Im Working On It

Crafts

quilting

embroidery

cross-stitch

knitting

crochet

sewing

Cooking and Baking

homemade bread

homemade butter

homemade extracts

dandelion jelly

Canning

26 canning recipes

canning jars 101

60 canning recipes

Gardening

edible trees to plant

what to plant to save the bees

cure and braid garlic

save seeds for next year

braid onions for long term storage

build a greenhouse

Animals

homemade chicken feed

raising mealworms for chickens

why to raise nigerian dwarf goats

Outdoors

starting a fire with sticks

trail signs

knotting

find true north without a compass

Medicine

homemade neosporin

The tags have been available on the blog site for a while, but I decided to put them in a post that you lovelies can save for future references as well. Enjoy💋 

Bathroom ~ Cleaning and bath time fun

Beauty ~ Skincare, makeup, you get the gist

Bedroom ~ Organization, decorating, and possible relationship advice

Carpe Diem ~ How to get yoself together and become a better person

Cleaning ~ Overall organizations and cleaning tips

Education ~ Your brain is your biggest asset, so feed it

Earth ~ Zero waste, and other things regarding the planet we depend on but treat poorly

Finance ~ Money, and how to get more, and keep what you have for longer

Fitness ~ Get off the bed and keep your body and mind fit

Food ~ Any recipes or food related content

Garden ~ Plants, gardening, and how to develop a green thumb

Glo Up ~ Inspirational glo up pictures and stories

Grounding Box ~ Hobbies and knickknacks to ground yourself with when responsibilities overwhelm you

Health ~ I just want y'all alive and well

Home ~ How to turn your house into a home

Kitchen ~ Y'know that place in the house where you’re supposed to cook and store food?

Languages ~ Learning languages is always fun and good for you

Luxury ~ The finer, more selfish, things in life, because I’m selfish

Mod Musings ~ Just me rambling into the abyss and sharing snippets of my life with strangers on the internet

Mod Stuff ~ Any updates or information I want to tell you guys regarding this blog

Moving ~ We can’t all live in our parents’ basements forever

Parenting ~ Can you believe some of us are responsible for little humans?

Pets ~ They’re basically millennial kids, anyways

Relationships ~ Platonic and romantic

Resources ~ External resources that may be beneficial to you

Reproductive Health ~ Your body, sex, and how to do it right

Safety ~ Stay safe, slay safe

Socialize ~ We all have to talk to other humans at some point

Style ~ Clothes, fashion, just put something on, please

Tech~ Tumblr-related stuff and other technology and internet stuff

Travel ~ The world is your oyster so explore it

Vegan ~ Any recipes or food advice that applies to the vegans as well

Work ~ Unfortunately, capitalism makes the world go round

Great question! Here’s some general advice… if you have any specific questions please let me know and I’ll address them!

Resume + Cover Letter

1. Creating a resume. The first step to setting out on a job search is creating the perfect resume! Try to limit your resume to one page that is packed with well worded information about all you have to offer. You may want to create several different resumes that highlight your different skills. For example, I have an IT resume, a teaching resume, and a general resume. Here is a pretty thorough article on creating a resume.

2. Buff up your resume. Now that you’ve created your resume, go over it and exaggerate the fuck out of everything. Nobody is going to stick their neck out for you or going to talk you up. You need to be your own cheerleader. You need to create the most impressive version of yourself on paper as possible. Check it.

3. Keep it clean. First impressions matter! Your resume is going to be your potential employer’s first impression of you. You want that impression to be of someone who is organized, intelligent, and talented. Don’t clutter your resume or make it overly complicated.

4. Cover letter. Not all entry level jobs will require or even ask for a cover letter, but it’s good to have one prepared on the off chance that they do. Think of your cover letter as a teaser to your resume. You don’t want to reiterate it word for word, but you want to spark your potential employer’s interest. Check out this post on constructing the perfect cover letter. Remember- keep it brief, intelligent, and tantalizing.

