

“What we’re trying to demonstrate is that even if you do upset 1% of your customers and they never come back – which won’t happen – you know you’re still going to make more money because that’s how profit margins work,” Mark says. “We want people to understand that it’s safe to raise prices in small increments, to do it annually.”

Chris warns against the temptation to price low to attract more business. “This will kill you in the end,” he says. “You need profit to sustain business and grow. Price what you need to make enough profit so you can serve your customers well into the future.”

Consider pricing up best-selling items or seasonal items. Mark recommends perhaps tying price increases with a promotion or changes in the season. And he stresses, “Most customers either never notice, or they don’t care, because they understand costs go up.”

Select your menu and prices carefully to ensure healthy profit margins.

Calculate Your Ideal Shop Size & Layout

Finally, your shop layout and size have a direct impact on your financial success. Avoiding bottlenecks and frustrating design elements is key since these factors can make people seek coffee elsewhere. Your customer flow should be intuitive and painless from start to finish.

Product placement is also essential. Retail needs to be in eye-catching areas where people naturally gather and look, such as when they first walk in, while they’re waiting in line, and at the register.

If you have a bigger shop, you will most likely be paying more in overheads. Designing your café to give you (at least) the average number of customers daily that you need to profit is critical. Consider not just the optimal number of covers, or customers ordering and consuming food and beverages, but also your rate of customer turnover.

You don’t want your coffee shop to feel so full that it turns customers away. You also don’t want to have too many covers relative to your staffing levels, which could be detrimental to customer service.

“For this, you need to know or project what each customer spends or needs to spend,” says Chris. “You can find reports on the average number of sales, average ticket amount, and average number of items purchased on the back-end of most POS systems.”

The rate at which you turn your tables over can affect the shop size you need in order to profit.

Running a financially viable café is not just about good branding, good coffee, and a good customer experience. It’s also about careful planning, understanding your profit margins, and reducing your costs. So make sure that you really know your business. Work out how much you need to make, how much you need to serve, and how much stock and staff you really need.

Because knowledge and planning truly are key to success in the café industry.

Found this useful? Check out Café Owners, Here’s How to Diversify Your Offerings & Increase Your Profits

Written by Sierra Burgess-Yeo.

Please note: This article has been sponsored by Coffee Fest. Sign up to attend Coffee Fest New York here or see future events in the US here.

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The post How to Plan For a Financially Successful Coffee Shop appeared first on Perfect Daily Grind.

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semaltcompany-blog · 6 years

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Hedging And Speculation: Semalt Expert Ivan Obradovic Explains Possible Risks And Benefits Of Financial Operations

In the contemporary era of technical capitalism, the term of speculation is implanted in the brain as something constructively negative and obnoxious. But is the financial speculation really bad? There is no definite answer, or the reader may consider me preposterously naive. To sort it out, we need to understand the meaning of speculation and hedging better. They are essentially different and entail different corollaries and actions.

Ivan Obradovic, the former Customer Success Manager of Semalt, gives the insight on various aspects of financial operations like hedging and speculation, defining what are the pros and cons of running both types of financial risks.

The Matter of Financial Speculation

When you buy or short sale the risky stocks at the market or by making OTC deal and at the same time buy or short sale the stable non-volatile stocks with A+ or higher ranking of high necessity products like milk or toothpaste, which in recession will have hold position or increase in value, you are hedging. In turn, when you buy or short sale stocks without any subsequent offsetting with saving stocks, you are relying on intuition, buzz and insider information, so, basically, speculating.

Whether financial speculation is good or bad, it is mostly based on whether there are limits for pecuniary arbitrage. If arbitrage is very efficient, markets will be efficient in some relationships which are clear and well understood, but most opportunities for arbitrage are what is called "risk arbitrage". For example, buying an undervalued stock and shorting an overvalued stock in the same industry. These stocks actually differ from each another, and we wouldn't necessarily expect the perfect convergence of price, so we take a risk when we make the imperfect arbitrage.

It's the same way, what people do when they bet on a stock rising to certain value is because merger or acquisition is closing. The existence of limits for arbitrage mostly revolves around constraints in credit and the possibility that even in a perfect clean arbitrage, the market will move against you in a way that knocks you out from your positions before you can profit from the eventual position of your arbitrage. Nevertheless, limits for arbitrage do exist, despite the market can always be moved from an inefficient to an efficient pricing range. We may have reason to believe the market is quite efficient because of the number of the player involved in the trading process and aggregation of information from inside make the picture very effective in theory.

