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crestedcorvidae · 3 years ago

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staying in a hotel from a housekeeper's perspective

now if you've ever sat there and wondered "man, what's the best way to make the job of an underpaid hotel housekeeper easier?" but you don't have anyone to ask, here you go! here's my comprehensive list of things you should keep in mind while staying in a hotel

(keep in mind, not all hotels are created equal and these things may vary. these are all taken from my own personal experience as a housekeeper and aren't universal)

the easiest things:

tip!

its the easiest and simplest thing you can do, even just $5 makes our day

if your hotel is closer to an airport or something similar, try leaving a tip easily divisible by 2. in dangerous areas like that, many hotels require housekeepers to work in pairs

towels

reuse your towels, you don't need a new one for every shower

put your used towels in a pile somewhere in the bathroom

lots of people like to put em in the tub but we don't really care

try not to use amenities

you're probably thinking "but they're there to use, why shouldn't I take or use them?"

unfortunately, a lot of hotels are dealing with supply chain issues and some things are becoming scarce (at the time of writing this, my hotel has been out of vanity kits and coffee cups for several weeks)

if you use the slightest bit of shampoo or even open the soap, we can't really reuse it at all

I know it sounds weird, but try not to use the amenities if you can help it

keep it clean

this may seem obvious, but I wanted to drive it home

if you know something will be messy, just don't

something small to you makes a helluva difference to us

for example, if someone has to spend an extra 5 minutes cleaning out every microwave because people decide not to use a plate with their hot pockets, that adds up to an extra hour of work at the end of an average day

on top of that, please Do Not eat in bed. the sheets and duvets are white and the stains are very obvious and very painful

check out

first thing, pay attention to when checkout time is (usually it's 10am or 11am, ask if you aren't sure)

secondly, when you do check out (especially earlier in the morning), pay a visit to front desk and let them know. it lets us know the room is empty which helps in many ways (e.g. some hotels send people ahead of housekeepers to strip the vacant rooms)

Do Not Disturb sign!

please. I am on my knees begging you to remember to take the little do not disturb sign off of your door when you check out

when someone forgets, it means we usually can't even knock on the door until checkout time rolls around

to put that into perspective, if I start knocking on doors at 8:30am, I can't knock on a DND door for another 2 and a half hours, which means I can't send the sheets down to get washed in a timely manner

please just take the little card off your door

the slightly harder things (definitely optional but very appreciated):

sheets!

this is pretty simple. just take the duvet/comforter off the bed and set it on whatever chair is available, then take off the flat and fitted sheets plus the pillowcases

it only takes a couple minutes even if you don't know what you're doing and its very nice to walk in to see

(some hotels don't like it when you do this, so if you're not sure, just ask. we don't bite)

trash

consolidating trash is helpful, and if you move the cans to the door (or, even better, take the bags out and tie them off) its usually appreciated as well

if you don't have a lot of trash in one can (e.g. a couple tissues, etc) you can just take it out and put it in the more full one

try not to leave food in the fridge, especially takeout. it makes the room smell funky for hours

shower

another odd one, but if you're just staying for the night and you don't feel the need to shower, just don't!

showers (especially those with glass doors) are once of the most universally despised things I've seen in this job. they usually take longer to clean than anything else in the bathroom

about once a week, I'll have a room that hasn't used to the shower/tub and its almost as good as drugs

of course this is not expected and you're allowed to shower

this is not everything, but its what I could come up with at 10pm on my last day off before going back to the grind tomorrow. thank you for your consideration and if you read this whole thing I hope you find some free quarters tomorrow

#and if you take nothing else away from this post #just take the DND sign down #I'm begging #hotelposting #long post #excuse any mistakes I'm suffering #hotel housekeeping

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falloutsketchysecretsanta · 4 years ago

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Sketchy Secret Santa: THE HOLIDAY PROMPT!

Friends, fans, and followers-- it’s finally here! The time you’ve all been waiting for! The anon function is off, the request window is OPEN, and the prompt is HERE!

For those who have never participated in a Sketchy event before, let me break it down for you. Sketchy Secret Santa is a Fallout Fandom Event where you send in a sketch request to our group of volunteer artists to whip up a nifty gifty for someone else as an anonymous surprise! If you’d like more information, here’s a link to our info post.

And now, let’s get into the meat of THIS post. How to send a Valid Request, the Do’s and Don’ts, the Prompt List itself, and What to expect after you send a request in!

[Read more to keep dashboards clean]

To Send a Valid Sketchy Secret Santa Request, Please Send an Ask Including The Following:

WHOM the request is for. ---- At current, we are only making requests for people on Tumblr. We’ll need their username so we can @ tag them with the finished work when it’s posted.

The character[s] you’d like sketched up ---- All characters welcome! Canon, OC’s, everyone is fair game so long as it’s Fallout! ---- MAXIMUM FOUR CHARACTERS PER REQUEST. Our artists are working on a volunteer basis, and more figures means more time. ---- Is a request intended to be shippy? Let us know! We don’t read minds. ---- Poly? Found family? Hell yes! Just make sure to let us know the relationship context for the request. All genders and sexualities welcome, so long as everyone is a consenting adult.

1 [ONE!] Item from the prompt list below ---- The prompt list is both to give the artists direction and to limit the scope of what can be requested, keeping things manageable. ---- The items on the prompt list can be considered INSPIRATION, and what is drawn is up to artist interpretation of that prompt. ---- Do not dictate specific poses, colors, or situations. These are freebies, not commissions. All specifics are up to the volunteer artist who takes your request. ---- Do not dictate a specific artist to fulfill your request. Artists are operating on a self-directed basis and are, again, volunteers providing freebies to spread holiday joy. If you want work from a specific artist, might I suggest checking their commission status?

[OPTIONALLY!!] Tell us what holiday traditions the requested characters keep. ---- While there are various holidays on the prompt list, those are general AF prompts. Telling us what holidays an OC celebrates, or what holidays you HC a canon character to celebrate is additional character context and EXTREMELY ENCOURAGED, and does not replace the prompt. It’s like reference information-- telling the artist whom they’re drawing.

Please Do:

Be polite! Say please and thank you, be kind to the askbox managers, ect. Everyone working on this project is doing so on a volunteer basis.

Be patient. Depending on what kind of traffic we see right off the bat, it may take a hot second for your request to be accepted.

Be present and ready to provide ref information! If you request an OC for a friend, we’re going to need reference material for our artists to work with! Have files ready upon request, and be prepared for one of our helpers to request that information through the Tumblr IM [check your blog settings and make sure you’re set to accept messages]

Be kind. We’re going to do our best to get to every request we can throughout the month, but please don’t be upset with us if we can’t serve everyone.

Please Don’t:

Try to circumvent the rules. Just don’t.

Be an entitled jackass. This is a volunteer holiday event. We’re gonna do our best, don’t be a jerk if there’s mix ups or we don’t get to your request.

Try to request for yourself. The whole point of this event is do something nice for others.

Ghost us. Please, please don’t send a request in and then ghost the staff of the event. Nothing kills morale quite like a participant dropping off the map without a word.

Okay, are we through all the rules stuff? Then onwards to...

THE PROMPT LIST!

The following is a list of words, phrases, ideas, and memories brainstormed by our team of volunteers to give the requests direction and verity. You may pick 1 [ONE] per request.

Christmas

Hanukah

Kwanza

Samhain

Keeping Old Traditions

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Drifted Myths

Twisted Christmas Tales

Deck the Halls

Making Decorations

Repurposed/Reused/Recycled

Junk into Jolly

Improvised Christmas Tree

Nuka Cola Christmas

Santa Spotting

Holiday Clothes

Ugly Sweaters

Posing for Pictures

Gift Exchange

Present Scavenging

Firelight

Thawing out

Tending the Bonfire

Lights

Unexpected Kindness

Little Mercies

Rare Reunions

Community Celebration

Found Family

Oh Shit I’ve never had real friends during the holidays before

Holiday Meal

Baked Goods

Potluck

Fireside Cooking

Kitchen Catastrophes

Pound Cake

Feasting Aftermath

Holiday Mischief

Brahmin Tipping

Stolen Pants

Pet Dress-up

Mistletoe Mishaps

Someone is kissing Santa

CUI [Caroling under the Influence]

Holiday drinks

Holiday drunks

Is that supposed to be glowing

Candlelight and Snow

First Snow

Noob in a Snowball Fight

Soaked Through and Freezing

Snowed in

Antlers

Pinecones

Fire and Ice

Tropical Transplant

Ringing in the New Year

To New Beginnings

Celebratory Toast

Watching the Clock

Fireworks

Reinvention

Hokay! So you’ve gotten this far-- you know WHO you wanna request for, WHAT you wanna request, you’ve picked something from the PROMPT LIST, and you’re ready to SEND IT IN!

... So what happens after you send your request?

The mods on this blog will add it to our list, and answer your ask PRIVATELY to confirm your request has been added. At the time of the confirmation, we may ask for additional OC reference information, if an OC was requested, or request clarification on relationship context between the requested characters if more than one character was requested. Be ready to correspond with us, and have reference material ready for OCs!

Once your request is confirmed, you’re all done! The rest is up to us. Finished requests will be posted on New Years Day, @ tagging the gift recipient and no one else, leaving the requester entirely anonymous.

Thank you so much if you choose to participate. The request window is open until December 25th. We’ll be working hard until the very last day.

We wish you all a happy holiday, whatever you celebrate, and a happy New Year!

#Sketchy Secret Santa #Fallout Sketchy Secret Santa #Prompt Post #HOLIDAY PROMPT POST

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rohad93 · 4 years ago

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Werewolf in the hospital

As far as Halloween’s go, this one could have been better for her. It wasn’t often she ended an evening sitting in the ER, dressed as a werewolf, with a broken nose, but she couldn’t say now that it didn’t ever not happen!

The night had started fun enough. She’d been out with Gus and Willow at a party being thrown at one of their college’s many fraternity houses. One that was affectionately referred to as the ‘Illusion coven’ around campus because of its many resident students that were known for their penchant for pranks and being able to disappear without a trace when the heat was turned up in response, as well as a large handful of their students that were also members of the school’s ‘magic appreciation club’.

They of course, always threw the best parties, especially at Halloween.

This one had been no different. The music and lights could be seen from about two blocks away. There was a long line of students waiting to get in the front door, but luckily for her and Willow, Gus was a member, which got them through the door instantly.

The place was jammed packed when they finally arrived and Luz could barely hear herself think over the music that was trying to vibrate her teeth right out of her skull, but that didn’t stop her from making a beeline straight for the dancefloor with her friends in tow for the first hour. Excessive amounts of energy made dancing the perfect activity for her, even if she generally lacked any grace or coordination.

It was weird to finally be at one of these raging school parties after all the ones she had been purposely excluded from in high school.

After four years of being an outcast in high school and spending most Saturday night’s alone, watching anime or writing fanfiction to fill her spare time, she hadn’t expected her social life to really take off in college, though ‘take-off’ might have been a strong word for it. She still only had a handful of friends, but it was still a far cry from how she’d been a loner in high school.

Leaving to go to college out of state had given her an opportunity to start new, though she was still the same old Luz she had been her senior year, there were so many more people at her college with varying interests and backgrounds than her small-town high school where everyone had known each other since grade school and pretty much stuck together from the first grade on.

You release one nest of spiders at nap time and suddenly you’re branded for life as ‘that weird kid’. She didn’t like to admit how much that had really bothered her when she was a kid, but it just became the norm as she got older. It didn’t stop her enjoying life as much as she could, even if she had gotten thrown out of prom her senior year for wearing an otter onesie.

It was still nice to actually have friends now, one’s she could study with in the library or just have lunch with and not blink an eye when she said something totally bizarre, or at least bizarre by most people’s standards.

Meeting Willow, her dorm mate, and then Gus through her, had been a lifesaver and through them, she had met other student’s, some of which she shared classes with, like Viney, who despite being an upperclassman was only now taking her English comp basics so they worked together on group assignments, she was funny and easy to get along with. It didn’t take long for Luz to count her, along with Gus and Willow as her closest friends.

Viney was also dating Emira Blight, one of the infamous Blight twins, who were also members of the ‘Illusion Coven’, so she knew Viney was probably somewhere here among the many bodies packed into the large house, though the chances of running into her were slim.

She wasn’t at all surprised to see the copious amounts of alcohol that was everywhere either, that was one thing about college that TV had gotten right. College students drank; a lot.”

She watched three students doing a keg stand till beer squirted out of the guy on the kegs’ nose.

She snorted, grinning to herself and showing off the mouthful of sharp canines she had spent a good hour in the bathroom getting molded to fit too her teeth. She was, of course, the definition of a broke college student, attending entirely on a full scholarship, cause when you don’t have anyone to hang out with, you might as well study, and it was finally paying off, but she still had little in the way of personal spending money given her measly paycheck from working part-time at ‘The Owl House’ An owl themed diner just off campus owned by the most eccentric woman Luz had ever met, did not make for the most extravagant costume. But she made do with an old red flannel, ripped jeans, and some dollar store pointed ears and face paint. She had splurged a little on the fake teeth, she’d reuse them next year, werewolf was a classic after all.

Despite her less than ideal paycheck, Edalyn Clawthorne, or Eda ‘The Owl Lady’ as she was known around town, was good to her, letting her eat and drink for free or study there when she wasn’t working, and honestly, Luz kind of wanted to be Eda when she grew up. She was self-assured and didn’t care what anyone thought about her, not to mention surprisingly foxy for her age.

“You guys want something to drink?” Gus yelled at her and Willow to be heard over the pounding music and voices.

“Is there anything without an octane rating?” Willow questioned, as she watched an upperclassman drinking something straight out of the bottle at maximum speed.

After all, she and Willow were only nineteen, and Gus seventeen, he was crazy smart and had skipped a couple of grades. Luz had never had much interest in drinking, despite Eda sometimes offering her a drink from her flask with the Owl etched into the side.

She didn’t even know what was in it, only that Eda referred to it as “Mama’s magic Elixir’. She always said no and Eda would shrug and tip it back till it was empty.

“There’s punch, but I’d still be careful. Chances are good it’s already been spiked.” He shrugged.

“No thanks,” Willow shook her head and turned to look at something, the glitter on the wings of her fairy costume catching the bright colored lights overhead. She still hadn’t figured out what Gus was supposed to be. He was wearing a long red tube with a smiley face on it and long sleeves that went down to the ground that he flung about in excitement.

“I might take my chances on those snacks!” Luz shouted, eyeing the array of treats laid out on the table for the taking. She was willing to bet no one had spiked the cake and it looked really good from here. Gus grinned and Willow rolled her eyes, smiling. Anyone who knew Luz for any amount of time knew she had a voracious appetite and an even bigger sweet tooth.

“Yeah, okay, just don’t eat everything.” Gus laughed at her.

“No promises!” She grinned back before moving across the room, trying to slide between the bodies that packed every square inch of the place and get to the refreshment table. People were moving in every direction around her as the music blared and the lights flashed, it was a little disorienting actually, but she had her eyes on the prize.

She had just made it to the table when the crowd surged and sent her careening into someone else standing there, slamming into their back and making them spill their drink.

“Watch it, nitwit! A voice growled at her before stopping. “Oh, hi, Luz.”

Luz blinked, realizing who exactly she had just slammed into, and swallowed thickly.

