Tag Archives: Home

Revealing a serious Filson bag obession

Finally coming out with my extreme Filson bag love. From the tin cloth bag all the way through the briefcase and duffles. A decade of Filson-buying before you.

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Two fun ways to support Miriam’s Kitchen

You all know by now that my one true love is Miriam. Believe it or not, I am going to be making meat chili to compete in the chili competition to benefit Miriam’s Kitchen.

They’r Two fun ways to support Miriams Kitchen e smart. All of the opportunities for participating in fellowship and volunteering at Miriam’s are totally fun, including these two: a chili cook-off and a walk-a-thon — please consider participating:

A few weeks ago, we asked for your continued support to help our guests prepare for the cold winter months. Today, we’d like to give you an opportunity to provide that needed support to our guests with an invitation to our Fall events.

Chili Cook-off

On Saturday, October 22nd from 7-10 pm, we’re hosting our 3rd annual Chili Cook-off!

Think you have the best tasting chili in DC? Just 6 chili chef slots remain!
Want to pick the winner of the cook-off? Only 7 judges’ tickets are left!
Interested in eating a lot of chili? Pick up 1 of the 30 remaining chili taster tickets today!

In addition to having gallons of chili on hand, we’ll also have plenty of desserts and drinks to share. Buy your tickets today, before they sell out!

Help the Homeless Walkathon

Join us for the 2011 Fannie Mae Help the Homeless 5K Walkathon on the National Mall on Saturday, November 19th at 9 am (or even better–sleep in and participate as a virtual walker). This is the last year the walkathon will be held on the National Mall, and perhaps the last year we’ll be participating (the Walkathon provides nearly 10% of our funding each year, so this is a big deal.)

Our goal is to recruit 1,500 virtual and in-person walkers for our team (which will result in a $25,000 grant being made to MK!) Help now by signing up today.

Questions about either event? Email ashley@miriamskitchen.org!

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The benefits of telecommuting

During this post-recession, a US survey compared the amount of work produced by those who stay at home to those who physically go to the office every day. For example, of the 5,299 people that were included in the survey, only 35 percent actually did the total of 8 hours a day, when working from home. The rest averaged their clocked time in anything between 1 to 7 hours a day. This however is a very narrow-minded critique of the telecommuter. While such tick-tocking of time is important when measuring productivity in the office, the amount of work completed while at home, not the number of active hours, determines a telecommuter’s success. Oddly enough, this survey also focused on the fact that 1/3rd of these telecommuters stay in their pajamas during the day though why that has any connection to their productivity is beyond a college student such as myself.

Thanks to the Internet as well as blossoming new technology, the entire idea of working has evolved, or degraded depending on your point of view. Some with a more antiquated look prefer the human contact, the dressing-up, and the personal touch, which brings in those extra clients to add to their ever growing repertoire of productivity. In certain instances, it can be agreed that e-mails just lack the expression and sincerity that a proper lunch meeting could provide. In contrast, others of the younger generation, or those who are simply in need of cash due to the unforgiving economy, disagree: if you can make money without getting out of bed, what’s wrong? It’s a personal as well as professional choice to enjoy a different working environment.

Though, you could look at the two different sides like one cohesive cycle. The worker bees dress up in their yellow/black stripes and fly about to gather pollen a.k.a. information using physical contact and professional smiles, getting their own feelers in the pot. The drones, those who stay connected to the hive (Internet), use that information pooled in the honey jar to create the money which is then pushed back into the economy to start the circle all over again. Not a perfect analogy but biology was always a good example to follow, especially when considering consumerism. At this point in commercial time, even a small business cannot thrive without adding their little feelers to the hive. However, in that same instance, those corporate owners with the personal touch, giving faces to the faceless, add quality and character to a company, providing that extra boost in this cutthroat economy of blossoming and withering businesses. In conclusion, a combination of both telecommuters and worker bees will pave the way in what will eventually become the future of the money-making world. Show me the Honey!!

Some Telecommuters Are Lazy Bums That Stay In Their PJs All Day [Work] (gizmodo.com)
Will Your Next Job Be Virtual? (money.usnews.com)
US survey: 1 in 5 telecommuters work an hour or less a day (go.theregister.com)
A Fifth of Telecommuters Work Less Than An Hour Per Day (theregister.co.uk)
GUEST POST: New Jersey, USA: Mama Bee, Worker Bee, Busy Bee…Balancing Bee? (publish on July 26th) (worldmomsblog.com)

Thank you Husky Tools Bloggers!