Market's Efficiency

Some people say the market is very inefficient because they sit on desks and make prices for their clients through telephones. Seemingly their clients are price takers who don't know where the real price is. When working as a sales manager in Semalt, I have been acting as a price taker, so have got a perfect insight of the blind price assigning. I have learned that people do take what you offer!

However, we know that market efficiency refers to the predictability of price not whether a client is shown a bad price by a market dealer because of some relationship hurdle. It is like if we go into mall stands, we would expect most prices to reflect what you get when you pay that price. You can't profit from that inefficiency because you are a price taker. So we can reasonably say the market is efficient, but we may buy things at poor prices though on average, we will buy things at the right prices if we just take prices as given to reflect all information about the products. Same here, we do approach the market efficiency only in case we can speculate with the real price value and understand if the client is price taker or giver!

The Difference Between Hedging and Speculation

What is the definite relation between hedger and speculator? Does hedger lose to speculator? I doubt on that! The argument related to commodity exchanges and futures speculation is that speculators create liquidity for hedgers and people, who need access to markets at any price at any time. Through constant offers and bids, speculators allow an outlet more economically legitimate use of markets, becoming the counter party. In other words, for commodity hedging by large corporations it is like the example Archer Daniel Midlands.

One might think that commodity hedging by these large corporations spill free money into the hands of speculators on these markets, but it is quite the opposite. As hedgers look for the best prices and timing to hedge, it is hedgers who are taking the advantage of speculators, not vice versa. You do see speculators occasionally in corner markets making money from games they play with paper futures. Trading in the same way as the trading of physical futures trading with delivery goes, speculation work in most of the illegal activities as it is deeming market manipulation, what can result in loose of license, freezing of accounts and long-lasting litigation.

The paramount idea behind speculation is how you percept the market in a classical or behavioral way, without me mentioning some rumor things, which are pretty controversial. To encapsulate the main idea I want to dig now a bit into the theory. I am more into the Efficient Market Hypothesis of trading or so-called classical finance due to the quick information spread propensity. I do believe that markets are not perfectly efficient same as perfectly inefficient. Thus, we have this conventional concept of technical and fundamental analysis altogether with weakness analysis and data mining with current Internet dominance, what turns to be good for hedging but not for speculation.

Moreover, some exceptions like nullification and size effect are being in contradiction to classical finance, which hence behavioral finance to take over. It is the way you should treat speculative trading. Mental behavior, anchoring, representativeness are all tremendously crucial factors and how the mental shifts affect the investing behaviors and fluctuations on the stock is the way I do observe the speculation!

Where Hedging and Speculation Take Roots

Technical analysis is something that seems to work for some people, but I will tell a story that I have heard. Someone made profits from years of trading Cisco and one day he lost a ton of money. Then he looked up the stock and said: "What! Telecommunication equipment!" He had been trading Cisco-like "bloody Sysco" and just basically got totally lucky for years until the news collapse that broke Cisco in the dot-com crash. I saw a lot of these examples with speculative risks and audacious hasty one-day investments in Thomson Reuters as an analyst and currently as a financial consultant, but the more I see, the more bizarre the stock market seems to me!

Excessive froth in markets like the stock market is tempered by Federal Reserve rate hikes which harms the ability of people to finance themselves to buy stock. In the 1920s excessive speculation led to a stock market mania, which resulted in a tremendous collapse. In 2007-2008 the same real estate bubbling has made every meager-slug "pro-businessman" own 10 houses and cars only due to risky speculative arbitrage!

Headgears were the ones who preserved the dosh! But here I am pedaling too much of negativity. On the other hand, let's think about what we are doing when we bid up stock prices: we are investing in the economy, speculators are the guys who are creating the liquidity and add the player to the market. So how can that be a bad thing that we make it easier for companies to raise money through issuing stock at higher prices?