Amity Blight, who she did not exactly start off on the best foot with when classes had started a few months ago but now had a much more friendly relationship with.

Amity Blight, the smart and talented girl she shared creative writing and literature appreciation with. Amity Blight, who Luz had a teeny, tiny, minuscule... huge, crush on.

Amity Blight, who was dressed prettily as a witch, complete with black and green striped leggings and a pointed black hat and, who she had just slammed into and spilled her drink on.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Amity!” Luz grimaced at the wet spot now in the middle of Amity’s black blouse.

“Oh, it’s okay, really, no big deal!” Amity waved a hand, snatching a napkin off the table and dabbing at the spot.

“You sure? I could go...get you something or…,” she started, unsure.

“NO, no it’s fine, really…,” she insisted and Luz frowned. She must have embarrassed the other girl, her face was tinged red as she wiped at the spot, and was trying not to look Luz in the eyes.

‘Mierda’ Luz cursed under her breath.

Clearly, Amity did not want to talk about the spill anymore, so Luz cleared her throat, drawing the young woman’s gaze.

“What are you doing here? You don’t strike me as the… party type,” she asked and Amity rolled her eyes and Luz’s chest seized up, wondering if she’d insulted her until Amity spoke again.

“I’m not, but my brother and sister are members here and all but forced me to come tonight,” she huffed. “I’d much rather be back in my dorm, studying for our quiz in lit appreciation Monday and not getting a headache from this music.” she frowned and Luz blinked.

“Oh, Mierda! I forgot about the quiz!” Luz slapped her hands to her cheeks and Amity blinked at her before laughing.

“It was written on the board yesterday and the professor sent out an email reminder this morning.”

“Ugh, I didn’t check my email today,” she groaned, squishing her cheeks.

“Well, you still have tomorrow to study,” Amity offered.

“There was so much material to cover though…” Luz groaned. “I’m not gonna sleep all weekend, I’m going to have to cram till I push out every memory of the third grade just to make room for it all.” She frowned, already thinking about all the coffee she was going to have to drink before Monday morning, and on Monday morning.

Amity was biting her lip, thinking, but decided to take the chance.

“You can come study with me. Only if you want that is!” she quickly finished, pushing a stray strand of dyed, half mint, green, half auburn hair behind one of her ears.

“Really?” Luz asked.

“Yeah, I was just about to get out of here anyway, I’ve had enough of the party…” she said, looking around at all the people crowded into the room.

“Yeah, I’d love to!” Luz jumps on the opportunity, cause why wouldn’t she. “Oh, I came with Gus and Willow…” she remembers her friends somewhere in the house.

“Oh…” Amity seems to deflate a little at that. “Maybe another time?”

“No, it’s all good! I’m just gonna go tell them I’m headed out. You, uh, wanna meet outside?” she asks and Amity is smiling at her again and Luz just wants to melt into a puddle on the floor as those amber eyes stare back at her

“Yeah, I’ll wait for you.”

“Great! I’ll be quick,” she promises as she runs back out into the crowd, looking for her friends. It takes her about ten minutes to find them in the living room.

“Hye guys, is it cool with you if I head out?”

“Where are you going?” Willow questions her.

“I ran into Amity, who reminded me we have a quiz in lit appreciation Monday and I really need to study and she offered to study with me, so…” she trails off, seeing the look Willow is giving her. The horticulture student is very aware of Luz’s crush, despite her never really saying anything about it. She does not count gushing to the shorter girl about how smart and pretty Amity is as ‘saying anything about it’.

“Why would you wanna leave a party to study?” Gus makes a face and Willow smirks.

“I think it’s more about who she’s studying with…” she says knowingly and Luz blushes as Gus blinks at her, confused.

“It’s cool, Luz. Go study with Amity.”

Luz does not care for the knowing way Willow says the other woman’s names, with a teasing lilt, but she’s not concerning herself with that for now.

“Thanks, guys, I’ll see you later,” She calls, already running toward the front door.

She doesn’t immediately see Amity, in fact, the yard in front of the house is empty, everyone inside.

Luz frowns, looking around. Did she get tired of waiting?

Her chest aches a little at the thought, shoulders slumping, and is just about to turn around and go back in the house when she hears something that does not match the thumping bass of the music inside, voices. She walks quietly around to the side of the house and peeks around the wall curiously, if college has taught her anything it’s that there are students making out anywhere at any given time and not to look too closely into dark corners where sounds are coming from.

Her eyes widen as she spots Amity right away, her back is pressed against the wall and a guy dressed in a toga is standing in front of her, leaning down over her. He’s not particularly big, but he’s standing uncomfortably close with his hands wrapped around both of her wrists, hands fisted, Amity is scowling angrily up at him. Luz’s brows furrow between her eyes and she frowns, walking over quickly.

“I said let go!” Amity snaps, trying to rip her hands free from his grip and he’s so close she can smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Come on, just a little kiss, it’s Halloween…” He leans forward and Amity turns her head away, sneering.

“I don’t care if it’s fucking Christmas!” she snarled. “I said no!”

“Hey!” Luz shouts standing just a few feet away now. “She said no!” she growled, lips pulled back over her fangs.

“Luz!” Amity stares at her wide-eyed.

“This is none of your business bitch, go howl at the moon,” he slurred before turning back to Amity and yanking on one of her hands. She yelps in pain as he jerks her and Luz is moving forward before she even knows it and her fist is connecting with the side of his face.

He goes fumbling backward, releasing Amity as he stumbles to his butt in the grass.

“Santa mierda, eso duele!” she hissed, shaking out her screaming hand.

“Come on!” Amity grabs her other hand and starts to pull her away but then the guy is scrambling to his feet and coming at her with a strangled yell and Luz does the first thing she can think of, she uses their joined hands to yank Amity behind her and then the guy’s fist connects with her face and her world an explosion of pain and crunching noises.

She’s only vaguely aware of Amity screaming her name as her back hits the grass and everything goes black for a second but then she’s quickly pulled back to consciousness by his hand fisted into the front of her shirt and her fight or flight instincts kick in and she’s swinging wildly at his ugly mug as quickly as she can.

Her hands protest every hit that connects with his stone-hard face but she doesn’t stop and he’s swinging back, but she can hardly feel it over the constant pain radiating from her nose through her whole body.

She just clenches her eyes shut and keeps swinging, punching him as hard as she can, but then there are more voices and two large burly guys have him in a stranglehold, pulling him off her.

Amity had dashed back inside to grab the houses ‘bouncers’ standing just inside the door.

“Oh my god, Luz!” Amity holds her hands over her mouth as she kneels onto the ground next to her, looking over her face in horror.

“Ugh…” is all she can manage and then Amity is grabbing her hand and helping to her feet and dragging her across the yard, fumbling, panicked through her purse before finally pulling out her keys. She unlocks the passenger side door of a small black sedan and carefully pushes Luz into the passenger seat.

“Keep your head tilted back,” she says before closing the door and hurrying around to the other side, and jumping in the driver’s seat.

It’s only now that Luz realizes she can taste blood and reaches up to touch her top lip and pulls her hand back to see her fingers covered in the crimson liquid.

‘Well, that’s not good,’ she thinks, but it definitely explains why her face hurts so bad.

She tilts her head back but can feel it dribbling down her chin and neck as Amity pulls away from the curb, much faster than the speed limit, Luz is sure as the tires squeal.

She runs her tongue across her teeth and feels a distinct lack of a point and groans, making Amity glance at her.

“I think I swallowed one of my teeth…,” she mumbles more to herself but Amity’s pained expression turns into a grimace as they speed down the road.

Which was how she found herself sitting next to her crush in the ER with her head tilted back and the front of her once white shirt stained crimson as her nose continues to bleed.

Halloween is apparently a very popular time for injury because it’s crowded and takes two hours for someone to see her, while they wait Amity fills out her paperwork for her.

“Birthday?” she asks glumly, and Luz tells her. She hasn’t said much since they left the party, she looks miserable, and that’s coming from someone who is doing their best impression of a fountain with her nose. She can’t stand that face Amity is making. “Allergies?”

“Lactose intolerant, so no milk IV’s,” she jokes, despite the incredible pain in her face. Amity starts to write but then stops, blinking, before turning to look at her grin.

“How can you joke? You just got beat up… because of me.” she frowns.

“No, I got my block busted because some guy was being a pendejo.” Luz frowns. “It wasn’t your fault, and I wasn’t just going to stand there and let him….do whatever he wanted!” she scowled, throwing up a hand.

Amity is looking at her with an unreadable expression, but before she can say anything they are calling her back.

“Oh goody, my turn.”

It takes forty-five minutes for them to tell her that her nose is broken, which she could have told them when she caught sight of herself in a mirror, a bloody mess and her nose pushed to the side at an odd angle. No wonder Amity had been so panicked and run all those red lights.

Putting it back in place is… not fun, and then the doctor stuffs gauze in her nose and splints the outside, telling her she needs to keep the gauze in for a week and then sends her on her way with a prescription for antibiotics and some mild painkillers.

Amity is waiting for her when she comes out.

“What did he say?” she stands as Luz walks back out into the waiting room and frowns at the splint on her face.

“It’s broke.” she shrugs and Amity grimaces as they walk out back to the parking lot.

“I am so sorry, Luz.” Amity frowned. “If I’d just…”

“Hey,” Luz cut her off, she wasn’t having any of that. “I told you, it’s not your fault, technically, I started that fight… didn’t win it, but I started it,” she laughed to herself.

“You are surprisingly chipper for someone who just got their nose broken…” Amity can’t help but smile a little at the other woman’s cheery disposition.

“It’s not the first time I’ve broken something you know. The first time someone helped me along, but hey! Besides, I helped you, and that’s good enough for me.” She smiled as they stopped next to Amity’s car. Amity has a small smile on her face as she unlocks the car. “I hope this is healed up by thanksgiving or my mom is going to have a cow…,” she mumbled as an afterthought. Amity giggled to herself.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

The drive is mostly quiet until they pull up into the parking lot in front of Luz’s dorm building. Willow is probably already back in their room.

“Do you think this will get me out of the quiz Monday?” Luz wonders aloud as she unbuckles and Amity laughs.

“Doubtful... but…, if you’re up for it, I feel like I should at least treat you to breakfast or something for what you did… we could study after?” she offers.

Luz blinks at her, finally realizing what exactly is going on. She was certain before when Amity had asked her to study that she was just being nice, but the way she looks now, fingers tapping anxiously on the steering wheel and glancing at Luz out of the corner of her eye, she finally catches on and curses how oblivious she is at times.

“Like… a date?” she asks uncertainly and Amity flinches.

‘Y-Yeah.” she jerks her head in a nod and Luz is silent for a few seconds too long it seems. “If you don’t want to…!”

“No! No I do, want to go on a date with you, yes!” Luz nods, too fast, it makes her nose throb.

“Really?” now Amity is turned to look at her, eyes wide, with a hopeful glint.

“Yes, absolutely.” Does she sound too eager? Probably, but she does not care, especially when Amity’s face lights up with that adorable little smile she’s seen on her face once or twice before in class when they talked and now she feels even dumber for not catching on quicker.

They plan for Amity to pick her up here at nine tomorrow morning and then Luz opens the door, but Amity stops her.

“Thank you, Luz… I don’t know what might have happened if you hadn’t shown up...” Amity says finally.

“Amity Blight, I will be your fearless champion anytime you need me too!” she declares, a fist on her chest. The bandages and bloodstains, as well as her nasally stuffed up voice, diminishes the gesture some, but Amity smiles adoringly at her none the less.

She hesitates a second before reaching across the console to lay a hand gently on Luz’s cheek before leaning forward to quickly kiss the other. Luz’s face erupts in red as her heart hammers in her chest.

“My fearless champion,” she agrees, cheeks a bright pink.

Luz’s face erupts in a grin.

Maybe the evening started poorly, but she can’t find it in herself to mind one bit.

#Halloween #Lumity #Luz Noceda #Amity Blight #Willow park #Gus Porter #fic #toh #the owl house #gay

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ryuukia · 5 years ago

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[Translation] SolidS Drama Vol.5 “One faithful day, I saw you laughing under the starry sky” Track 4

We’re getting closer to the ending of the CD. This track focuses on Shiki and Rikka, and how they met for the first time. If you want to hear Shiki being formal, here’s your chance. Anyway, many thanks to Ryota for proofing this for me.

Please don’t repost/retranslate/reuse my translations. Likes and reblogs are appreciated.

If you like my work and you want to support me, you can now buy me a coffee by clicking right [here]. I also started taking commissions, more details are right [here]. Thank you~

Track 4: That day’s encounter

-Shiki bursts into the room and startles Rikka-

Shiki: I apologize. I must have gotten the wrong room. ...Wha, or not?

Rikka: Oh, the set might be at fault for that, I had a photoshoot with firewood scheduled for today. May I ask for the time when yours is starting?

Shiki: Ah, I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere around 13.

-Shiki brings out some papers to check-

Shiki: It’s not... it says 3 p.m.

Rikka: That means it’s appointed for 15.

Shiki: I got the time wrong. I shall return later.

Rikka: Ah, please wait. I’m about to leave anyway.

Shiki: I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that. Moreover, I am the one at fault, if you were to leave it would look as if I had sent you out. Please accept my apologies.

Rikka: Not at all, please don’t worry about it.

Shiki: Ah. ….You are Sera Rikka-san, right?

Rikka: Eeh? ...Yes, that’s right.

Shiki: Our photos will be featured in the same magazine this time. I’m Takamura Shiki from Tsukino Talent Production. Pleased to meet you.

Rikka: Takamura Shiki…from that unit who’s gotten popular recently? Pleased to meet you as well. I hope one day we will be able to work together. I shall take my leave now.

Shiki: Ah, one more thing. Please wait.

Rikka: Eh?

Shiki: If your schedule allows it, could we talk for a little?

Rikka: Talk about what?

Shiki: Anything that would help me understand photoshoots better. Even a few tips would be more than sufficient.

Rikka: Huh?

Shiki: Photoshooting is far from being one of my specialties, so any sort of advice would help me a lot.

Rikka: Eeh? Huh? Uh… eh? Uhhmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but I reckon you are more well-known than I am and you should be acquainted with this field... by now...

Shiki: I beg you.

Rikka: Uhm, please don't bow, raise your head. Er… My schedule is free after this, so I don’t mind having a chat with you.

Shiki: Thank you very much, Sera-san.

Rikka: … Rikka is fine.

Shiki: I understand. Then Rikka, I’ll be in your care.

Rikka: Likewise.

Shiki: Can I sit next to you?

Rikka: Of course, go ahead.

Shiki & Rikka: Uhm…

Shiki: Er…

Rikka: Uh…

Shiki: With things progressing so fast, I guess we both can’t help but be on guard with each other. Maybe getting to know each other would help. I’m pretty sure we’re also close in age. I’m 18, what about you?

Rikka: I’m 16.

Shiki: Two years younger, huh. But on the other hand, your career is longer than mine.

Rikka: How do you know so many things about me?

Shiki: I checked up in advance what are the magazine’s needs and who seems to be trending among the readers.

Rikka: I see.

Shiki: But apart from that, one of your CMs has also left an impression on me. The one featuring those summer soft drinks.

Rikka: Ah, that one.

Shiki: Since I was already familiar with your name, when I went to the bookshop I’d unconsciously find you on some magazine covers, posters, even some photos scattered around. It’s hard to ignore something like that especially when they’re so flashy and, moreover, we’re close in age and work in the same industry.

