#but after that it's 2 weeks of not having to blast podcasts to block out the sound of him talking to himself

[six-of-ravens]

good thing my boss is in a good mood today bc i slept horribly and I need the Eye of Sauron to not be on me

[bad268]

Out-of-Pocket (Pepe Marti X Reader)

Fandom: RPF/Formula 2/3

Requested: Yeah on Wattpad (ily zep also happy race week!)

Warnings: none.

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 869

Summary: Out-of-pocket grid walks and podcasts

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

The first race of the season was one for the books. The energy was high, the excitement was through the roof, and all of the drivers were ready to get back to racing. As someone with a moto racing podcast, you were having a blast in the paddock. The plan was you were going to do a Martin Brundle-style grid walk, asking random questions to whatever drivers you could find.

“Jak!” You shouted, running up to your American friend who was walking with Ollie and Kimi. “Can I ask you guys questions for the pod?”

“Don’t say tyre deg,” Jak joked as the other two nodded.

“That's a tequila shot, Jak,” You laughed. “Anyway, I don’t have any on me so, Jak, hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you found a dead body in your hotel room?”

“That’s so random, but I would call my team, I guess?” Jak responded, confused about where the question came from.

“Good to hear you trust your team, sounds like you guys will have a good year,” You stated. “Does this mean you are getting along well with your new team?”

“Yeah, I love the team, and I think we’re gonna do well this year,” Jak beamed. 

“Thank you, Jak. Now, Ollie,” You moved the microphone over to Ollie, “You hit me as the type of guy who needs beauty sleep.”

“Where is this going?” He laughed.

“Why is it called ‘beauty sleep’ if you wake up looking like a hot mess? I’ve seen the LAP videos, and you don’t look very beautiful when you wake up,” You teased him.

“Oh you’re one to talk,” He gasped in disbelief, “As if anyone in your opinion looks good waking up unless they’re Pepe!”

“Hey, no need to call me out in my own podcast here!” You jokingly scolded. “I ask the questions. Now, why is it called ‘beauty sleep’ if you wake up looking like a hot mess? I need to know.”

“Maybe it’s not about physical beauty and more about mental beauty,” Ollie quipped. “Ever think of that?”

“No, I did not Aristotle,” You replied sarcastically. “Thank you for bestowing your great mind upon us, oh great one.”

“With pleasure,” Ollie jokingly bowed as he left to follow Jak.

“Kimi! The new man on the block! Tell me, how many pennies do you think would fit in your car?”

“At least five,” Kimi answered immediately and seriously.

“Fair point, thank you,” You replied just as seriously as you moved on to your next target, running after him. “Dennis, do fish drown?”

“NO!” He shouted, started by your sudden appearance. “No, I looked this up and drowning is inhaling water. Fish breathe water, so unless they stop moving and water blocks their gills, they can't drown, but they can suffocate on water.”

“Damn, thanks Bill Nye the science guy,” You said sarcastically as you moved on, beelining for one of your favorite F3 drivers to ask questions to. “Sebastian Montoya, I have a question for you.”

“I love these,” he said to himself before leaning into the microphone and shouting, “Hi Pod!”

“Don’t! I’m the star here,” You joked. “Anyway, if you punch yourself in the face and it hurts, are you weak or strong?”

“Neither, you’re gullible,” He answered.

“Oh, that's a dollar word, look at you go!” You chuckled as you moved on once again. This time you ran into a world champion. “Fernando! My favorite Spanish driver!” You shouted as you ran over to him but not before whispering into the mike, “Lies, Pepe is my favorite.”

“We all know Pepe is you’re favorite, no need to flatter me,” He laughed.

“Well, at least we’re all on the same page,” You dismissed. “In your opinion, what is the worst mode of transportation?”

“Roller skates,” He said after a moment. “The ones with the wheels in a line.”

“What do you have against roller blades, Nando?” You chuckled, genuinely curious.

“I just never learned how to ride them,” He laughed.

“Fair enough, thank you!” You said as you heard back to the Campos garage, knowing Pepe was probably finished with his interview by now. You saw him sitting on the couch in the driver’s room that he shares with Isack, scrolling through his phone. “And here we find the friend of the show, Pepe, in his natural habitat; hiding from everyone.”

“You do know I can hear you,” He chuckled, not even looking up from his phone.

“Oh shit, I thought he was deaf,” You whispered into the microphone, but still loud enough for him to hear. You moved into the room and sat beside him, leaning into his side. “I have a real question for you.”

“Something tells me it’s not a real question, but go on.”

“How does it feel to be in a relationship with the most out-of-pocket moto racing podcaster on the planet?”

“Wouldn’t change it for the world,” He replied as he placed a small kiss on the top of your head. “You should talk to Clement to get on Screaming Meals. I bet that would be the most chaotic episode ever.”

“Don’t give me any more ideas,” You groaned. “Also, I’m trying. James said no.”

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[teenmomcentral]

Kail Lowry recently got a blast from her past: a Facebook message from her long-lost mother, Suzi Irwin.

During the most-recent episode of her Coffee Convos podcast, Kail told her co-host Lindsie Chrisley that she was shocked to see a Facebook message from her mother, whom she has not spoken to in years.

(As Teen Mom 2 fans know, Kail has had a very strained relationship with Suzi for the majority of her life, due in part to Suzi’s alcoholism. Suzi has only met two of Kail’s seven kids because of this.)

Kail mentioned Suzi on a podcast episode several weeks ago, which may have prompted Suzi to reach out.

“I get on [Facebook] Messenger, and my mom messaged me,” Kail said on Thursday’s episode. “I think [the message said], ‘I love you, and I always will,’ or something like that…It took me a minute, but I messaged her back, ‘Then how could you walk this earth knowing that you have all these grandkids and you don’t care?’

“And her response to that really pissed me off,” Kail continued. “Because she goes back and forth with [taking] accountability [for her past actions].”

Kail stated that, previously, she had taken Suzi’s accountability as “not an apology but at least an acknowledgement. 

“At least you know what you did and, you may not be sorry, but maybe that was your best [parenting]? I don’t know,” she said. “But you acknowledged [what you did], cool.” 

However, Suzi’s response to what Kail wrote about her not seeing her grandkids shocked Kail.

“I just wasn’t prepared for that. She was like, ‘And your life? Walk a mile.’ And I was like, ‘Ma’am, you made my life hard. You very much f**ked me up. You chose whatever your life [was going to be].’ To this day, from all accounts that I have gotten about my mom’s life, my mom did not live a very difficult life. My mom chose a difficult [life]. She went down a path that ultimately…contributed to the life she’s living now. 

“…I don’t understand how you can say ‘Walk a mile’ when you chose that,” Kail continued. 

Kail’s interaction with her mom was short-lived, as Kail stated that Suzi ended up blocking her on Facebook. 

“That was the first conversation that we’ve had since she called me in 2019,” she said. (That convo played out on an episode of ‘Teen Mom 2,’ by the way.) “Right before that, she…called me because my grandmother passed away. So I’ve had three conversations with her in six years. And I haven’t seen her. ‘Walk a mile’ was the last thing she said to me.” 

Kail stated that she believes Suzi is happy and has accepted her life, and now expects Kail to accept what happened in her childhood and “sweep it under the rug.”

“My mom, she doesn’t deny [that that things happened] but I may never get an apology from her,” Kail said. “But I’ve accepted the relationship for what it is.”

As fans may remember, back in 2009 when Kail was still a minor and pregnant with her son Isaac, Suzi signed over custody to the parents of Kail’s then-boyfriend Jo Rivera. Suzi drifted out of Kail’s life, but eventually resurfaced when Kail’s second son Lincoln was about six months old. 

“There was a time where I left Lincoln with her,” Kail said in 2018. “When I came back, she was so f**ked up.”

Kail once again cut her mom off after that, meaning Suzi has never met Kail’s sons Lux, Creed and Rio, or her newborn twins. 

During an Instagram Q&A last year, Kail was asked if she ever misses Suzi. 

“This is such a complex question,” Kail replied. “So she was never a mom to me but oddly, yes, I miss her. And I say oddly because I’ve always said you can’t miss what you never had. But I want a mom. I wish I had a mom — not even for me. But a grandmother for my kids.”

Kail discussed Suzi during an episode of her Barely Famous podcast last July, noting that she sees herself making many of the same mistakes Suzi made in regards to having lots of men around while Kail was growing up. 

“I very much did what she did, 100 percent, and I can’t deny that,” Kail said on the podcast. “It’s heartbreaking to see it, and know it and acknowledge it, and to know that at this point, the only thing I can do is acknowledge it, apologize, and try to help [my kids] heal through it.”

“I think that I did perpetuate the cycle of a lot,” Kail said. 

During a 2018 episode of Coffee Convos, Kail said she will never accept her mother’s drinking problem.

“I have a hard time with that,” Kail said. “I don’t have any sympathy or empathy or whatever you want to call it. I don’t have it for my mom, and it’s hard for me. I want to have a relationship with her but am I going to be OK with it if she’s not sober all the time…I don’t think my mom recognizes she has a problem, or if she does recognize, she doesn’t want help.”

[ghostbustermelanieking]

oddly specific memories i have of listening to tma

in honor of the finale, and because i am a sentimental asshole, i bring you this potentially uninteresting and completely pointless list. i'm gonna miss this show a lot

half my original reasoning for listening to the podcast was to motivate me to walk on the treadmill. this did not work. but i did it the first time, when i was going through the trailers and anglerfish, and i remember the room where my dad keeps the treadmill is really dark and the spooky chanting sort of freaked me out

after the treadmill, i ended up listening to the bulk of the first four episodes on the couch, and halfway through i let my oldest cat, winnie, who always lived outside (i know, i was very against actually keeping her outside) in the house. and she jumped up on the couch with me, which she literally never did. (she was very grumpy and not super affectionate.) i had that cat since i was five, and she passed last june, and i really miss her. quarantine kind of gave us the opportunity to hang out with her a lot, because we were home so much. so i'm glad these memories are kind of intersected in my mind. (below: a pic i have from that day.)

my friend sarah relistened along with me the first time around, which was extraordinarily sweet of her, and also led to some interesting interactions. for example: she forgot when it was revealed that sasha was dead, so she accidentally spoiled that for me when i asked when the others would find sasha (and i spent all of season 2 just like. anxiously vibrating over this fact). she also made this post, when i was still in like early first half of season 1, and my immediate thought was "oh no martin is dead." i hadnt even MET martin at this point

back in early quarantine, my mom had this rule that we had to do something new every day (to keep away the depression... ha ha). anyways, all i wanted to do in my free time was sit around and listen to tma (and also watch this show i was into on netflix), so i came up with some lame excuses, one of which was "i'll give myself a pedicure." this led to the memory i ultimately associate with mag 56 (trevor herbert 2) being me sitting out on our roof balcony thing, giving myself a horrendous pedicure

another time, my family wanted to go play tennis, and they brought me along and brought a hammock for me to lay in. there was this excess material from the hammock, and the sun was in my eyes, so i ended up pulling it up and over me to block the sun and creating this ridiculous hammock cocoon thing. one of the episodes i listened to that day? "tucked in."

before i ever started the show, my friend sarah stayed with me while i was pet sitting. i remember when she got there, she'd just listened to 150 and was telling me how freaky it was (she was still trying to get me into the show), and she was like "of course we're staying on a CUL DE SAC." (that was also the weekend she watched us for the first time and was very upset because i slept through the whole thing, which is scary when you're staying somewhere by yourselves.) anyways, i spent the whole show waiting for the scary cul de sac episode

while i was listening to the show for the first time, my step-dad (an artist) started painting an EYE on the door downstairs near my bathroom. a fucking EYE. he didn't finish it til i had finished the show. but still weird!!

i binged like 12 episodes in one day to finish season 4, which is not impressive at all, but it's still my personal record. i just remember staying up late in my dark bedroom (til like.... 11 i'm lame and i go to bed early), listening to like 158 & 159 & 160 and just being knocked on my ass by how good it all was... i was SUPER spoiled by this point, through my own fault, and i knew exactly what was coming, but actually experiencing it was nuts

the second week i listened live was 167, where the public release was delayed by a couple hours by accident. i spent like 20 minutes refreshing spotify, thinking it was broken, before going on tumblr and seeing what the deal was. (and 167 remains one of my favorites of s5 because i remember just going "thank god it was worth the wait.")

this one car ride where sarah and i made some of our friends listen to the first three episodes of the show. it was the middle of the night and we were just like blasting down i40 listening to anglerfish and do not open etc

the night the what the ghost episode publicly dropped was the night after my graduation, and i was sleeping out on the couch in the living room so my grandfather could sleep in a bed. it was super dark, and i am a jumpy person, and i Remember being mildly disgusted with myself because the corny sound effects were actually freaking me out. (i think i mightve actually seen something weird that night, maybe, but that's another story.)

the weekend my parents moved me into college, we couldn't get the cable in the house we were staying in, and we were all sitting around doing nothing, so i jokingly suggested starting tma with them, and they were like ok grace. my step-dad promptly fell asleep and my mom zoned out -- which is probably good, she doesn't like horror and she's super claustrophobic, so it's probably better we never got to do not open

my brief roommate in college talked about how she was into those youtube channels where people just read scary stories, so of course i was like try tma out. so she listened to the first episode on her own, and we were out one night, and she started mag 02 while i went into an ice cream place. she was into it (she kept being like open it, ya pussy) and wanted to keep listening while we went home, and even back in our room. i had only been in town for a couple weeks, and barely knew my way around, but i also didn't want to turn the gps on and be interrupted every five seconds. so i tried to find our way back on my own. it took the entirety of mag 03, and into mag 04, before i did it. so now i will forever associate across the street with all those wrong turns i took in a dark, semi unfamiliar city, trying to get back to our college without a gps

the day of the early drop for 179 was the day i moved back home from college -- a five hour drive by myself. i ended up listening to it on the final stretch of the trip, when i was super tired and it was dark and i knew it'd probably be a crazy episode. just me full blasting down i40, drinking an energy drink (which i never do) through a hole punched in the top, listening to daisy's death