So, the excessive purchases of stock isn't a problem. Excessive buying and selling do destroy your returns through transaction costs as soon as you make money not from smart decisions you make with your money, but from the stock market working for you primarily. Run away stock market mania though is not a sign of overinvestment, it is a sign of poor investment as if even junk bonds (stocks) ride the froth, then something is wrong with the markets. When the federal reserve is raising rates it is basically a shift of money from investment in stocks to empowering USA dollar to rise. Thus, people will buy more USA bonds of all types that will make sovereign ceiling move up. Considering that interest rates of many corporate bonds are built on top of government bond interest rates, the government can always confiscate corporate bonds.

So, by speculating you are amassing the pockets of the government and supply USD what, in turn, will lead to debt increase and depreciation of the currency not only in case of the ineffective market. You see, everything is relatively convoluted and speculation can be both good and bad.

Conclusion

In short, speculation is not the way of making money as soon as it doesn't add economic value. It is more like a clear investment agenda or a strong ability to find arbitrage opportunities that will certainly be rewarded in the bottom line. Speculation may work if one is well informed about the market and has that type of analytical edge when you can to be smarter than the marginal stock market trader, who, in turn, preys on those that have such an edge.

Me and my comrades do incline to support the idea that by having a lot of insider information and supporting the behavioral way of financial thinking you may gain much more without losing at all, but it is always worth risking if you are courageous enough and rely on both well-functioning intuition and additional buzz. We recommend buying and holding stocks, because even if you lose from the stock market collapse, your will win from being patient – your money will not just grow. It will grow a lot if you needed them back and then, when you don't need them, it will shrink. Generally, it works like the "invisible hand."

#semalttips #semaltseo #marketing #seo #semalt

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coldcollectionsheepthings-blog · 6 years

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androgynoussweetsgiver-blog · 6 years

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vannadee37 · 7 years

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This post contains affiliate links, and all opinions in this review are my own.

Every three months, I look forward to receiving my FabFitFun box. The Summer box, which was beautifully designed and gave me some serious wanderlust, came the weekend before I left town to attend the BlogHer 17 Conference in Orlando. There’s something nice about having all of the season’s essentials delivered to your door without having to lift a finger! If you don’t already get their boxes, you can sign up using the code SUMMERLOVE at FabFitFun to get $10 off your own Summer box!

Before I left for Orlando, I took a quick peek inside my Summer box and was delighted to find some really cool and stylish items, like the Michael Stars Ruana and the BKR water bottle. I also can’t wait to try out the Cargo_HD Highlighter and the Way of Will 03 Soothe and Cool Massage Oil.

As a FabFitFun member, I was given the choice to select several of the items in my Summer box. The first selection I made was between a traveler, artist, or chef {more on these choices later}. I chose traveler and I received the Understated Leather On the Road Again Travel Set, which was a passport cover and a luggage tag. The second selection I made was between fitness or beauty. I chose fitness and I received the Way of Will 03 Soothe and Cool Massage Oil. The beauty choice was Klorane Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk. I also got to choose between three colors of the Kris Nations Mystic Bar Necklace and I chose turquoise.

Some items were pre-determined and I am always excited to see what other items are in the box. This Summer box also included the Juice Beauty Smoothing Eye Concentrate, the Eau Thermale Avene Ultra-Light Hydrating Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+, the Cargo_HD Picture Perfect Highlighter in Bronze, and a sample of the Vital Proteins Marine Collagen. In all, my Summer box was valued at $287.50.

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So here’s my take on this Summer box.

I really like the colors of the Michael Stars Ruana, and I like that I can wear it many different ways. I can wear it as a scarf, sarong, or like a shawl. And here’s a style tip when wearing the Ruana as a shawl – cinch the waist with a simple belt to amp up your look.

The BKR water bottle is glass and came with a pink rubbery bottle cover. This 500 mL size makes it easy to take on-the-go. Some members received the bottle with a blue rubbery cover. I think the bottle cover will keep my water cool. It may not be entirely insulated {like a Yeti}, but the nifty bottle top makes it a easy to grab-and-go.

I actually used the Understated Leather luggage tag on my checked bag when I flew to Orlando. I love the feel of the passport cover, which I hope to use in a couple of years when my husband and I visit Ireland for our 20th anniversary.

