Tuesday Tips! Green Living

As the title of this blog denotes, I will be trying to post various “tips” on Tuesdays. Usually these will be shorter blogs and the topic of the tips will likely involve Books, Cats, or being Green.

Today, is a Green Living day.

I’ve been exploring various ways in which I can, personally, be greener along with the bookstore. Happily, the bookstore already has a leg up since it’s based on recycling & reusing books. There are always other little things that can be done, though.

I want to share with you a website that I recently found where you can take a quiz to find out how “green” you already are and then perhaps discover other things that you already do (or could easily do) to be even Greener in the future.

One of the simple things that I had already done in my house, was to install CFL’s instead of the traditional bulb lights. I’m fairly certain that the size of my electricity bill has already been happily affected by this change. I pay less money each month and I use less energy. It’s a win-win situation. As far as the store goes, in this regard, we are replacing the lights (as needed) to the more efficient hoods and bulbs. We already have a few of them swapped out, but we cannot (unfortunately) afford to do them all en masse at this point. We’ll get there, though!

Practically Green also keeps a blog and as fate would have it… their entry for yesterday was also on CFL’s with the addition of LED’s. I didn’t actually know that this was already their topic of just yesterday, but it worked out nicely! If you’d like to read what they have to say on it, then just head on over.

Calico in the News

Just a quick post today… in all the hustle and bustle of last week, I never did get around to mentioning the wonderful write-up’s we received in both the Broomfield Enterprise and on the Broomfield Macaroni Kid website.

Both write-up’s aired just in time to announce the book signing with Olena Burda-Lassen that we hosted on Saturday. The entire event was a hit and all the kids (of all ages–seriously) loved doing the activities and trying out the Vitamin Band with the keyboard. Olena, herself, is just a joy to be around and most especially when she’s discussing and explaining her book. She has such a wonderful vision and in a short Ten Months (that’s right folks… only ten months from having the idea for the book, to getting it published and marketed–while having a now 16 month old little girl) she’s made it a reality.

It went so well that we’ve rescheduled to have her come back out in May. So if you missed this last Saturday for one reason or another–check back with us in May for the encore of The Vitamin Band! To find out more information or to get a sneak peek of what’s in her book… just go Here. At the site, she had other activities, an online keyboard to use, and many other fun things. Naturally, we do still have copies of the book (along with a single copy of bonus songs for the first person who wants it).

The write-up from the Broomfield Enterprise can be found Here.

The Macaroni Kid write-up is Here.

Speaking of the Macaroni Kid… if you’re a local Mom with kids of any age… take a peek at all the events she has posted on her website. She sends out a FREE newsletter each week with updated events and various highlights. If you’re looking for something fun and free to do with your kids, this is the place to check. (That is, if we don’t have what you want at the bookstore lol).

Thank you all for all your support!

12:19 PM me: So Mitt Allt… would we be able to talk about the kitty-mail-stuff some other time? She knows you didn’t want to give it any answer this morning, but wasn’t sure if you just meant “Not right now” or “Not at all.”

Christer: about what?

12:20 PM me: Her silly assumptions with the marriage/annulment stuff.

Christer: can’t be done

me: As in… annulment can’t be done?

Christer: yup

12:21 PM me: Ohhhh she didn’t understand then–she’d thought that you hadn’t actually tried to get it. That must be where her misunderstanding came from.

12:22 PM Christer: Well no need to try when you know it can’t be done….

12:24 PM me: Oh….. okay… then that must be where she confused herself. She knows the mormon church has changed bunches and she thought that that was likely the case with the catholic so something that couldn’t be done years ago… might be possible now… must be where she tripped herself up.

Christer: Naaaaaa it changed early 60′s and has become more conservative over the last decade….

