USMB Coffee Shop IV

[beautress]

View attachment 694429

Ha, he, he, ho! That guy looks like my doggie, Miss songie, when she wants attention. Thanks for showing that pic, Dajjal! <giggle>

 

[beautress]

Saturday morning!

Never before in history has it been more difficult to have a little snack.

Let the cartoon begin!

Your wish is my inspiration, Mr. Oddball! Snacks for you on the forever snacks table!

 

[beautress]

I can feel for DragonLady's problem. Going thru the same thing here, but here is different because it is HUD. So when they don't fix stuff here..I just call HUD and make a complaint. Still, nothing is being done according to HUD standards and its a slow process, but nothing like what she is going thru. And they don't fuck with me much, since they know I know what they know and more due to my past experience in property management in larger places than this dump. I just await Placerville to call..but unfortunately, there is a fire burning in Auburn and Placerville is in the same neck of the woods. Its only a matter of time before Placerville gets what Paradise got.

Gracie, have you called or written your Governor's office? You need to tell him you lost everything in the Paradise fire, that you escaped death narrowly that fateful day, lost your loved one, and are having a hard time getting your life back in order, then tell him to please help you be put on the top of the list for the next help given. That doesn't sound too unreasonable, except you can use far more convincing words than me, because I know so little of how tough that frightening escape must have been since I never came that close to death as you did. Prayers up again, dear Gracie, and I hope that request will work in your favor.

 

[Dragonlady]

Yesterday I got a hard jolt back to the real world. I had someone enquire if I could make 8 outfits for a New Year's Eve event. I looked at my sales year to date and they're up 250% over last year. I've just been putting stuff into bags and shipping it. There are two leotards, and 3 skirts I'm completely sold out of. I have 4 velvet dresses left. And I only have two tuxedos left - my biggest seller.

My daughter is moving at the end of September. And I'm going to Skate Canada at the end of October. So if you don't see or hear from much, from here on in, know I'm at least reading in my leisure time, if I have any, and keep a good thought for the Blue Jays.

Between now and December, I am about to be chained to my sewing machines. It'll be a good distraction from the Landlord nonsense. The prospect of my sales between now and Christmas being double what it was last year (my biggest Christmas season to date).

Please keep good thoughts for me. All kindnesses and prayers are most welcome.

 

[Persuader]

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

 

[Hossfly]

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

I have a coffee pot and a Keurig and they both make good coffee. But the best coffee is to get a big enough pot to hold a gallon of water. Bring it to a boil then add a 1/2 pound of Maxwell House grounds and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. The country boys will use this method plus adding a plug of Brown's Mule chewing tobacco for a distinct robust flavor. Try it, you'll like it!

 

[Dragonlady]

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

I like cardamon and have some at home. I might try putting it in coffee. I like cafe mocha, and cinnamon in my latte, but I'm not big on flavoured coffee beans.

I'm pretty much a coffee purist but I never blast others for their preferences. If we all liked the same things, it would be a boring world.

 

[Foxfyre]

I have a coffee pot and a Keurig and they both make good coffee. But the best coffee is to get a big enough pot to hold a gallon of water. Bring it to a boil then add a 1/2 pound of Maxwell House grounds and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. The country boys will use this method plus adding a plug of Brown's Mule chewing tobacco for a distinct robust flavor. Try it, you'll like it!

I think that might be a bit much just for Hombre and me.

 

[Foxfyre]

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

I discourage folks getting blasted in the Coffee Shop so I hope it was all in good humor. I personally am not fond of hazlenut or any flavored coffees really, but do enjoy a good roast and can tell the difference between the good stuff and the Maxwell House or Folgers that we usually drink.

 

[Foxfyre]

I have a coffee pot and a Keurig and they both make good coffee. But the best coffee is to get a big enough pot to hold a gallon of water. Bring it to a boil then add a 1/2 pound of Maxwell House grounds and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. The country boys will use this method plus adding a plug of Brown's Mule chewing tobacco for a distinct robust flavor. Try it, you'll like it!

Hombre and I use an old fashioned unfancy Mr. Coffee coffee maker and, though we have to replace it ever so often, that has served us well for many, many years. Our son was a Keurig guy but when he was here in February helping us out during the first week of Hombre's hip replacement surgery, he told us he tossed the Keurig because he figured out it was making him sick. Some kind of mold or something in it? I don't know.