Rikka: I see. I wouldn’t say my photos are really the best, but your words did make me view them in a better light.

Shiki: Right. I bought some magazines and tried to use them as reference, but how can I make my facial expressions look natural on the camera? It’s a question I still ask myself. If there are any tricks, perhaps, could you explain them to me in a few words?

Rikka: I think Takamura-san is-

Shiki: Ah, Shiki is fine. You can drop the formalities.

Rikka: I think Shiki’s the type of person whose simple presence is enough to catch someone’s attention. You don’t need to make any kind of expressions for that, it’s easy to tell when people like you do that. I believe people will be more pleased to see how you really are.

Shiki: … I suppose you’re right. I’m far from being a professional model. And thinking about it, trying to reach your level only by imitating something you gained through years of work sounds more like an arrogance.

Rikka: Hold on!? I didn’t mean it as a negative thing! I was only trying to say that you shouldn’t force yourself to copy me and just be natural. In short, you don’t need to change yourself.

Shiki: I don’t need to change myself… I suppose me being there as a talent is more important, huh. You’re probably right. Thank you, I feel a bit more relieved.

Rikka: I’m glad to be of help. You look like an earnest guy, Shiki.

Shiki: I’d say it feels a little different from being earnest. I’m simply a shallow perfectionist who hates losing. But I’d like to stop that kind of behavior in the future if possible. My aim is to live my life focusing on the one thing I set my heart on, just like you do, Rikka. It sounds like a better alternative for me.

Rikka: One thing, huh. You think too highly of me.

Shiki: Hm? Your achievements can be seen in numbers. You should be more proud of yourself, you’re without a doubt among the best.

Rikka: Oh…

Shiki: Remember the words you told me? When being natural is a given and your redeeming feature, use it as your weapon. You should accept it gratefully and use it effectively. From my point of view, I’d say Rikka is the earnest one.

Rikka: Uhm, I’ll take that as a compliment.

Shiki: It is. I can’t think of anything more that can sound like a compliment. The fact that you get work demands from your specialty field is also something enviable. Unless you want to do something other than modelling?

Rikka: No, nothing in particular. It may sound like I’m repeating myself, but I’ve been doing this job ever since I can remember and stuck to it since it felt like I needed to. I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper objective or aspiration in mind beside that.

Shiki: Needing and wanting to do something are similar things. Isn’t that something a professional would say? Because you’re giving effort, the next job comes even if you’re not aware of it.

Rikka: You’re exaggerating, I don’t deserve that many praises…

Shiki: In general, your own evaluation tends to differ from other people’s. It’s easy for one to assume that the work we do is trivial because from others’ standpoint, we gain recognition by only doing something small and experience no hardships at all. But nobody can reach the front lines without putting some effort. If you can manage to strive in what you do and keep any kind of worries away, that’s what I would call ‘being talented’.

Rikka: Oh……

Shiki: What is it?

Rikka: Doesn’t that sound too mature for you, Shiki? Are you really 18? I wouldn’t be surprised if you lied about your ag-

Shiki: I didn’t!

Rikka: -laughs- Of course. Sorry, sorry. It’s just that your words hold too much power for someone your age. Maybe not just power. Each of them are so sharpened they break through your heart.

Shiki: That’s maybe because these are the things I tell myself.

Rikka: More exactly?

Shiki: Things like how I’m grateful for my position of first player in the industry. About how much work I put into this. But when asked if this is really what I wanted to do, there are times when I hesitate to give an answer. Rather than singing a song someone else made, what I really want to do is make music with my own two hands.

Rikka: Shiki, you mean...

Shiki: As long as I continue doing this job, I can’t make time to focus on just one thing. And yet, this is what I want to do. I want to compose music. I want to go as far as my will allows me to. Time won’t let one contemplate, it will simply pass by. And with it, the world also changes. I don’t need to do two things at the same time, but both done halfway. I only need to choose one and stick with it. ...Or at least, that’s what I’ve been thinking these days. What do you think, Rikka?

Rikka: I don’t think you need to ask me, that look in your eyes tells me your heart is already set on it.

Shiki: My expression, huh.

Rikka: It’s not like you were trying to hide it.

Shiki: I suppose.

Shiki & Rikka: -laugh-

Shiki: Can you keep this conversation between us?

Rikka: Of course. If word were to get out about it, it would cause an uproar. And more than that, I’m glad you shared something so important with me on our first meeting.

Shiki: Ah, you felt like someone who would listen to me without prejudices. I didn’t expect you’d read right through me though.

Rikka: That’s because you didn’t try to hide yourself. Ah, right!

Shiki: W-what?

Rikka: Now that I think about it, there was actually something I wanted to do. I want to try and experience photography outside fashion photoshoots. I can’t think of more details right now, but for example something with an outdoor location would be nice. The sky and the sun would change as time passes, then the wind would move in different ways too. I want to go into nature and take pictures that capture unique, fleeting moments. I do have thousands of hours of studio shooting, but zero experience when it comes to outdoor shooting.

Shiki: I suppose the artificial light from the studio, the cool production, the modern sets and atmosphere have something to do with that. But I think they suit you.

Rikka: Oh… Thank you. It’s a good feeling to be thought important by a lot of people, I admit. But, sometimes I wonder if simply thinking that is good enough, so I’m having doubts. But thanks to what you told me today, I think I’ll be able to continue with this a bit more. You also reminded me of what I want to do. Thank you, Shiki.

Shiki: I should be the one to say that. I probably knew the answer I’ve been looking for all along, but just needed someone to give me a push and point it out. Now I know what I have to do. Let’s fulfill our dreams, Rikka.

Rikka: Yeah. Do your best.

Shiki: I hope your dream will also come true. When I think about locations in nature, I imagine packs with food and trips by train.

Rikka: Exactly! That’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. It seems like fun.

Shiki: Cooling yourself under a waterfall...

Rikka: And watching the blue sky on a meadow!

Shiki: You finally smiled.

Rikka: Oh…

Shiki: You have a nice smile. No wonder you’re so popular.

-someone knocks at the door-

Staff A: Excuse me! Oh, Sera-san?

Rikka: Ah, I apologize. We ended up talking a lot. I should go by now.

-Rikka picks up his things-

Rikka: Well then, I’m going. Good luck with your shoot, Shiki.

Shiki: Thanks. With the advice I got from you, I’m sure the photos will look fine. Also, can you give me one more minute?

Rikka: Ah, what for?

Shiki: If you don’t mind it, give me your contact address.

Rikka: Oh… -laughs- Of course, with pleasure.

Tsubasa: Whaaaa… he really doesn’t beat around the bush. Also, this conversation is filled with pick-up lines.

Rikka: And after that, I haven’t heard anything from him for around a month.

Tsubasa: What a player!

Rikka: At that time it honestly made me feel a bit lonely considering it felt like we were getting along so well. But I think it was the same for Shiki. He didn’t contact me, and I didn’t have the courage to call him myself.

Dai: So, after that one month passed, what did he say when he got in touch with you again?

Rikka: He was really nonchalant. When he called me and said “Rikka, it’s me. Do you want to go out and eat something after work?” that first time, I kept asking myself what had just happened.

Tsubasa: He didn’t even say his name. Could’ve been a scam.

Rikka: That also happened around the time when the world was in an uproar because Shiki was to leave his unit.

Dai: Did he tell you anything about that?

Rikka: No. He didn’t say anything in particular about it. Or at least, I didn’t hear anything about it. I knew from the beginning what Shiki was set on and all I wanted to do was to support his decision.

Tsubasa: Hah… Rikka, you’re really laudable!

Dai: That part of you that doesn’t hold back on strange things hasn’t changed. But I could say the same for Shiki’s brazen invitations, huh.

Rikka: -laughs- Indeed. Shiki’s always done things his own way and if he decides on something, he’s not going to give up or yield on it no matter what.

Dai: But you know, not changing for a long time is sort of amazing in its own way.

Tsubasa: Wait, Dai-chan. Stop it, I just imagined it for real.

All: -laugh-

Shiki: Rikka, are you here?

Rikka: Shiki? What is it?

Shiki: Can you give me 10 minutes?

Rikka: Ten minutes or an entire hour, both are fine with me. I don’t really have anything planned now.

Shiki: I see. Let’s go out and have a drink.

Rikka: Eh!? Now? Sure, but what about Haiduki-san?

Shiki: He went back earlier. But he’ll join us later.

Tsubasa: More important, darling. Where are you taking Rikka on a date looking like that?

Shiki: Why do you always pick up on people’s appear-... wait, maybe I should actually change my clothes, huh.

Rikka: I have enough free time, go and take a shower.

Shiki: Yeah, right. Sorry, wait for me a bit more.

-Shiki leaves-

Rikka: That was…

Dai: It looks like he’s back to normal.

Rikka: My strange feeling of dread is suddenly gone. Maybe we’ve reached a turning point?

Tsubasa: Good grief, our leader likes pulling people into his antics, but just like that he’s going back to normal, huh. Rikka, you should get mad at him for causing you trouble once in a while, you know?

Rikka: He’s back to his normal self now.

Dai: I wonder when Haiduki-san went back.

Rikka: Right! I didn’t even notice.

Tsubasa: Speaking of which, what was that? He invited Rikka for a drink, Haiduki-san’s gonna join later, but us? Why are we left out?

Dai: To me it looks like those 3 have something to talk about.

Tsubasa: So Dai and me don’t?

Dai: I think it’s fine to leave them some space sometimes. You’re also not done checking the interviews in the first place.

Tsubasa: Ugh! I’ll really do them after!

Dai: Liar. Get to work now.

Tsubasa: W-w-wait, Dai-chan, the applications!

Dai: You did them then. So why are you trying to hide them?

Tsubasa: -grumbling- Eeeeeeeuhhhhhhhhhhm…because it’s embarrassing?

Dai: If you want to try excuses on me, find a better one. Your interviews are always embarrassing.

Tsubasa: Dai-chan, be good an- whoaaa! C’mon, give them back!

Dai: You’re annoying. I’ll read them out.

Rikka: Well, I’ll go get ready too. I’ll call you later.

Dai: It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about us, enjoy your drink.

Dai, to Tsubasa: Now, if you don’t shut up, I’ll kick you.

Rikka: Thank you.

Dai: Look at this, more than half of them aren’t done.

Tsubasa: Seriously, Dai-chan you bully.

Dai: “We, SolidS, are-

Tsubasa: W-w-wait I said!!

Dai: heroes who exist to give dreams and hope to people.” What is this? A squadron thing?

Tsubasa: No, wait, wait!! I didn’t say anything like that!! Let me write it again!

#solids #Audio Translation #english translation #tsukipro #solids drama vol.5 #track 4 #sera rikka #takamura shiki #okui tsubasa #murase dai #hanae natsuki #eguchi takuya #souma saito #umehara yuichiro

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dewey694 · 4 years ago

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Low Waste Tips For New Parents

Made by: Sarah Paiji Yoo CEO + Co Founder at Blueland

Whether or not you're first time watches, generally starting your low waste excursion, or both, kid raising and staying low waste may have all the stores of being overpowering! Regardless, with some organizing, some appraisal and some creativity, you can keep waste low even with adolescents and little young people going around! As a mother of a drawn out old and an excited mother, I perceive how overflowed things can get. Now and again staying low waste is the prop up thing at the forefront of my contemplations. Luckily I've gotten a couple of signs and questions that help me with staying low waste even with kids!

Low Waste Tips For New Parents

Right when I had my young adult Noah I chose to breastfeed. It was the right decision for me, at any rate I had no idea about the level of nursing pads and oil and treatment I'd understanding! Picking launderable, reusable nursing pads was an exchange that worked for me, yet clearly won't work for everyone. Bamboobies and EcoNursing Pads make nursing pads that are clearly not hard to reuse and are obviously not hard to throw in the garments washer!

For creams, analgesics and oils, I put forward a sensible undertaking to find things that are packaged in glass or metal, not single-use plastic. Despite how plastic is all around unavoidable, I look for things that are if all else fails the more pleasingly recyclable or that I upcycle the packaging! Affiliations like Hatch sell gut oil that comes in glass packaging, and affiliations like Badger Balm sell areola treatment that comes in reusable tin packaging! There are other than gigantic heaps of etsy shops that offer everything from nursing pads to postnatal things in sensible packaging!

Something they don't tell you before you have a newborn child youthful grown-up kid? For the most part moms and young people need diapers! A couple of women should wear diapers for a few days working out exactly as expected to imagining a replacements. So if you would keep up not to have superfluous diapers, try to imagine you and newborn child lively grown-up! A few women won't need to wear a diaper, yet may experience some spilling working out as proposed to analyzing a replacements. Instead of wearing a futile pad, pick reusable pads or watertight dress from Thinx or Ruby Love!

Low Waste Parenting Tips For New Babies

Much unclear from predicting pregnancy, making game arrangements for youth raising low waste is an immense new startling new development. Plastic won't be absolutely avoidable, yet you can evade or limit most single-use things for youngsters and little teenagers by planning! Here are a part of my #1 tips:

Surface Diapers And Wipes:

Youths and children experience an enormous load of diapers and wipes. Additionally, most diapers come in plastic packaging! Material diapers and cotton or wool wipes are a unimaginable decision to single-use diapers and can help you with putting aside plastic and money as time goes on! While surface diapers are our go-to, we do constantly keep single-use diapers close by. Unfathomably, we don't everything considered breeze up in a condition where we can change diapers and extra the foul diaper with us for the length of the day. So we brief a game-plan for when we to can use reusable surface diapers, and when we may need to get a few futile diapers. If you do choose to pick material, BumGenius are a part of our top decisions! If you do choose to go with unimportant diapers or supplement your reusables with insignificant diapers, look for diapers that come in paper packaging like Dyper!

Low Waste Baby Bottles

Kid bottles are head paying little psyche to how you plan to deal with your immaturity. Standard youngster bottles are passed on utilizing plastic, and now are thoroughly should have been made utilizing without bpa plastic. Notwithstanding, if you would lean toward not to pick a plastic holder, there are some various decisions. Klean Kanteen makes set up steel newborn child kid bottles with silicone areolas. They're dead genuine, reusable and fundamentally plastic free! There are relatively glass bottle choices. Both glass and treated steel will when everything is said in done be more exorbitant than plastic holders, so if you do pick plastic compartments, attempt to get silicone areolas which are driving forward!

Utilitarian Baby Blankets

While picking a young adult spread, we looked for monetarily sourced surfaces like ordinary cotton. Since there is such an enormous load of waste in the material business, we expected to guarantee we were picking best in class surface for our youngster covers that were made as monetarily as could be standard mulling over the current condition. Several brands to take a gander at are Coyuchi and Mushie!

Keeping Kids In Sustainable Style

Garments for youth adolescents and child young people are consistently difficult to source sensibly. Youngsters grow so fast, that it can seem like you're getting them new pieces of clothing and shoes every week! On the off chance that you're another parent and you're looking at having another youthful grown-up, endeavor to save onesies and youth dress so you can reuse later on! We saved pieces of clothing from when Noah was a newborn child and plan to reuse them for baby adolescent child number two! Regardless, if this is your first youth, buying new pieces of clothing will be unavoidable, regardless before you buy, interface with friends and family to check whether they have any kid youthful grown-up pieces of clothing lying around that you can use. There are monstrous heaps of brands making reasonable youngster articles of clothing if you can't get, take a gander at Boody, Mori and Monica + Andy Blueland Reformation .