What better way to celebrate Manic Monday than to thank those who help make the week productive and successful? At Abraham Harrison, cases of the Mondays are pretty non-existent. Hopefully our enthusiasm and gratitude for the bloggers and Twitter users who have helped us out can inspire you to have the best week ever. The Husky Tools campaign helped launch a wide variety of Husky Tools (all under $20) at the Home Depot’s Gift Center. These bloggers and Twitter users highlighted their value and variety with profiles on a multitude of Websites. We appreciate their help and hope you check out their posts!

Walking into the Lush Green Hills of Portland

Lovely walk into the hills of Portland, including Washington Park, the lovely Rose Garden, and also the two uncovered, 100-year-old, reservoir. As I get more fit I can go walking and then jogging and then running and then scampering into the lovely lush evergreens in the hilly ring around Portland proper — wonderful, verdant, gorgeous, and fragrant.

Overheard in New York Doesn’t Suck

This Overheard in New York submission is particularly brilliant and is a completely soap operatic in only seven lines:

Mom: Say you’re sorry to Billy.
Tiny girl: But I’m not sorry!
Mom: Katy, you apologize right now!
Tiny girl: But you said lying was bad!
Mom: And hitting is bad too! Now say you’re sorry!
Tiny girl: I hit him with a stick because he sucks. And he still sucks, so I’m not sorry.
Mom: You hit him with a stick? (grabs Katy and storms over to father on picnic blanket)
Tiny girl, over her mother’s shoulder: I’m not sorry, Billy!
–Central Park

Via Billy Decides to Stop Sucking

Broccoli Tree House

Found this on Laughing Squid. Cool, right?

A Chilly Glass of Milk with Chocolate Ice Cubes

I am not much of a sweet tooth but even I think this is to die for:

2011 06 21 VanillaMilk2 A Chilly Glass of Milk with Chocolate Ice Cubes

Via The Kitchen’s Summer Treat: Vanilla Milk with Chocolate Ice Cubes:

Longing for a glass of something icy cold this summer? Or maybe a scoop of ice cream? Have both in one glass with this unusual treat — vanilla-flavored milk with chocolate “ice cubes” that slowly melt and swirl into the milk.

A Chilly Glass of Milk with Chocolate Ice Cubes

Messaging the less educated, less affluent, more multi-cultural online

A new Nielsen report: The New Digital American Family: Understanding family dynamics, media and purchasing behavior trends is out. Very interesting, via Dick Stroud and What is happening to American households?:

The family household is becoming less homogeneous, less educated and less affluent target audience.By the mid-2030s, the share of households with children is expected to decline further to between 25-30%. The family household is not going to look like it does today due to the ferocious projected growth of multi-cultural households.

Nielsen projections suggest that the majority of families with children will be multi-cultural before the end of this decade. Fewer than half will be native-born, non-Hispanic white. Families with children already register more than 40% multi-cultural. The proportion is even higher at 47% among those families with a head of household age 33 or younger and soars to 61% for the lowest income families.

This is important to me because people who are less homogeneous, less educated, less affluent, and less likely to use English at home will probably further continue to use the Internet as their lingua franca rather than a shared, educated English literacy.

No judgement here, actually, because I come from Hawaii and our linqua franca is Pidgin English, a patois of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipino, and others into a shared tongue.

What I care about it how best to engage with this new community and how they communicate, how they engage, in what language, at what Flesch Reading Ease rating (and is the scale even relevant any more?), and also what will eventually matter to this less educated, less affluent, multi-culti online community?

Do you have any insight into this? Do you have a plan?

Via Marketing Conversation

Less educated, Less affluent, more multi-cultural

The family household is becoming less homogeneous, less educated and less affluent target audience.By the mid-2030s, the share of households with children is expected to decline further to between 25-30%. The family household is not going to look like it does today due to the ferocious projected growth of multi-cultural households.
Nielsen projections suggest that the majority of families with children will be multi-cultural before the end of this decade. Fewer than half will be native-born, non-Hispanic white. Families with children already register more than 40% multi-cultural. The proportion is even higher at 47% among those families with a head of household age 33 or younger and soars to 61% for the lowest income families.