The Interview

1. Work on your interviewing skills. Your resume will get you through the door, but your personality is what will eventually win you a job. Extroverts have an easier time turning on the charm, but introverts may have to work harder to gain the same ease of conversation. I would recommend seeing some amateur theater or live music performances in your community. Go to a high school musical, see the college Drama Club’s new play. You want the chance to see different levels of confidence in people. Just by watching the performers you’ll be able to easily see who is comfortable being the center of attention and who is not. Let the mistakes or triumphs you see on stage influence the movements, eye contact, and tone of voice that you will use when addressing potential employers. Also, if you don’t want to actually go out, there are loads of community theater youtube videos.

2. Practice makes perfect. Come up with a list of questions that an employer might ask you, and ready your answers confidently. Have a friend “interview” you and have them rate you based on how you respond. If your friend is too positive about your performance, get another one to interview you. You want honesty, you want critiques! If you have no friends or relatives who are able to help you, record yourself answering questions using a webcam. Luckily, there are lots of posts about job interviews on the internet. This is a good one.

3. Talk yourself up. In the interview, you never want to even imply that there is an aspect of the job that you can’t handle. You don’t want to outright lie, but exaggerate your skill levels knowing that once you get in the door, you’ll be competent enough. Never say “I don’t know that skill” say “I’ve heard a lot about that skill, and I’m interested to learn more”. 

4. Ask questions. After the interviewer has asked you all their questions about the prospective job, make sure to ask them several questions in return. The more, the better. Really, truly, honestly. Ask them so many goddamn questions that they feel like they’re being interviewed! These questions should be as specific as possible and should show your interest in the company. Tie in any tidbits of information that you picked up on during your interview, and reiterate important points. Remember, people love talking about their jobs. Use this to your advantage. Get your interviewer talking about the different aspects of what they like and dislike. 

5. Follow up. Send a “thank you” email to your prospective employer directly after meeting them. Thank them for taking the time to meet with you, and let them know that you look forward to hearing from them soon. This will show that you have initiative and follow through. Employers love that shit.

Feel free to message me directly about any of this information! I literally got an incredible job by beefing up my resume and talking myself up.

Additional Resources

General Job Advice

How to Include Dungeons & Dragons on Your Resume

How to Write A Cover Letter 

How to Write A Cover Letter 2

How to Write A Resume (Like A Boss)

Job Hunting Support

Professional Email Address (For Resumes)

Resume Tips

Strong Words to Use on A Resume

Talk Yourself Up!

Come my child…

LIE. LIE. LIE. (By lie, I mean embellish) I’m going to tell you why. I lied on my resume to get the job that made it so I didn’t have to embellish anymore. By embellish I mean make your positions seem more important than they are. Chances are you’re not getting paid enough for what you do anyhow. The system is definitely going to play you so you gotta make a move too. 

Use businesses that are no longer in business (Finesse #1) Everyone has those establishments in their cities that went out of business; Fridays, hospitals, dennys, etc. USE THEM. I’m a HR Manager, I’m not going to dig for a reference from a closed business. Not in this lifetime.

Use your friends who are employed in corporate America as references. (Finesse #2) List them as former supervisors or managers. Pick your friends with professional phone voices who can gas you up in a corporate manner.

Research the pay rate for the company, city and position. (Finesse #3) They may be offering you 25K to be a store manager when in reality store managers in your exact city (or their employment averages) are making 35K. Do not be afraid to challenge a salary. It shows that you also did your homework on the position and the company. 

Cashier? Customer Service Manager

Human Resources Assistant? HR Generalist II 

Food Service Worker? Hospitality and Beverage Manager/Operator

Janitor? Sanitation Inspector

Dishwasher? Health and Sanitation operator

Shopback? Retail Inventory Manager

And to speak to @aura218, being caught in a slight lie happened to me, and I wasn’t fired. My employer was disappointed for about .05 seconds and I just laid on the charm thick and it doesn’t even matter now.

And if you do lie to your employer about competency and get hired, make the lie go away by excelling in what you said you could already do! Read a book, browse the web, get some hands on experience.

I recently took a very helpful youth professional development course and learned some great things I’d love to share with everyone. This post will be especially helpful for first time resume writers, but there might be something in it for everyone. 