Hold buy!

Finally, notwithstanding the way that having another young adult is vitalizing, perhaps the best ways to deal with oversee direct control stay real is to hold buy a tremendous load of things to see what you need. Things like diapers, covers and onesies, you recognize you'll require, so really advance past time. In any case, concerning embellishments, toys, books, extra pieces of clothing, you can save a tremendous store of waste by understanding see what you'll truly require!

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thebeautyblender · 5 years ago

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TRAVELING WITH BABY

Traveling with a 4 month old can seem daunting. Traveling has always been anxiety inducing for me so adding a baby to the mix, well, just kind of seemed like a nightmare.

Since our family is spread out all over the East Coast and most of our family had not met Easton yet, we knew we would have to fly with him at some point, so we kind of ripped the bandaid off and just did it in the Fall. Also, Vermont is absolutely gorgeous in the fall so I was excited to finally see the Fall foliage.

We left on a Wednesday night. We decided to take an Uber since my parents were out of town and we usually just find Ubers to be the most convenient form of transportation when traveling in general. Let’s just say that ride was fun... Easton cried for half of the 45 minute drive there. Our poor Uber driver. Tyler and I kind of looked at each other and said, “this is going to be fun.” Lol.

There are no direct flights to Vermont so we had to do a stopover in Newark. So a 4.5 hour flight (mind you it was a redeye) and then a 1 hour layover... then another 45 minute flight.

We got to the airport and the amount of bags we had was kind of a joke. But luckily we knew we wouldn’t have to check a thing and had planned to just use our stroller so we put most of our bags underneath/push that to the gate and check it there.

Security in general isn’t the most fun and I personally think is very stressful. Add a baby to the mix, and it gets a bit more complicated. You will have to take baby out of the car seat and walk with him/her through security. His stroller will have to go through and if you’re pumping like I was, then they will have to pull out your milk and inspect each bottle. They had gloves on but still, it seemed unsanitary to me.

Easton slept for some of the flight, which was great, but when he was awake, I’ll admit it wasn’t easy. Now that we are back from our trip we are so happy we did it and seeing family was 100% worth it.

I feel like I now know what to take vs. what seems unnecessary. Hope this helps you on your next trip with baby!

What to take:

-Stroller - we have the Uppababy Cruz Stroller - We debated not taking our stroller, BUT since you need to take a carseat if you will be going in any vehicle, you might as well take your stroller instead of awkwardly lagging around the carseat.

-Carseat + Adaptor - You will NEED a carseat that can travel without the base. The carseat we have can’t travel without it’s base!!!! So we had to get an extra for this trip/figured Tyler could keep the extra one in his car so we don’t have to move mine from my car all the time. We got this one for the trip and bought the adaptor to our stroller since they are different brands. We love the Nuna Carseat.

-Stroller/Carseat Bag for checking as baggage or at the gate - We checked our stroller at the gate and got a seat on the plane (so we took the carseat on the plane). NOTE: Easton on the flight there would only let us hold him so buying a seat was kind of pointless; however, it was nice to not have someone next to us while he was crying and also be able to have extra room for his diaper bag and our bags too. For the stroller, you will need to put it in a bag if you don’t want it to get thrown around and ruined. We bought this really inexpensive one on Amazon. If you don’t buy a seat, it is FREE for infants to sit on your lap.

-Diaper Bag - You’ll want a convenient diaper bag that is easy to carry.

-Extra outfit for baby - Also add a sweater just in case baby gets cold! Also something short sleeved underneath, in case baby gets hot. You know airplane temps...!

-Extra outfit for you

-Extra socks for baby (we somehow kept losing Easton’s socks - we found one 10 rows down from us while we were walking off the plane - don’t ask! haha)

-Baggies (For soiled clothes and diapers)

-Diapers (pack enough for the length of your flight) - we love these diapers especially for overnight or longer flights!

-Water Wipes - We love this brand of baby wipes!

-Changing Pad - You will want an easy (and small) changing pad you can bring with you to that TINY airplane bathroom.

-Gripe water: Didn’t think we would use this one but honestly when Easton would lose it and we tried everything(!) we would resort to the gripe water and I think it just tastes good/distracts them for a moment and made him stop crying. You don’t even have to give them a lot or the full suggested amount, just slowly give them a little and have them suck on the dropper. I quickly would replace it with the pacifier and he seemed to be better in just a minute. You have to get creative with a baby!!! :D

-Baby Tylenol: Didn’t need it but had it just in case.

-Blanket - I brought a blanket for Easton for the flight. We used it to block out light for when he was trying to sleep and then also when it got a bit colder on the plane. ALSO was useful when I was holding him so my arm didn’t get sweaty/sticky on his skin... Seems odd but a friend told me this might happen, and it did! The blanket can also be great to cover up while feeding baby or pumping.

-Breast pump - I took my fully charged pump. I love this one!

-Breast pump attachments (1 set)

-Breat pump bra - I love this one!

-Breast pump charger

-Soap - I took dish washing soap from home in a little tupperware so I could wash bottles at the airport and on the plane. It’s not ideal but much better than 1. not sanitizing and 2. using hand soap!

-3 baby bottles - OK, I was debating how many bottles to bring and 3 seemed like a good number. If you have room take 4 or 5 so you do less washing, but you can totally get away with 3.

-Ice pack - You’ll want an ice pack to keep your milk cold. I took some frozen milk with me in my pump bag and kept all of the bottles in there too. TSA will run it through security it as I mentioned before, but you are allowed to bring breastmilk and sanitized water for baby through security and on the plane!

-Frozen Milk - DO NOT put your frozen milk in a bag. I use frozen bags of milk in our freezer and I thought I could just bring 1 or 2 of those in my pump bag. WELL, the bag leaked and it was a nightmare. Just unthaw the milk and put it in a bottle with the ice pack to keep it cold! (Can’t stress this one enough! Don’t let my oops be your oops!).

-Formula - If you use formula, take more than enough formula for the trip. Plan it out beforehand based off of how much your baby drinks a day. Then add a few more scoops! :)

-Sanitized water (for formula) - Take sanitized water with you on the plane. The plane water is not sanitary and I would not give this to baby!

- Toys and teething toy - You kind of have to play circus to entertain baby on the plane... We took 3 toys for Easton and he seemed to be entertained with them in the car and plane.

-Extra pacifiers! - Bring extra! We also love these pacifier clips so that way they don’t all fall/you don’t lose them!

Optional:

-Baby Bjorne Carrier - We ended up using this once we got to our destination - had daytime activities with family/didn’t want to bring the stroller. Glad we took it but not 100% necessary.

Other tips:

-If you’re going somewhere you can do laundry - pack light and just wash/reuse the same clothes. It’s hard enough packing for 1 person, let alone 2 or 3, depending on how many people you’re traveling with + baby.

-Have baby drink milk while descending and ascending OR have baby’s pacifier in mouth. Helps with ear pressure.

-We tried to have E nap right before we got on the plane if possible... or at least sleepy. He hated when the plane wasn’t moving and we had to sit down (before take off). On the way home we kind of planned his nap and he actually was sleeping when we got on the plane until we were in the air.

-Wet wipes - Planes are full of germs. ENOUGH SAID! Great for baby’s hands too - they’re touching all sorts of things and then putting their hands in their mouth(!).

-Get up and walk around with them. No one wants to be sitting still for hours. Get up and walk around with baby.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - DON’T STRESS IF BABY CRIES. People are surprisingly so sweet and compassionate. They will even offer to take your baby and hold him/her if you’re down for that kind of thing. Our flight attendant on the way to Vermont took Easton with her for a while actually. She has twins so we thought, 1. she’s not going anywhere/can’t steal him/we’re on a plane! lol and 2. sure, give us a break! ;)

Be sure to ask your flight attendant for a set of wings if it’s his/her first flight! Cute little memento.

(See Easton had fun too...!)

Hope this helps and I will add anything if I think of anything else.

Happy travels! <3

-Danielle

#baby #4 months old #4months #traveling #travel #travelingwithbaby #yoga

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renegade-is-in-my-blood · 6 years ago

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Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story – Jack Harries ( I would also recommend checking out his twin brother Fin Harries – truly inspirational guys) This is the photograph that blew me away:

Amazing right? This photo lead me to Natural Geographic page where I found bunch of alarming articles about plastic pollution. Of course like many of you I knew about this problem before but I never really realized juts how fucked up this situation got and the powerful images they shared truly hit me hard. Check out some of this articles to learn more.

There is a bunch of sad environmental videos, photographs or stories I could share with you but that’s not really my goal in this article. What I want to share with you is the ways we all could make a difference and show you some heroes that have been doing their part and don’t get much recognition for all of their hard work.

So here we go:

First of all I want to point you to this website called worldenvironmentday.global and their project BEAT PLASTIC POLLUTION with inspiring slogan if you can’t reuse it, refuse it.

They came up with amazing idea of organized clean up. Basically you can join a clean up event in your location and help get rid of and properly recycle plastic. Here you can learn more about clean ups and also about this app called Litterati which is simply an app tool to help you encourage others to collect plastic.

If you are more of a leader than follower you can organize your own clean up event and register it at this page and share it with people in your location with map of where exactly will the clean up be. Here is how you can register and start and make a difference.

With this organized clean ups I must introduce you someone. His name is Afroz Shah and to be fair I don’t know much about him but I aspire to be like him. This guy does the most amazing clean ups I have ever seen, he does post on his instagram page his clean up results of the week and there has been lot of weeks since he’s been doing this.

This was the picture I saw that led me to Afroz as he was the one of the volunteers. This truly restored my faith in humanity and I feel such satisfaction and relief that there are people who care and do something about plastic problem.

Here are some other photos I screenshoted that supports my theory about unknown hero:

I highly recommend you visit his instagram page HERE and see for yourself the amazing things he did.

If you’re not into big events such as this you can still do your part by following many eco-friendly tips you can find on the internet and here are some:

The whole point is to reduce the amount of plastic you use every day, and if you are for some reason unable to stop using plastic the least you can do is reuse it. I understand that not all of the time you have your canvas bag with you, or your reusable bottle so you buy cheaper plastic version of this, but I’m sure you could find some use for them afterwards.

The sad thing is how cheap is to get this plastic option instead of ecologically friendly ones and trust me being a drop out student in between jobs, working part-time in KFC – money is heavy step back in my eco life as well. I feel so guilty every time I need to purchase a plastic bag and the amount of plastic waste I create on my own is upsetting. The least I can do is recycle it I – have bunch of plastic bags under my table that separates my plastic, paper and glass trash and once in a while I need to find a recycling bin and separate them. You would think that medicine a pharmacy students would have better access to recycling, but nah – if you want to recycle you must make an effort yourself what is such a difference from my primary school where each of our classes had recycling bins so kids could learn to dispose their trash properly.

This leads me to another topic and that’s leading and teachings kinds to reduce plastic waste. I would recommend you check out this stunning video called Oceans of future by Greenpeace. It’s important we grow sence of responsibility and ecological thinking in this kids. I’m so grateful my parents did that with me.

Since I was little we would always separate plastic or milk cartoons from other trash and recycle them later and my parents do that till this day. They actually fill the truck of our car with plastic and need to drive to recycling bins, because there are none in around our new place.

We would always need to turn off the lights when we would leave the room (sometimes not even when we leave the room – it’s so annoying when your dad turn of the lights off when you’re in the bathroom almost every time), turning the water off when you’re brushing your teeth, washing dishes or shampooing your hair. This might sounds ridiculous to you cuz I believe this things comes naturally to people and I find it useless to even mention such small things but I remember skyping with my grandma when she was living and working in america. She would always ask me if I tun off the water when I’m brushing my teeth and I always found it so weird she would ask me something like that. Of course I do. But the family she was staying at don’t find it as natural as I did and it was upsetting my grandma a lot.

We would always make fun of our family’s plastic bag full of plastic bags we would take whenever we went shopping, but once I moved out and lived on my own I realized how clever this idea is and now I have my own plastic bag of plastic bags.

I feel it’s important to put this sence of responsibility into kids and you can always do it in some fun kid friendly way. My parents would for example give me and my sisters bag and we would have to collect trash around our building – make a competition out of clean ups – who collects the most?

There is just no wrong or too little way to save the world.

How to be more eco-friendly if you work for larger corporations?

I currently work for large fast food chain restaurant KFC and let me tell you the amount of waste our single small store creates is alarming. The amount of food and plastic waste is unbelievable and the sad fact remains that single-handed part-time worker in such corporation can’t do literally anything without risking their jobs.

We do have separated trash bins for plastic, bio and mix waste, but we also have to throw all of the meat out once it reach its expiration period of extremely short 30 min! As a former vegetarian the amount of chicken meat, energy wasted for its preparation and basic situation of world hunger depresses me a lot. So what can I do as an individual ? Girls gotta eat and pay bills.

Sadly I did not figure out answer to this question yet besides to push the big bosses into doing eco-friendly changes for whole restaurant chain. We did switched to paper to-go cups instead of plastic and we also use paper bags what is incredible step forward, but the amount of plastic straws is still bad and hopefully we would also make some changes like our competition did hat really pleases me :

Being a middle european I don’t really understand the demand for straws or ice, but switching to reusable metal straw could make a difference and prevent this from happening:

Of course I understand that if I refuse plastic straw at 27th June 2018 7pm from a cashier at fast food restaurant who has to offer me one I’m not gonna save the world – but if the fast food stops/reduce offering one – this might be actually a huge step forward.

Why do I even write this?

Let me be so full of myself and believe that one day some big animal in some firm would come across this article, or some family member of their would mention Beat plastic pollution project to them and light up a spark of thought process in someone who actually could make bigger impact on environment.

Spread the word, get inspired, some people are really trying to make a change – why not be one of them ?

I’m not saying I’m perfect, I still occasionally buy plastic bag or bottle, I don’t always recycle materials that should be recycled and sometimes I’m just lazy and put plastic into mix trash can. But I also switch to bamboo toothbrush instead of plastic, I ordered bunch of canvas shopping bags (that would get deliver to me in plastic bag – how ridiculous is that? There should be something done by this issue as well, or the recipes – most of us don’t need them and sure as hell don’t have any way to reuse it – you might refuse it but that doesn’t mean it’s not gonna get printed anyway) and the least I can do is trying to be better and spread the word to people who care and even to those who don’t .

Also not every time is our effort met with actual results. I’m talking about fake recycling bins where all of the garbage ends up in same place without any recycling whatsoever. So if you see something like this in your building call out the authorities about it! Some of us are actually trying for crying out loud !

The amount of waste that ends up in oceans is just heart breaking. I grew up in a country without access to ocean and I only got to see sea or ocean at our summer family holidays and the memories have from those trips do not meet the sad reality of how bad ocean pollution got.

Simple hard-working individual can not make a difference unless the individuals with actual powers makes changes to preserve the earth. But I feel like I’m slipping back into depressing side of this issue but I really want to point to positive effort of many people involve in helping solve this plastic pollution problem.

There is a note at our fridge in our dorms shared kitchen that states: “Our problem is that we believe someone else is gonna save the world” after one neighbour of mine got upset about number of plastic people from our hall were throwing away.

If you wat to make a difference but don’t know how to start here you can take pledge at national geographic with simple tips of what to do to reduce your plastic waste.