186 early dropped the day after initial u.s. election day (when we still didn't know anything). my mom had set up a "watch party" in the living room with these giant air mattresses, and we all sort of spent the day crowded around the TV watching the numbers. not much of a memory, but i remember sitting on that air mattress and listening to martin's monologue in the midst of that messy week

i had a virtual therapy appointment on the day of 187's early drop, and my dad was home, so i drove to an empty parking lot to do the session in some privacy. i was trying to listen to the episode before the session started, so i ended up listening to the last half sitting in my car, in the pouring rain, just staring at my radio in shock (187 remains one of my favorite s5 episodes)

my friend sarah had just come home for winter break the day 189 dropped, and we decided to listen together, just like driving around in circles drinking coffee and listening and speculating on whether or not that was really martin

i started my relisten right after thanksgiving and was just kind of blowing through fast as i could through the whole of december. i had to go back to college to empty out my dorm, and i went to the beach after, and i ended up listening to mag 11 while just like walking around in circles in the tide pools. the closer it got to christmas, the more christmassy i wanted to keep things, so i would like. listen in the mornings and turn on one of those Netflix fireplaces and get all cozy

my other friend went with me on a mini bagel road trip in december, and he was still trying to get caught up, so we listened to mag 169, 170, and 171 on the drive home. (by this point, i was accustomed enough to s5 and smiting scenes to automatically reach for the volume controls when jude perry and jared hopworth died.)

when i relistened to mag 47, i was sitting with my cat beezus. i paused the episode to write this big long meta, so i was in a different headspace when i pressed play again. jon immediately yelled for sasha and i immediately jumped, and beezus gave me a searing glare and just got up and left

i relistened to piecemeal while i was cooking, which i thought was kind of funny and also disgusting

after christmas, i got into the habit of bringing my cat georgia into my room in the mornings, and she'd crawl under the covers with me while i listened to tma

one story i've always liked to tell from my first listen is how when i first listened to the meat arm grinder episode, my dad asked me to help him cook hamburgers later that day and explained how hamburgers are ground up (to my disgust). i hit meat grinder in my relisten and um. you'll never fucking guess what i made for lunch that day

so i had all these arbitrary rules for myself when i started tma last april, and i've broken like all of them. i started listening to tma while virtually working -- you just pull it up on your computer and it works. (i got the life scared out of me when one of my coworkers started talking over the podcast, wondering who it was that had walked into jon's office and why he wasn't reacting and why i didn't remember it.) i also started listening a lot while driving, which led to several long meta posts i wrote being typed up in a parking lot somewhere

i spent the entirety of 194 anxious-cuddling georgia. (i tried to do this for 198 and then didn't have any anxiety to cuddle her over.) i fully plan on doing this for 200, where i am sure i will need it again

my favorite place to listen to tma probably ended up being the roof room at my mom's, and unless something goes awry, this is where i will listen to the finale. (with georgia, of course.)

this list is super uninteresting, like i said, but here it is. i'm gonna miss this show a lot. i can't wait to return to it, later in life, and make all new listening memories in the process

[weekendwritingmarathon]

This weekly roundup includes fics written (at least in part) during the 1k1h sprints and/or the Weekend Writing Marathon events.

Fics are ordered first by fandom, then by word count from smallest to largest.

***

a perfect family holiday by @tryslora

Harry Potter || Lavender/Hermione || general || no major warnings apply || 1,328 words

Summary: Hermione brings Lavender home for her first Weasley holiday.

Other tags: Established Relationship, Mistletoe, Christmas

***

Nigerian Job by @treefrogie84

Leverage || none || general || no major warnings apply || 614 words

Summary: The Nigerian Job from Eliot's PoV (originally published on Tumblr several months ago)

Other tags: episode coda, The Nigerian Job, grumpy Eliot Spencer

***

Cold Black Cloud is Comin' Down by @treefrogie84

Supernatural, Wayward Sisters || kaia nieves/ claire novak, Claire Novak & Dean Winchester || general || no major warnings apply || 767 words

Summary: Wayward Sisters episode coda. Claire talks to someone else who lost everything.

Other tags: post-major character death, fresh and naked grief, episode coda, song fic

***

Editing v. Suggesting by @treefrogie84

Supernatural || Amara & Chuck Shurley || general || no major warnings apply || 1,136 words

Summary: His deadline is in two days, he's been stuck for a week and he has no idea what happens next. So Amara comes to visit.

Other tags: metafiction, writer's block, siblings

***

angel with a cherry pie by @tryslora

Supernatural || Dean/Castiel || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 1,981 words

Summary: “Heaven must be missing an angel,” the customer says. Castiel frowns. “I’m sorry. What?” In which everyone's confused and awkward, and Meg ships Destiel.

Other tags: Coffee Shop AU, Meet Cute, Awkward Pickup Lines

***

Resurrection by @tellthenight

Supernatural || dean/cas || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 2,500 words

Summary: prompt: “I thought I lost you” kisses: The breath is knocked out of both of them with the force that they collide with. Hands grip the back of t-shirts and palms are pressed up and under shirts, holding them close, feeling the warmth of their skin. Palms are pressed to cheeks, thumbs swiping away tears until their mouths collide messily, the world seeming to disappear around them.

Other tags: dean dies and comes back, deancas, canon-typical violence

***

First Comes Love (chapter 11) by @tellthenight

Supernatural || dean/cas || mature || no major warnings apply || 4,300 words

Summary: Cas Novak planned to never see his ex Balthazar again, but when his sister Anna gets engaged to Balthazar’s brother their wedding means an unavoidable face-to-face that Cas isn’t ready to have. Dean Winchester is moving to Massachusetts soon after the wedding to further his education and get one step closer to his dream job. It means leaving his brother Sam and best friend Cas behind, but they both tell him to go- it’s about time he pursued his own dreams. When Cas confides in Dean about the situation with Balthazar and the added stress of showing up at another family function ALONE, Dean offers to go along. He’ll happily keep Balthazar and any concerned family members off Cas’s back, and one last road trip together sounds like a blast.

Other tags: fake/pretend relationship, spn AU, weddings, sharing a bed

***

my anchor, rescue me by @tryslora

Teen Wolf || Derek/Stiles || teen & up || author chooses not to give major warnings || 2,014 words

Summary: Stiles has been wandering for hours, but it feels like days. He's beginning to wonder if he'll ever find the witch and collect the magical whatsit, or if he's going to be wandering this path through the woods forever.

Other tags: Near Death Experience, Magical Stiles, First Kiss, Happy Ending

***

Hale’s Howlers by @tryslora

Teen Wolf || Derek/Stiles/Jackson, Derek/Jackson || explicit || no major warnings apply || 3,518 words

Summary: Stiles regrets the day he told Scott he'd owe him for trading shifts MONTHS ago because here he is, stuck working on New Year's Eve, when Jungle is packed to the gills for the return of hometown heroes, the band Hale's Howlers. Until he ends up outside, finds out who's with who in the band, and better yet, who might want him to join in...

Other tags: AU (band, bar/pub), Polyamorous Negotiations, Free Pass, New Year's Eve

***

Leather and Glitter by @alecjmarsh

The Penumbra Podcast ||  Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev || explicit || no major warnings apply || 6,515 words

Summary: For a case, Juno and Peter go to a biker bar. When Juno puts on an old pair of leather boots, Peter decides that he would rather stay in.

Other tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, except there's a tiny bit of plot, Leather Kink, Juno’s mysterious past, Sub Peter, Dom Juno, Both of them being possessive, Pole Dancing, Hand Jobs, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Riding, Light Bondage, unfortunate references to Cecil Kanagawa

***

Regrets by @tryslora

Voltron: Legendary Defender || Shiro/Keith || teen & up || major character death || 1,642 words

Summary: Shiro loved him. Shiro never expected to lose him.

Other tags: Temporary Character Death, Happy Ending, Angst, Grief

***

the new kitten by @tryslora

Welcome to PHU || Ángel/Tony|| general || no major warnings apply || 1,038 words

Summary: A family snippet after Gabi is surrogate to carry Ángel's child to grow Ángel and Tony's family. Tony wants to introduce their first child to the new baby. Ángel just wants to say thanks.

Other tags: Future Fic, Fluff, Original Child Characters, Shapeshifters

***

Not Your Love Song (Chapter 34) by @tryslora

Welcome to PHU || Rory/Kit || teen & up ||  author chooses not to give major warnings ||  2,909 / 100,404 words

Summary:  Rory spends time with Thorne and Stormy, getting some important band work done, while Kit is off doing dangerous things elsewhere. It's a decent distraction, at least.

Other tags: Soulmarks, Magic, Ace POV, Trans character

***

Missed Fortunes: Family & Friends - 1&2 by @tryslora

Welcome to PHU || Carolyn/Serina, Kit/Rory|| teen & up || author chooses not to give major warnings || 5,118/112,197 words

Summary: Carolyn meets with Pawel to pitch a rescue of Sam from the dreamscape. After, she finally gets to catch up with Rory, and get to know her twin's boyfriend.

Other tags: Original Fiction, Serial Fiction, Magic, College, Tarot

***

Missed Fortunes (Family & Friends 3 & 4) by @tryslora

Welcome to PHU || Carolyn/Serina || teen & up || author chooses not to give major warnings || 6,634 / 118,831 words

Summary: It's time to try to bring Sam out of the dreamscape that he's been lost in. The problem is, that means going into the dreamscape, and dealing with the repercussions of what that might attract in the aftermath.

Other tags: Magic, Shapeshifting, Tarot, Shadows, Demisexual POV

***

Have you posted a fic written at least partially during a WWM event? Submit your fic here by midnight EST Monday and it will be included on next Wednesday’s WWM Fic Roundup post.

[junker-town]

Why the XFL is going to be fun as hell

Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Here’s a look at some of the coolest features in the 2020 XFL season, which will run from Feb. 8 to April 26.

The XFL is back, and the 2020 season is set to begin on Saturday, Feb. 8. The eight-team league (with a ninth practice squad-type team), owned by the WWE’s Vince McMahon, is making a comeback of sorts. It’ll be playing its first season since 2001. That lone XFL season ended just a month after the league’s conference championship game.

Although we’ve seen alternative leagues to the NFL fail — most recently the American Alliance of Football that folded in the spring of 2019 — the XFL’s model will try to remain viable.

One of the more interesting parts about the new XFL is its rules. The league will also have the most diverse officiating crew in pro football history, and alternative camera angles to conduct replays that will drastically set it apart from its NFL counterpart.

Let’s highlight some of the more fun aspects of the XFL, shall we?

Several XFL rules are in place to make offenses more exciting, as well as to speed up the game

You can read the full list of the XFL’s rules here. Here are a few that stand out:

The point-after touchdown

This rule gives teams the opportunity to be creative with how many points they put up. After scoring a touchdown, a team has to run a play from either the 2-, 5-, or 10-yard line. Those are worth one, two, or three points, respectively.

Yup, that’s right — there are no extra-point kicks allowed in the XFL. HELL YEAH, SCREW EXTRA POINTS AND GIVE US MORE OFFENSE.

Additionally, if a defense forces a turnover on this play and returns it to the opposing end zone, the defense is awarded the same number of points the offense was going for.

2. The double-forward pass

The XFL will let offenses throw two forward passes, as long as the first pass happens behind the line of scrimmage. Here’s what that looks like:

Double forward pass: pic.twitter.com/3HjBoMbBQx

— XFL (@xfl2020) February 7, 2020

Now I only wish an offensive genius like Steve Spurrier were coaching in the league. He ran a play similar to the Philly Special last season in the AAF, so just imagine what he could do with his team allowed to pass behind the line of scrimmage!

3. Overtime rules

How the XFL will handle overtime might be my favorite aspect of its rulebook. It’s much better than the NFL’s terrible overtime, during which a team can score a touchdown first and win the game without the other team getting a possession.

However, the defense can’t score in OT in the XFL, unlike in college football or the NFL.

The XFL’s OT goes into five “rounds” of one offensive play per team. It’s similar to NHL shootouts or MLS penalty kicks in extra time. Each team will get the ball at the 5-yard line with one chance to score; a successful score is worth two points. The team that has the most points after each round wins the game. If it’s tied, the rounds will go on until there is a winner.

Count me in, folks.

4. The comeback period

The XFL also has what’s called a “comeback period,” which only goes into effect inside the two-minute warning of each half. The clock will stop until the ball is spotted and after five seconds run off the 25-second play clock.

Just like you’re used to in the NFL, the clock will stop on incomplete passes and plays that have gone out of bounds. Essentially, the clock stopping on each play inside two minutes gives teams more time to make plays late in the game if they need a quick score.

5. Clock differences

Three small rule changes will also help the game move faster:

25-second play clock as opposed to the NFL’s 40-second one

Each coach will get just two timeouts per half

Halftime period is just 10 minutes

The NFL might not be quick to adopt any of these, but can you imagine if the league’s overtime period was like the XFL’s? It would be a blast.

The league is using some innovative technology, too

For replays, the XFL will rely on Hawk-Eye technology, which is used primarily in professional tennis for reviews.

In the XFL, coaches won’t be able to challenge plays, but all plays can be reviewed by a replay official, who will be above the field in a booth during games. All plays will be reviewed using Hawk-Eye.

“[Hawk-Eye] allows us to have independence from the broadcast networks. We don’t have to rely solely on them for the timing of the angles,” the XFL’s head of officiating Dean Blandino said in a January press conference. “We can bring in multiple camera feeds immediately. At the end of a play we can look to six, eight, 10 different angles and pick the right angle to make a decision and not have to wait for the network to show it. We feel like it will make our process very efficient.”

Viewers will also be able listen in on referee and coach-to-player communication, too. Broadcast booths will have access to coaches calling plays into players’ helmet headsets. They’ll also be able to hear officials communicating with the replay official while they are reviewing plays.

“To hear a play call and the verbiage, is the biggest thing that people will be talking about,” Fox analyst Joel Klatt said via the Associated Press. “How often can you see a coach call plays? When you are able to hear the play calls, you can see the philosophy of a team and coach.”

This would definitely be an interesting to have during NFL games. Imagine how cool it would be if we could hear Patrick Mahomes telling his offensive coordinator he wanted to run Super Bowl 54’s biggest play live!

The XFL will feature diverse officiating crews

In each game, there will be one official solely to determine the spot of the ball on the field. The XFL will also have six women work as officials. Since there are four games per week, each game will have one referee who is a woman. The decision is part of the XFL’s desire to promote inclusivity within officiating staffs.

“We’re trying to create more opportunities for female officials and minority officials,” Blandino said The Football Girl Podcast in July 2019. “The XFL is going to be a showcase for officials all over the country to get more looks and potentially have the NFL look at them. So, we’re going to put together an inclusive [officiating] staff.”

One of those includes Amanda Sauer-Cook, who made history as the first openly gay referee in professional football history when she worked for the AAF last year. Here’s more from Outsports:

Sauer-Cook got her start in officiating when a fellow spectator overheard her shouting about a missed illegal block call while she was watching a high school football game with her daughters. The person recommended Sauer-Cook start attending meetings to become a high school referee in Westchester County, New York, which she did. Since then, she’s proudly worn the zebra stripes, and quickly began working her way up the officiating ladder.

Sarah Thomas, the first permanent female referee hired by the NFL, introduced Sauer-Cook to retired NFL referee and former Monday Night Football rules analyst Gerald Austin, who also serves as the supervisor of officials for Conference USA. Shortly thereafter, Sauer-Cook started working Conference USA games, before moving on to the Big Ten Conference.