1. What is a Resume? 

A resume is a brief summary of your abilities, experience, and skills. It’s essentially a personal advertisement for your professional career, an opportunity to convince the employer that you are worth interviewing. 

The average employer will only take about 15-20 seconds to read your resume.

It’s important that your resume is neat so the reader can find important information quickly. 

Limit the resume to one page. 

Standard font size is 11-12, but you can play with the font or margins to fit everything. 

2. Headings 

Start with your personal information at the top of the first page (name, address, phone number, and email address). 

Keep the header centered and your name on top in BIG LETTERS.

3. Education 

If you are still in school or have little professional experience, this will likely be the first section in your resume. 

Document your education and graduation year.

Include the location (city, state), but do not include the school address. 

If you attend a school with a College Preparatory Curriculum, you may list that as a bullet underneath. If you are taking Honors or AP classes (or an international equivalent), feel free to list that as well. 

4. Professional Experience 

List your work experience in reverse chronological order - start with your most recent experience, and work backwards. 

Include the employer name, city, state, and position title for each. Again, no addresses.

Record your dates of employment consistently, using a format like June 2016 - August 2015, or 6/15 - 8/15. Staying consistent will make your resume professional. 

Place current jobs in the present tense, past jobs in the past tense. 

Write short phrases, not full sentences (”performed experiments”, not “I performed experiments”). Start each description with an action word that describes your skills, responsibilities, or accomplishments. 

Make sure you are specific about your responsibilities and don’t undersell yourself!

5. Skills 

Most commonly listed skills are computer programs and softwares you are comfortable with, and languages you are fluent/proficient in. 

Be honest! If you say you’re fluent in Spanish and you’re not, but your employer hires you for your Spanish abilities…. someone isn’t going to be pleased. 

List skills that are relevant to your job - patience might be a good skill for working with children, while organized might be more suitable for an office setting. 

6. Honors & Awards/Extracurriculars

List any honors or awards you have earned, including a brief explanation if the nature of the award is unclear. 

List any activities that you have been involved in, making sure to include years of participation (again, be consistent with formatting). These can be in-school or outside-of-school activities.

7. General & Miscellaneous

Some safe fonts: Times New Roman, Garamond, Calibri, or Book Antiqua.

Make sure your email is professional! This has been repeated to death but it’s so, so, so important. 

Likewise, if you list your personal cellphone number, make sure your voicemail message is appropriate. When in doubt, just revert back to the standard voicemail greeting. 

I hope this was helpful for anyone just starting out with their resume. Please share this for those who need it. Best of luck! 

as with literally everything i write, this got really fucking long! like, wordcounter.net estimates this will take 7 minutes to read. so i’ve placed the bulk of this post under a read more

this is not a quick tips kind of post; this is a detailed breakdown of how to write a resume from scratch, with examples that are largely taken from my own resume. this is primarily a resource for people who don’t know where to start with writing a resume, not for people who just want resume hacks

i’m saying all this so i don’t get people in my inbox complaining about how long this is. writing a resume takes a lot of time and effort, and this post does not shy away from that

creating a resume will take you a while, especially if this is your first attempt. don’t be discouraged! take breaks, and don’t try to make the perfect resume on the first try. this tutorial is designed to be completed in rounds

it usually takes me a week to get a new master resume into working order

don’t worry about page length right now. you should make a multipage master resume that contains every relevant experience before making a 1-page resume. after you’ve made the master, you can build custom resumes from it for job applications

this post is best viewed on desktop, because i use nested bullets, and tumblr mobile hates those

let’s get into it!

step 1:

list out everything you’ve ever done that could feasibly count as a resume entry: extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer positions, research, organizations you were a part of (professional or casual), freelance work, long-term hobbies. i will refer to each different experience as an “entry”

for each entry, write where (city + state) and when (timespan) you did that thing 

ex. tritones a cappella group, los angeles, ca, august 20xx - present

going forward, update this list as you join or complete new jobs/hobbies/whatever so that you don’t have to wrack your brain a year down the road wondering how long you held down that job or leadership role

General Job Advice

How to Include Dungeons & Dragons on Your Resume

How to Write A Cover Letter

How to Write A Cover Letter 2

How to Write A Resume (Like A Boss)

Job Hunting Support

My Post on Job Hunting

Professional Email Address (For Resumes)

Resume Tips

Strong Words to Use on A Resume

Talk Yourself Up!