Take your pledge

Thank you so much for your attention

xo Natalia

Beat Plastic Pollution Hey. Let me tell you about something that has been bothering for a while now. Few months ago while aimlessly scrolling my instagram feed I came across this photograph shared by one of my favourite activist/photographer /artist instagram story - …

#beat plastic pollution #eco #eco friendly #enviroment #hero #plastic #plastic pollution #pollution #story #thoughts #tips

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somethingtokeepinmind · 6 years ago

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Russian Honey Cake

SERVINGS: 8 IN HUGE SLICES, 12 IN NORMAL ONES

TIME: ABOUT 2 HOURS ON THE FIRST DAY + AN OVERNIGHT REST + ABOUT 30 MINUTES ON THE SECOND

This cake is eight paper-thin cake layers with a creamy, slightly tangy filling and coating. It mostly tastes like dreamy frosted graham crackers. The honey, if you’re nervous, is barely notable if you use a mild one but will be more present with a strong one. The filling is just a little sweet and has no sourness to it; after absorbing into the cake layers, it tastes so much like a mild cream cheese frosting, good luck convincing people it is anything else.

Planning ahead: You must start this cake a day early because you’re going to want the better part of the day for the filling to soften the cookies into glorious thin cake layers, just like an icebox cake. You can start even earlier than that, too. Our cake looked amazing in the fridge for 5 whole days before, um, it was “gone” so you can assemble this a few days before you need it. Or, you can make the cookie layers a week or longer in advance and store the in a container at room temperature, as you would other cookies. Just make sure you get them filled and frosted a day before you want to slice in.

1/2 cup (170 grams) honey

1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar

1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 large eggs

1/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt

1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups (455 grams) all-purpose flour, divided

32 ounces (just shy of 4 cups or 900 grams) sour cream

1 14-ounce can (400 grams) sweetened condensed milk

Make cookie/cake dough: In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the sugar, honey and butter over medium heat. Once simmering, cook for 3 to 4 minutes (no specific temperature needed), it should get a faint shade darker and smell wonderful. Whisk in baking soda.

Remove from heat and set aside for 2 to 3 minutes. It’s not going to significantly cool off, just settle a little. Lightly beat your eggs in a spouted measuring cup (for easiest pouring) or small bowl. Take a deep breath. Whisking the honey mixture vigorously in the pot the whole time, drizzle the thinnest stream (think: 1/2 teaspoon at a time, that slowly) of the eggs into the honey mixture. Do not stop mixing. Continue until all of the eggs are thoroughly whisked in.

Stir in the salt and vanilla and 3 cups (390 grams) of the flour with a spoon. The dough is going to be thick like a bread but you’ve got this. Stir in the last 1/2 cup of flour 1/4 cup at a time; you’ll get a bonus arm workout.

Shape and bake the cookies/cakes: [Plus, a bunch more layer tips at the end.] Lightly flour your counter and divide the still-warm dough into 8 even pieces. Roll the first one between two sheets of parchment paper (no flouring needed) to a slightly-bigger-than-9-inch round. Remove top sheet of parchment paper. Very lightly dust the top with flour if you’re going to put something on it (such as the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan or the rim of a 9-inch bowl) to trim the shape to an even 9-inch circle. Save the trimmings — put them aside on one of the sheets of parchment paper, it’s fine if they overlap a little. Dock the circle all over with a fork. Slide your 9-inch round onto a baking sheet and bake for 6 to 7 minutes; it should feel firmish and get slightly darker at the edges. Slide the cookie onto a cooling rack. Go ahead and reuse the parchment for another layer.

Meanwhile, while the first layer is baking, roll out your second piece so it’s ready to go into the oven as soon as the first comes out. If you’re making good time, get the third ready too and continue to bake them two at a time. Keep adding the unbaked cookie trimmings onto one piece of parchment paper. Repeat this process as you bake each round and you’ll have all 8 baked before you know it.

Finally, take that last sheet of parchment with all of the cookie scraps on it and slide it onto a baking sheet and bake it, checking in at 4 minutes, because the thinnest scraps will want to burn quickly. By 5 minutes, all should be baked until pale golden. Let cool completely and save until you’re ready to decorate the cake tomorrow.

Fill and frost the cake: Whisk sour cream and sweetened condensed milk together in a large bowl. Once cookies are cool, place a dab of the sour cream mixture on your cake plate and place the first cookie on top of it to help adhere it.

Cut or tear one of your used pieces of parchment paper into strips and tuck them all around the underside of the cake to protect your cake plate. Trust me, if you do not do this, you will regret it.

Scoop 3/4 cup sour cream mixture onto the center of your first cookie layer. Spread it only a little from the center, leaving a good 1- to 2-inch margin of unfrosted cookie. Stack the second cookie on top and repeat until you have 8 layers.

This will quickly become a huge mess. The sour cream is going to spill out and down the sides anyway (hear hear for those paper strips) and you’re going to start yelling at me/drafting an angry comment in your head. It’s also going to want to slide around and not stay neatly stacked. It’s totally okay because the filling will thicken as it absorbs into the cookies. Put the cake in the fridge for a couple hours (1 to 3) and when you come back to it, nudge the stack gently back into place and use a spoon and icing spatula to scoop the spilled-out filling back up the sides and onto the top of the cake. Don’t worry about it looking neat. Let it chill overnight.

The next day, finish the cake: Grind your baked, reserved cookie scraps in a blender or food processor, or bash them into crumbs in a bag with a rolling pin.

Take your cake out and do one final frosting clean-up. Spread any newly puddled sour cream back up the sides and across the top. If you’d like to make a decoration on top of your cake, take one of those used pieces of parchment paper (see how much Deb hates wasting parchment) and cut a stencil with it. Place it gently on top of the cake.

Use a small spoon to sprinkle the top and sides of the cake with the crumbs. In the coolest trick I saw on a cooking video, use a pastry brush (or extremely clean paintbrush, I won’t tell) to gently brush the crumbs off the stencil and across the cake in a thin layer. It sounds crazy but it works — on the sides too. Remove the stencil and parchment paper strips and look at that clean serving plate! (Bravo, you.)

You can serve the cake right away, or keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days. When slicing, I found that a knife dipped in hot water made picture-perfect cuts.

A bunch of extra dough and cake layer tips:

The dough is a bit stiff, but it will stretch to the size you need with pressure. If you’re finding it to be a huge pain, that the dough clearly wants to go to 8 inches but not 9, just go ahead and make the cake 8 inches round. It will be just as good of a cake; the layers might need a single extra minute to bake.

Ovens will vary, especially for such thin cookies, so keep an eye on the first round as of the 6-minute mark, checking in each minute after as it can brown very quickly, and then you’ll know how much time you need for the remaining ones.

This dough is easiest to roll/softest when it’s still a little warm; if yours has cooled quickly, I found that you could put each piece in the microwave for 5 to 7 seconds (only!) to get it a touch warmer again, without prematurely baking the cookie.

Go ahead and save all of those used pieces of parchment paper for the next step and beyond. We’re going to use them again.

#recipe

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a-magpie-witchling · 7 years ago

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WOOT BROKE W(b)ITCH HAUL

HEY YOU

YES YOU

ARE YOU BROKE BUT STILL WANNA PULL THE THREADS OF THE ETHER AND DEFY THE ESTABLISHED LAWS OF MAN INVOKING THE ANCIENT MAGICK?

GOOD.

You and I are gonna go S H O P P I N G

But, Semiramis! I just told you I’m broke! I can’t get nice things!

*smack*

WRONG.

The world is full of wonders, one of them being

DOLLAR STORES

Remember sweeties, a witch’s best friend is scavenging.

Open your eyes. Look around. Scout your neighborhood.

But what about the things that I can’t get out on the streets!?

That’s what we’re shopping for!

Now before we move on, close your eyes… then open them again because you need to read the rest of the message… and repeat the following mantra:

THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING. THE CRAFT REQUIRES NOTHING BUT MYSELF.

No fancy ingredients, no pretty crystals, no expensive incenses will work better than your RAW HEART AND SOUL.

Mkay?

Now let’s go get some of that good shit.

How good?

Diz gud.

Now, it’s no mystery that a broke ass witch needs to pay a visit to the local dollar stores to get her materials every once in a while, but if you’re like me and live in a place where there are no dollar stores (and there are no dollars either) WHERE TO GO?

The answer is here:

CHINESE IMPORT STORES ARE YOUR NEW SANCTUARY.

These places are AWESOME for a witch on a budget, because they carry EVERYTHING. From toys to art supplies to kitchenware…

AND SPIRITUALITY SUPPLIES.

(That’s where we come in)

Speaking of budget, by the way. Let’s set one.

Say… $15?

FIFTEEN AMERICAN DOLLARS. I will take you home with some nice and rare goodies that will spice up your spells.

Let’s go in.

Oooh what a promising start. This here, my friends, are 25 grams of the purest coke Palo Santo wood. Don’t like it in its natural state?

They have it in incense too!

But we ain’t getting that shit. I’m allergic so I can’t burn anything scented or else I… die.

But know they’re there, as well as essential oils, and they’re quite accessi-

WHAT!?

28 BUCKS FOR A BOTTLE OF ESSENTIAL OIL!?

AIN’T NOBODY GOT CASH FO DAT

Nah I’m just kidding. This is the price in pesos, meaning that these oils are *math happens* $1.55 each!

What a D E A L

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR BECAUSE I’M SOON TEACHING YOU HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN OILS.

Also, holy shit…

You HAVE to see the candles aisle in this place.

They have them twirly

Large

Larger

The photo is not blury, you’re drunk

Scented

Scentless

Birthdayful

Oh hellooo thereee~

Twelve candles for $1.94 you say?

Meaning SIXTEEN CENTS A CANDLE?

Adopted.

Don’t let anyone tell you cheap candles don’t get the job done, people!

Plus they burn just as good.

NOW at this point the store was 10 minutes away from closing time, so I had to stop taking pictures to get my ass outta there, BUT

Here’s a look at what we got:

That doesn’t look too good, let’s add a F I L T E R

Those little crochet doilies that will serve as my new altar tablecloths? They were $0.55

But Amis! Those don’t look too witchy, more like what my grandma puts under her vases!

First of all, how dare you.

Second of all, how dare you.

Granmotherly stuff is witchy by D E F I N I T I O N. Embrace the grandma aesthetic, y’all!

Also:

If you’re poor you have to be CRAFTY. Look at that! It has a pentacle now. How long did it take? Literally 30 seconds! Imagine what we could do with a whole afternoon!

Ok, I admit it, that was a fiasco, BUT WE’RE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

Let’s take a closer look at what else we brought, shall we?

This tiny chest is 7.5 cm wide x 5.5 cm tall x 5.5 cm deep (3 in x 2.1 in x 2.1 in) and will hold my pocket altar. It was *drum roll* $1.70!

I was getting tired of using my mom’s big ass scissors to cut my tiny delicate herbs, so I got myself this pair of snips! Price: $0.55 and they’re sharper than Tom Hiddleston’s style. Plus they serve a multitude of purposes, like shanking a bitch.

A quick stop by the crystal shop that was also closing (pfft crystal shop. Sounds like out of a fantasy novel, love it) yields the following goodies:

-Onyx ($0.55)

-Fluorite ($0.27)

-Snowflake obsidian (hard to get where I live. It’s kinda pricey at $2.20. I recommend other kinds of obsidian or maybe just black glass as I’ve been using until today, it still works awesomely. I got the obsidian because I wanted to experiment with it and my Mentor recommended me to get it, same as the fluorite).

-And the CUTEST little quartz formation. This one kinda defeats the purpose because it was a bit pricey. You don’t need it; any clear quartz will work the same. It was $4.50 and it was my guilty pleasure of the month. It also came with a free satchel that’s most certainly going to be used with magickal results in the foreseeable future.

More of it because it’s so gorgeous ♥

Back to the fluorite! That shit is large and cheap! Well, you see, it’s kinda ugly because I was part of a larger stone and broke down the middle when they were trying to perforate it to make it into a pendant.

But check this hot babe out

W O R K I T

Coming back from the imports store, I paid a visit to my pot dealer erh I mean my herbs supplier. Got myself some ginger for $0.27

AND THEN

I SAW IT

Maybe they don’t package it like this in your country, but here this little shitty capsule is worth its weight in GOLD.

Y’all know what this is?

This is SAFFRON.

Now normally I steer fucking clear of things this expensive, but when I asked my dealer I mean the vendor she said it was on sale.

This stuff LITERALLY sold by FRACTIONS OF GRAMS. In this case that’s 0.2 grams of saffron, that’s 0.007 ounces. YES. ZERO POINT ZERO ZERO SEVEN. Insert here Bond reference

Retail price? Normally around $8 per capsule (EIGHT AMERICAN DOLLARS!)

How much on sale?

TWO DOLLARS.

A tip for the broke witch: hunt down for sales. Even if you don’t use the ingredients in your spells, you can still trade them with other witches or with anyone, really.

After this I went home and decided to try out my new candles.

And as I said, if you’re poor, you gotta get crafty!

I cut one of the candles in half. A part went to my pocket altar, and the other half…

I used one of those ceramic saucers with the little erh… lower level circle in the middle?

USE CERAMIC. THIS IS IMPORTANT. IT RESISTS TEMPERATURE WELL AND YOU’RE GONNA NEED IT.

Melt the wax in the microwave or on the flame and then make sure it stays in the center of the saucer. Then take it out and wait until it cools down (or put it in the freezer if you are an impatient little shit). DO NOT LET IT SOLIDIFY COMPLETELY.

Then you take it out and use a round cookie cutter (or if you’re a cheap ass like me, find something else)

I just used the styling nozzle of my hair drying because F U K D A P O L I C E

Put it again in the freezer and once it’s completely solidified use a spatula because you, my dear witch

Just made yourself a moon wax amulet!

Engrave it with your sigils, place it on your altar, carefully soften the bottom with heat and use it as a seal, the possibilities are endless!

BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT THE REMNANTS!?

EVIL EYE WARD!

The rest? Melt it again or use it as a poppet in case you wanna cast a spell over an onion ring…

By the end of the day, our haul is:

-Altar cloth $0.55

-Herbs snips $0.55

-Mini-altar wooden box $1.70

-Dozen of blue candles $1.94

-Ginger root $0.27

-Satchel $0

-Snowflake obsidian $2.20

-Fluorite$ 0.27

-Onix $0.55

-Quartz crystal formation $4.50

-Saffron Capsule $2

A grand total of $14.53!

Of our budget of $15 we still have $0.47 that where I live is enough for the bus ride back home!

If we take away the unnecessarily pricey stuff (the quartz and the saffron) we got everything for $8.03!

Now if THAT’S not magick, I don’t know what is!

SOME FINAL TIPS!

1) REUSE as many things as you can.

2) MOVE THOSE FEET. I know it doesn’t sound appealing, but CHECK SEVERAL PLACES. Find the best prices by checking different stores and comparing.

3) BE CREATIVE. If you find yourself in need of something you can’t afford, think and find a way to replace it or get it through other routes. As I said, witch trading is a thing!

4) BARGAIN. There’s no shame in it, people! If you’re dealing with independent merchants and buy regularly/are buying a lot, try to get better prices! Don’t disrespect their business, though!

5) REMEMBER YOUR MANTRA. Witchcraft requires NOTHING. Except you.

Now go out there and work your Magick!