The AAF employed three women as coaches last spring, two of whom coached on NFL teams last season, including Lo Locust and Jennifer King. The XFL could potentially bring exposure to the women in officiating which could perhaps lead to the NFL to hiring more women refs, like Thomas.

The XFL probably won’t be perfect, and there’s no guarantee what the league’s future will hold.

But there are some new and different rules that can make the games entertaining, and it could give the NFL the opportunity to borrow some of these rules at a later date. More importantly, it’s one way football fans can get their fix during the NFL offseason.

[leagueofawesomedudes]

LOAD 2019

Week 1 Preview

Important: Pick your official team name by 1:00 pm EST this Sunday 9/8/2019.  There are no team name changes after this date this year or you will be charged a $5.00 fine that goes to the winner for the 2019 season.  Jon, new guy, this is the rule.  For everyone else it’s just serving as a reminder…

Alright slap dicks it’s finally that time of the year again to get back to business.  It’s about time that the summer is over and we can finally direct our focus towards the thing that matters most in life and not things like pets’ birthdays, engagements, career advancements, Fortnite championships etc…

Not gonna sit here and bore you with a bunch of talk today since you get that from me in the GroupMe on a daily basis so we’re just gonna jump right into the previews.  I do however want to say I’m glad we’re back and thank you boys for another year of the LOAD.

LETS ABSOLUTELY GO!

Kickers & Defense (Solden) vs Jared Donovan’s Team (Jared, duh)

We’re kickin’ it off with two dudes who are bigger than every girls’ boyfriend.  Bigger egos or bigger shoulders?  I have to hug the wall when I pass them up in the hallway at the office.  Just when you think it’s a sure thing that Jare will take either a Heisman winner or a Brown with his first pick he changes it up and goes with David Johnson. Thanks for always keeping me guessing bb.  Kinsbury’s pretty boy offense is pretty pass heavy so we’ll see if this works out, or if D Johnson is on the trading block week 2.  On the opposite side of the ball Solden’s two top dawgs aside from me include Russ Wilson and Davantea Adams.  These guys should be production machines all year and should carry Solden’s team until he ruins the rest of his roster by himself.  History repeats itself, it’s more inevitable than Thanos. I’m taking Jared this week with big games out of Allen Robinson in 2012 form and DeShaun Watson.

Jared Donovan’s Team > Kickers & Defense

JuJu Kachoo (Pauly) vs The Injured Reserve (Casey)

Paul, what is Kachoo? A Nintendo character?  Idk about that but all I do know is Paul is coming off of a hot streak winning his first fantasy championship and he’s looking to defend the crown in 2091.  I mean 2019. Paul doesn’t know the difference because he’s disleksick and doesn’t know how to spell anywaze.  And Case, good to have you back again brotha.  Your party at your house this summer was an absolute blast and I can’t wait to do it again!  Both of these guys have studs at the WR positions (hmu for trades please) and should be putting up some big numbers this week.  If JuJu can be a legit #1 Paul should look to have himself a good start to the season.  Paul has Julio, JuJu & Crowder while case has OBJ, Robert Woods and Mike Williams. Odell puts up enough numbers this week to makeup for Williams and we will drown ourselves in Jameson Crowder because of it.  Case does have the edge this week due to his superior RBS (Paul seriously let’s trade). Mixon and Freeman help Case change it up and pull out for him this weekend.

The Injured Reserve > JuJu Kachoo

G-reg 3rd leg (Bennett) vs Under the Influwentz (Doug)

Bennett may be the only person I know who can draft Kamara and still have a trash roster.  AB suspended.  You better hope he gets cut and goes to a new team. And Melvin Gordon won’t be playing?  Someone better stop being stubborn and start attempting to make moves mid season.  Looks like your luck has finally run out brotha. On the other side finally, Doug changes the fantasy team name up and it’s a damn good one.  I like it Douglas Fir.  Don’t have to think to hard to do Bennett’s previews this year because he’s finishing 12th.

Bennett don’t come after me when you read this it’s just fantasy dude.

Under the Influwentz > G-Reg 3rd leg

My Quads Are Danger6 (Jon) vs Butker in the Cooper (Dom)

The newcomer to the league and the family Jon vs the always dangerous Dommy Salami.  Two great fantasy names between these two.  I didn’t even realize Jon had Barkley until this moment when I’m looking at his roster.  I had just figured he was talking about his own legs.  Dom with another clever name that he spent a workweek trying to figure out but did achieve his goal by making everyone laugh at it.  Jon coming in guns hot from the get go and having arguably the strongest draft of any team. Saquan obviously puts up monster numbers but he’s stacked at almost every position.  Especially with 6 under center for him.  No surprise here, Dom drafted well once again.  However his team is going to be heavily reliant on if Amari Cooper and Chris Godwin can establish themselves as consistent fantasy contributers.  Wait what? Oh had to look at his flex at the bottom and see that he has Nuke Hopkins there.  That threw me off.  I’d appreciate an explanation for putting him there, but it does look cool.  As long as the roster is healthy it does appear Jon has the best starting roster in the league and will help Dom move to 0 – 1 and to LA afterwards.

My Quads Are Danger6 > Butker in the Cooper

Tony Time (TJ) vs Rooney Tunes (Shawn)

Shaved head Tony is back which means he’s back as a serious contender in fantasy.  And yes there is a direct correlation between the two.  On the other side there’s Shawn…who has to be eager for a bounce back year after a weak showing in 2018.  As long as he doesn’t lose his keys again I expect Shawn to double down on the effort and try to make a push this year.  Even if that means ignoring his future wife on their honeymoon.  Best matchup on the board has to be their defenses in Seattle v Baltimore so you know Paul will be glued to his screen for this one.  Michael Thomas, Tyreek and Josh Jacobs look to put up massive numbers for Tone, even more massive than Tone’s Fortnite kill count while Shawn starts WRs that are borderline nursing home material with Fitzgerald, Edelman & Jeffery.  The RBs will be the deciding factor in this one while James Conner, Tarik Cohen & Phillip Lindsey will allow Shawn to dictate when Tony Time actually begins with Jacobs, Carson & Sanders going for him.  It’s alright Teej you will still bounce back.  Please don’t announce that you’re giving up after week 1 for the second year in a row.  This league needs your personality.

Rooney Tunes > Tony Time

****** Game of the Mother Fuckin’ Week ******

Mahomies Chubbie (Chad) vs Chrsitian McCuri’s

Yup yup HERE WE GO.  Week 1 of the season and we have two heavyweights going at it from the get go like Stipe vs Cormier.  The undisputed, best overall manager, the smartest, and biggest football guys’ guy since the origination of the League Of Awesome Dudes will take on his opponent, Sam.  Sam however once again drafted well and I wouldn’t expect anything less from the co-commish who listens to fantasy podcasts in his sleep with his apple watch and ear pods.  That pretentious freakin’ fuck.  He’s looking to be rumblin’ stumblin’ on the weekends bumblin’ and hopefully not fumblin’ his way back to the championship in ’19.  CMC going to be putting up monster numbers on a weekly basis. Anything otherwise and I’d be shocked about that gym rat, first guy in last guy out, scrappy, football smart, hardworking coach’s son.  Mike Evans still a premier WR in the league, and I honestly won’t even be pissed if Jarvis puts up a 50 burger because that means the boys in orange and brown are gettin’ a dub.  On the other hand, my roster?  No wideouts? No problem.  Bell, Chubb and Mahomes carry the bulk for yours truly and are going to pile it on.  This should be a shootout however I think Sam takes the week 1 matchup.  See ya again in week 12 when our rosters look 80% different and playoff seeding is on the line.

Christian McCuri’s > Mahomies Chubbie

That’s it for this week. Paul, you’ve got the preview for Week 2.

Go Browns.

Long live the LOAD.

Signing Off,

LOAD El Presidente

[terselylove]

30 Tips For Falling Asleep When You’re Worried About Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow

1. Cheesy as it is, watch Bob Ross painting videos on Youtube. He makes me feel safe and secure. I love falling asleep to the funny stories he tells about his paintings.

He calms me down a lot when I’m feeling anxious or upset (which is mainly the reason I stay up) and I can drift off dreaming about happy little clouds and trees, and a river that Bob fishes in.

2. It’s kinda weird but stick a block of ice in your mouth and just lie in bed. As it melts it’s kinda like your consciousness melts with it.

3. The Spotify “Sleep” playlist; I put it through the Google Home Mini, lay back, close my eyes, and within about 10 minutes I’m drifting off!

4. Take a quick, hot, shower. It really helps you relax and makes you tired.

5. I learned to fall asleep by daydreaming.

Simple enough, but I had to adopt certain rules around it.

Don’t daydream about realistic things. That camping trip I’m planning for the weekend? That’s off limits. Anything centered around my real life is off limits.

Why? because that opens to the door to anxiety and overthinking those events. I become invested in making sure they go a certain way and that keeps me awake at night.

The same rule applies to people. Nobody I know. Because if I build the habit around people I spend time with it becomes: “Wait, should I have said that thing I said last week? I don’t think they liked that, oh gawd they hate me now.” I don’t want to be overthinking my real world relationships. I don’t really do that when I’m awake and alert, but I certainly do when I’m exhausted and not thinking straight.

So blast off in a tardis, go explore the moon, be a superhero. Or super spy. Explore some alien worlds and then the matrix and then escape the zombie apocalypse to sip martinis on the beaches of jurassic park. If I’m really struggling to fall asleep it helps to imagine scenarios where you’re physically exhausted.

6. I just put my pillow on the other side of the bed and for some reason this has worked since I was a child just turning around.

7. Focusing on my breathing. Breath in is one, breath out is two and so on. Get to ten and start again. If my attention drifts bring it back to breathing.

8. The military sleep procedure.

Here’s how to do it:

Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes.

Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time.

Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down.

You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you.

You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room.

You say “don’t think, don’t think, don’t think” to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

The technique is said to work for 96 percent of people after six weeks of practice.

9. White noise, such as rain sounds.

10. I’m kinda shocked no one said Sleep With Mepodcast. I used to have terrible nights not being able to sleep due to stress and anxiety, but Dearest Scooter’s dulcet tones and superfluous tangents (his words not mine) have definitely helped me to fall asleep. It’s the best podcast I never remember listening to, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

11. I have imaginary conversations with fictional characters. Sometimes I vent or ask for advice/guidance, sometimes I give it. Sometimes I antagonize them. Sometimes I’m a ‘character’ in their ‘universe’, part of their story. Sometimes I’m still me but I got stuck in their universe somehow. Sometimes I appear early in their story and have foreknowledge of their adventures and meticulously plan out how to minimize their tragedies. Eventually I’m dreaming.

12. Exercise. If you burned a reasonable amount of calories at any point today, your body is gonna sleep well.

13. I learned a trick recently that helps me a lot.

I count backwards from 99. SLOWLY.

The key is to do it slowly, and I cannot emphasize the importance of that enough. Think the number, then take a pause that feels a little bit too long before thinking the next number, then take another pause.

99… pause…

98… pause…

97… pause…

96… pause…

The lowest I’ve ever counted is into the 60s or maybe the 50s before I fall asleep. Often, I’m asleep before I’m through the 80s. Sometimes I’ll lose track of what the next number is because I catch myself falling asleep, so I’ll start over, and I always fall asleep quickly after that.

Again, the key is to count backward… s l o w l y

14. I just make up stories in my head. Sometimes I’m in the world of a TV show I like or in my own little dream universe I made where I have made up characters and such. And eventually I just fall asleep doing this.

15. Reading. It’s kinda sad but I’ve realized books put me to sleep now, even if it’s an exciting book.

16. Masturbate.

17. This is going to sound weird, but I slowly say good night to each of my body parts, starting with my toes and working up. Usually, I’m asleep by the time I hit my chest or so. If I’m not, I know it’s going to be a long night.

18. Listening to Rain and City Ambience on youtube, really relaxing.

19. I’ll usually listen to some music (on low volume) and just focus on that rather than focusing on trying to sleep.

20. Meditate. Some YouTube guided meditations really help for sleep.

21. Bedtime stories, they have plenty of them targeted toward adults for the specific purpose of getting you to fall asleep.

22. Eating a banana. It apparently helps you produce melatonin.

23. The alphabet game. I think of a category, like “types of plants” and go through the alphabet in my head and try to think of something in that category for each letter. I often fall asleep midway through the alphabet.

24. Camomile tea.

25. I tell myself not to think about sleeping. Just enjoy the nice crispy blankets and soft bed and I tell myself to try to relax and get really cozy instead and not to worry about falling asleep.

26. Weed.

27. I just look at the fan above me and follow its blade by revolving my eyes and I slowly get tired of it and fall asleep.

28. Probably not the healthiest method and not something to rely on but eating a large meal knocks me out.

29. Cuddling my plushies.

30. Basically I convince myself I’ve given up and go on my phone or play 3DS and make a plan to read something or play to a measurable point, so that there’s something that I WANT to stay awake for. Something that sleep would interrupt. Puts me right the fuck to sleep, and I’m never sure if I should be glad or annoyed.

[itslikethatfrenchthing]

3 OF THE BEST WAYS TO COME UP WITH IDEAS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

  How the heck do you come up with ideas for social media posts? 

Do you ever sit down to plan your social media content ideas and draw a complete blank? Writers block times a million, am I right?

Well, you’re not alone. Every single business owner I know struggles with this.

We want to write posts that:

Speak to our ideal customer

Are empowering, authentic, and true

Feel natural and conversational

That’s a lot of pressure when you think about it. 

And let’s not forget the “strategy” side of social media content creation because at the end of the day, you ARE running a business and need to make money. 

In this blog post, I’ll give you three tips on how to come up with ideas for social media posts, so writing social media content becomes the easiest thing in the world.

Feeling pumped already and want to get started? Good! Now let’s walk through each step to help you come up with ideas for social media posts. Oh, and there’s also a Daily Social Media Checklist to help you stay on top of your game.

How To Come Up With Ideas For Social Media Posts Tip #1: Use Inspiration From Your Customers + Community

When learning how to write engaging social media posts, there’s a great combo you want to aim for:

Being strategic with your social media marketing posts

Speaking from the heart

One of the ways I’ve been able to truly channel this formula is directly after having a conversation with a 1:1 client or member of my community.

After I have a coaching call with one of my 1:1 clients or an interesting conversation in the DMs, I feel PUMPED. I have high energy and my brain is flowing.

I get most of my ideas for social media posts through two ways:

During a call based on what my clients are struggling with and how I help them through it ON the call.

In a DM conversation with a member of my community, with them opening up about what they’re struggling with.