 

[beautress]

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

Thanks for the hint, Persuader, because I love hazelnut coffee and cardamom is the grandmother of all sweet spices in my kitchen since I raised my children on baking a recipe called "Finnish cardamon bread," which started as a recipe called "Finnish Cardamon Braid." I dispensed with the time consumption of braiding the bread, reduced the flour and added Roman Meal raw cereal when the kneading started on my Kitchen Aid giant mixer, which still works, 45 years later. It got whacked on our move from Wyoming to Oregon in 1978, so we took it to this great repair place south of Portland, Oregon, who replaced the motor around 1979. It's worked for 43 years since then! I haven't made a loaf of bread since moving back to quite warm East Texas where we had 2 weeks straight of highs over 110 this year. I'm going to add cardamom to my coffee tomorrow morning. It's a staple in my kitchen, as important to me as Cinnamon is to many. I know it's gonna taste good! Oh, and just lately we got some rain, so we're enjoying cooler weather in the 90s as a high for the past week. Oh, my goodness, it's late.

If you've missed church too many times, please feel free to visit my hymns thread that isn't answered too much ( ) but it has some very fine John Rutter hymns as well has the joy of Americana gospel music. It's here: Zone1 - Be Thou My Vision, O Lord --Songs of love and trusting in God
My last post was a tribute to those our nation lost in WWI and WWII. I'm going to add a tribute to the Vietnam Vets, because it jsut occurred to me that we can't thank them enough for giving us a few more years of Constitutional freedoms. Thanks to Sam Elliott for his voice explaining what they went through in the name of human rights:

Zone1 - Be Thou My Vision, O Lord --Songs of love and trusting in God

www.usmessageboard.com

 

[beautress]

Hombre and I use an old fashioned unfancy Mr. Coffee coffee maker and, though we have to replace it ever so often, that has served us well for many, many years. Our son was a Keurig guy but when he was here in February helping us out during the first week of Hombre's hip replacement surgery, he told us he tossed the Keurig because he figured out it was making him sick. Some kind of mold or something in it? I don't know.

Tell him next time, dilute 2 cups of water with half a cup of white vinegar and run it through the coffeemaker, and run it through the brewing mechanism without any coffee in it. Dump the water/vinegar solution, and run two or three cups of water through the coffeemaker's system to rinse out the mechanism. The vinegar kills molds, and the heat of the brewing cycle kills everything else. If this cleaning has gone neglected more than a week, you'll notice the coffee just tastes better. A new pot of coffee also tastes better if you use distilled, Zero water, or Brita purified water. I don't know why that is, but I just know it is. Maybe it's the absence of chlorine, metals, or other chemical in hard waters of city "purification" systems. Heck, I have well water, and I still clean the coffeemaker regularly with the vinegar/water solution. If it doesn't purify the coffeemaker, you can add more vinegar than water, and rinse it twice with two separate "steam baths" described above. The up side is you may never have to purchase another coffeemaker because they last longer when sparkling clean and rinsed with distilled or purified H2O.

I mention once on here about liking hazelnut coffee and some coffee purist kinda guy kinda blasted me. bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I have found a new flavor 'cardamon coffee' unique taste...not sure if I like it but a very interesting flavor.

Wow, persuader I got up at 4:20 this morning and found the cardamon shaker and put a generous amount in the bottom of my coffee cup along with some hazelnut flavor with cream. It's right good. thanks for the hint! If it gets a little cooler, I may have to make some of that Finnish cardamon bread. Have a great Sunday and Bon apatite!

 

[beautress]

Yesterday I got a hard jolt back to the real world. I had someone enquire if I could make 8 outfits for a New Year's Eve event. I looked at my sales year to date and they're up 250% over last year. I've just been putting stuff into bags and shipping it. There are two leotards, and 3 skirts I'm completely sold out of. I have 4 velvet dresses left. And I only have two tuxedos left - my biggest seller.

My daughter is moving at the end of September. And I'm going to Skate Canada at the end of October. So if you don't see or hear from much, from here on in, know I'm at least reading in my leisure time, if I have any, and keep a good thought for the Blue Jays.