-Semiramis, the Magpie Witchling

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clarencenicholsonata · 4 years ago

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The Beginners Guide to Selling Ebooks Online (With Real-Life Examples)

Are you thinking about writing an ebook to monetize your skills?

Then your eyes are in the right place. Ebooks, just like their printed counterparts, have been around for decades. But in 2020, they are poised to grow like never before.

By 2025, analysts expect the ebooks industry to grow at an annual rate of 3.7%, reaching a projected market volume of US$19,997 million.

The opportunity is loud and clear. With the right attitude and tactics, you can take advantage of it and be one of the many entrepreneurs who make a living off their skills and knowledge.

Today, you will see how you can start selling ebooks online and make a living with everything you already know.

Research, Research, Research

The barriers to write and sell an ebook are few and easy to overcome. The challenge isn’t whether you can sell an ebook, but whether you have something worth writing about.

To write an ebook, you need a skill, experience, or knowledge others are willing to pay for. The best way to know if your book meets these criteria is by applying a simple rule of thumb: if anyone has ever paid you (or someone else) for the skills you have, you can use it in your ebook.

Think about it this way: if you are a designer who makes money creating logos, then the fact you have made money with your logo design services is proof that you can make money with an ebook about that topic.

Another way to check the potential of your ebook is to look for competitors. If others are writing about the same topic as you, then it’s a good sign.

Go to Amazon and search for your skills. Let’s say you were a content writer like myself, and you were interested in teaching others how to write content.

There are 20,000 books about the topic of content writing, with many successful authors in the results. If you were interested in writing about that topic, then this is already a good sign.

Once you have verified the viability of your ebook’s topic, you want to define a specific angle. You can sell an ebook on writing, but you can make it about grammar, storytelling, journalism, etc.

To find the right angle, you want to dig deep into the audiences your ebook will cater to. This research will also help you later when you decide to promote your ebook to this audience.

Reddit and Facebook groups are sites that beam with activity in specific niches from every topic imaginable. In our example, this could include the subreddit r/Writing or groups like Writing tips for beginners.

Read through dozens of posts and see what people talk about. Look for patterns in the pains and problems that arise. The more people explicitly wish for a solution, or the more they complain about a problem, the more attractive your ebook will be.

1. Create the Ebook

Writing and creating an ebook worth buying is a topic that could take a whole new post. But without a well-written, well-designed ebook, your chances of succeeding become smaller, so we can’t ignore this step.

The bad news is that writing an ebook can take months of hard work before you can decide to launch it to the public. But as James Scherer said before, you can hack your way through your ebook creation process by reusing existing content.

Tim Ferriss, the author of the popular book 4-Hour Work-Week, wrote his latest two best-selling books, Tribe of Mentors and Tools of Titans, based on his popular podcast.

If you have ever published content about your ebook’s topic in any format—written, audio, video, etc.—you can take this content and build an outline with it. You can then add more ideas, take out unnecessary ones, update them, and improve them.

Before you publish your ebook, hire an editor to fix any grammatical mistakes and clarity issues. An editor will make your ebook look professional.

Then, hire a designer to create a cover and a template for the rest of the book. An ebook cover will also showcase a professional attitude, raising the perceived value of your ebook.

Need help promoting your next ebook?

Book a free call to learn how our team of marketing experts can help you to promote and market your new ebook today.

2. Collect Leads

Before you even start editing your ebook or designing its cover, you want to start working on its marketing. You want to launch your ebook to an engaged audience and not to the sound of crickets.

The first step to building an audience involves collecting leads on your website from potential buyers. Two tactics you can use to do so are pop-ups and quizzes.

Pop-ups have earned a bad reputation, but they work. They allow you to capture the visitor’s short attention span and offer them something of value. Among the many options available, you can use:

Exit-based pop-ups trigger when a visitor hovers the top part of the site, indicating they are about to close the tab.

Entry-based pop-ups trigger as soon as a visitor enters a website.

Time-based pop-ups trigger after a predefined amount of time.

For example, Wishpond uses an entry pop-up that leads to the pricing page.

Consider offering the reader the opportunity to get your ebook before you launch it to the public. Better yet, offer them a discount.

Quizzes are an alternative way to collect leads. Unlike pop-ups, quizzes have the visitor assess themselves on a topic of their interest. For example, Netpeak Software, an SEO software company, offers a quiz that helps SEO practitioners see whether they prefer “white-hat” or “black-hat” SEO techniques.

After the visitor finishes the quiz, they can get the answers in exchange for their email address. The more interest your quiz generates, the larger your email list can grow.

Whatever list building tactic you choose, you want to create an automation campaign for your leads. You can use a marketing automation campaign to notify your subscribers about the launch of your ebook, among other news related to your ebook.

3. Create Landing Pages

As you finish your ebook and build an email list for its launch, you want to create a landing page. The landing page will work as the base for your entire ebook promotional campaign.

Compared to creating a website from scratch, which involves designing a web template, setting up your hosting, and so much more, creating a landing page is easy. With the help of a landing page builder, it’s only a matter of knowing what you want to say rather than how you can bring the page to life.

Your ebook landing page should have, at least:

A clear, powerful headline.

Concise and persuasive copy.

An image of your ebook’s cover.

A button—i.e., a CTA—that motivates your visitors to buy.

A money-back guarantee.

The design of your ebook landing page doesn’t have to be fancy. Take a look at the landing page Kai Davis uses to promote one of his ebooks:

Above the fold, you see the benefit of the ebook—“Selling Discovery-as-a-Service”—a short explanation of the ebook, and a brief, exciting introduction to the topic. The rest of the landing page includes an explanation of the ebook’s premise, price, testimonials of past customers, and a risk-free money guarantee.

You can also create a landing page as a tool to collect leads before and after your ebook launch. Traditionally, marketers use landing pages as a B2B lead generation tactic, where you offer a free ebook in exchange for your visitor’s email address.

In your case, you can offer a free chapter to entice your readers. Nathan Barry has used this tactic to generate leads for his ebook, reporting conversion rates between 2.4% and 5.2%.

4. Promote Your Ebook

The final step is where the fun begins. There are countless ways you can promote your ebook. Below, you will see that merit some consideration.

Share It on Your Website

The first and most crucial channel where you can promote your ebook is your website. In it, you can communicate not just what your ebook is about, but who you are. People will want to see more about you—your background and experience—your website will do that for you.

Within your website, you can promote your ebook with one of your pop-ups, as described above. You can even add banners and static opt-in forms about it.

Mark Manson, a blogger and best-selling author, shares a link to the books he has published right on the homepage. He adds more links to them throughout the site.

You can also make the ebook a part of your overall content strategy and create articles around the ebook’s sub-topics, promoting the ebook in between.

You can even write a post to promote your ebook, before or after the launch. Amy Hoy, the writer behind the blog Behind the Stacks, promoted the pre-launch of her latest ebook in her blog.

Find your highest-traffic posts and pages and add a banner or link to your ebook. If you have promoted other products before, replace the links to the landing page of your ebook.

Share It Online Communities

The key to any successful marketing campaign is to be where the buyer is. For you, this means the online communities where they hang out.

Use the communities you found previously and use them to build trust in the community. Share your content, offer free advice on the topic of your ebook, or simply help others. This can take months, but as you build clout in a community, people will start to follow you.

Chris Guillebeau, the author of several books on entrepreneurship, has used AMAs (ask me everything) in popular entrepreneurial communities as channels to promote his latest books.

Online communities will force you to continue to research your audience and create rapport with them. By the time of the launch, the people in the community will trust you, making it easier to promote and sell your ebook.

Run Facebook Ads

Facebook’s advertising network is one of the most scalable and effective marketing channels where to promote your ebook. Facebook gives you the option to add ads in the sidebar or news feed of its users, targeting the exact demographics you want to attract.

With the help of Facebook Audience Insights, you can target pretty much any audience you want. For example, this is how an audience interested in content writing would look like if I were to run ads to them:

Add the Facebook pixel to your website, especially your landing pages, so you target your ads to the people who visited your ebook landing page. You can even create lookalike audiences, targeting those who are similar to those who visited your landing page.

A Facebook advertising campaign can get costly fast if you don't track its performance closely. To avoid burning your cash irresponsibly, create a custom URL for your ads, and follow the effectiveness of each campaign and ad you run. Optimize your budgets to avoid overspending in the wrong ads.

With Facebook ads, you can directly promote your ebook, leading visitors to your landing page, or you can offer a free chapter before you ask them to buy it.

If your ebook is expensive—something that depends on your pricing strategy—you can consider the latter. Those who don't know you may not be willing to invest over $50 to buy an ebook whose author they don't know. But if you price ebook like an average Amazon book—think under $20— then you can lead your visitors to your ebook's landing page directly.

Start with a small budget, targeting a small audience—especially if this is the audience who visited your landing pages. There’s much more to mastering Facebook ads, so take your time to learn the most effective ways to use it.

If you don’t see positive results or see that the costs are too high, you can try some alternatives to Facebook ads. They are all equally effective, depending on your goals and budget, but if you want to diversify your advertising profile, consider trying:

Twitter ads.

Instagram ads.

Pinterest ads.

Summary

With your knowledge and skills, you can create and sell an ebook. All it takes is the right mindset and the right tactics. The process laid out here shows the overall process you need to use to launch an ebook that you can profit from successfully.

And with the right tools, like the ones Wishpond offers, it will be easier than ever to launch and promote your ebook.

About the Author

Ivan Kreimer is a freelance content writer for hire who creates educational content for SaaS businesses like Leadfeeder and Campaign Monitor. In his pastime, he likes to help people become freelance writers. Besides writing for smart people who read sites like Wishpond, Ivan has also written in sites like Entrepreneur, MarketingProfs, TheNextWeb, and many other influential websites.

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prolifeessaycontest911 · 4 years ago

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lsesu · 5 years ago

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Moving in: How to make your uni room a home on the cheap

It’s the big day! A number of you will be moving into your new accommodation this weekend - we hope that it goes as smoothly as possible for you. Now it’s time to unpack and most importantly, get decorating!

For a lot of you, this will be the first time you have lived away from home, and for all our international students, it could even be your first time living in another country.

No matter where you’re staying - halls, private housing or other accommodation – any university room can be transformed with a little bit of creativity.

Plus, if you’re savvy about it and follow our tips, decorating your room doesn’t have to cost you your entire first student loan instalment.

One of the key pillars of meditation is that your bedroom should be a sanctuary, a place of relaxation. This is why it’s important to make your room a relaxing and comforting space where you can chill out and be productive if need be.

Here are a few ways that you can jazz up your new space:

1. Start with your bed

Most likely to be the biggest piece of furniture in your room, and lets be honest, it’s probably the best piece of furniture too as it’s where we get our beloved sleep. So, make your bed the centre of attention by adding an eye-catching duvet cover and covering it with cosy cushions and blankets.

While there are some expensive ones out there, duvet covers don’t have to set you back a fortune! Many stores like Wilko, Matalan and Asda have some nice sets at very reasonable prices.

You can also bag cheap sets online, but be careful with purchasing from shops you don’t know - make sure you do your research on the retailer before buying and read up on trustpilot reviews to see how other customer experiences have been.

eBay and Amazon are typically OK to go with as they have guarantees that protect customers should products not meet the description, but it’s always good to be careful and read up on the seller and their past customer reviews.

Primark is a really good place for cheap (but cosy) cushions or blankets, so you can really load up your bed with the fluffy stuff. You can also try Wilko, Matalan, Asda and other supermarkets as they usually have a large range of cheap homeware stuff too.

2. Light it up

It’s pretty much a fact that decorative lighting immediately makes a room feel more homely. A bit of extra lighting can add a cosy and warm feel to your room, just the thing you need after a long day at uni.

Make sure you check your tenancy agreement and fire regulations of your buildings or houses as some may not allow lights that plug into the mains power sockets. If that’s the case – you can always pick up battery-powered LED lights instead.

Lamps are great for your bedside table, desk or even for different areas of your room if you’re looking for taller ones. Asda, B&M, The Range and Wilko are good places to start for lamps, and won’t set you back much on the cost side either.

Be sure to check whether your lamps include light bulbs as you may have to purchase these separately. Even if there is a bulb included, it’s a good idea to look into getting some energy saving lightbulbs – this will save you money in the long run if you have to pay bills on top of your rent. Wilkinson’s sells cheap energy saving lightbulbs.

For the extra special touch – grab yourself some fairy lights! This form of lighting can really transform the mood and atmosphere of your bedroom. Get some of these and you are well on your way to creating a sanctuary.

Argos, Primark and IKEA sell fairy lights so have a browse to see if any of them take your fancy. If you want to invest a little bit more into getting some really decorative or novelty fairy lights, then you can look at retailers such as Not on the Highstreet and search for other online retailers to get a bigger selection.

3. Put photos everywhere

Sticking up your photos will make your room feel more like your own and can transform it from zero to hero in a matter of minutes.

A quick and easy way to get a load of good photos is to use a company like Super Snaps who can print out a load of your Instagram photos for you. This saves you wasting time and ink trying to do it yourself.

Look out for deals and discounts from online photo printing companies if you aren’t in so much of a rush. Some companies like Free Prints offer 500 photos printed for free if you pay for the delivery, but make sure you double check the terms and conditions.

Get creative with how you stick them around your room too! You could put them on your fridge, create patterns with them on your walls (but be careful how you stick them up so as not to cause any marks) or even peg them to those fairy lights of yours.

Coming to university can get a little overwhelming at times, so surrounding yourself with photos of familiar faces, snaps from home and good times will help you if you are finding it a little tough being away from home.

Don’t go too crazy though! You have to ensure that you leave room for the photos of all the new memories that you will make at LSE!

4. Use everyday objects differently

Think outside of the box! There are so many everyday items that can be used in a different way that can add a little bit of quirkiness to your room.

We’ll give you some examples, but it’s when you find a new and creative use for something yourself, that will really give it a personal touch.

Need a bedside table? Get a cheap wire wastepaper basket, turn it over and hey presto! Alternatively, you could stack a load of old books on top of each other and fasten them together to create a makeshift table and chair.

Who said a shoe organiser needed to be for shoes? You can get one from IKEA or Wilko for around £5, get yourself one and fill it with anything you like! If you are someone with lots of clutter, it’s a good way to store everything, or use it as a decorating piece by putting colourful items in the pockets.

5. Get DOWN with UPcycling

Something that you definitely need to get savvy on! Turn any piece of old furniture from trash to treasure with a bit of creativity and manual labour.

Upcycling is the creative reuse of old furniture and unwanted items to transform them into higher quality, refreshed and re-energised pieces of homeware. This trend is on the rise and we can see why! Lots of people have achieved really stylish and effective results from their upcycling.

The best thing about upcycling is that anyone can do it, no matter how much money you have. You can re-paint, stick and re-fashion any item into something new. It’s a very cost effective and inexpensive way to source cool additions for your uni room or house.

So, get yourselves down to your local charity shop or car boot sale, grab yourself some unwanted things and get upcycling!

Heres a quick guide on how to get started with upcycling

6. Get it smelling lush

Nothing beats walking into a room that smells lovely. Make your room a more comfortable and familiar setting by adding some scents into the mix.

You should be careful when it comes to candles though. While they are awesome, some accommodations and houses won’t allow you to use them as part of your tenancy agreement, so make sure you check up on this.