My biggest tip for you is to utilise the precious time you spend communicating with your people and schedule in time to write down all the “ah-ha” moments they AND you have.

For example, on one of my private client calls last week, my client realised she wasn’t meeting her target audience where they were really at, and her content wasn’t meeting their needs. She never thought the basic stuff she knew were things her ideal customer DIDN’T know.

It was amazing for her to realise yes, she does have all this knowledge and she does have the skills and tools to meet her ideal customer where they’re at. She now feels more aligned with the content she’s creating, it’s increased her confidence, and it made her realise the BASICS aren’t basic to her ideal customer yet!

I immediately wrote this down and it’s ready in Evernote for me to create fully in my list of new social media ideas.

You can also do this with your followers and even family and friends who ask you questions. Here are some things to think about:

What questions do they ask you over and over again?

What do they struggle with all the time?

If you don’t ask you don’t get. So make sure you ask them! A great one-liner to use is: what are you struggling with right now when it comes to XYZ (insert your industry).

Ask that question in polls, DM’s, in your blog posts, emails, etc. Then for those that vote or respond...DIG DEEPER.

Ask them why they voted that way, WHY they think they struggle with that or what about it is hard for them. Get to the real root of the reason they’re struggling and WHY they want to make a change.

In the Busy To Boss Method, we’ll go over ALL of the market research tools I give my private clients so you can get INSANELY clear on exactly WHAT your ideal client wants, needs and would pay for...and how they say it! You’ll also get the questions and invite scrips to make these happen seamlessly. You can apply to join the Busy To Boss Method here.

The reason this method is amazing is because you’re literally speaking to your ideal customer. You’re taking their struggle in THEIR words and putting it into your daily social media post ideas. This will get your DM’s flooded with responses like, “OMG! That is EXACTLY how I feel!”

How To Come Up With Ideas For Social Media Posts Tip #2: Take A Step Back

I know what you’re thinking. HOLLY, this is such standard advice. How do I take a break from something if I’m just going to procrastinate?

I get it, I know you hear this advice everywhere. But I gotta tell you, when I take a step back, go for a walk or have a long soak in the bath...MAGIC HAPPENS bosses!

The key when you take a break to “get inspiration” is to not put so much pressure on yourself to find it. We usually find ideas and inspiration when we’re not looking for it. Cliché, but it’s true.

I know it’s a frustrating statement, but hear me out honestly. When you stop obsessing over trying to force things to happen and become super present in the moment, that’s when your creative juices can actually start flowing. That’s when you’ll start getting mental downloads for new products, freebies, and ideas for social media posts.

So I want to hold you accountable to something right now (I’m going to do it too!) Take a break in your day for 10-30 minutes and either go for a walk or just sit with a brew. Having Lola means I go on a walk with her every lunchtime and walking without technology (God forbid), is SO refreshing.

And just sit within that. Notice what’s around you. Notice your heart, your breath, your hands, your body, the sounds, the smells. Not only do you get ideas for social media posts when you shut your brain off, but you’re happier because you’re in the moment and present.

You’re not thinking about what you wish you happened yesterday or what you have to do tomorrow. You’re just sill. And when you can just BE, you allow yourself to be content.

Don’t forget to download your FREE Daily Social Media Checklist!

How To Come Up With Ideas For Social Media Posts Tip #3: Use Other Places To Get Inspiration

One of my favourite ways to come up with ideas for social media posts is in the shower (#justbeinghonest!) I find when I get in the shower and stop trying to “think” and just blast out some music, I get so inspired and ideas come rushing in.

Again, there’s something to being present on what you’re doing that shuts your brain off that allows it to then be creative. I started getting so many mental downloads in the shower that I had to do a brain dump afterwards! Although you can get a little thing called shower notes too which you can check out here (aff link). 

I’ve also asked my audience about where THEY get inspiration from when it comes to creating content on social media. Here are a few of their tips:

Driving in the car while blasting music

Commuting to work

Listening to podcasts

Reading books

Yoga/Exercise/At the gym

Observing people on Instagram

Reading blog posts

All of these are great places to gain ideas for social media posts! I’ve used all of these methods and my ideas have never felt forced.

A FINAL NOTE

What do each of these strategies have in common? You’re forced to shut your brain OFF. And when we do that, we stop trying to force creativity.

Don’t go into something thinking, “OK inspiration...HIT ME!” Because it won’t work that way. You’ve got to truly just let yourself BE. The more you force it, the more inauthentic it’ll feel. 

This won’t happen overnight. So give it time, be patient, and remember...done is better than perfect. You’ll get better and better at creating good social media content that resonates with your ideal customer. But until you do, you’ll create “okay” content, and that’s OKAY.

My content was rubbish when I started. It was REALLY bad. Then it got better, then it got okay, then it got pretty good, then good. Now I like to think it’s pretty damn good!

But I still have a long way to go to get to great and incredible.

Have fun creating content for social media and stop putting so much pressure on yourself to get it “just right”. That’s how you’ll truly start creating it effortlessly and actually ENJOY this part of marketing your business.

Do you struggle to come up with ideas for social media posts? Which of these tips will you implement first?

Be sure to grab your free daily checklist here so you can stay on top of your social media game!

  from Blog https://ift.tt/2YkTzxN via IFTTT

[tentbat8-blog]

Berry Buttermilk Scones

We all blasted through the front door a few hours ago, feet dirty and a bit exhausted from a full day of blueberry picking — something that’s become a bit of a family tradition in late July ever since Oliver was born. We have photos out in the field with O in the baby carrier, chubby legs swaying in the breeze while I obsessively applied sunscreen every ten minutes. Last year found Oliver and his friend Lewis traipsing through the rows of berries together in the late morning hours, eating more than we ended up taking home. This year’s photos tell a different story: Oliver and I in a big open field used for overflow parking, he sitting on his little potty, me singing songs and chatting away, the sun beating down on the two of us. We’re deep in the thick of potty training, so as it turned out, Sam and Oliver’s Aunt Christa did the brunt of the picking today. But Oliver and I had some good talks while staying hydrated, people watching, and eating Sour Cream and Onion Kettle chips. Not a bad way to spend a morning. And really, it’s never about how many berries we bring home because neither of these years have proven to be particularly bountiful, but it just never feels like high summer until we get out there and start filling our buckets, however slowly.

I’d promised you a savory baking recipe today but I’m still testing it, so instead I bring you mixed berry scones! And no, I didn’t just whip these up using the berries we picked this afternoon because, well, I’m just not that much of a sorceress. But I love this scone recipe for a few reasons, most importantly: their simplicity. I flirted with the idea of calling them Vacation Scones — you know those recipes you kind of keep memorized or you kind of roughly pull together when you’re traveling and they manage to somehow always taste great? For me, I can make an impromptu fruit crisp wherever I may be without a recipe and can make pretty respectable pancakes. These scones are simple enough to start to add to that list: they don’t have any fussy ingredients (I’m looking at you, lemon zest), they don’t require any rolling or turning or cutting butter into the dough (I use a food processor for ease and speed), and they’re easily adaptable. I dig them.

And I did promise I’d share a few other things I’ve been into lately as the summer ticks on. I have a pretty decent commute now with my new job, so I’ve been listening to more podcasts, have been forcing myself to read more in the evenings, and have bookmarked some new recipes. So here’s a quick and loose list of a few of those things:

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: I’m ashamed to say I have a few pages left of this novel and there’s no good reason (other than I can’t keep my eyes open at night) because it’s such a rich, beautifully-written story and I can’t recommend it enough. On the surface it’s about a marriage, but it speaks so much to the different kinds of love, how time changes people, and the different versions of ourselves that we discover along the way.

Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: I haven’t read this book! So why recommend it? I have MANY friends who have and it’s on my ‘next to read’ list. I love the recent handful of books coming out that speak to a bit of a different experience of pregnancy, labor and motherhood than is portrayed in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. From the description, “With the curiosity of a journalist, the perspective of a feminist, and the intimacy and urgency of a mother, she explores the emerging science behind the pressing questions women have about everything from miscarriage to complicated labors to postpartum changes.” Let’s read this, shall we?!

Momrage Podcast: My online homie Amelia Morris has come out with a really interesting podcast along with her friend Edan Lepucki. They delve into questions about motherhood that are often unpopular or skirted around. And I love that they’re doing it; it’s about time.

Tully: Ok, so at first I didn’t like this movie. I even texted my friend Julie and commiserated with her about our mutual dislike for it. The day after though, after thinking about it in the shower for quite some time, I decided it actually resonated more than I gave it credit for. I love Charlize Theron and, without giving too much away, this film offers a unique and important glimpse into postpartum mental health.

Girls Night In: While I think I’m not necessarily the target age here (I’m guessing it’s more like early 30’s), I’ve been surprised with how much I enjoy this newsletter. It’s really well done, smartly written and always has a few links that interest me.

Green Chile Chicken Verde (in the Instant Pot!): As I mentioned, I (very) reluctantly gave into the craze: I’m the (reluctant) owner of a new Instant Pot and this recipe is calling my name. What else should I make?!

Instant Pot Tomato White Beans: It’s been really too hot to do major cooking this week, so when I stumbled across this recipe, it was immediately bookmarked. I’ve heard that making beans in the Instant Pot is a real game changer, and I’m looking forward to keying up this recipe to find out what all the hype’s about.

Our Favorite Vegan Ice Cream: More often than not we have a pint of Frankie and Jo’s in the freezer. It’s not cheap, but it’s hands down the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever had and just so happens to be a few blocks from our house (but they also ship!). I love the Berries and Cultured Cream flavor this month. So good.

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These whole grain scones aren’t too sweet and are a great way to use up a glut of summer berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or blueberries all work great here (I used a mixture of raspberries and blackberries). As you’re making the dough, remember that flour is your friend: if your dough feels too wet or you’re sticking to your work surface, just add a bit more! These are best the day you bake them, but are still great the second day if stored in an airtight container. Beyond that, freeze them for future weekday breakfasts.

Ingredients

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (280g) Bob's Red Mill organic whole wheat flour, plus more for work surface

1/3 cup (75g) turbinado sugar, plus more for the tops

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup buttermilk, plus more for the tops

1 heaping cup (160g/5.5oz) berries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the butter and pulse until it’s incorporated into tiny pebble-size pieces. Slowly add the buttermilk through the feed tube, stopping right when the dough starts to come together.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface. Place your berries on top and fold the dough over a few times until the berries have been incorporated (they’ll likely be kind of hiding in the center layer there, which is great; you can’t mess this step up … just get those berries in there as messy as it may seem). Add a little more flour to the dough if it’s sticking to the surface.

Form the dough into a rectangle shape (do the best you can here; it’s totally acceptable to have different shaped scones, so it really doesn’t matter). Slice into 9 large scones or 16 small scones.

Quickly transfer to prepared baking sheet. Brush the scones with a little buttermilk and sprinkle with extra sugar. Bake for 20-24 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Best if enjoyed within two days of baking.

Source: http://asweetspoonful.com/2018/07/berry-buttermilk-scones.html

[batclevercandystudent]

You know what email is and you know what marketing is – so why is email marketing so hard to get right?

It shouldn’t be. And it won’t be after you read this article.

If you think email marketing can help you grow your online business, you’re right.

In terms of marketing investment, email is still the biggest bang for your buck.

Why?

Because speaking directly to people who have ASKED to hear from you is the most effective way to get (and retain) customers.

This article will show you everything you need to know about email marketing — including how I use it to sell products every day and what business tools I recommend.

Chapter 1: Email Marketing Defined

Chapter 2: How Does Email Marketing Work?

Chapter 3: Email Marketing Platforms

Chapter 4: Email Marketing Strategy

Chapter 5: Email marketing tips

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the digital marketing activity of sending commercial messages – to a group of people – using an email service provider. In the simplest sense, every email message sent to a person for commercial purposes would be considered email marketing.

Chapter 1: Email Marketing Defined

A basic email marketing definition:

Messages sent by email with commercial intent.

In other words, any time a business uses email to reach prospects or customers, it can be considered email marketing.

If you are picturing the digital equivalent of flyers stuffed into a mailbox, it’s no wonder. Ever since marketers realized they could sell products directly to consumers via email, inboxes have been inundated with “special offers.”

No printing costs, no postage, and instant delivery to inboxes all over the world — email is an advertiser’s dream.

Early on, it was a free for all: companies bought and sold email lists, sent endless spam, and used pushy sales tactics.

Today, email marketing is much different, and better.

Sure, there are still bad actors buying lists and sending spam. But service providers filter out junk mail and (mostly) keep it out of your inbox.

And many countries have implemented laws banning spam.

What else is different about modern email marketing?

It’s permission-based.

Most marketing messages you see in your inbox are a result of you asking to receive them.

That means voluntarily joining a list, submitting your email, and agreeing to receive messages from a business.

We’re surrounded by advertising we didn’t ask to see — flyers in the mailbox, commercials on TV, promoted social media posts, billboards, and even podcast sponsorships.

The difference with email marketing is, generally, we’ve asked to see it.

And done right, marketing emails can actually be welcomed and appreciated.

It’s relevant and personalized.

Whether it’s a newsletter, a product pitch, or a reminder to complete the purchase in a shopping cart, the receiver is interested.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have signed up.

How much more targeted can you get?

It’s respectful.

Opting into an email list is now a transparent and respectful process.

Businesses typically explain what kind of emails they will send, and with what frequency.

For example, Further promises to send one email per week, with a specific type of content:

The focus of email marketing should be providing added value to the customer. Giving away useful content and resources is usually part of the strategy — not constant sales offers.

And respectful marketing emails clearly explain how to unsubscribe and stop getting emails.

But the purpose of this guide is not to give you a long-winded history. It is to teach you how to use direct email marketing to grow your business, and why it’s essential that you start today.

The most compelling reason:

Every other marketing channel puts you at the mercy of someone else’s agenda.

When you have an email list, you own your traffic.

Consider these popular marketing channels:

SEO: Google updates the search algorithm and suddenly your blog posts are buried on page 43. You had a steady stream of website visitors, but it dries up overnight.

Social media: Your target demographic starts drifting to a new platform, and fewer people are seeing your posts. You now have to start from scratch building followers while you are losing sales.

YouTube: Your niche becomes crowded with competitors and suddenly, nobody is watching your videos (or clicking the links to buy).

All the time, effort, and money spent on those traffic sources up in smoke.

Unless… you’ve been building an email list.

When you collect email addresses (with permission) from people who are interested in your business, you retain a lasting benefit from all of your marketing efforts.

If you take care of that email list, it’s an asset that will drive your business for years to come.

So, how can you use email marketing to grow your business in 2019?

Let’s keep going to find out.

Chapter 2: How Does Email Marketing Work?

By now, you should be convinced:

Email marketing is essential to the success of your business.