A couple of boxes ago, I received a bar necklace with the word INSPIRE on it and I have worn it every day since I got it. Now I’ve switched over to the delicate Kris Nations Mystic Bar Necklace, although I could layer it with my other bar necklace for a chic look. The tiny stones were hand-cut by craftsmen in India. I chose turquoise, which promotes balance, discovery, and confidence. I loved the packaging of this necklace. It came in a tiny clear bottle with a cork top.

One negative I have about this box is that my Cargo_HD Picture Perfect Highlighter was literally broken up, almost like dust, when I opened it. I guess I’ll have to DIY it back to a compact state. Besides this minor issue, I do look forward to trying this highlighter out. I can use it to accentuate the top of my cheekbones, under my brow bones, and on my cupid’s bow. Guess I’ll be checking out some how-to videos later to give me more makeup tips.

I’ve received Juice Beauty products before and have really liked them. I’m always a little hesitant to use eye creams because for some reason, my eyes {literally the whites of my eyes, a.k.a., my eyeballs} are so sensitive that when I’ve used eye creams in the past, my eyeballs get super dry and itchy. But I may just try the Juice Beauty Smoothing Eye Concentrate at night, before bed. It has certified organic grape and carrot juices blended with essential fatty acids to hydrate and nourish the eye area, helping to sooth any dark circles and fine lines. One tip: blend this with your concealer to get double the coverage and moisturizing power.

I haven’t always worn makeup, and still to this day, my makeup is so subtle that it may look like I’m not wearing any. I like that, considering I’m near my mid-40s. But there are some days, especially on the weekend, that I don’t want to put on any makeup. That’s why I’m excited to try the Eau Thermale Avene Ultra-Light Hydrating Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+. Here’s a tip: mix this with your favorite foundation to get extra coverage. I plan to blend this with either my Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer or my Mary Kay CC cream foundation.

My workouts haven’t been as strenuous as they have been in years past, since I have been alternating between at-home Pilates and Yoga, but those workouts can be tough. It’s nice to open up the Way of Will 03 Soothe and Cool Massage Oil and apply it to what aches because it is a cooling massage oil. “A base of sweet almond, apricot kernel, and jojoba oil helps skin retain moisture and improves the protective barrier function of the skin.” And just so you know, jojoba oil is good for your skin because it “increases hydrating, elasticity, and suppleness, while German chamomile cools affected areas.” Tip: Use this after a long day in the sun to soothe your skin.

The sponsored item in my box was a bonus, which was the Vital Proteins Marine Collagen. I haven’t tried it yet, but you could add it to any beverage, hot or cold. It supposedly will help you get a healthier complexion. It is unflavored (bonus!), gluten-free, sugar free, and non-GMO. The Marine Collagen Peptides contains 10 grams of natural collagen protein in each serving. Collagen helps promote and support skin health and rejuvenation, balanced hormones, bone and joint health, and digestion and satiety.

This Summer box was designed by illustrator Libby Vanderploeg. I love the light purples and blues of the box as well as the illustrations of everything I want to be doing this summer! You can follow her on Instagram @libbyvanderploeg.

Each season, FabFitFun partners with a charity or {female-focused} non-profit organization. This summer, they partnered with Joyful Heart Foundation, which was founded by Law & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay. “Joyful Heart works with sexual assault survivors to help them heal and reclaim a sense of joy in their lives.”

As I mentioned earlier, I was given a couple of choices to make as to whether I a traveler, an artist, or a chef. I chose traveler and I don’t regret my decision, but I would have been just as excited with the artist choice because I would have received Amy Tangerine’s art kit. I met her last year at the BlogHer 16 conference in LA and she is super nice and extremely talented! She is a fashion designer turned scrapbooker/YouTuber. You can check out more of her work at her website. I also like the chef choice because it was the Salted Himalayan Pink Salt Kit. I haven’t been cooking at home lately, but there are some pretty tasty recipes in the FabFitFun magazine {which came in the Summer box} that I may need to try out. I’ll just have to run to the store and pick up some Himalayan pink salt.

I love reading the FabFitFun magazine from cover to cover because it gives me great tips from the pros and the creators/founders behind the products in the box. I also love that it includes recipes, style tips, and health tips. This month they dedicated an entire page to the “50 Benefits of Water.”