12:25 PM me: Ohh…. okay

12:26 PM Christer: sowwy

12:27 PM me: s’ok… she’d just thought that you might try, but she sees where she’d gotten mixed up now. XD

Silly kitty

Christer: Naaaaa not silly

12:28 PM me: Thank you…

Just to snip bad-kitty-thoughts in the bud… it’s no-try because it can’t be done… not because you wouldn’t want to.

(( little kitty-gremlins like to be nasty… so she just check to squash them ))

12:29 PM Christer: Awwww kitty thought it was because I didn’t want to….

Well there are two things I cannot…

12:30 PM … one is children…. the other marriage…

me: Okies

Because without annulment, you get kicked out and That is no good.

12:31 PM Christer: nope no good

me: (( Children certainly no biggie… din misse not want kids ))

KRAM

Christer: in a few years she might want to

Mile-Markers

At first, I must apologize for this delayed blog post. Especially after leaving such a teasing status update on the Bookstore’s Facebook page.

 

Yes, we reached two more milestones in the history of Calico Books: the friendly local police got called in and I was visited by an apparently not-so-local drunk.

To begin… the day had been fairly steady, nothing terribly exciting had happened. I was making headway on the processing (finally) and the door rang as a gentleman entered the shop. My normal Greetings seemed to kick it into reverse as the man half-stumbled towards the first visible chair, but I recovered and asked him if there was anything I could help him find. To be quite honest, this was in great part due to my sudden desire that he not take up semi-permanent residence in my poor pink, wing-back chair. He mumbled something about “Oh yes… find a book… no help… just sit for now…” and with the last intelligible words he dropped into the chair with such force that I winced–for fear that the elderly piece of furniture would crumble beneath the shock.

While this man is certainly the most ‘interesting’ character that I’ve had in Calico Books, to date, I have run into  quite a few others while working at my Mom’s shop in Fort Collins. I was mostly worried that he might try to just take a nap in the chair as we’ve had other folks, who appeared to be suffering similar straights, do at her store.

My worries were quickly alleviated as he began to make conversation, or at least… as he began to make his own sort of conversation. He hadn’t seemed to mumble before because of the volume of his speech, but because it really wasn’t coherent (at least not to me). I tried to piece together bits and pieces of what he said, thinking that there might be a strand of consistency in there somewhere but the rules seemed to keep changing on me.

The phone rang.

“Saved by the bell!” I thought and, once the speaker identified herself as a gal from a shop just across the parking lot from mine, I realized that the cliche was more true in this case than I’d bargained for.She explained to me that the man who had walked into my shop moments before had spent well over half an hour attempting to engage her in ‘conversation’. She had been essentially trapped and with very little hope of a random customer entering and unknowingly saving her. She continued to explain how the man had shaken her up so much that she’d called the local Police after he’d left her store and they told her to call back if she needed them to come over and talk with the gentleman for her.

This is where our stories converged; she had watched the man (who was now haphazardly tossing a football up and down, up and down near my glass cases) go over to Target after leaving her store. She then happened to see him enter my own shop where she knew I was very often by myself: hence her concerned and very helpful call. She the asked if I’d like her to call the Police back so they could come to my shop and relieve me of him. At first, I thought that I didn’t really need them to come out, but the appropriately timed sound of rubber bouncing off glass made up my mind.

So, she called in the Police for me and a couple more phone calls from customers (unaware of my incredible thankfulness of their timing) relieved me from trying to piece together snippets of coherency. Eventually, the phone ceased ringing and as I began resuming my efforts to process books, he noticed that I wasn’t talking on the phone anymore. So, he came to the counter and began telling me that he’d come from Colorado Springs, he was going to Boulder, and he’d been in Arvada just this very morning. He claimed than a man he’d gone to church with that morning (tuesday) had driven him up here and then said it must have been the preacher and from there it digressed even further. This was about as far as the conversation went as I tried to glean snippets that I could pass along to the officers and he continued to run in mental figure-eights.