But if you don’t have an email list, how do you get one?

This section is a step-by-step guide on how to do email marketing when you’re starting from scratch.

Step 1: Sign up with an email service provider

Email service providers are basically software services for managing subscribers and sending email campaigns.

Make sure you read Chapter 3 before you commit to a service. It covers my top picks for email marketing companies, and how to choose the best one for your business.

For now, just know the email service provider is the software you will use to:

Store email addresses and customer data.

Manage lists, add tags, and process unsubscribe requests.

Create sign up forms on your website.

Design and send emails to subscribers.

Step 2: Create an opt-in offer

What will you offer in exchange for an email address?

People are, understandably, reluctant to sign up for more email. For most of us, Inbox Zero is a cruel joke. But we still want free stuff!

“Sign up for my free newsletter” is not likely to convince anyone.

You need to provide a compelling reason for someone to hand over that email address. For example, here’s a lead magnet we use to attract people who want to learn how to start a podcast.

An opt-in offer is an instant benefit, free of charge, you will provide when someone joins your email list. In digital marketing, it’s often referred to as a lead magnet.

Lead magnets can be different things, depending on the type of business.

Here are three examples for you:

A discount offer like free shipping or a coupon code

2. A digital resource like an e-book or course

3. A free trial of the service

Whatever you decide to use as an opt-in offer, it must provide real value.

Try to think like your customers and ask yourself, “Would I hand over my email address for this?”

Here are a few tips for coming up with an enticing opt-in offer:

Save time by re-purposing resources you’ve already created into a new format. For example:

Books and guides >> video tutorials or email courses

Multiple small resources >> a bundle or a comprehensive package

A paid course >> offer one module for free

A book for sale >> give the first chapter for free

Target a specific and immediate problem your audience has. For example:

Don’t know what to make for dinner? Faster Than Takeout: Top 10 Recipes to Solve Dinner

Yearning for chiseled abs? 7 Workouts to Blast Your Abs Fast

Are new parents desperate for sleep? Bedtime Cheat-Sheet: Get Your Kids to Sleep On Time TONIGHT

Step 3: Place an opt-in form on your website

The opt-in form (also called a sign-up form) is how people will submit their email and join your list. I use Thrive Leads for creating my forms, it enables me to create forms within my WordPress dashboard.

Here’s how it works.

First, choose which type of form you want.

When you log into your email service provider, you will find a variety of form options.

Choose a design and function to suit your website, the placement, and the opt-in offer.

For example, here are a few common types of opt-in form:

Popup box: Pops up in front of the page to grab attention.

Inline form: A box that can be placed anywhere on a page, including within the text of a blog post, or at the bottom of any page.

This example is taken from the Soul Salt blog where they are offering a content upgrade to how to find your purpose in life.

Ribbon: A banner across the full length of a page, usually at the top.

Next, customize the form.

The objective of an opt-in form is to convince the maximum number of people to opt-in.

Make it as easy as possible to complete.

Every extra field to complete means more work for potential subscribers — and more opportunities for them to change their minds before they hit “submit.”

These are the only things you really need to include:

Headline

Offer

Place to type an email address

Call to action button

With the text on your form, remember to focus on the benefit of signing up — think about what the opt-in offer does, rather than what it is.

You can also customize the colors on forms to stand out from the rest of your site.

If your website is on WordPress, you can take your opt-in forms to the next level with Thrive Leads:

Create all kinds of high-conversion forms.

Test different offers and forms: Automatically display variations of forms to see which ones get more sign-ups.

Target different users: Automatically display different forms, depending on which type of content they are interested in.

Finally, place the form on your website.

Your email provider will produce a block of code representing your customized form.

Copy and paste into your website.

After you save and refresh the page, this:

Will look like this:

If you use Thrive Leads, you won’t have to deal with any code — opt-in forms are created and placed from within your WordPress dashboard.

Step 4: Write a welcome series

There are two common mistakes that can derail your email marketing before you see any return on your investment.

The first mistake is not sending enough emails. A new prospect gives you their email address, only to have it sit there for weeks until you feel like sending an email blast.Weeks later, they don’t care nearly as much as they did when they first signed up. In fact, they may have forgotten signing up. Your first email is likely to go straight to the trash.

The second mistake is asking subscribers to buy something right away. Not only is that off-putting, but it’s ineffective. It’s a quick way to lose your new subscriber.

Both of these mistakes tend to get you reported as spam, which harms your deliverability. Being marked as spam means your emails are more likely to be filtered as junk mail.

Having a welcome series in place right from the start, you avoid both mistakes.

Right after they sign up to your list, your prospects are most excited to hear from you.

This is when you have the best chance to get their attention and gain their loyalty.

The good news is, you can do it automatically, while you sleep.

A welcome series uses the magic of automation to send pre-written messages on a predetermined schedule.

GET ACCESS TO OUR 4-PART EMAIL WELCOME SERIES

All you have to do is write a few emails and set them up to send over a few days or a week.

If this sounds complicated to set up, don’t worry. Automation is a standard feature for most email marketing companies. You can easily schedule emails to send at certain dates and times, or based on certain triggers.

The hard part is knowing what to write. Chapter 4 covers content and strategy (what to send and when) including how to write an effective welcome series.

I’m also sharing this resource with you:

Email Marketing Template: Welcome Series

Feel free to use the email marketing template for inspiration, or just fill in the blanks to customize for your audience.

Once you’ve written the emails you will send, schedule them to drip out over several days. Here’s a sample schedule you could use:

Email 1: Confirmation email triggered by the opt-in form being completed.

Email 2: Download or success email sent immediately after confirmed

Email 3: Send the next day, at [10:00] AM.

Email 4: Send the next day, at [10:00] AM

Tag and add the subscriber to an appropriate automation offer

Here’s what it looks like in ActiveCampaign:

Step 5: Grow your email list with traffic

With everything in place on your website, you can focus your efforts on building traffic.

The success of your opt-in email marketing now depends on numbers. Your task is to get your opt-in form in front of as many eyeballs as you can.

You especially need the eyeballs of people most likely to become your customers — your target audience.

Attracting targeted traffic to your website will help you fill your list with qualified leads. That’s marketing-speak for: people who need or want what your business offers.

With a brief search, you will find an overwhelming amount of advice on how best to increase traffic. There are many ways you can pursue this goal.

Most of the strategies involve some form of content marketing.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a catch-all term for any free resources you publish, whether it’s a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or webinar.

The aim of content marketing is to draw in the right people, by showing them your value.

The term is also a little misleading. Let me explain.

Any blogger can tell you how frustrating it is to toil away, writing and publishing amazing resources, while traffic remains flat. If feels like you’re screaming into a void.

If the right people aren’t finding your work, it’s a wasted effort.

That’s why when I talk about content marketing in 2019, I’m really talking about SEO (search engine optimization).

To make sure your content marketing is effective in building traffic, you have to first:

Make content your audience is searching for.

And second:

Make sure your content comes up in the search results.

Find out exactly how this process works in a step-by-step guide for how to get on the first page of Google.

Once you’ve nailed the process of creating the right content, try some tactics to amplify your reach.

Depending on how much time and money you want to invest, here are some ways to boost traffic:

Paid traffic: Google Ad, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Guest posting: Write for other blogs and include links back to your website.

Podcasts: Appear as a guest on podcasts to share your message.

Step 6: Testing and tweaks

An email marketing campaign can be automated, but your strategy should never be “set it and forget it.” Like starting a side hustle, email marketing takes consistent effort.

There are lots of things you can do to improve conversion rates for your opt-in form, and I’ll cover some of them in Chapter 4.

However, don’t worry about optimizing until you have some numbers to work with.

I advise my clients to focus 100% of their efforts on building traffic until they have at least 350 unique visits per day.  That gives you enough information to judge how well your opt-in form is performing.

By comparing how many signups you get vs. how many unique visitors you get to your site, you get a percentage.

I shoot for a minimum 5% signup conversion rate from organic traffic.

From there, test and tweak variations of your opt-in form and lead magnet offers. This is how you can work towards a higher conversion rate.

Chapter 3: Email Marketing Platforms

Choosing the best email marketing service is a process of clarifying your needs, your budget, and the learning curve you can handle.

First, decide what you need.

Here are the basic features you should expect from an email service:

Personalization: Automatically fills email fields with the data of your contact. This is a must, so all of your emails aren’t addressed, “Hey, Newsletter Subscriber.”

Segmentation: This feature enables you to send different messages to different groups of people. For example, you can tag subscribers based on what they purchased, where they live, or the results of a quiz.

Here are what some of the results look like from a quiz we ran. We use Thrive Quiz Builder to build all our quizzes.

Automation: The ability to schedule when your emails will be delivered is essential. It’s the reason email service providers are sometimes called autoresponders.

Opt-in forms: You’ll need a variety of sign-up forms to place on different pages of your website and start collecting emails.

Analytics: Reporting on numbers like conversion rates, email open rates, and click-throughs, to help you optimize your marketing.

Compliance: Make sure your email service includes tools to comply with privacy and anti-spam laws such as GDPR and CAN-SPAM.

Now think about any specific requirements your business has, and make sure you choose a provider that covers you.

For example:

E-commerce businesses send purchase confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, and shipping information. Their email service has to integrate with their shopping cart, whether it’s Shopify, WooCommerce, or something else.

Service-based businesses like personal trainers or chiropractors may want to integrate appointment scheduling and reminders with their email marketing.

Information-based businesses like blogs the sell online courses have more straightforward needs. They need standard features for building an email list and engaging with subscribers.Sound interesting? Here’s how to start a blog.

Not all email marketing services are created equal, and their pricing often displays this. Let’s take a look at pricing.

How much should you spend on email marketing services?

If you’re serious about using email to grow your business, you won’t get far with free email software.

But here’s the good news:

The best email marketing platforms are not the most expensive. Most email services are priced on volume. That means you pay less in the beginning when your list is small. You can upgrade as you grow your list (and increase your revenue).

Chances are, you’ve seen emails in your inbox sent through popular service providers like MailChimp, Aweber, or Infusionsoft.

These names are ubiquitous not because they’re the best email marketing platforms. It’s just that they’ve been around for a long time — and in some cases, they have a very active sales force.

For example, Infusionsoft is marketed as an all-in-one online business tool. It’s also considerably more expensive and more complicated than most. If you just need an email service provider, there are cheaper and better options.

ConstantContact has been in the game since 1995 — but they lag far behind the competition in automation.

There are also many low-cost services and even free options like MailChimp. Inexpensive doesn’t necessarily mean low-quality. But in general, you get what you pay for. And you will eventually outgrow your free plan.

Don’t make the mistake of choosing based on familiarity or free offers.

Start with a platform that gives you the best tools for your growing business.

These are the platforms I recommend, and some compelling reasons to consider using them for your email marketing.

They’re not the biggest or most expensive players in the game, but they are the best.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit claims to be the best email marketing software for online creators — and I can personally back this claim.

As the creator of a podcast, blog, a book, and several online courses, ConvertKit has helped me grow my audience and increase my revenue.

If you’re new to email marketing, simplicity and ease-of-use should be one of your top criteria in choosing an email service. Because it’s designed for creators, not marketers, ConvertKit is easy to use.

Beyond simplicity, ConvertKit has all the essential features and powerful automation you will need to get started with email marketing, or to power-up your existing efforts.

Additionally, they have a couple of snazzy tools like A/B testing of email subject lines, varied send times, and premade email sequences to make your life easier and your email marketing better.

The bottom line is ConvertKit is an email service provider you can trust to have your best interests at heart.

Here’s what I love most about it:

ConvertKit is NOT trying to be everything to everyone. They have developed and are continuing to develop the perfect email marketing service for creators – bloggers, podcasts, YouTubers, etc.

Simple, yet effective. Yes, ConvertKit does automation and segmenting, but they have managed to create a tool that is intuitive and easy to use.

ConvertKit is founded and run by Nathan Barry, an honest, hard-working, and great guy.

ActiveCampaign

I love email marketing, and I’m fascinated by how it works. I’ve been using it for years.

That said, some of the email marketing platforms I’ve seen are way too complex, even for me. Sometimes I need to set up complicated automation. I do not want to spend weeks figuring out how to do it, or depend on outside help to make it work.

I’ve settled on ActiveCampaign because they make it incredibly easy to set up complex automations – from basic automated emails to transactional emails, and evergreen email funnels to RSS feed automation.

Yes, ActiveCampaign has advanced marketing automation built-in, but they make it simple to implement and understand.

I can map out a subscriber’s journey down to the tiniest detail, in minutes.

Chapter 4: Email Marketing Strategy

The first three chapters were all about how email marketing works, and how to start building an email list.

Now we get to the juicy part — what and when to email your subscribers.

Your email marketing strategy has one purpose.

(Hint: It’s not to let people know what you’re up to in newsletters.)

It’s sales. If selling doesn’t come naturally to you, don’t worry. It’s a skill you can learn.

And the best part?

You don’t have to be extroverted, pushy, or underhanded to sell products to your email list.

This chapter will show you how to bring subscribers on the following journey:

An effective email strategy accomplishes this lofty goal with three kinds of email.

I’m not talking about the content of the messages, which can look very different depending on what business you are in.

Instead, consider the three types of intent behind each message:

Engaging: Teaching readers what you’re all about, and engaging them further with your business.

Selling: Making relevant offers, and asking for the sale.

Segmenting: Finding out more about your subscribers and grouping or “tagging” them to sell more effectively.

Here’s how to use each type of email to build a strategy that will maximize your profits, without being sleazy.

Engaging

The first few emails you send any new subscriber should aim to engage them — get them to open, read, and take action.

Why? Because jumping straight into a sales pitch would be like proposing marriage on a first date. You can imagine what the answer would be.

New subscribers are most engaged in the first few days after signing up. You have their attention now, more than ever.

This is your opportunity to show them they are in the right place, and good things are going to happen when they stay on your list.

Writing an effective email welcome series

In terms of a subscriber’s journey, the first few emails should bring them from stranger to friend.

Starting with your very first welcome email, write with these objectives in mind:

Introduce yourself and your business: Personally welcome and celebrate your new subscriber. Help them get to know you a little better.

Tell your new subscriber what to expect: Let people know how often you will email them, and what kind of emails you will send.

Demonstrate the value of being a subscriber: Remind people why they signed up, and why they are going to love opening your emails.

Engage the subscriber to take further action: Ask them to “whitelist” you, by adding you to their contacts. Entice them to further engage by visiting your website and following your social media accounts.

Raise curiosity about what’s coming next: Give them a strong incentive to open your next emails, by hinting at good things to come.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

You can see in the example above that it’s possible to cover all the bases in one email. But sending a few more emails while your new prospect is still engaged and excited puts you in a much better position.