As a FabFitFun Member, you’ll get a box of fabulous finds in beauty, wellness, fashion, and fitness, hand-picked by the FabFitFun team, delivered once per season. Four times a year, you will be sent a seasonal box! Each box is limited edition and contains $200+ in retail value. Boxes are shipped in March, June, September, and December. I think being a FabFitFun Affiliate and member, I love getting {and discovering} over $1000+ a year of new products for the cost-saving price of $179.99.

Thank you @fabfitfun for introducing me to some of my all-time favorite products. {#fabfitfunpartner}.

Yours Truly, Vanessa

Hello Summer: FabFitFun Summer Box Review + $10 off Code This post contains affiliate links, and all opinions in this review are my own. Every three months, I look forward to receiving my FabFitFun box.

#fabfitfunpartner #2017 Summer box #50 benefits of water #Amy Tangerine #BKR Little #Eau Thermale Avene #fabfitfun #how to style the Ruana #Joyful Heart Foundation #Klorane #Kris Nations #Libby Vanderploeg #Michael Stars Ruana #subscription box #Summer 2017 box #Summer box review #Understated Leather #Vital Proteins #Way of Will

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adrastiana · 7 years

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So I was reading this article on Cracked: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-weird-ways-america-makes-my-3rd-world-life-more-tolerable/

Item no. 3 is about weird, misshapen produce that gets rejected in many western markets due to it being weird looking even though it’s perfectly edible.

I used to really enjoy picking out weird looking fruits, lopsided tomatoes, twisted carrots ect... But these days they are hard to find even in cheap stores. Why? Consumers don’t want weird produce. Unless they are heirloom tomatoes or something like that. Although this is great for countries in the third world, who can buy these rejected vegetables and fruits cheap.

The Cracked article linked to this one: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/03/global-food-waste-statistics/

Across cultures, food waste goes against the moral grain. After all, nearly 800 million people worldwide suffer from hunger. But according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we squander enough food—globally, 2.9 trillion pounds a year—to feed every one of them more than twice over. Where’s all that food—about a third of the planet’s production—going? In developing nations much is lost postharvest for lack of adequate storage facilities, good roads, and refrigeration. In comparison, developed nations waste more food farther down the supply chain, when retailers order, serve, or display too much and when consumers ignore leftovers in the back of the fridge or toss perishables before they’ve expired.

So we have enough food to save starving people. That’s not the problem. We can end world hunger if we stop wasting food and build the infrastructure necessary for people in developing nations to be able to transport and store the food. Every time you throw out an unopened package of expired food you forgot about or leave leftovers in the fridge until they go moldy you are contributing to the problem. You can cut back on how much food you waste by only buying what you need, avoiding impulse buys, and if you can, make more frequent shopping trips and only buy what you need for a few days per trip. This is easy if you live close to a store and are able to walk there or don’t have to worry about bus fare/gas money. It’s harder for me to walk to Walmart in the summer because of the sun and heat. I have lupus and I need to avoid overexposure and overexertion in the heat. But if it’s like 30F out I can do it no problem. XD

I used to be the opposite. But as I got older I found myself a little more comfortable in the cold than the heat. I can walk long distances easy. But I have issues with standing. It brings on a lot of fatigue.

Anywaiz, other things you can do include not making impulse buys. Something is on sale that you don’t usually eat? Maybe you shouldn’t buy it. Especially if it’s a big package.You might eat some, not like it, and then the whole thing goes to waste. Check dates. Don’t buy a big bag of vegetables or a gallon of milk that’s about to go off. Unless you are going to use it right away chances are it will end up being mostly wasted. Stuff that’s on sale really cheap because it’s about to expire is only a bargain if you are going to use it shortly after you get it home. Don’t make yourself big plates of food that you can’t finish then end up wasting. Even the leftovers might be wasted if you make way more than anyone will want to eat.

It’s really unfortunate that many things go to waste because they can’t be sold or transported.

In California’s Salinas Valley growers annually trash thousands of tons of fresh greens that lack sufficient shelf life for a cross-country journey.

You might say “why not donate the produce to homeless shelters and low income families? Well, I once asked a person working at Dunkin Donuts why she was putting dozens upon dozens of late night unsold donuts into a trash bag instead of donating them. She told me that they weren’t allowed to give them away for health code reasons. She did acknowledge what a waste it was though.