Between now and December, I am about to be chained to my sewing machines. It'll be a good distraction from the Landlord nonsense. The prospect of my sales between now and Christmas being double what it was last year (my biggest Christmas season to date).

Please keep good thoughts for me. All kindnesses and prayers are most welcome.

Best wishes with your sewing business, Dragonlady. I still own a quilt store in Wyoming, but haven't been back since 2010. I have an amazing friend who keeps the doors open and classes going to run the place. It makes very little profit, but I just left it open all these years to give my former Equality State business open to give customers a sewing option when they don't have to sew for family any more after the kids get married, go to college or their separate ways.. Small towns in low population states don't always have a quilt store, but I won't ever forget the community where I met my husband who passed after 44 years of the best marriage in the whole world. May all your works be beautiful as I know they are.

 

[Dragonlady]

Best wishes with your sewing business, Dragonlady. I still own a quilt store in Wyoming, but haven't been back since 2010. I have an amazing friend who keeps the doors open and classes going to run the place. It makes very little profit, but I just left it open all these years to give my former Equality State business open to give customers a sewing option when they don't have to sew for family any more after the kids get married, go to college or their separate ways.. Small towns in low population states don't always have a quilt store, but I won't ever forget the community where I met my husband who passed after 44 years of the best marriage in the whole world. May all your works be beautiful as I know they are.

I opened my Etsy shop in 2016. It's hard to get established on Etsy, and slow building your reputation. but it steadily built. Since it's dance and skating apparel for children, when the pandemic and lockdown hit and all classes and competitions were cancelled, business plummeted like a stone. 2020 sales were 20% what they were in 2019.

Last July things started to sell - very quickly. Last year's sales were 1/2 what they were in 2019, because nothing sold the first half of the year, but every single month including July, 2020 been my "best [month] ever. The Christmas season was almost too much. But I wasn't really well prepared for it. I hadn't replaced stock as it sold because sales weren't enough to pay website fees, much less pay for fabric to replace them. So last year I was scrambling to buy fabric and get things made, and virtually all of the money made went back into fabric which I was pretty much sold out of, for the big sellers.

This year I have the bolts of fabric sitting in the sewing room, to replace all of the sold out stock, and this Christmas season sales, and the money can go into my pocket this year. Now it's just production.

 

[Foxfyre]

I opened my Etsy shop in 2016. It's hard to get established on Etsy, and slow building your reputation. but it steadily built. Since it's dance and skating apparel for children, when the pandemic and lockdown hit and all classes and competitions were cancelled, business plummeted like a stone. 2020 sales were 20% what they were in 2019.

Last July things started to sell - very quickly. Last year's sales were 1/2 what they were in 2019, because nothing sold the first half of the year, but every single month including July, 2020 been my "best [month] ever. The Christmas season was almost too much. But I wasn't really well prepared for it. I hadn't replaced stock as it sold because sales weren't enough to pay website fees, much less pay for fabric to replace them. So last year I was scrambling to buy fabric and get things made, and virtually all of the money made went back into fabric which I was pretty much sold out of, for the big sellers.

This year I have the bolts of fabric sitting in the sewing room, to replace all of the sold out stock, and this Christmas season sales, and the money can go into my pocket this year. Now it's just production.

Given your appreciation for performing arts and artistic competition (figure skating etc), I would guess it is a labor of love. So happy it's going well for you.

 

[Foxfyre]

Tell him next time, dilute 2 cups of water with half a cup of white vinegar and run it through the coffeemaker, and run it through the brewing mechanism without any coffee in it. Dump the water/vinegar solution, and run two or three cups of water through the coffeemaker's system to rinse out the mechanism. The vinegar kills molds, and the heat of the brewing cycle kills everything else. If this cleaning has gone neglected more than a week, you'll notice the coffee just tastes better. A new pot of coffee also tastes better if you use distilled, Zero water, or Brita purified water. I don't know why that is, but I just know it is. Maybe it's the absence of chlorine, metals, or other chemical in hard waters of city "purification" systems. Heck, I have well water, and I still clean the coffeemaker regularly with the vinegar/water solution. If it doesn't purify the coffeemaker, you can add more vinegar than water, and rinse it twice with two separate "steam baths" described above. The up side is you may never have to purchase another coffeemaker because they last longer when sparkling clean and rinsed with distilled or purified H2O.