You want to provide plenty of opportunities for them to engage with one of your emails during this phase.

If they were busy and missed your first email, this gives new subscribers a few more chances to get on board.

Staying in touch

After the welcome series, some of your prospects should be ready to become customers. So absolutely, if you have a product to sell, start selling.

But what if you don’t have a product for sale yet? (If this is the case, you could try affiliate marketing.)

What if you’re still working on products for different segments of your market?

What if you have a product to sell, but it’s something with a longer sales cycle?

Even if none of those questions apply to your business, it’s a bad strategy to email only when you want to sell something.

In fact, regularly sending helpful resources, curated content, or news updates can help with a few important objectives:

Establishing authority: Branding yourself as an expert, and your business as a valuable resource.

Staying top of mind: When they need your product or service, you’ll be the first one they think of.

Deepening the relationship: Over time, regular contact helps readers get to know you better, and trust you more. Conversely, you get to learn more about them as you see what kind of messages get the best response.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly what to send. There’s no standard recipe for email marketing success. Frequency, content, and tone can vary widely, even within the same niche.

For example, The Hustle sends an email every single day, and Brian Clark at Further emails once a week.

A big retail store like Ikea sends targeted product listings, but a small independent cabinet maker might send updates from the workshop, or pictures of their latest project.

For Hack the Entrepreneur, I like to send a personal message every time I publish a new resource. Not so much when I just want to share a motivational quote.

While I can’t tell you exactly what to send, I can tell you to keep these guiding principles in mind with every email blast:

Be consistent: Whether you’re going to email every day, or once a month, tell people what to expect when they sign up. Then make sure you deliver.

Make it about them, not you: Always put your customer first. Ask yourself how what you are sending is going to help them. If you are writing about yourself, that’s fine. As long as you focus the message on how your story benefits the reader.

Selling

Direct selling is the bread and butter of your email marketing strategy. This is how you will grow your business and make real sales to real customers.

Ultimately, all of the emails you send are intended to sell customers on you and your brand. But product launches and sales funnels are specific art (and science).

The good news is, everything in this guide so far has been about placing you in a strategically brilliant position to close the sale.

If you’ve followed along so far, you have already “influenced” your potential customers.

With an awesome lead magnet, you’ve already provided value.

With an effective welcome series, you’ve convinced leads that they are in the right place.

Anyone still on your list is ready to consider the next step of the journey, moving from friend to customer.

Segmenting

Segmenting your email list is a crucial part of maintaining a healthy list.

Why?

Because irrelevant messages are a bother. People will unsubscribe.

Chances are, your business offers a variety of products and services that will appeal to different segments of your readers.

For example:

A gardening supply business:

Different plants grow in different climates.

Some gardeners grow vegetables, and some only flowers.

The list includes a combination of experienced gardeners and people buying their very first seed packet.

If this doesn’t sound anything like your business, you might be tempted to skip over this section. That would be a mistake.

Even if your email list is already super-targeted, segmenting emails helps to re-engage readers.

Here’s how segmenting emails work:

Email your readers and ask them to take an action related to a specific topic. For example:

Clicking a link to an article, on your blog or another high-quality website.

Taking a quiz or survey.

Jumping to a landing page for a free download, webinar, or video.

Clicking a button to stop receiving info about a certain topic.

Subscribers who take the requested action identify themselves as interested.

Email software tracks who clicks on the links your messages, and automatically adds tags. If you use a quiz, same thing — the results are tracked and responders are tagged.

You now have a subgroup of subscribers to target with relevant content, and you’ve re-engaged your long-term readers.

Now you know what segmenting emails are, and how they work. But when should you segment?

There are lots of reasons you might want to tag different groups of your audience. Here are a few of the most common uses:

After the welcome series: Filter new subscribers into the most relevant sales funnel after the welcome series.

Researching demand: Send a quiz, lead magnet, or new content to find out who might be interested in a new product, service, or business book.

Launching a new product: Find out who is interested first, so you can avoid pitching to readers who won’t care.

If you’re not actively researching or launching new products, you should still consider a segmenting email once or twice per year.

Why? To re-engage with your subscribers.

Segmenting emails are engaging — you are asking readers to do something.

Checking out something on your website, clicking to an interesting article, or getting a useful download — all of these things remind subscribers why they signed up in the first place.

Chapter 5: Email marketing tips

With a solid email marketing strategy in place and a few email marketing best practices, your list should be ticking along with steady growth in subscribers.

Time to sit back and watch sales roll in!

Yeah, no. It would be a minor miracle if everything worked flawlessly from day one.

Chances are, you’ll need to make some adjustments along the way to get the results you expect from your email marketing.

Even if you are getting decent results, there will always be room for improvement.

This chapter covers the most common obstacles that trip up many first-time email marketers — and some tips to get phenomenal results.

How do I know if my email marketing is working?

Email marketing covers multiple phases of the sales process, from lead generation to nurturing and closing a sale.

That means there are a few places that things can go… sideways.

The good news about any kind of online marketing: everything is tracked. You can use data to assess performance and diagnose weak points in your email marketing strategy.

Here are the key metrics you need to know, where to find them, and how to improve them.

1. Page impressions:

Page impressions is a simple measure of how many people are seeing the page. This metric is also referred to as traffic. It’s the first number to look at.

If you are getting lots of traffic, but nobody is signing up to your list, go on to the next metric (opt-in rate).

2. Opt-in rate:

The opt-in rate is a percentage of total visitors who sign up (opt-in) to your email list.

5 percent is a reasonable expectation. But if you target your lead magnet well, you can get as high 15 – 20 percent.

3. Open rate:

The open rate is the next thing to look at. It tells you how many people are opening (and hopefully reading) your emails, as a percentage.

Your initial message to a new subscriber will almost always have the highest open rate — 50 to 75 percent is normal.

It’s natural for the rates to drop over time. For example, in an automated welcome sequence or sales funnel, message two will usually drop into a range of 25 to 50 percent.

As the sequence continues, people will unsubscribe and open rates in the 30 percent range are normal.

4. Click-through rate:

This is the final step — and the limits of what email marketing can do: getting a subscriber to click on a link in your email.

Click-through rates vary quite a bit, depending on what you are asking subscribers to do.

For example, if your message is selling something, you might include a link to a sales page, and expect a rate of 7 to 30 percent.

If it’s a link to a free download, you 40 to 60 percent is reasonable.

How do I get (and keep) more subscribers?

First, let me answer that question with another question:

Do you have low traffic?

If only a handful of people visit your site each day, increasing traffic should be your most immediate concern. Without enough targeted traffic to your opt-in offer, nothing else you do will make a difference.

Stop reading this right now and learn how to increase traffic to your website (start with getting onto the first page of google)!

As traffic increases to your website, your email list should be growing. If it’s not, the question becomes:

Why isn’t your opt-in converting?

There are many things you can adjust to improve conversions. The easiest thing to try is simply changing your opt-in forms to make them more eye-catching.

Next, you can test different lead magnets to find a more compelling offer.

Finally, consider the sources of traffic to your website. How well do your website visitors match your offer, and how mentally prepared are they to take the next step?

For example, people who are referred by someone they trust are more likely to sign up. People who happen upon your site while looking for something else are less likely to sign up.

How do I get more people to open my emails?

The first challenge in getting opened is deliverability. So here’s another question for you:

Are your emails arriving in subscribers’ inboxes?

Although your welcome email should direct people to whitelist you, there is more you can do to avoid getting caught in spam filters:

After making it into the inbox, there are some factors that make a big impact on open rates:

1. Timing

In general, emails are more likely to be opened on weekday mornings.

This is when most people have a minute to scan their inbox for anything interesting — before they start working or going about their day.

Of course, this varies depending on who you are targeting. Some audiences (like mine) prefer to open emails later in the week and weekends.

Find the sweet spot for your audience by experimenting with different times and days.

2. Sender

People are more likely to open an email from friends and family first. And it’s hard to feel friendly towards a corporate entity, isn’t it?

Always use your name as the sender, and not the name of your company.

3. Subject

The subject line is a critical element in open rates. If it’s not compelling, your message will get ignored or deleted.

The subject should be descriptive of the contents, but also intriguing. And it has to be within 30 – 35 characters, or it will be shortened in the display.

4. Opening sentence

Many email clients, like Gmail, show the first sentence or two within the inbox.

Pay special attention to the opening of your message to make sure it grabs attention and promises to be worth reading.

5. Inactive subscribers

Low open rates can indicate a problem with list quality.

Over time, subscribers change email addresses or lose interest and stop reading. Some people provide fake email addresses to get a free offer.

The best thing to do is periodically prune the list by removing inactive email addresses.

How do I keep people from unsubscribing?

The short answer:

You can’t. And you shouldn’t try.

Don’t be afraid of unsubscribes. You can’t expect to keep every subscriber because your business isn’t for everyone.

Of course, you want to keep every potential customer on your list. The best way to do that is to be clear about what subscribers should expect to receive from you — and then deliver.

Many first-time email marketers worry about emailing too frequently. They don’t want to be perceived as pushy or annoying. They are also concerned that asking people to buy things all the time is too “salesy” and gross.

These concerns are understandable but wrong.

Your job is to offer as much value as you can with your email marketing. That means sending valuable information and sending frequently. That also includes relevant sales offers.

Never forget — your subscribers are being inundated with other people’s marketing messages. You need to stay in their awareness.

How do increase sales through email marketing?

Email marketing sales funnels are very effective for selling certain types of products. A series of messages strategically composed and timed can:

Create desire

Demonstrate value of the product

Establish urgency to buy

However, it’s difficult for readers to take the leap directly from an email to a shopping cart — especially for higher-priced products.

If you have an online business, your sales funnel should always direct readers to a sales page on your website. Read more about how to create a sales page that converts.

Thrive Leads is an excellent plugin for creating sales and landing pages in WordPress.

Where email marketing take you in 2019?

Now that you know how to get started with email marketing and build a solid list, it’s your turn. If you are looking to make money online, then you need to have a list.

Whether you’re starting an email list for the first time or fine-tuning your strategy, I love hearing what you’re up to and answering questions.

Let me know in the comments what you plan to do with email marketing this year.

The post Email Marketing: The Definitive Guide for 2019 appeared first on Hack the Entrepreneur.

via Hack the Entrepreneur

[mtg-weekly-recap]

MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap: April 3, 2017

Cat and Jackal Gods | Original art by @isharton

Welcome to another issue of the MTG Tumblr Recap! Thanks to those who have followed us, and now the new-set season is in full swing, we hope to be getting into a proper groove that keeps this thing happening on a normal, weekly basis. For those unfamiliar with what we do, the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap is a gathering of some of the most notable posts and trends from within the MTG Tumblr community for a given week. For this issue, we will be covering things from the end of March, 2017 through April 3, 2017. If you are interested in joining our writing team, please PM any of our writers and we will add you to our Discord.

1. In-Vocational Training

Art for Wrath of God | Original art by Titus Lutner, 

The new Masterpiece series for the Amonkhet block was revealed earlier last week. These cards inspired much discussion throughout the Magic Community. The new Masterpiece cards are unlike any of the Masterpiece cards that Wizards has released. While Zendikar had Expeditions and Kaladesh had Inventions, Amonkhet will have Invocations.Some of cards being printed are iconic cards, such as Counterbalance, Daze and Wrath of God. They have gorgeous, beautiful artwork inspired by the Plane, however, the rest of the design of the card has brought about some criticism from the community.  The main criticism of the cards are that they are difficult to the read, due to the font used for the letters and the incorporation of “hieroglyphics”. Mark Rosewater has said that this approach was inspired by the Elesh Norn promotional card, that used the Phyrexian language. However, the font and “hieroglyphs” are not legible for some with poor eye sight or other reading impairments, and thus has caused some backlash from the community in regards to this creative choice. @sarpadianempiresvol-viii has also agreed with the majority that the “text is almost unreadable” as well as expressing regret, like others, that the beautiful art is too small to see on the card.

Another main criticism of the Invocations are that they could be considered culturally insensitive. Tumblr user @zoe-of-the-veil has made several posts about this issue. Zoe urges the community to “be aware of this and be careful not to let our enthusiasm for a new set erase these issues and not to let Magic’s #aesthetic contribute to stereotyping and erasing a very real culture.” All in all, there are very mixed reactions of the new Masterpiece series. It is a new approach from Wizards and after Amonkhet is released, the Invocations may have a warmer reception from the Community.

 -- Chelsea, @chelsea-beleren-vess

2. This  Week’s Magic Story Review

Impact, by Michael Yichao

Liliana | Original art by @zomburai

This week we officially kicked off the Amonkhet magic story with the first installment, Impact (written by Michael Yichao, author of Sacrifice, All the cairns of Jund, and Quiet Moments)! The story shows the Gatewatch’s (minus Ajani, the only member who thought charging into Bolas’s private realm without a plan wasn’t such a great idea) arrival on Amonkhet and its… not-so-fun experiences with the local climate and fauna. Yichao juggles the different points of view of the five planeswalkers very well, often switching up the style of narration while simultaneously giving us the possibility to see what’s going on in the planeswalkers’ minds and how they often have very different perceptions (Chandra, for example, thinks the other four are wimps who can’t stand a little heat). 

The first story of a block is always crucial in that it needs to establish a starting point from which to go forward but also needs to provide more than just a “this is where the story will take place” feel, because otherwise it will not be as entertaining as the following installments: it needs to have some action and/or lay out a basis for conflict. Impact accomplishes this not only by having the gatewatch fend off zombies and sandworms, but also by showing us how the journey ahead of them is all but simple: not only were they all about to die without Bolas even lifting a finger, but we see that Liliana has other plans (namely, Razaketh) and Gideon is awe-struck by the presence of Hazoret and, by extension, the other gods (which could lead to some interesting character development on his part). In summary, Impact does a good job of blending fast-paced, action packed narrative with moments of introspection and reflection and a good dose of humor even in the midst of life-threatening situations, and sets the bar pretty high up there for the following magic stories, in terms of narration.

--- Diego, @magus-of-the-color-pie

3. Serpopardon Me?

☆ what a good snake. cat. cat snake? snake cat? … cake??  | Original art by @frigidloki

Serpopards (Which some of us discovered are ‘real’ monsters from the Antiquities thanks to @sarpadianempiresvol-viii​ and Wikipedia) are the big reveal of this weeks pre-spoilers section, and captured the imagination of Magic Fanartists everywhere:

( @isharton​ ) 

( @oketra​ )

( @pepperjaq​ )

( @trans-chandra )

--- Compiled by Diego, @magus-of-the-color-pie

4. Pre-Spoiler Week Spoiler-y Previews!

Renewed Faith | Original art by Wesley Bert

We sit in the eve of a great, new spoiler season, and like always, Wizards cant help but set their phasers to ‘tease’ as they give us glimpses of the new set before the official fortnight of fun. In addition to the polarizing Invocations, a couple of cards have been previewed, including quite a few for the Gideon and LIliana Planeswalker decks, the cards confirmed for the set proper have some interesting new mechanics, showing the return of Cycling as mechanic, as well as introducing Exert and Embalm

Glorybringer | Original art by Sam Burley

Exert is an ability that comes into play when you declare attacking. For the low low cost of not untapping on your next untap step, you can give a creature with the exerted creature a bonus. So far we’ve only seen the card above, so we don’t know much about which colors will have this ability. 