Enter Stage-Left: The fine Broomfield Police

Upon the first officer’s entrance, the still-mumbling gentleman scowled and proceeded to alter the course of his comments from explaining something about broken legs, to me, to telling the officer that he’s just going to Boulder and he doesn’t need to be bothered. It seemed that he’d had previous dealings with police officers that didn’t go as well as he may have wished for them to–prior to now. He was defensive and (at least) consistent about his destination being Boulder.

The officer continued asking simple questions which led to “Do you have any ID?” Here the man paused and when the officer pressed him the man got grumpily-angry and tossed a piece of paper on the counter. “That’s all I got!” As fate would have it, my fine gentleman with the cheap cologne of liquor had been released from the drunk tank just that morning. Amazingly, he had been in Arvada! How he arrived in Broomfield, I can only guess. It might be that there is a kindly preacher shuttling drunken men up to Broomfield somewhere, but somehow… I do find that hard to swallow.

The officers concluded that he wasn’t actually drunk enough to detain, but instructed the man to go on his way. “You don’t have to come with us, but you can’t stay here.” I thanked them and the Police also took their leave. They did wait around their vehicles for a while presumably ensuring that the man didn’t try to just come right back into the shop and abuse my poor chair again.

This was my excitement for the day! It was unnerving… and while I have had dealings with homeless folks in the shop or even some who appeared to have missed a medication that morning, this man did concern me. Most others usually avoid contact with the clerk. I think that it was his unrelenting interest that was the most unsettling. Hopefully, the fact that the Police came to shuttle him on his way will be associated with our shopping center so that we don’t have a repeat performance down the line, but one can never know.

Also, I was finally able to call and thank the gal from the other store. We even set up our own code-words so that if something were to ever come up again, we could call one another and discreetly let the other know that we needed assistance—now. My friendly neighbors at the Hydroponics store also offered to help out if I ever needed.

 

So, all in all, it has already been an eventful week!

New Year – 2011

A weekend off and the beginning of a new year…

I’m not normally very “big” into new year’s resolutions as they have a history of being made and then shortly forgotten or ignored. However, I am making some commitments to myself and it just happens that the making of them coincides with the new year. Admittedly, I’ve been working on making some personal changes for a couple months now, but I think they have been my “warm-up” months. With each set-back I’ve had towards my goals I’ve learned something new (whether it be a new way of doing things or just something new about myself) that will help me avoid that set-back in the future.

What are my personal goals? To be incredibly stereotypical… my goals are weight oriented.  However, I realize that just making goals to lose weight or follow a diet are superficial. The changes that stick are Lifestyle changes. It’s these sorts of changes that I’m working towards. Breaking bad habits of running to the chocolate bar, cookie, or other baked sweet to ‘console’ myself when I get down or to even ‘congratulate’ myself if things are going well. (Emotional eating much? Oh yes… does it get worse with stress? Yep… have I been stressed during the last six months? You betcha)

Since I work at a bookstore, though… I had this brilliant idea of picking up some books that might help me. Granted, getting books only works if I actually read them once they’ve arrived. The two that I’ve been perusing and beginning to work through so far are… Food Rules: an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan and 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food by Susan Albers.

Food Rules is a delightful, short read. It’s really a compilation of various key points that he has made in his prior books (ex. An Omnivore’s Dilemma) He has fun tidbits that really seem to hang around with me throughout the day… such as “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car,” “It’s not food if it has the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles.),” “Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans,” and “‘Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.’” Really, these are just a small snippet of what he has to say. Many of these brief lines also have a paragraph of further explanation or clarification.

They all address 3 main questions that he asks and answers…

What should I eat? Eat Food.

What kind of food should I eat? Mostly plants.

How should I eat? Not too much.