Reed diffusers are a safer bet and you can get some super cheap ones from the high street! Try having a look in Wilko, Savers or any other supermarket and see if any of the scents take your fancy.

7. Keep all your study things in one area

Remember what we said about your bedroom being a sanctuary? Well, especially when it gets to exam time or assessment periods, it’s important that you try and keep it this way.

We know that you are going to have to do work in your room at some point, but try to keep any documents, notepads or any study-related things confined to one area, so that you can freely move away from it and rest when you’re done.

An easy go to is having all of your study things on your desk, on your pinboard (if you have one) or bookshelf. In the long run, this will hopefully help you keep your things organised and allow you to be able to switch off better after those long study sessions.

8. Washi tape EVERYTHING

Ok, if you’ve never heard of washi tape before, prepare to be amazed. It’s best described as the wonderful cross between masking tape and a rainbow. These magical rolls of tape come in so many colours and patterns and they are SUPER cheap to get a hold of.

The beauty of washi tape is that it doesn’t leave that sticky residue that Sellotape does, nor does it take 4 layers of paint/plaster off the walls, so you don’t have to worry about losing your deposit with washi tape.

The possibilities with washi tape are endless. You can decorate the edges of bookshelves to give them a bit more life. You can use them to stick photos up. You can use it add some flair to your upcycle products. You can use it to make charts, tables and planners. You can get creative and make some washi art on your walls….

One of our personal favourites – keep hold of your toilet roll tubes, cover them in washi tape and put them across your desk…you’ve now got a load of cool and quirky holders for all your pens, highlighters scissors, hair brushes and anything else for virtually nothing!

Trust us, you will not regret buying this. You can pick up some washi tape from The Works, The Range and Wilko. Check out the many ways that you can utilise the magic of washi tape here.

9. Decorate your walls

If you’ve followed all of the above, you will probably have some stuff across your walls by now. Decorating your walls will make a huge difference to the cosiness and personal feel of your room.

Think of your walls as being naked at the moment, so you need to go out there and find some cool, colourful and really “you” things to cover them up!

Always best to have another look through that tenancy agreement and building regulations of yours, as most accommodations don’t allow you to fasten things or blu-tak your walls.

Lucky for you, there are these amazing inventions called command hooks, which are another product that you can use to put things up around your room without it leaving any residue or marks (if you remove it correctly and as instructed).

Tapestries will bring lots of life to your room so why not head down to your local market, thrift shop or charity shop to see what you can find! Posters, pictures and any other decorations would be good for jazzing up your walls as well.

For this, try shopping in the homeware sections of most supermarkets, as well as Wilko, The Range, B&M, IKEA and Primark.

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kurtwarren54 · 5 years ago

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FLYING WITH A BABY – TIPS FOR TRAVELING WITH A BABY

I have so many feelings and thoughts on traveling with a baby. Best piece of advice I could give you: Throw all your expectations out the window, expect the worst, go with the flow, and you will survive. Survival being the key word. Let me be the first to tell you that you could pack and prepare perfectly and your travel experience can still be a challenge. Basically after flying with Otis, my respect level for parents that travel with babies or kids in general went through the roof. I feel like I want to high five every parent I see about to board a plane now because I know just how HARD and challenging the experience can be. That all being said, I am by no means an expert. I will share my tips and tricks below, but know that when it comes to traveling with kids, it’s an unpredictable ride you have to cruise through with them and hope for the best. Be prepared, and know that if things go the absolute worst they can go, you will likely never see these people again. Also, if you don’t have kids and for whatever reason are reading this post, if you see a parent struggling with their little one on the plane, know that the majority of us are working our ASSES off to keep those babies happy and occupied and a little game of peek-a-boo or even just a smile will go a long way for a parent and baby about to have a meltdown. So let’s start at the beginning: PACKING.

WHAT TO PACK FOR BABY WHEN TRAVELING

As far as packing goes, we decided to bring 1 HUGE suitcase for the whole family and this ended up being a huge mistake. Since our bag was overweight we had to pay a lot because of that. So if you learn from our mistakes, weigh your suitcase before you head to the airport!! If you don’t care about dropping cash on suitcases, you can go the route of packing 1 big one to minimize the bags you need to trek around with.

MOM TIP: Pack smaller suitcases so you aren’t charged overweight baggage fees at the airport

I did use these packing cubes to organize all of our clothes inside the suitcase and that is always a game changer. I packed 1 large cube for Otis, 2 for myself, and 2 for Blake. It’s great to be able to keep things organized and easily accessible. I live by packing cubes. I also fold everything using the marie kondo method so I can see everything I have packed. I have used these packing cubes for years that I found on amazon. They have held up through so many trips I could not even count them if I tried. I also recently got these that are personalized with both our names and by color and can be a fun way to easily distinguish whose cube is whose. I have used them a handful of times and they seem to be holding up well.

MOM TIP: Pre-plan baby outfits for each day and fold them up together. This way, each day you just take one folded bundle and it makes dressing baby in the morning easy and stress free so you can enjoy your vacation. I pair a top, bottom, and bib together.

I started packing at least a week before our trip (I am intense like that!) because I was so worried about remembering everything for all of us. I am a 100% extreme intense packer and while it stressed me out beforehand, it keeps me stress free when I reach my destination. Blake and I have our own google doc packing lists that we print out everytime we travel. We always update this list so that we can be sure to always pack the essentials and not forget our toothbrush for instance. Something so simple that if it’s not on the list, maybe we will forget to pack it!

MOM TIP: Create a spreadsheet list for trips that you can reuse each time you travel. Write down everything down to the smallest details like baby nail clipper because if it’s not written down, chances are that you will forget the most basic essentials.. Like diapers. Add diapers to your list right now!

We packed 3 carry-on bags also. One for Otis, Mom and Dad. Will list what I packed in each below. On top of big suitcases and carry-ons, we needed the rest of our baby gear. We used this nuna car seat bag to pack our carseat and base. Then we took our colugo stroller which comes with a backpack bag which made it easy to pack up and throw on our back if we weren’t using it. We also brought our colugo carrier for the plane and airport. We tried to travel as light as possible but at the end of the day, there is no such thing as traveling light with a baby. But I will say, one thing i love to practice is that I gather everything I want to pack and lay out it. Then I go through a round of edits as I like to call it. I rescan things and see what I need and what can be left home. From the initial packing haul, there are always some things that can be left home so always do a little “edit” of your own packing to see how you can lighten your load. Every bit of space makes a difference when you are packing for an additional family member.

MOM TIP: It’s sneaky but we threw an extra pack of diapers and wipes inside our car seat bag. You aren’t technically supposed to put anything else in there but it fit easily and saved us room in our carry-on. You never know when you will need an emergency stash of diapers and wipes.

PACKING CHECKLIST

Otis Carry-on: I used Otis’ carry-on as mine as well. So I kept my phone and wallet here because I only wanted to have to handle one bag at my feet for both Otis and myself. It’s an important reminder to pack all your medications and baby health items in your carry-on because you always want to be prepared in case of an emergency or your checked bag doesn’t arrive. Another thing to note was that I put all toys into a zipper pouch. This way I could easily access the toy bag and take 1 thing out at a time. I kept books organized in side pockets and kept the other loose toys attached to the bag with the toy straps and then placed in the front pockets. Bottles were placed upright in the side pouch specifically made to hold bottles. I tried to keep this bag super organized so it was easy to access everything while wrangling a wild little baby.

-Packing cubes (that came with the bag): baby medications (Tylenol, motrin, benadryl), baby aquaphor, baby thermometer, baby sunscreen, extra food pouches, wipes, diapers, formula, 1 outfit change, food bib

–2 dr brown bottles: prefilled with water to mix with formula

–Formula container pre-portioned and filled

–Water cup (munchkin miracle 360 cup): prefilled with water

–post-it notes: the cheapest most epic way to entertain a baby

–wet ones wipes: Germs be GONE. I made an effort to do my best sanitation when we sat down.

-hand sanitizer

–toy straps: MUST HAVE. If you don’t want your toys falling on the dirty airplane floor, BUY THESE NOW.

-toys: baby einstein, wooden shakers, books(this and this), crinkle book, maraca shaker, suction toys

–nursing cover

-changing pad (loaded with diapers and wipes)

-snacks: puffs in snack dispenser, yogurt melts, + food pouches

-adult snacks: dried fruit + chex mix + oreos (because I always need salty and sweet)

Mom Carry-on: This was everything that I technically should not need at all. It was more of a “just in case bag” that hopefully we would not need to open until we got to our destination. This bag would be stored in the overhead bin.

-1 outfit + Mom, Dad and Baby: I packed outfits suited for our destination so we would not need to unpack our entiresuitcase to change when we got there.

-Swimsuit Mom, Dad, Baby: I wanted easy access to swimsuits so that we could find it easily without opening our big suitcase and sorting through it.

-Flipflops Mom + Dad

-Mom Makeup: I always try to pack my makeup with me in case my luggage gets lost

-Mom Skincare toiletries: Ditto for keeping skincare with me so its not lost if my luggage gets lost.

-Baby Formula: It’s ESSENTIAL to put this in a carry-on so we have a backup in case we got majorly delayed. We use Enfamil Enspire and I always buy these double boxes.

Dad Carry-on: Blake usually packs a backpack so he can be hands free so he is usually in charge of all the electronics and the snacks we buy at the airport.

-laptops

-camera

-baby monitors (we use nanit with wifi and motorola when we don’t have access to wifi)

-tablet to use as monitor/entertainment

Suitcases

Stroller Backpack from Colugo: We use the colugo stroller and what I love about it is that it’s small enough to fit in the overhead bin in the plane. And comes with the backpack case to make it even more compact.

Nuna Car Seat Bag: This held our carseat and base

Baby Carrier from Colugo: This is essential with a baby so you can be hands free going through security

MOM TIP: Prefill all bottles and water cups at home. TSA will allow you to travel with water for your baby or premade formula or breastmilk bottles. This will allow you to feed baby in an instant and not have to be scrambling to do it on the plane. No one gave us any problems at the airport.

NAVIGATING THE AIRPORT WITH A BABY

I think everything can seem super overwhelming when you are doing it for the first time. When we got to the airport, I actually used my baby carrier to wear Otis while checking our bags and going through security. This was a GAME CHANGER. We also have Global Entry which allows us to go through TSA precheck which also makes things much easier on us while traveling with a baby. I highly recommend looking into TSA precheck if you can and know you have a trip coming up.

Going through security was pretty painless. I didn’t need to remove any of my bottles or formula etc. I just alerted the TSA agent that I had them with me and they took a peek through my bag after it went through the scanner. We folded up our stroller and popped it on the conveyor belt to also go through the scanner. I was also able to keep Otis in my carrier and wear him through the metal detector so that made life super easy not having to readjust holding him and be juggling our bags.

After we got through security, we put Otis in his stroller to give our backs a break and to allow us both to use the restrooms before getting on the plane.

IN THE AIR WITH A BABY

Obviously being in the plane was the hardest part about traveling with a baby. Never has time seemingly stood still as it did during that first flight with Otis. Before sitting down I used wet wipes to wipe down every possible surface I could see… because obviously Otis put his mouth all over that airplane. Say what you will, I desperately with all my power tried to keep him from touching random things and doing that… but it is what it is. You do your best. Before we even took off, Otis was squirming around since he was already crawling and just wanted to be free from our arms and explore on his own. No can do on an airplane little buddy! It was the moment that made everything sink in… shit. We were stuck on this plane for 6 hours…. and it was going to be the longest 6 hours of our lives. HA!

MOM TIP: Prep a present! Prep mini bottles of liquor and add a little custom label and pop into your carry-on. Ours said, “Have a great flight. <3 Otis” We did this just in case things went bad and we needed to give our neighbors a little “I’m sorry we have a cranky baby have a drink on us” present. Doesn’t have to be booze, maybe you make a snack bag, something easy. Always nice to be kind to your neighbors

One of the most important tips when flying with baby is making sure to feed them at takeoff and landing. This is to help relieve the pressure in their ears. A flight attendant also told me on our flight that when they pressurize the cabin before take off is also a time you should feed your little ones since that will also affect their ears. I was breastfeeding in a 3 seat row and luckily I had a very sweet woman next to me who was accommodating to the fact we had our baby with us. Not gonna lie, it wasn’t an ideal situation and I am pretty go with the flow nursing on the fly. There just isn’t much space so if we had the choice I would 100% recommend a window seat.

MOM TIP: If you are nursing, grab a window seat so you can have somewhere to lean and not have to worry about people on both sides of you.

I did everything right… fed during pressurizing the cabin, and during landing… and Otis DEATH cried. It was not as bad taking off as it was landing. He refused my boob. Refused my bottle. HE just screamed bloody murder and it was one of the saddest and most stressful moments. You just feel horrible for your baby, you are trying literally everything to sooth and calm them down, and they are screaming so loud the whole plane can here and your just utterly embarrassed, sad, emotional. The tears were coming for me. I was about to lose it. And then my seat mate looked at Otis and started to play peek a boo. GOD BLESS THAT WOMAN. Like I said earlier, you can do everything right.. And shit still happens. I obviously knew I needed to feed Otis and was doing my best to do so for his ears. Lots of people were also telling me that if I fed him he would feel better while he was screaming but he literally refused every form of food at a certain point so he just cried it out and thankful we were landing and I had a literal angel woman sitting next to me. Just want to keep it real and let you know it’s not always smooth sailing. And if you aren’t a parents and cringe when you see a family coming on a plane… be kind. Because chances are they are just working so hard to survive their journey and doing their best to keep their child and you happy. Just some food for thought.

After the initial take off, we basically cycled from toy to toy. The main key was not taking more than 1 toy out at a time. We exhausted that 1 toy before pulling out a new one. This way we would keep him as occupied as possible.

MOM TIP: Ask your flight attendant for an empty plastic cup and plastic spoon. They make the most simple toys and were endless entertainment for Otis.

Our last pretty epic toy we would leave till the last resort was post-it notes. This was an epic way to occupy Otis. I would basically stick a few of them all over the chair and let him pick them up, crumble them, re-stick them etc. This kept him VERY occupied for a while. Also it’s such a cheap thing to buy and keep in your bag for the future.

MOM TIP: Make sure you get some new toys and books for your flight so baby is super stimulated exploring something new instead of an old toy they might lose interest in sooner.

In between wrangling toys, we would make sure that Otis had the meals he needed. To keep things minimally messy, we brought food pouches with us (AND A BIB!) to feed to him. Our favorite pouches that don’t need to be refrigerated are here and here. Not gonna lie, it wasn’t mess free because one time Otis got hold of the packet and squeezed it all over both of us. This is why packing an outfit is always essential when traveling with a baby. But having that quick and easy meal option was great for the plane. Snacks were also essential for keeping his hands and mind busy. I packed his snack cup and pre-filled it with his favorite puffs and had a bag of yogurt melts with me as well.

When we got super desperate, I pulled out our loud sound toys. Good news is the actual plane is loud and the sound didn’t disrupt anyone around us bc I could barely even hear it. This was also when we would pull out our ipad and put on some Puppy Dog Pals or Disney for Otis. He doesn’t really watch but he loves the songs and it was another thing to focus on. I had a super old ipad that I got this kids case for and now have it for prepped for him with kids shows.