Embalm is another ability word, allowing cards to be copied as tokens from the graveyard, for a mana cost and exiling the original card. The token copy is alway white in color, and always a Zombie (mummy) creature, in addition to it’s other type, but appears to be identical in all other ways. Although the below example is white, it would seem that this ability will not be limited only to that color.

Trueheart Duelist | Original art by Izzy

--- Liam, @coincidencetheories​

5. FAN ART AROUND THE BLOGS

Dark Power | Original art by @diorevoredo 

You’ve no doubt seen some of these making the rounds, but they’re awesome and this here blog’s looking to celebrate awesome.

@isharton gave us a look at Amonkhet from the perspective of a humble brick, while @hirfael took a quote from Impact where Gideon rescues Jace with one hand.

@zurgo-nerdpuncher  meanwhile, couldn’t be more excited about the confirmation of snakes on the plane, and @gemstonechronologist reminds us that fan creations come in many dimensions, with some exquisite fabrications of the Amonkhet Set symbol as a pendant charm

--- Liam, @coincidencetheories

6. Invisible Talker(s)

Invisible Stalker | Original Art by Bud Cook

This week, as with most weeks, there were some great Magic podcasts. Of note, you might enjoy:

TapTapConcede - Loading Ready Run : Notable Magic Tumblr contributor @talinthas was this weeks guest, talking about Kaladesh’s cultural influences, as well as the odd faux pas.

Limited Resources - Marshal Sutcliffe and LSV: A blast from the past as original co-host and current Wizards employee Ryan Spain drops by The Girlfriend Bracket - Erin, Hallie, Kriz and Katie: As this podcast nears it’s 100th episode, the gang talk about the ‘grind’, and other goings on in Magic. The Command Zone - Jimmy Wong and Josh Lee Kwai: Learn some ways to mix up your playgroups game of Commander

--- Liam, @coincidencetheories

...and finally: Amonkhet Tumblr Awards

@mtg-weekly-recap contributor @chelsea-beleren-vess had the idea that we as a community might give some votes on the new set (and new sets going forward) and people have taken to the idea, giving suggestions for a few other categories to make a real red-carpet event. Feel free to let her know any other ideas for the categories you want to see! Also, stay tuned once Spoiler Season is complete for details as to how to vote for your favorites!

Thank you again for reading this week’s issue of the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap. Hope to see you next week! Interested in contributing to the Recap? Want to keep track of notable posts and trends throughout the MTG community on a given week? Or write a short blurb on a specific topic? Do you just want to make us aware of one specific topic or post? Please PM our main editor @the-burnished-hart or any of our staff writers!

[pauperpedia]

Tuesday Brewsday 25: Caw Blade

After taking a week off I’m back, bringing you a new twist on an old classic. Caw Blade has been around since Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk were legal in standard back in Mirrodin Block 2011. Brian Kibler was the first one to pioneer such a deck to pretty good success. Pauper doesn’t have powerful Planeswalkers like Jace, the Mindsculptor or Gideon Jura, nor does it have the awesome swords that pushed the deck over the top. However, we do have a poor man’s Stoneforge Mystic in Trinket Mage which helps grab us a slew of artifacts from our library. Since pauper lacks a powerful midrange gameplan like the old standard or modern versions of Caw Blade, this version needs to rely on quick beats from Delver of Secrets. So, what does this pauper version look like and why is it an improvement over previous versions?

4 Brainstorm

4 Squadron Hawk

4 Of One Mind

4 Delver of Secrets

4 Trinket Mage

4 Navigator's Compass

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Bonesplitter

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

1 Ancient Den

1 Seat of the Synod

1 Great Furnace

2 Battle Screech

1 Cenn’s Enlistment

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Counterspell

1 Capsize

3 Ash Barrens

2 Evolving Wilds

5 Island

3 Plains

1 Mountain

4 Azorius Chancery

Brainstorm is one of the best spells to play in pauper for its raw power, flexibility and cheap cost. The ability to hide cards from targeted discard spells, the possibility of digging through a deck for answers/clock/ combo pieces, and being able to clear our hand from unnecessary spells or excess lands is amazing. All these options make this cantrip the spell of choice in Ux decks. However, what if I told you there's a way to make it even better. By casting Squadron Hawk prior to Brainstorming, you'll net yourself three hawks. When you Brainstorm, putting back the hawks, you transform those 3 Hawks into hopeful spells. Then you can play a Hawk, digging for the 2 Hawks you put back before. . +5 cards in your hand (and two flying chumpblockers on the battlefield) just by sleeving up a playset of birds that play fetch better than your furry best friend at home, and running a couple of Brainstorms.

Of One Mind is the format’s most recently printed card to make waves. Every pauper community was having the discussion on how to best implement it. Everyone knew drawing two cards for one mana would be good. The big problem was finding a ways to consistently have a human and non human on the battlefield. Well I think this card has the chance to transform Caw Blade into a great deck. Since we’re running a total of eight humans alongside birds that can easily fetch more copies, and non human tokens, there is a good chance we will always meet the criteria. Decks in the past had a higher top end and ran Mulldrifters or Custodi Squire to out value opponents in the mid game. Delver of Secrets alongside Squadron Hawk, Brainstorm, and Of One Mind really help push the deck in an aggressive direction without taking away the value.

Trinket Mage is a strong card in pauper that doesn’t get as much love as it should. Most of the time this artifact loving wizard is going to grab Bonesplitter to push through damage and end the game quickly. There are times however when you need to play defensively and you can grab Sylvok Lifestaff which can buy you time to stabilize. Maybe you need to gain three life against burn, you can pull out Navigator’s Compass. Relic of Progenitus can be fetched when you’re up against Fog Tron, Mystic Sanctuary decks, Familiars, Boros decks that run Prismatic Strands, or Mono Black decks that abuse their graveyard. Maybe you want more mana or need to color fix to be able to cast Lightning Bolt, you can grab Ancient Den, Seat of the Synod, or Great Furnace.

Post sideboard you can draw out your silver bullet needed to give you the edge in a match.

Since Delver of Secrets requires a fair amount of spells, but the deck also needs creatures to make Of One Mind work, I felt it was necessary to run Battle Screech and Cenn’s Enlistment. Battle Screech can turn a non threatening board state into one that can be very intimidating. Cenn’s Enlistment is a constant spell that can be cast from the graveyard and piggy back off of the playset of Karoo lands. Strapping on Sylvok Lifestaff to one of these Kithkin can be enough to hold off hyper aggressive decks.

Lightning Bolt and Counterspell are two iconic cards that almost every deck that runs either U or R plays. With the help of Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds, Trinket Mage, and Navigator’s Compass the opportunity to run Lightning Bolt wasn’t one I could pass up. Being able to give the deck a bit of reach or getting rid of a creature when it matters most is where this decks wants to be. You could argue and say Journey to Nowhere might be better for the sake of a smoother mana base and less chance to fall victim to rng. I like to live dangerously however, and besides I want to run Delver and Lightning Bolt is an Instant whereas Journey to Nowhere is not.

1 Relic of Progenitus

2 Aether Spellbomb

1 Gingerbrute

1 Viridian Longbow

2 Prismatic Strands

2 Electrickery

2 Red Elemental Blast

1 Dispel

1 Leave No Trace

2 Shenanigans

Having another copy of Relic of Progenitus in the sideboard is for situations you need to double down on your graveyard hate.

Aether Spellbomb is for creatures that Bolt can kill which could cause a problem for you. You’re going to enjoy forcing your opponent to dump more of their library into the graveyard for Gurmag Angler, stalling an Ulamog’s Crusher from annihilating your board, or preventing your affinity opponent from swinging in with a Temur Battle Raged Atog.

Gingerbrute is excellent tech against Boros Monarch players that rely on Prismatic Strand or an abundance of blockers. Not only does this fast cookie get around Strands because it’s colorless, but you can also make it unblockable to continually take the Monarch and turn the tables on your opponent.

Viridian Longbow is a good solution when your up against faeries, other birds, elves, or Fog Tron. You’re more than likely taking out Sylvok Lifestaff for this card.

Prismatic Strands is one of the best spells white decks can run which is why you see it Boros decks. It just does so much from preventing burn from killing you, giving you a few extra turns against Hexproof/Stompy/RDW, or answering an Electrickery.

I like Red Elemental Blast here over Blue Elemental Blast. There isn’t much I would want to counter if it was red that Prismatic Strands already answers. Blue spells however, can be problematic and require a bit more attention.

Dispel is a good answer when you feel you might get into a good old fashioned counter war with your opponent. Every last mana counts and being able to come out on top simply because you had one more blue source than your opponent is a great feeling.

Leave No trace is there primarily for Hexproof, but can also come in handy when you’re facing an opponent running an abundance of Journey to Nowhere’s or miscellaneous enchantments.

Since playing Boros Bully I’ve fallen in love with Shenanigans. Since I’m running Delver of Secrets, being able to run a spell instead of Gorilla Shaman is paramount. Especially since I could easily lock affinity out of the game after turn two by just recasting it when I need to every turn.

Caw Blade is just one of those decks that I feel is almost there. Maybe we need better one mana artifacts to really push it? I do think Of One Mind and running Delver has improved it though. So what are you waiting for, get out there and scream Caw Caw as you demolish your opponent. Please visit and like/follow my Facebook page pauperpedia, a fan page dedicated to bringing you links to daily articles, videos, and podcast covering Pauper. You can also email me at Pauperpedia@gmail.com if any of you have submissions as well. Till next time folks, have a happy Brewsday!

[daisycactus20-blog]

Berry Buttermilk Scones

We all blasted through the front door a few hours ago, feet dirty and a bit exhausted from a full day of blueberry picking — something that’s become a bit of a family tradition in late July ever since Oliver was born. We have photos out in the field with O in the baby carrier, chubby legs swaying in the breeze while I obsessively applied sunscreen every ten minutes. Last year found Oliver and his friend Lewis traipsing through the rows of berries together in the late morning hours, eating more than we ended up taking home. This year’s photos tell a different story: Oliver and I in a big open field used for overflow parking, he sitting on his little potty, me singing songs and chatting away, the sun beating down on the two of us. We’re deep in the thick of potty training, so as it turned out, Sam and Oliver’s Aunt Christa did the brunt of the picking today. But Oliver and I had some good talks while staying hydrated, people watching, and eating Sour Cream and Onion Kettle chips. Not a bad way to spend a morning. And really, it’s never about how many berries we bring home because neither of these years have proven to be particularly bountiful, but it just never feels like high summer until we get out there and start filling our buckets, however slowly.

I’d promised you a savory baking recipe today but I’m still testing it, so instead I bring you mixed berry scones! And no, I didn’t just whip these up using the berries we picked this afternoon because, well, I’m just not that much of a sorceress. But I love this scone recipe for a few reasons, most importantly: their simplicity. I flirted with the idea of calling them Vacation Scones — you know those recipes you kind of keep memorized or you kind of roughly pull together when you’re traveling and they manage to somehow always taste great? For me, I can make an impromptu fruit crisp wherever I may be without a recipe and can make pretty respectable pancakes. These scones are simple enough to start to add to that list: they don’t have any fussy ingredients (I’m looking at you, lemon zest), they don’t require any rolling or turning or cutting butter into the dough (I use a food processor for ease and speed), and they’re easily adaptable. I dig them.

And I did promise I’d share a few other things I’ve been into lately as the summer ticks on. I have a pretty decent commute now with my new job, so I’ve been listening to more podcasts, have been forcing myself to read more in the evenings, and have bookmarked some new recipes. So here’s a quick and loose list of a few of those things:

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: I’m ashamed to say I have a few pages left of this novel and there’s no good reason (other than I can’t keep my eyes open at night) because it’s such a rich, beautifully-written story and I can’t recommend it enough. On the surface it’s about a marriage, but it speaks so much to the different kinds of love, how time changes people, and the different versions of ourselves that we discover along the way.

Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: I haven’t read this book! So why recommend it? I have MANY friends who have and it’s on my ‘next to read’ list. I love the recent handful of books coming out that speak to a bit of a different experience of pregnancy, labor and motherhood than is portrayed in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. From the description, “With the curiosity of a journalist, the perspective of a feminist, and the intimacy and urgency of a mother, she explores the emerging science behind the pressing questions women have about everything from miscarriage to complicated labors to postpartum changes.” Let’s read this, shall we?!

Momrage Podcast: My online homie Amelia Morris has come out with a really interesting podcast along with her friend Edan Lepucki. They delve into questions about motherhood that are often unpopular or skirted around. And I love that they’re doing it; it’s about time.

Tully: Ok, so at first I didn’t like this movie. I even texted my friend Julie and commiserated with her about our mutual dislike for it. The day after though, after thinking about it in the shower for quite some time, I decided it actually resonated more than I gave it credit for. I love Charlize Theron and, without giving too much away, this film offers a unique and important glimpse into postpartum mental health.

Girls Night In: While I think I’m not necessarily the target age here (I’m guessing it’s more like early 30’s), I’ve been surprised with how much I enjoy this newsletter. It’s really well done, smartly written and always has a few links that interest me.

Green Chile Chicken Verde (in the Instant Pot!): As I mentioned, I (very) reluctantly gave into the craze: I’m the (reluctant) owner of a new Instant Pot and this recipe is calling my name. What else should I make?!

Instant Pot Tomato White Beans: It’s been really too hot to do major cooking this week, so when I stumbled across this recipe, it was immediately bookmarked. I’ve heard that making beans in the Instant Pot is a real game changer, and I’m looking forward to keying up this recipe to find out what all the hype’s about.

Our Favorite Vegan Ice Cream: More often than not we have a pint of Frankie and Jo’s in the freezer. It’s not cheap, but it’s hands down the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever had and just so happens to be a few blocks from our house (but they also ship!). I love the Berries and Cultured Cream flavor this month. So good.

Pin recipe Print recipe

These whole grain scones aren’t too sweet and are a great way to use up a glut of summer berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or blueberries all work great here (I used a mixture of raspberries and blackberries). As you’re making the dough, remember that flour is your friend: if your dough feels too wet or you’re sticking to your work surface, just add a bit more! These are best the day you bake them, but are still great the second day if stored in an airtight container. Beyond that, freeze them for future weekday breakfasts.