From what I understand–from reading reviews and hearing from others–is that his other books go into far more detail regarding all of this. Honestly, it seems to make a lot of sense to me. The trick is breaking all the habits that I’ve developed over the years. This is more-or-less where the other book comes in, though…

50 ways to soothe yourself without food is in part about figuring out why you turn to food for solace and then coming up with other solutions to serve as substitutions. Basically, Susan Albers offers alternatives that are not intended to generate immediate bliss and happiness, but rather to help you cope with stresses (no matter what form they come in) and to calm yourself. She addresses things from a more Eastern approach with the concept of Mindfulness. She stresses that rather than burying problems, stress, or unpleasantness beneath any number of alternate activities (eating, drinking, sleeping, video games, etc etc) we need to simply learn how to better deal with these things.

At the very least… I hope that I can figure out tricks and cues for myself that will help me steer away from the fridge when I feel the need to console or congratulate myself and instead towards other activities that are healthier for me, in the long run. Yoga is one of my neglected pleasures–right along with swimming. Right now, yoga is a bit easier since I can do that in my own apartment as opposed to getting myself to the Rec center’s pool.

Anyways… these are some of my thoughts as the New Year begins. Books, resolutions, and a weekend off of work. At first I’d felt a bit guilty about not doing really much of anything for the bookstore this weekend, but I then reminded myself that I’d be back and going at full steam on Monday again. Taking some time for me is a healthy thing to do–something that PK, my cat, has also helped me remember.

The photo’s below are a rare shot of her curled up on my bed… now, this isn’t a rare occurrence, mind you. It just isn’t often that I can take a photo of her because she very often gets up as soon as I turn the light on. If I had made the bed this morning, she wouldn’t be lying there–seems that the best and most comfy place on the bed is right where I sleep and the closer to when I’ve gotten up, the better. Little furry warmth-stealer. In fact, as I’ve been writing this she has been curled up behind me on a small blanket. Give her another two hours and she’ll be announcing the fact that it’s bedtime (pretty much like clockwork).

PK heartily appreciates the extra time and petting that she’s gotten from me during the weekend. Although I think she’ll be ready for me to leave for a normal day of work by tomorrow.

I think that I’m also ready to start off a new week and the beginning of the first full calendar year at the bookstore. It should be lots of fun and I’m looking forward to it.

Holidays and Writing

I am now realizing my folly in choosing to “launch” my new blog just prior to Christmas. *laughs* It’s now been roughly a week and a half and there has been plenty going on at the bookstore for me to write about.

Lets see if I can get to things semi-chronologically…

First off, we had the Book Reading of The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Little Match Girl on Saturday, the 18th. We didn’t have a lot of people come just for the reading and only had a couple kids–from one of the business’ next door. It might have been little, but it was fun! Jennifer does a wonderful job with the reading and asks fantastic ‘leading’ questions for the kids to answer before moving on. I definitely plan on having her back for more regular story-times!

The next fun event was getting to see the performances of the aforementioned books by Danse Etoile Ballet. First, I just want to mention how wonderful this dance group has been for us… Marie, the owner and head instructor, contacted me through the bookstore’s website after we had just barely opened up. She asked if I’d like to join her in some multi-cultural community events and I jumped at the chance. Being able to see them perform was absolutely wonderful. The girls all did a fantastic job and I can only imagine the diligence it takes to perform as they do. Not only is the instruction fabulous, but Marie choreographed these two ballet’s from scratch–this was the first time that either of them had been performed as ballet’s. Right here in Broomfield! The gal that played Jack Skellington did a marvelous job! Honestly, I’m not sure that I could ever say enough–I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and so did my brother.

Yes, that’s right… my Christmas present to my brother was his ticket for the performances. He just loves The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I couldn’t resist. He also plays the Cello so he already has an appreciation for the more ‘classical’ arts.

My Mother was kind enough to take over the bookstore for me that day, so that my brother and I could run around Denver and spend the day together. With me living down in Denver, now, we don’t get to see each other nearly as much as we’d like. I know that it might come as a shock… but yes, I’m 25 and he is 19 and we thoroughly enjoy eachother’s company. I think we’re very lucky in that regard. We went back over to my place for the night and played some boisterous games of Magic: The Gathering (for anyone not as nerdy as I… it’s a strategy card game with magic, monsters, and mayhem). We laughed, we poked fun, and we may have even skirted close to more “serious” topics, haha.