There are people who would love those donuts. And slightly stale donuts aren’t even that bad anyway. They’re still edible and usually taste alright. They’re just a bit less soft. All of the resources used to make those donuts were wasted because no one ended up buying them. And now no one will eat them even though many people would really appreciate them.

There are monetary reasons why unsold food goes to waste as well: http://gizmodo.com/why-the-us-may-never-pass-a-food-waste-law-like-france-1757351244

In the United States, 40 percent of all food that’s produced goes uneaten. In 2010, supermarkets and grocery stores in the US tossed out 43 billion pounds, or $46.7 billion worth of food. Much of this food isn’t rotten or past its expiry date. According to the NRDC (pdf), if these losses could be reduced by just 15 percent, that would be enough to feed more than 25 million Americans each year. NRDC figures suggest that one in seven Americans lack reliable access to food.

But as Edward Delman pointed out last year in The Atlantic, the situation in the United States isn’t the same as it is in France.

Laws exist in the U.S. to encourage food donation, including the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Act, various tax deductions, and the US Federal Food Donation Act of 2008. But none of these laws compel stores in the way that the French legislation does. Charities and for-profit companies that collect and distribute food waste also exist in the US, such as AmpleHarvest and CropMobster. Collectively, these organizations provide food to 46.5 million people annually. As Delman points out, mandating food donations “could do more harm than good,” and he quotes a USDA official as saying

The logistics of getting safe, wholesome, edible food from anywhere to people that can use it is really difficult. If you’re having to set up a really expensive system to recover marginal amounts of food, that’s not good for anybody.

Money money money. -.-

We can do it but it will cost too much money. Never mind that there are people walking around with handbags that cost more than a new car. No one says “hey, maybe this is something we could fund instead of making more weapons to murder innocent civilians with?”

It’s really sad that the solution to ending world hunger is within our grasp but it takes a tremendous group effort from everyone to get it in gear. And unfortunately we’re just not all on the same page.

#world hunger #poverty #food waste #charity #food #shopping #Cracked #National Geographic #Gizmodo

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tragicbooks · 7 years

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You don't have to march in Pride to make a difference for LGBTQ people. Here's how.

You don't have to be at a Pride march to make a difference.

In June 1969, a group of New Yorkers decided they'd had enough.

Patrons of the Stonewall Inn, an LGBTQ bar in Greenwich Village, stood up to police officers who'd reportedly been repeatedly harassing and targeting them for their sexual orientations and gender identities. The demonstrations that ensued sparked the beginning of the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement.

The exterior of the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images.

The Stonewall Inn riots inspired President Clinton to declare June "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month" in 1998. In 2009, President Obama expanded on the recognition, deeming it "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month," as it remains today.

This June feels different though.

After years of having an ally in the White House, President Trump's administration — unchecked by a GOP Congress — is threatening to roll back rights for LGBTQ people. It's crucial we stand in solidarity.

If you can make it out to a Pride march in your area, excellent. But even if you can't (or just despise big crowds), you can still support the movement.

1. Help buy a bus ticket for a friend so they can go to the March for Equality in Washington, D.C.

LGBTQ Pride marches are happening in cities from coast to coast. But the most notable one this year will unfold in the nation's capital on June 11. The Equality March for Unity and Pride is mobilizing queer people and their allies in support of LGBTQ rights under a new administration that wants to take us backward.

You can do this anywhere, but if you happen to know someone in New York City who is interested in going but doesn't have the travel funds, you can buy them a bus ticket on Grindr's "Pride Ride" to D.C.

2. If you're visiting the East Coast this summer, treat yo'self to a scoop of big, gay ice cream.

There's nothing explicitly gay about the tasty treats at the Big Gay Ice Cream Shops in New York City and Philadelphia, of course. But the company, which started as a food truck in 2009 before expanding into storefronts, has been a proud supporter of the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit that helps homeless LGBTQ youth.

Check this out. @trainerbob isn't *exactly* saying it but my take-away is that it's totally ok to eat 2 pints a day. Repost from @trainerbob. ・・・ I can't tell you the last time I had an ice cream cone...it was really GOOD! Hahaha @biggayicecream

A post shared by Big. Gay. Ice. Cream. (@biggayicecream) on May 3, 2017 at 8:33am PDT

When you scream for (big, gay) ice cream, you're also helping the business raise awareness and resources for young people in need. And that's a big, gay win-win.