Ingredients

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (280g) Bob's Red Mill organic whole wheat flour, plus more for work surface

1/3 cup (75g) turbinado sugar, plus more for the tops

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup buttermilk, plus more for the tops

1 heaping cup (160g/5.5oz) berries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the butter and pulse until it’s incorporated into tiny pebble-size pieces. Slowly add the buttermilk through the feed tube, stopping right when the dough starts to come together.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface. Place your berries on top and fold the dough over a few times until the berries have been incorporated (they’ll likely be kind of hiding in the center layer there, which is great; you can’t mess this step up … just get those berries in there as messy as it may seem). Add a little more flour to the dough if it’s sticking to the surface.

Form the dough into a rectangle shape (do the best you can here; it’s totally acceptable to have different shaped scones, so it really doesn’t matter). Slice into 9 large scones or 16 small scones.

Quickly transfer to prepared baking sheet. Brush the scones with a little buttermilk and sprinkle with extra sugar. Bake for 20-24 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Best if enjoyed within two days of baking.

Source: http://asweetspoonful.com/2018/07/berry-buttermilk-scones.html

[oxmarble28-blog]

Berry Buttermilk Scones

We all blasted through the front door a few hours ago, feet dirty and a bit exhausted from a full day of blueberry picking — something that’s become a bit of a family tradition in late July ever since Oliver was born. We have photos out in the field with O in the baby carrier, chubby legs swaying in the breeze while I obsessively applied sunscreen every ten minutes. Last year found Oliver and his friend Lewis traipsing through the rows of berries together in the late morning hours, eating more than we ended up taking home. This year’s photos tell a different story: Oliver and I in a big open field used for overflow parking, he sitting on his little potty, me singing songs and chatting away, the sun beating down on the two of us. We’re deep in the thick of potty training, so as it turned out, Sam and Oliver’s Aunt Christa did the brunt of the picking today. But Oliver and I had some good talks while staying hydrated, people watching, and eating Sour Cream and Onion Kettle chips. Not a bad way to spend a morning. And really, it’s never about how many berries we bring home because neither of these years have proven to be particularly bountiful, but it just never feels like high summer until we get out there and start filling our buckets, however slowly.

I’d promised you a savory baking recipe today but I’m still testing it, so instead I bring you mixed berry scones! And no, I didn’t just whip these up using the berries we picked this afternoon because, well, I’m just not that much of a sorceress. But I love this scone recipe for a few reasons, most importantly: their simplicity. I flirted with the idea of calling them Vacation Scones — you know those recipes you kind of keep memorized or you kind of roughly pull together when you’re traveling and they manage to somehow always taste great? For me, I can make an impromptu fruit crisp wherever I may be without a recipe and can make pretty respectable pancakes. These scones are simple enough to start to add to that list: they don’t have any fussy ingredients (I’m looking at you, lemon zest), they don’t require any rolling or turning or cutting butter into the dough (I use a food processor for ease and speed), and they’re easily adaptable. I dig them.

And I did promise I’d share a few other things I’ve been into lately as the summer ticks on. I have a pretty decent commute now with my new job, so I��ve been listening to more podcasts, have been forcing myself to read more in the evenings, and have bookmarked some new recipes. So here’s a quick and loose list of a few of those things:

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: I’m ashamed to say I have a few pages left of this novel and there’s no good reason (other than I can’t keep my eyes open at night) because it’s such a rich, beautifully-written story and I can’t recommend it enough. On the surface it’s about a marriage, but it speaks so much to the different kinds of love, how time changes people, and the different versions of ourselves that we discover along the way.

Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: I haven’t read this book! So why recommend it? I have MANY friends who have and it’s on my ‘next to read’ list. I love the recent handful of books coming out that speak to a bit of a different experience of pregnancy, labor and motherhood than is portrayed in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. From the description, “With the curiosity of a journalist, the perspective of a feminist, and the intimacy and urgency of a mother, she explores the emerging science behind the pressing questions women have about everything from miscarriage to complicated labors to postpartum changes.” Let’s read this, shall we?!

Momrage Podcast: My online homie Amelia Morris has come out with a really interesting podcast along with her friend Edan Lepucki. They delve into questions about motherhood that are often unpopular or skirted around. And I love that they’re doing it; it’s about time.

Tully: Ok, so at first I didn’t like this movie. I even texted my friend Julie and commiserated with her about our mutual dislike for it. The day after though, after thinking about it in the shower for quite some time, I decided it actually resonated more than I gave it credit for. I love Charlize Theron and, without giving too much away, this film offers a unique and important glimpse into postpartum mental health.

Girls Night In: While I think I’m not necessarily the target age here (I’m guessing it’s more like early 30’s), I’ve been surprised with how much I enjoy this newsletter. It’s really well done, smartly written and always has a few links that interest me.

Green Chile Chicken Verde (in the Instant Pot!): As I mentioned, I (very) reluctantly gave into the craze: I’m the (reluctant) owner of a new Instant Pot and this recipe is calling my name. What else should I make?!

Instant Pot Tomato White Beans: It’s been really too hot to do major cooking this week, so when I stumbled across this recipe, it was immediately bookmarked. I’ve heard that making beans in the Instant Pot is a real game changer, and I’m looking forward to keying up this recipe to find out what all the hype’s about.

Our Favorite Vegan Ice Cream: More often than not we have a pint of Frankie and Jo’s in the freezer. It’s not cheap, but it’s hands down the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever had and just so happens to be a few blocks from our house (but they also ship!). I love the Berries and Cultured Cream flavor this month. So good.

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These whole grain scones aren’t too sweet and are a great way to use up a glut of summer berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or blueberries all work great here (I used a mixture of raspberries and blackberries). As you’re making the dough, remember that flour is your friend: if your dough feels too wet or you’re sticking to your work surface, just add a bit more! These are best the day you bake them, but are still great the second day if stored in an airtight container. Beyond that, freeze them for future weekday breakfasts.

Ingredients

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (280g) Bob's Red Mill organic whole wheat flour, plus more for work surface

1/3 cup (75g) turbinado sugar, plus more for the tops

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup buttermilk, plus more for the tops

1 heaping cup (160g/5.5oz) berries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the butter and pulse until it’s incorporated into tiny pebble-size pieces. Slowly add the buttermilk through the feed tube, stopping right when the dough starts to come together.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface. Place your berries on top and fold the dough over a few times until the berries have been incorporated (they’ll likely be kind of hiding in the center layer there, which is great; you can’t mess this step up … just get those berries in there as messy as it may seem). Add a little more flour to the dough if it’s sticking to the surface.

Form the dough into a rectangle shape (do the best you can here; it’s totally acceptable to have different shaped scones, so it really doesn’t matter). Slice into 9 large scones or 16 small scones.

Quickly transfer to prepared baking sheet. Brush the scones with a little buttermilk and sprinkle with extra sugar. Bake for 20-24 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Best if enjoyed within two days of baking.

Source: http://asweetspoonful.com/2018/07/berry-buttermilk-scones.html

[the-final-straw-blog]

Move 9 Speak, Yellow Finch Tree Sitters, and Pansy Fest//ACAB 2019

This week we feature three segments. As it is literally packed with jam, we suggest you check out our podcast for free online at our website or any number of streaming sites for longer, more detailed conversations on the topics plus, again, Sean Swain’s segment for this week.

Move call for support for Delbert Orr Africa

First we have a couple of shorter segments. Respectively, you hear the voices of Janine Phillips Africa, Janet Holloway Africa and Eddie Goodman Africa of the Move 9, a political and religious group that follows the teachings of John Africa and have faced heavy repression from the state of Pennsylvania over the last 50 years, who are recently released after 40 years in prison on some bull charges. The three are requesting peoples support calling in to the prison administration in Pennsylvania and to two hospitals to get contact with their fellow Move 9 prisoner, Delbert Orr Africa. Delbert has a parole hearing in September and has suddenly been heard to be suffering from swelling and possible prostate cancer. His blood daughter, his lawyer and his family members in the Move organization are concerned that so-called authorities aren’t letting Delbert communicate with them. As they say, two other members of the Move 9, Phil and Merle, died under mysterious circumstances in the dungeons of the PA prison system that has sought to bury Move and it’s supporters like Mumia Abu-Jamal, with an announcement of sickness that quickly turned to the death of their family members. It’s also good to note that Chuck Africa of the Move 9, while support in this moment is not being directed at him, is also still incarcerated after more than 40 years. More info at OnAMove.Org, OnAMove.com, Move9Parole.blogspot.com or the fedbook page, “Justice For The Move 9”

There’s a statement from Move in our show notes, near the bottom of the post for this episode with more details. Those notes don't include the number for

Yellow Finch Tree Sit Against MVP

Then, we’ll hear from an anonymous tree-sitter and Dusty who are both in trees blocking the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline cutting through Appalachia and threatening the immediate health of the forests, waterways and communities it passes by as well as the the wider future of life on earth as a project to pull fossil fuels for burning out of the soil for the profit of a few hucksters. More information on the Yellow Finch Tree Sit at AppalachiansAgainstPipelines on fedbook, InstaGram and Twitter or send them some money at bit.ly/SupportMVPResistance.

As a quick update, the efforts by EQT’s attempt at extending an injunction around the Eminent Domain for the Mountain Valley Pipeline to also criminalize tree-sitters, their supporters and lawyers have failed and the federal judge, Elizabeth Dillon, meaning that the construction will have to move from Cove Hollow around to the other side of Poor Mountain, ostensibly increasing the cost of building the pipeline by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Consider visiting them and congratulating the tree-sitters

Pansy Fest and Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair 2019

Third up, we got to talk with members of the fast approaching Pansy Fest and Asheville Anarchist Bookfair, which is an exciting collaboration happening over the weekend of August 23-25. We got to talk here about this colab and many more things, if you are listening to the radio version and want more content that will be up at our blog thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org.

To get in touch with these projects, for logistics and information, you can go to pansycollective.org and email them at pansyfestavl@gmail.com.

To donate to Pansy Fest, you can Venmo @cecilia-martuscelli

Instagram: @pansyfest

fedbook: facebook.com/pansyfestavl/

For the bookfair, their website is acab2019.noblogs.org, email acab2019@riseup.net

To see those shirts and totes, go here!

Instagram: @acab.2019

Facebook: facebook.com/AshevilleACAB2019

For housing inquiries for both events email housing.avl2019@gmail.com !

Announcements

Sean Swain Address

We want to share that the wrong address for writing to Sean was up at his support site and announced in his segments. You can actually write to him at:

Sean Swain #2015638 Buckingham Correctional PO Box 430 Dillwyn, VA 23936

Tom Manning

This week saw the passing of long-time political prisoner, alleged member of the Jonathan Jackson Unit and the United Freedom Front and revolutionary, Tom Manning. Tom’s death came after literally years of medical mistreatment and neglect at the hands of Federal Bureau of Prisons, ending at USP-Hazelton in West Virginia. The system had it in for Tom, that he would die inside, for even though he only had about a year left in the Federal System, he was bound upon release for the NJ state prison system, a system renown for it’s vendetta against prisoners accused of killing cops. We’ll link in our show notes to a recent writeup by Ray Luc Levasseur on It’sGoingDown.org. If you want to hear our interview with Ray Luc which touched on his relationship with Tom and Tom’s treatment by prison officials, we’ll link that in the show notes, too.

Jason Renard Walker on Kite Line

So, you heard the Kite Line jingle today. Due to this episode being a behemoth already, we’d like to direct you to hear the voice of prison organizer and Deputy Minister of Labor for the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter), Jason Renard Walker on the August 2nd episode of Kite Line. In the future we may feature some of Mr. Walker’s audio essays to get them on the airwaves further. You can also find his articles, for which he’s been punished by the Texas prisoncrats, at the SF Bay View Newspaper.

Delbert Orr Africa

ONA MOVE

The MOVE Organization would like to bring to people's attention a very dangerous situation that is currently occurring with our Brother Delbert Africa . For the past two weeks Delbert has been suffering from severe swelling from the bottom of his waist all the way down to his toes . For the past two weeks prison officials at SCI Dallas has ignored Delbert's request for medical until this past week when several calls were made to his counselor . A medical visit was finally scheduled for this past Wednesday 7/31/2019 where it was explained to Delbert that he has a fluid build up which required to be drained Delbert was immediately taken to an outside hospital, where as of today 8/3/2019 we still do not know where Delbert is .

For several days now Delbert has been kept incommunicado from calling his MOVE Family , His Blood Daughter, and even his lawyer . Prison officials and also hospital officials will not give any one information pertaining to where Delbert is at . Something very suspicious is happening here and it appears the same pattern that occurred with Phil Africa in 2015 where a simple stomach virus turned to A weeklong trip to the outside hospital held incommunicado from family and friends to return back to the prison and be placed in hospice care and to only die a day later. In 1998 Merle Africa who had a stomach virus was forced in her cell and told she was dying only to die a couple of hours later .

This system has no issue with murdering MOVE people and that's what they are trying to do with Delbert now . They have already given ground by letting innocent MOVE people out on parole and they do not want to do this with Delbert . As we said before this system has always saw Delbert as the leader and isolated him and this latest tactic is no different . Delbert is set to go before the board this September after winning his appeal now this happens . As of now we have heard from Delbert's attorney where he has stated based on the medical report given from Outside medical they are stating that Delbert has Anemia , High Potassium , High Psa's , Acute malignancy of lower intestines , Kidney Trouble , and Suspicion of prostate cancer . The only thing that Delbert has agreed to with any treatment or exams is the submission of a catheter to be used Delbert has requested a phone call to his MOVE Family which the prison and Also Hospital will not allow . We are highly suspicious that this prison has done something to Delbert to bring on these symptoms on so quick . They could not kill Delbert August 8th after the brutal beating they gave him and now they want to finish the job before he can come home on parole . These officials are so arrogant this is the same way they murdered Phil Africa and Merle Africa .

As we have stated before they have isolated our Brother So they can kill him. They won't let know one speak to him and this is very Dangerous we need people now to call

SCI Dallas Superintendent Kevin Ransom 570 675- 1101

Geisenger Hospital 570 808-7300

We want people to demand that Delbert Orr Africa Am4895 be allowed to call his MOVE Family and let them know what's going . Even Though it's the weekend we are still asking people to call and Monday we are going full blast .

The MOVE Organization

People can reach Sue Africa 215 387-4107 Carlos Africa 215 385-2772 Janine Africa 610 704 4524

. … . ..

This episode, we feature WIMP from Boston, MA, with the track AlwaysForwardNeverStraight. WIMP will be performing at PansyFest 2019 in Asheville.

Playlist pending

Check out this episode!