Wow, persuader I got up at 4:20 this morning and found the cardamon shaker and put a generous amount in the bottom of my coffee cup along with some hazelnut flavor with cream. It's right good. thanks for the hint! If it gets a little cooler, I may have to make some of that Finnish cardamon bread. Have a great Sunday and Bon apatite!

It isn't the coffee maker that was giving him problems but he believes it was the Keurig machine despite efforts to clean it. At any rate, the unpleasant symptoms he was having cleared up after he ditched the Keurig so he is unlikely to believe it was anything else.

 

[Dragonlady]

Given your appreciation for performing arts and artistic competition (figure skating etc), I would guess it is a labor of love. So happy it's going well for you.

Years ago I got a piece of advice which has served me well: If you have a hobby, turn it into a business and take advantage of the tax benefits. I've been sewing my own clothes since I was a teenager.

I started making costumes because my daughter was into skating, dancing and gymnastics. The outfits are expensive, and on top of ice time, skates, and coaches, sewing was the one thing I could do to keep costs down. Besides which you spend 10 hours a week at the rink, and if you don't find your own thing to do, you can go crazy sitting on the bench with the other mothers with nothing to do. Think Dance Moms, for real.

When other parents saw my daughter's outfits, they started asking me to make outfits for their kids. I wanted to buy a serger and they're expensive so I walked into the rink and said "OK. You got me. I'll sew for your kids, and walked out of the rink with 5 orders.

This enabled me to write off my daughter's figure skating expenses and competition costs because she was the lead model on the website. I didn't start attending live events until her coach told me to start taking her to big events so she could see what it was like. After she was injured and quit skating, I continued to make costumes and started a website, thinking it would be a good source of income when I retired. I started posting online to promote the website.

So my tickets to Skate Canada are tax deductible - I'll be networking with skaters and coaches who are running kids programs at their rinks. Ditto meals and transportation. 1/3 of my rent and utilities are tax deductible on account of my sewing studio. The income from the website, and the tax deductions for expenses, increase my income by 25%. I don't do a lot of dancewear but I am adding a line of ballet leotards, giving me a potential tax deduction for attending the ballet. I try to to push the "extras" too much, but I do deduct for fabric for things other than website clothing. As a seamstress, the clothes I sew for myself are promotional.

 

[Foxfyre]

Years ago I got a piece of advice which has served me well: If you have a hobby, turn it into a business and take advantage of the tax benefits. I've been sewing my own clothes since I was a teenager.

I started making costumes because my daughter was into skating, dancing and gymnastics. The outfits are expensive, and on top of ice time, skates, and coaches, sewing was the one thing I could do to keep costs down. Besides which you spend 10 hours a week at the rink, and if you don't find your own thing to do, you can go crazy sitting on the bench with the other mothers with nothing to do. Think Dance Moms, for real.

When other parents saw my daughter's outfits, they started asking me to make outfits for their kids. I wanted to buy a serger and they're expensive so I walked into the rink and said "OK. You got me. I'll sew for your kids, and walked out of the rink with 5 orders.

This enabled me to write off my daughter's figure skating expenses and competition costs because she was the lead model on the website. I didn't start attending live events until her coach told me to start taking her to big events so she could see what it was like. After she was injured and quit skating, I continued to make costumes and started a website, thinking it would be a good source of income when I retired. I started posting online to promote the website.

So my tickets to Skate Canada are tax deductible - I'll be networking with skaters and coaches who are running kids programs at their rinks. Ditto meals and transportation. 1/3 of my rent and utilities are tax deductible on account of my sewing studio. The income from the website, and the tax deductions for expenses, increase my income by 25%. I don't do a lot of dancewear but I am adding a line of ballet leotards, giving me a potential tax deduction for attending the ballet. I try to to push the "extras" too much, but I do deduct for fabric for things other than website clothing. As a seamstress, the clothes I sew for myself are promotional.

Awesome

 

[Hossfly]

 

[KissMy]

I like this thread's title "USMB Coffee Shop IV".

I've defiantly craved Coffee or Caffeine on an IV drip on many occasions. Do we get a central IV line PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter)? Or must we suffer the nurse trying to stab a vein every morning?

I hope the IV don't jack the prices 1,000% like medical bills do.