3. Snatch up one of these glorious Pride shirts in support of LGBTQ youth in need.

In celebration of #Pride🌈, we're excited to bring you our exclusive #StandForPride collection. 100% of profits will be donated to #LGBTQ charities! ☀️🌈

A post shared by Represent (@represent) on Jun 3, 2017 at 1:32pm PDT

Through an initiative created by Represent, 100% of profits from these shirts will benefit The Trevor Project, which focuses on suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth, as well as the NOH8 campaign, which utilizes social media platforms to promote equality.

4. Or, if you're a basketball fan, maybe these Pride shirts are more up your alley.

Photo courtesy of the NBA/WNBA.

The NBA and WNBA partnered with GLSEN, an organization helping to make our schools safer and more inclusive for LGBTQ students, to create Pride shirts for every pro team. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the nonprofit.

A critical component in ensuring classrooms are inclusive is recognizing the accomplishments of LGBTQ people throughout history.

5. Commit this month to reading just one Wikipedia entry a day on LGBTQ history and queer pioneers.

School curriculums often gloss over the history of, and challenges faced by, marginalized groups. The LGBTQ community is no different.

It makes sense that many of us haven't learned about people like Marsha P. Johnson, Dan Choi, Edith Windsor, and Harvey Milk — some of the trailblazers who helped us get to where we are today.

Lt. Dan Choi, who came out as gay in 2009 while serving in the armed forces, became a pioneer in ending the military's homophobic "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images.

Each day in June, take 10 minutes to read up on a famous LGBTQ figure or moment in history. Your teammates at the next trivia night will thank you for it.

6. Now that you're up on your queer history, email a local school or school district and ask that the students there are too.

Last year, California became the first state to mandate LGBTQ-inclusive curriculums in its history and social science requirements. As Vice reported, it may set off a chain reaction too, as other states look to include more diverse perspectives and historical figures in their classroom instructions.

Send an email — or attend a school board meeting or bring it up at the next PTA meeting — to get this issue on the radar in your city, if it's not already.

7. Drop in to a restaurant or store that supports its LGBTQ employees — and avoid the places that don't.

The Human Rights Campaign releases a Corporate Equality Index each year studying and ranking businesses based on how supportive their workplace policies are for LGBTQ people.

Many different factors — including if a company highlights LGBTQ protections in its anti-discrimination policies or if it offers transgender-inclusive health care benefits — are considered in the index.

Thank you @Target for taking pride in all of the @CityofPhoenixAZ! @PhoenixPrideAZ #takepride http://pic.twitter.com/TJPm1Jtkqy

— Doug Mings (@douglasmings) June 1, 2017

Target — which adopted pro-LGBTQ policies and created specific Pride products for customers in recent years — was a top-rated company for its inclusive workplace in 2017.

Even if you're not marching in Pride, the way you spend your dollars makes a difference.

8. If you're not LGBTQ and new to this whole Pride thing, set aside 30 minutes to start learning about being a good ally.

Is your child — or your mom or dad — LGBTQ? What about a colleague or friend at school? Do you want to be there for transgender people in your community, but not sure where to start? GLAAD compiled helpful guides for allies to do their best supporting the LGBTQ people they know and love.

Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images.

Pro tip: Do this before breaking out any rainbow attire.

9. Drink some delicious wine while supporting queer artists and LGBTQ youth in need of stable housing.

In honor of Pride month, City Winery Chicago worked with four LGBTQ artists — Kelly Boner, James Schwab, Tennessee Loveless, and Sierra Berquist — to design the labels for its "Playing with Labels" campaign.

Photo courtesy of Dustin DuBois/City Winery Chicago.

With each bottle purchased, $10 goes toward Project Fierce Chicago, a nonprofit that provides supportive transitional housing to homeless LGBTQ youth in the Windy City. Can't make it to a Pride march in person? Drink up!

10. Paint your nails rainbow colors.

They'll serve as a great conversation starter with family or friends. You can mention Pride and what the month means to you.