Needless to say, getting to spend the day with him was a wonderful start to my ‘Christmas season.’ With the lack of any real snow (or even cold weather), it has just seemed sort of surreal that Christmas was right around the corner. Even right now, I feel as if I missed it happening somehow.

I suppose that I can blame some of the surreal qualities on the fact that last year I would have just finished up a semester at CSU, been working as much as I could during the break, and prepping for my final semester in college. A lot has happened for me in this last year and while I think that I’ve “ridden the wave of change” pretty well, it’s still odd to look around and really soak in all that has occurred.

Anyways! Moving on with my time-line… Christmas was lovely. It was great to close up shop a little early, although I was very glad to be open as long as I was. There were a number of folks who were able to find just what they were looking for–one gentleman even found a better edition of what he had seen at Border’s for over Half Off what Border’s had been asking for it! Yay for us Little Guys!

My Grandparent’s were in town (and actually still are just for a bit), so it was fantastic to get to see them and catch up on things both with them and my cousins. Christmas day brought lots of laughs, lots of fun, many wrong guesses regarding what wrapped presents held inside (although Dad still seems to be psychic!), and many stuffed bellies.

I’d been doing so well at not overeating and then Christmas came, haha. A little splurging is okay, though. No sense in eating healthier if you’re not going to even enjoy life while it happens! Or at least… that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

This week is another short week at the shop as I’ll close up early on New Year’s Eve (4pm) and be Closed all day, New Year’s Day. It’s been our experience that most folks aren’t out shopping on the 1st of the year… some might be nursing hangovers, but I know that’s not everyone. I guess that starting the year off with a day of rest is a good beginning, though. Perhaps to remind ourselves that we need to take time off for ourselves every once in a while?

At the very least, (and aside from my arm-chair philosophizing) I hope that everyone has a fantastic weekend and a very Safe New Year’s.

Hopefully, I’ll also get around to updating this more often than once every week and a half. The bookstore has been a wonderful experience so far and I look forward to exploring all the new ones down the line! Here I come, 2011!

Snow!

The title for this post says it all… we finally got Snow in Colorado and I’m thrilled! I was getting a bit sad with Christmas getting closer and closer and our chances of snow seemed to be dwindling even farther away. I mean, goodness gracious… it was 60 degrees just a few days ago!

When my family in Oregon gets more snow than we do in Colorado… something has gone awry in the grand scheme of things.

I know that some folks really don’t like the snow and I must admit that I’m not a huge fan of it when it makes driving a real hassle and there’s feet of it to shovel away. But the snow that we have right now is just perfect… it’s light, fluffy, and it’s making all the grass and trees white while leaving the roads clear!

I have to admit that I feel pretty lucky right now… I’m surrounded by books, I have hot coffee, and I can watch the snow continue to drift down.

 

Here are a couple pictures of the store this morning… one of the front of the store (I’ve been thinking snow all month long via the window decorations!) and the other is the view straight out from the front door.

Happy Snow Everyone!

Books and Business

So, on occasion I’ve had folks express their concern about the way we handle our Trade Credit. I realize that many of the stores in the area will allow only trade credit to go towards Half of the total purchase amount. From a business standpoint this does seem like it would make sense because then the store always receives cash from a sale. However, our Booklover’s Bookstore in Fort Collins was never ran that way.

When we bought Booklover’s, a person’s trade credit was good for the entire purchase amount. Naturally, trade credit isn’t usable towards new books or non-books items (things that we have to pay cash to bring into the store), but used books are brought in on trade so they can go out on trade.