He became very stony-faced, looked off into the distance and said, completely deadpan and in his thick accent:

“It does not matter. They are dead now.”

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

The Classics

Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Textbooks

If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

Remain an enigma, talk less about yourself. In social situations, make it a game, even if you are a rather social person, to shroud yourself in mystery. If others show interest in you, answer vaguely. Disappear at specific times. Reveal little of your background. When you do speak, speak in riddles or quotes. That isn’t to say you should never speak up in class or in debates, have opinions and remain socially active; however, keep people guessing a lot of the time, and, if you’re really into it, only speak when spoken to.

Wear vintage clothes, elegant accessories, monochrome colors. Emphasize sharp features with purely dark or light colors and jewel tones. I usually find nice vintage clothes at random thrift stores. Keep an open mind.

Listen to jazz and classical music. Listening to older, more tasteful music brings a spark of elegance to your life. I, personally, like to hear the used jazz vinyls crackle. There are multiple types of dark academia; to me, jazz demonstrates the erratic artist spirit of revolutionaries, while classical music possesses me with the sophisticated spirit of a Classicist who has preparing tea down to a science.

Light candles. Doing things such as writing, reading, and getting ready for bed by candlelight makes it seem thrice as elegant and academic… going to sleep so late never looked so enticing. On the other hand, you could wake up before dawn, light some candles, and study or read. 

Stay ahead in school. Read your textbooks ahead of time, write essays about anything you’d like at all, just for practice. If you’re learning about something in science, devise experiments to illustrate the concepts to yourself and make them easy to remember. If you’re reading a book in English, read a handful of articles about the author beforehand to prepare, write down quotes from the book, make essay pitches, write to your heart’s content a critique of the book, an analysis of the book, of gender roles in the book. In history courses, find articles about the subject matter, annotate them, and write about them. If you’re taking a math class, devise applications of the concepts and solve problems of your own creation.

Go to libraries, museums, bookshops, and coffee shops. These are all really good places to sit in the corner and read for hours on end. Not only do you get Mysterious Points but you get an aesthetic environment and (hopefully) some peace in which to devour literature. I know that in the upcoming term, I’m going to be in the library from opening time to closing time every day.

Make Ancient Roman or Greek food. To be honest, the food was of so much better quality than it often is today, so I would suggest looking into some ancient cuisine archives to look for some recipes for your dinner party. Not only is it most of the time much better than modern food, but it’s also much more elegant. Not to mention it is fun and enlightening to try recipes which are perhaps completely foreign to  you.

Have routines. Perhaps your life is erratic, but you can feel some semblance of order and elegance by creating rituals for, perhaps, everything. You might start the day off with a walk around the neighborhood or a nearby pond. I start my writing sessions by 1) playing jazz 2)opening my windows 3)reading Belief and Technique for Modern Prose 4)chugging a whole glass of water really fast 5) breathing violently. Feel free to make up really weird Winding Down routines, like, I don’t know, closing all your windows, stripping down, and meditating for 20 minutes before you go to sleep. Literally anything. It doesn’t even have to be useful, it just has to be strange.

Hang stuff up on your walls. Postcards, paintings, drawings, poetry, snippets from books, moodboards, your routines, lists (places you want to go, people you want to meet, things you want to do), playlists. Make it yourself and make it chaotic and, most importantly, make it aesthetic.

7 QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK AT THE END OF EVERY JOB INTERVIEW.

That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.

Have an iPhone and are in need of repairs

Have a friend with that problem

Hate Apple and are more than happy to spite them in some way

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).

-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.

-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.

-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.

-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.

-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.

-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.

-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.

-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.

-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.

-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.

-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.

-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.

-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.

-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially

-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.

-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.