When it came to diaper changes, when we first got on the plane, one of us went to scope out which ones had a changing table. We flew Delta and never had a problem finding a changing table on the plane. I would carry my changing pad equipped with wipes and diapers and Otis and that is it. It was… interesting. HAHA. Our changing table opened up on top of the toilet and it’s just super slippery and your in a tiny space. So if you can, bring some kind of distraction toy with you to make your life easier.

Naps/Sleeping were a particular challenge for us on our flights. Otis is normally the most amazing little sleeper and he just fought it with every fiber of his being on our flights. He isn’t one of those babies that just falls asleep on us anymore because he’s so mobile. So, we got out our trusty baby carrier and Blake walked with him up and down the airplane aisle until he fell asleep. It wasn’t easy, but FINALLY Blake got him to sleep. We got a solid 30 minutes which was better than nothing. You just have to be willing to go with the flow when you are traveling and know that not all your schedules will be met or kept.

MOM TIP: Wear your baby in a carrier to try to get them to nap. Trust me, better to be seated uncomfortably with a sleeping baby attached to you then wrangling a cranky baby past their naptime.

Basically Blake and I tag teamed everything and switched off often to give each other a break. When we were preparing to land and the plan started its initial descent, we prepped milk for Otis and he took it at first and then started to refuse it. His poor little ears must have been affected by the pressure and he was DEATH CRYING and there was nothing we could do to console him. I tried to breastfeed him, bottle feed him, give him a bottle with water, a straw cup, etc and nothing would work. It was likely the worst part of our trip. I was heartbroken for him to be so uncomfortable and just not be able to help him. It was beyond horrifying and the tears started to stream down my face. And then our kind neighbor started playing peek a boo with Otis. Somehow it got him to start to calm down a little bit. Honestly that part was really hard. You feel completely helpless and honestly embarrassed because your baby is screaming. So many emotions. But I am here to tell you that we all survived. And he left the plane smiling and high fived the captain.

GETTING OFF THE PLANE WITH A BABY

When our plane arrived at the gate, I put Otis in the carrier so we could easily grab all our bags. It’s always a gamechanger to be hands free. We grabbed all our stuff and then deplaned and changed his diaper right away when we got off. To navigate the rest of the airport, since we knew we were going to have to wait for a rental car etc, we put him in the stroller to get a little break. Of course the minute he hit his car seat in the rental car… OUT. Completely passed out.

Not gonna lie, after flying with Otis both of us turned to each other and said, “Let’s not fly again soon!” Flying with a baby is next level. It’s 100% a different and much more challenging experience. Gone are the days of face masks, bubbly, and naps on planes. Because I could have used a drink but didn’t even have a safe location to drink it or keep it with wrangling a baby. I legit told Blake to fill a camelback with wine for me next time. I’m only half joking

In all seriousness, I came in with zero expectations and it was absolutely a challenging and stressful experience, but we also did have fun. Watching Otis look out the window, play with post-its and wave to our neighbors on the plane just burst my heart right open. That first day walking into the Four Seasons Maui, grabbing my swimsuit, and letting Otis crawl onto the sand… it’s incredible to be able to share some of our favorite places and experiences with Otis. It’s 500% worth the travel adventure.

MOM TIP: Make sure you plan a long enough trip so you make the travel day and struggles worth your while! We originally only booked a 4 night stay for our first plane trip and I had wished we added on at least 2 days.

ADJUSTING TO A NEW TIME ZONE WITH A BABY

On the day we arrived to Maui, we decided to keep Otis up as long as possible to adjust him to our current timezone. There are lots of different schools of thought on how you should adjust your little ones. Some people stay on their home time zone, others adjust. All depends on what works for your baby and your family. Otis is a pretty resilient traveler and doesn’t have sleep problems when we travel to hotels or family etc so we chose to adjust him to the Hawaii time zone.

Basically the key is to keep them up as long as humanly possible as close to their new bedtime as possible. We kept him busy exploring new places in the hotel and went out to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner. He was busy eating his pasta and Blake said, “Looks like he is closing his eyes.” The next minute we look over, Otis fell asleep sitting up in his highchair. Poor guy was so exhausted from our travel day that he just passed out. I have NEVER seen him do something like this. It was one of the sweetest little things to witness him snoring at the dinner table. We somehow managed to transfer him to this stroller and he stayed asleep while we ate our dinner. Of course before our check came, he woke up freaking out having a meltdown and Blake had to leave the restaurant with him and bring him to the room while I got the check. We quickly headed to the room and got him down to sleep and he had no problem sleeping through the night.

FINAL TRAVEL THOUGHTS

Guys, we did it. We survived. And so can you! I think the most important thing to note about traveling with a baby is you really have to let go of any type of expectations. Throw them out the window. If you can find a way to go with the flow, it will make the experience more digestible for the whole family. Yes it might go amazing, no problems, angel sleeping baby that takes their nap… that is goals. Serious travel goals. It could also go terrible with a diaper blowout and some tears shed. Just know that you got this Mamas and the next time you see a parent traveling with their kids, seriously give them a high five because I know most of you are working your butts off to keep those littles happy. Prep as best you can and roll with the punches. Good luck!! If I think about anything else that might be useful will add it to this post.

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elizabethcariasa · 5 years ago

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FLYING WITH A BABY – TIPS FOR TRAVELING WITH A BABY

WHAT TO PACK FOR BABY WHEN TRAVELING

MOM TIP: Pack smaller suitcases so you aren’t charged overweight baggage fees at the airport

PACKING CHECKLIST

–2 dr brown bottles: prefilled with water to mix with formula

–Formula container pre-portioned and filled

–Water cup (munchkin miracle 360 cup): prefilled with water

–post-it notes: the cheapest most epic way to entertain a baby

–wet ones wipes: Germs be GONE. I made an effort to do my best sanitation when we sat down.

-hand sanitizer

–toy straps: MUST HAVE. If you don’t want your toys falling on the dirty airplane floor, BUY THESE NOW.

-toys: baby einstein, wooden shakers, books(this and this), crinkle book, maraca shaker, suction toys

–nursing cover

-changing pad (loaded with diapers and wipes)

-snacks: puffs in snack dispenser, yogurt melts, + food pouches

-adult snacks: dried fruit + chex mix + oreos (because I always need salty and sweet)

-1 outfit + Mom, Dad and Baby: I packed outfits suited for our destination so we would not need to unpack our entiresuitcase to change when we got there.

-Swimsuit Mom, Dad, Baby: I wanted easy access to swimsuits so that we could find it easily without opening our big suitcase and sorting through it.

-Flipflops Mom + Dad

-Mom Makeup: I always try to pack my makeup with me in case my luggage gets lost

-Mom Skincare toiletries: Ditto for keeping skincare with me so its not lost if my luggage gets lost.

-Baby Formula: It’s ESSENTIAL to put this in a carry-on so we have a backup in case we got majorly delayed. We use Enfamil Enspire and I always buy these double boxes.

Dad Carry-on: Blake usually packs a backpack so he can be hands free so he is usually in charge of all the electronics and the snacks we buy at the airport.

-laptops

-camera

-baby monitors (we use nanit with wifi and motorola when we don’t have access to wifi)

-tablet to use as monitor/entertainment

Suitcases

Nuna Car Seat Bag: This held our carseat and base

Baby Carrier from Colugo: This is essential with a baby so you can be hands free going through security

NAVIGATING THE AIRPORT WITH A BABY

After we got through security, we put Otis in his stroller to give our backs a break and to allow us both to use the restrooms before getting on the plane.

IN THE AIR WITH A BABY

MOM TIP: If you are nursing, grab a window seat so you can have somewhere to lean and not have to worry about people on both sides of you.

MOM TIP: Ask your flight attendant for an empty plastic cup and plastic spoon. They make the most simple toys and were endless entertainment for Otis.

MOM TIP: Make sure you get some new toys and books for your flight so baby is super stimulated exploring something new instead of an old toy they might lose interest in sooner.

MOM TIP: Wear your baby in a carrier to try to get them to nap. Trust me, better to be seated uncomfortably with a sleeping baby attached to you then wrangling a cranky baby past their naptime.

GETTING OFF THE PLANE WITH A BABY

ADJUSTING TO A NEW TIME ZONE WITH A BABY

FINAL TRAVEL THOUGHTS

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ruwinhimself-blog · 5 years ago

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Day 38 - Interviewing

A talk by Richard Carrillo (of UbiSoft Toronto) just came out today called ‘Interviewing for Game Design’ on the GDC YouTube channel so I figured we’d check it out and maybe take some notes. I’m sure there will be some helpful tips for nailing the interview process which I will surely need.

Richard noticed there a lack of consistency among interview results for candidates based on the people who interviewed them. So he wanted to know what questions other senior team members were asking that led them to the occasional opposing response to candidates. So Richard decided to watch and be involved with some of the interviews to see what was being done differently.

Standard GoTo’s

Experience

Resume Trap - Did they really do it?

Generally interviewers would pull out the resume, ask about interesting items on it and start probing along the way. Interviewers will spend some time determining whether they did what they actually said they did. Even if it has been determined that the candidate did all those things, it still doesn’t say if they’re a good designer.

Game Ideas

Game Designer vs. Game Enthusiast

Game designers don’t come up with game ideas. It is not our job to pitch. A game designer’s job is to pick all the different ideas up from other games and other members of the team and combine them into systems that work.

Richard also noticed that there is one burning question that begs to be asked during an interview but rarely is.

“Are you a game designer?”

A candidate can have experience, a process and ideas but that does not make someone a good game designer. Richard spent much of his time deliberating over how to ask candidates this question.

Richard put up a slide that separates what game designer’s do and don’t do (based on his studio and experience). He continued to hammer home that everyone has game ideas but what designers do is create systems, own the player experience, solve problems and create engaging gameplay loops.

Just to step out of this for a moment of meta discussion. This very topic is something that I have been struggling internally with. I wonder just what (form) of designer I am, as there are multiple types of designers (systems, level.. etc). It is comforting to hear that I am solidly on the game design side as my mind generally resides with each left side element. I actually struggle with level design and creating engaging spaces in the world, but I thrive on creating deep, interesting systems that keep the player coming back for more. Focusing on the overall experience is where I am most comfortable so it is exciting to hear that I closely align to UbiSoft Toronto’s definition of a game designer.

Richard then segues into questions that can be asked during interviews that answer how familiar and how thorough their understanding is with the aforementioned principles.

He found that this question comes up a lot and the purpose of it is essentially, “I want you to talk until I hear something interesting.” Use this as opportunity to talk about a system in particular.

WARNING: LONG GAMER SYSTEM RANT

In my case, one of my favorite examples of a game that I love that had some disappointing systems is Diablo 3. It was an incredibly fun and well made game, but the blood shard system needed some work. With this system, you would obtain a variable amount of currency from end game activities and this currency would be used to ‘target gamble’ on a particular item. I felt with how infrequent equipment upgrades were, not giving the player a bit more control over when their rewards were received created a poor experience. We already have a variable amount in how many blood shards are received-- I would have much preferred that specific items could have their own blood shard cost, or that a separate currency could be acquired to target these specific pieces. This would create a more fixed reward schedule that runs parallel to the game’s normal entirely chance-based drops-- giving players something to look forward to, even if nothing of use has dropped in some time. I am cognizant of the fact that a system like this may decrease the amount of time players may play the game, as they may reach that critical mass in equipment sooner.

Which leads me to my next system critique for Diablo 3. I didn’t intend to detour this far away from our post topic. I’m sorry, but I love the series. Like, really, really love it and it broke my heart that it didn’t live up to my (no doubt astronomical) expectations following Lord of Destruction.

Part of what made Diablo II great was your ability to show off all the great items you had-- and that you could give them all away if you wanted. Not that you would, but you could. Diablo III implemented a (to me) rather puzzling restriction on items. Only the people in your game at the time that you found a specific item were eligible to receive that item from you (and only for a limited amount of time). In my eyes, part of the allure of ARPG/Hack and Slash power fantasy is becoming filthy rich. Amassing some wild fortune of items or currency that can be lorded over others-- much like real life. We take some amount of pride in our accomplishments and having the ability to profoundly affect someone else’s journey through Tristram profoundly on a charitable whim felt great (I imagine it is akin to being Mr. Beast giving away thousands of dollars to random people). Or perhaps even gifting a friend your entire estate when you decide you’ll come back next ladder reset. This grounds the experience. Without (at the very least) free trading, the game may as well be a single player ARPG. I can take a stab at why they implemented this loot system. They had planned the game around having an auction house and that was supposed to cut out the middle man of trading. It very well could have been that the experience was designed around having access to the best items in the game at any time, at the click of a button, had you the currency. A currency (gold) that was acquired steadily as the game was played so you always had some inevitability towards an upgrade, even if loot drops were not in your favor. You know what, I’m going to go out on a limb here. I think Diablo III was ahead of its time. I think an auction house is a great idea for a game about hoarding and peddling loot. I think trading was a miserable experience for the average player. I think today’s gamers would be much more accepting of this (especially if we skip the real money auction house fiasco).

ANYWAY...

The issue Richard had with that question was it was too open ended and left you open to the candidate discussing a game you’ve never heard of, or going off on subjective tangents.

He found that the best way to rephrase that is as follows:

Bonus: See if they understand the implications of adding or removing that mechanic.

Here is that question in an interview.

Richard claims he doesn’t care about the answer. He wants to know what is going through your mind and how you problem solve. He is interested to know what steps you take.

He had asked this question in interviews to candidates and had received a myriad of responses like some of these (minus the last one):

The responses do not denote critical thinking about how removing that mechanic would impact the systems.

So here are some good answers (minus the first one):

The second answer shows that you are aware of how this would effect the system. The third shows that you are stepping through it as the player to understand the experience more closely. Both extremely valid ways to approach this.

In summation, this covers an understanding of systems and game loops in question form, but leaves problem solving and player experience out.

So we move on to the next question.

This is a very open-ended question, that may or may not be considering the candidates process. However there is a good answer to this. Interviewers are generally looking for something specific. They want to know about your experiences and how you have approached designing NPCs in the past and why. What factors would you consider?

A good way to phrase this question, if you wanted to understand process is this:

Some bad answers to this would be:

Clearly these candidates did not understand what being a designer entails. You are given a set of restrictions and you need to adhere to those restrictions and design a fun and engaging encounter. Be careful using to much reference to other games and not relating back to the product you’re discussing.

Which leads us to good answers:

And a great answer:

How can you get this encounter to cause less problems for stealthy playstyles? A candidate came up with a revelation that the tank was controlled by people and those people would occasionally leave their tank for a break. This creates an opportunity where both stealthy and guns-blazing playstyles have options. To me, this is a situation where you think outside of the box and find a solution that fits narratively and has mechanical implications. Bonus points if you come up with a solution-- in this case an NPC behavior system, that can be used throughout the entirety of the game instead of just an idea for this one encounter. Reusing assets! Modularity!

So what are our takeaways with this question?

Some general things to keep in mind as a candidate:

It is absolutely crucial that you play a wide variety of games. Game design isn’t a hobby. It requires you to be able to pull experiences from a swath of games for inspiration or even cautionary tales.

Truly understand what game design is. Take a loot at Liz England’s blog post ‘The Door Problem’.

When interviewing, remember to think out loud.

Richard says “ideas are like Legos in a sea of Legos.” You will be surrounded by people who have ideas, just like you. Your job is to find which of those legos in the sea come together to make the best experience.

I hope this has been as eye opening for you as has been for me.

See you tomorrow!

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