Plus, they'll look great.

its copenhagen pride week so i made rainbow nails http://pic.twitter.com/FHv6tkqzQX

— oline (@olllline) August 16, 2016

11. Choose one lesser known LGBTQ advocacy group and commit a monthly gift to support its work.

National organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD are helping to save and better the lives of LGBTQ people across the country. Supporting them makes a difference.

But there are many other groups working under the radar that deserve our attention too.

Excited to send out surveys to @sylviariveralawproject Prisoner Advisory Committee (PAC) members as part of SRLP's 2017 reboot of It's War in Here. To read more about SRLP's Prisoner Justice work and PAC, visit http://ift.tt/2rURIwN

A post shared by Sylvia Rivera Law Project (@sylviariveralawproject) on May 23, 2017 at 5:43pm PDT

If you're interesting in making donations, consider contributing to organizations like Fierce, Trans Lifeline, ACT UP, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, focused on more niche (but still crucial) issues facing the LGBTQ community, often with much smaller budgets.

12. There's a decent chance you have at least one Facebook friend who's in the closet. Write a supportive post noting that you're there for them, any time.

When you aren't open about your sexuality or gender identity, coming out can be a very scary thing for many LGBTQ people — especially if you have few (or no) accepting family members or friends.

Sharing a Facebook status letting any of your friends who are in the closet know that you're a person they can talk to really could change their life.

13. Set your calendars: Most midterm elections are Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, and the LGBTQ community needs you to show up.

Midterms never get the same media fanfare as presidential election years, even though, in many ways, they're of equal consequence. You'll have to do some digging on the candidates in your state vying for office in order to get a good understanding of who they are and what they'll fight for.

Mayor Peter Buttigieg is the first openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Photo by Derek Henkle/AFP/Getty Images.

There are many crucial issues that need our attention — climate change, fighting poverty, creating jobs, criminal justice reform — but LGBTQ rights is an issue on the ballot too. If you can't make it to a march, the least you can do is commit to learning about how your candidates plan to help (or harm) LGBTQ people in your area and keep their stances in mind on Nov. 6, 2018.

14. Make it a goal: For the next kid's birthday on your calendar, buy them a book or movie that's LGBTQ-inclusive.

The entertainment and toy selections available for kids need to get better at diversity, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ representation.

Reading fairy tales like "Promised Land" and watching short films like "In a Heartbeat" and "Rosaline" — all stories for kids that feature same-sex love interests — will help young queer people understand they have a place in this world, while teaching straight and cisgender kids that their LGBTQ peers are deserving of love and respect.

Photo courtesy of "Promised Land."

15. Learn about a pressing LGBTQ rights issue in your own backyard and follow a local Facebook group to stay up to speed.

Think local: What challenges does the LGBTQ community face in your city or state?

Just last month, legislators in Texas approved a bill that would deny trans students the right to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender. Lawmakers in North Carolina recently tried to reverse marriage equality in the Tar Heel state. Across the country, LGBTQ rights issues are being sorted out and decided by local school boards.

It only takes a few minutes to find some local LGBTQ Facebook groups and follow them so you can stay plugged in to what's happening in your area and fight for what's right.

16. Share this powerful video about a transgender girl and her loving family.

Some of your friends on Facebook might be more hesitant (or outright against) watching it. But that's the whole point.

youtube

When we elevate stories that put ourselves in the shoes of someone with different life experiences, we tend to build bridges. It makes sense that when someone knows an LGBTQ person and hears their story, they're far more likely to support LGBTQ rights.

17. If you live in a state that's debating a bathroom bill, make sure to call your rep — preferably more than once.

So-called "bathroom bills" — which stop trans children and adults from using the restroom that corresponds to their gender — puts people who are already more at-risk of violence in even more uncomfortable and dangerous situations. These bills are born from fearmongering and myths about transgender people.

If you live in one of the 15 states where a bathroom bill is in the works, call your representatives in Washington and voice your concerns.

Rainbow flags and festive parades are important in unifying the LGBTQ community every June. But they're only one component of what it means to celebrate Pride.

This June, acknowledge all the positive change that's happened since those first rioters fought back outside the Stonewall Inn nearly 50 years ago. Then, commit to helping push that progress forward while fighting the forces trying to stall it, however you can.

We all play a part in ensuring equality.

Photo by Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images.

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socialviralnews · 7 years