I think it was during the first month of being open, in August, that I’d had a number of people express their serious concern over our trade credit policy. This was prior to me having a blog or even seriously considering starting one. I did however write a response to these concerns that I’d never posted anywhere except to show my boyfriend. So here is my response that I had written and is still more than applicable to today…

~~~~~~~

Although my family and I have had our noses in the book business for a number of years now, we still weren’t quite sure what to expect when we opened up the second store. When my family purchased Booklover’s Used Bookstore it had already been up and going for 4 years so it had an established clientele and more folks were still finding it every day. For the new store, we realized that we would have to start from scratch and do our best to let people know about us, where we were, and how we do business.

For my part, I’ve tried to contact local businesses, attend what networking events that I can make it to, but mostly… I focus on being myself, welcoming people to the store, and trying to find the right book for the right person. I suppose that my main focus is on the customer service aspect. I trust that my family’s store has been doing well not *just* because of how they handle the numbers and shelves of books, but because of the quality of service we’ve always tried to uphold.

I will be the first to admit, that our trade policy does seem like it would be something that would crumble beneath it’s own weight. I remember asking my Mom how it was that we managed to stay afloat when customers could use all of their trade credit towards a purchase (and very often do). Somehow it just seemed counter-intuitive to “good business” practices. At this point in time, I was let in on the secret…

She doesn’t know either.

Neither of us are business majors nor have we ever taken even a single business class (guess I forgot to take those at CSU…), so making projections based on numbers and whatnot just isn’t our forte. What we do know, is books and how to enjoy what we do. To be quite honest, and perhaps a little cliche, if I can make someone’s day better just by them stopping by the store–then I feel that I’ve done my job. Whether it means that they’ve bought a book from me or not.

Many a time I’ve offered to hold books for someone–after they’ve just found the store, chosen a handful of books, and let me know that they have ones to bring in. That way, I can hold the books they found until they bring in the books for trade and then purchase their new finds. Perhaps it would make more “business sense” for me to cash in on a first-time sale, but… I’d still rather offer to do everything I can to help out my customers. If I didn’t offer to hold the books, I would feel that I were trying to ‘cheat’ them.

I guess what I’m really trying to get to in a round-about sort of way… is that I know many people have expressed their concern to me that our trade policy just won’t hold up to actual business practices. They very kindly don’t want to see us go under and I really, Really appreciate that fact. I just know that my Mom’s store has been doing it this way for nearly 10 years and I will do everything I can to keep my store running the same way.

We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into by opening the second store and I don’t think that there would have been any real good way of preparing ourselves. I’m resigned to the fact that if we were to ever open a store elsewhere down the line, it will be just as much of a mystery as this was. I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in Broomfield, though. The people are wonderful… all of our supporters are fantastic. The reason that I really do appreciate the concern that’s been expressed to me is because that means that you do really want us to stay and do well here. That means the world to me and encourages me to do all the more to make sure that the store does well.

I think the best thing for anyone, including myself, to do in support of the store right now–is to tell other people.

~~~~~~~

Since it’s now been a few months since I wrote this and much has happened in the meantime, I have managed to do quite a bit more than just tell people and poke around on Facebook. This blog is evidence of my “branching out” along with Twitter and even all of the events that I keep setting up for the store.

I’ve realized that I don’t want to have Calico Books be “only” a used bookstore… it’s a place for people to come, relax, browse, chat, or even meet up with friends. The restaurants next door are wonderful to stop at and I can go through your books in the meantime. I’m still working on setting up the website so that there can be a section for ‘interactive book reviews’ so that anyone can post a review and others can comment on it. I thought that might be a great resource for the Book Community.

I also want to get in touch with Broomfield High School and see if they’d like to send artwork from some of their classes to be hung on my walls and to even be fore sale if the artists would like. This way the aspiring visual artists can also have their work showcased. Things like this is also why putting up a “Community Board” was one of my major priorities.

I hope that as the days, months, and years go by Calico Books can be an integral and active part of the Community. Both the Brick-and-Mortar store and our online efforts as well.