W H Y W I L L O W

Here’s some advice I wasn’t told from the myriad of posts before that I wish I’d been given before

Wash the OUTSIDE of your pots and pans as well as the cooking surface. I’ve had a few roommates now who have only cleaned the inside and I’ve had to replace a $150 set of cookware twice.

“its only one time, how bad could using metal on nonstick cookware really be?” very bad. don’t do this.

Buy a rice cooker. Buy the middle tier rice cooker. Cheap ones will burn your rice, high tier ones are too expensive. Rice is good and cheap and, really, you don’t actually have to wash it if you don’t care about making gourmet food.

Buy band-aids. You don’t think you need band-ads until you need a band-aid, and by then it’s too late. (if you don’t follow this advice, a paper towel and some tape is an acceptable solution while you go get real bandages and neosporin)

You are on tumblr, which means you probably spend most of your time in one spot on a computer or phone. if this spot doesn’t have a trash can in arm’s reach, put one there.

 I spent 4 years piling trash on my desk in increasingly precarious ways until I had a designated area to put it. Trash cans can and should go anywhere there is a frequent generation of trash, typical locations be damned.

If you live with one or two roommates, discuss placing empty boxes in the back of your fridge and freezer. You probably don’t need all the space that the standard 5-person-family fridge provides, and tupperware will be shoved back there and left to stink up the entire appliance.

some resources to get you started with lunar witchcraft:

magickal moon

lunar magick

lunar phases

lunar phase associations

full moons in a year

lunar eclipse dates

the moon in zodiac signs

how to celebrate the new moon

how to celebrate the full moon

supermoon activities

wish bracelet spell

easy lunar rituals for closeted witches

new moon banishing ritual

full moon reflection jar spell

supermoon spell jar

moon potion

moon water

uses for moon water

black moon water

moon affirmations

new moon reflection tarot spread

diy lunar calendar

free moon card printables

lunar deities:

artemis

selene

cerridwen

hecate

thoth

the wiccan goddess

crystals:

moonstone

selenite

pearl

milky quartz

aquamarine

plants to grow/use in your craft:

cabbage

evening primrose

honeysuckle

iris

jasmine

juniper

lemon

lotus

mallow

moonwort

morning glory

mugwort

myrtle

sandalwood

sweetpea

violet

watercress

water lily

white rose

willow

things to start doing:

plan your spellwork around the lunar phases and their correspondences

look into your moon sign (free astrology chart generator here)

collect moon water on the full moon

talk to the moon at night. tell her your worries, your dreams, your hopes and desires. tell her what you ache for most deeply, your greatest regret and your biggest fears. dissect your heart in front of her, and feel it heal.

buy, print or make a lunar calendar

get the moon app

do a small ‘spring cleaning’ every new moon, whether that’s cleaning out your room, inbox, kitchen, phone or whole house

create a lunar altar

learn more about astrology, in particular which sign the moon is in and how that affects your life

try meditating outside, in moonlight

research dream magick

a good blog that posts about lunar witchcraft: @lunaesteria

Embroidered Brooches and Decor

So you don’t have to watch the video every time you need one of these hacks immediately:

1. If you feel nauseated, smell rubbing alcohol.

2. If you feel like throwing up, start humming.

3. If you have a runny nose, put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and press your thumb to your forehead for about 20 seconds.

4. If you have a headache, pinch the webbing between your fingers and rub it back and forth for about 1 minute.

5. If you’re lightheaded from standing up too quickly, clench your butt cheeks.

6. If your arm’s dead/has the pins and needles feeling, rock your head back and forth.

7. If you need to pee badly, think of sex to trick your brain and relieve the pressure.

8. If you have a migraine, stick your hands in ice water.

Pictured: privileged white woman in her home anxious about climate change

They know if they convince y’all talking about climate change is racist the majority of left leaning people will shut the hell up because they’re afraid of having a wrong opinion.

rainbow mountains (peru)

red soil (canada/PEI)

rings (saturn’s if they were on earth) 

bioluminescent waves

northern lights (canada)

salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)

and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens

Tsingy di Bemaraha, Madagascar

Zhangye Danxia, China (similar to the Rainbow Mountains in terms of appearance)

Chocolate Hills, Philippines

Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland

Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina

Lake Retba, Senegal

Tepui, Venezuela

Tsingy du Bemaraha, Madagascar again (but a different part)

(those are razor-sharp, if you were wondering. very little of this area has been explored because YIKES)

Lake Natron, Tanzania

(looks cool, but is alkaline enough to Kill Your Shit)

Lake Baikal, Russia

(the deepest lake in the world, seriously)

and I’ll wrap it up with Son Doong Cave, Vietnam, the largest cave in the entire world.

it puts anything Dagobah has to offer to absolute shame:

(seriously, the largest chamber is 660 feet high. you could jam a fucking skyscraper in there and still lose it) 

Namib-Naukluft Park in Namibia

Cave of Crystals, Mexico

Socotra Island, Yemen

Woke up early and made Challah with Mom, using my mother-in-law's recipe. Paul Hollywood wishes he had this crumb.

Recipe (makes 2 loaves)

1 3/4 cup warm water

1 Tb yeast (2 packets)

1 cup + 1 Tb sugar

5 eggs

1 Tb salt

8-8 1/2 cups flour

1. Add yeast and 1 Tb sugar to water, mix and let prove

2. Combine 4 of the eggs, and yeast water, add salt and sugar, then work flour in 1 cup at a time

3. Knead dough until it can be made into a smooth ball

4. Cover and let rise until doubled in size. This recipe makes a monstrous amount of dough.

5. Knead again until.smmoth and elastic. separate into 12 pieces. Roll piecees out into long snakes.

6. Using 6 plaits for each loaf YouTube how to do a six strand braid because the hell if I can figure it out.

7. Tuck ends in as best you can, smoosh braids into loaf shapes and set on greased pan

8. Cover and allow to rise again until doubled in size. Use 5th egg to coat risen dough with an egg wash.

9. Bake loaves at 375 for 30-35 min

-yes, it's fine to halve the recipe

- IDK if it works for bread machines

-yes you can use the dough hook on a stand mixer to do the kneading. That's what we did because we both have carpal tunnel.

Don't offer challah to your Jewish friends or bake it around them until after sunset tomorrow: it's still pesach until the sun sets on the 4th, and we can't have bread or any other leavened food until then.

It's usually not a good idea to mix honey in with the dough, since it can kill your yeast. Use sugar instead if you want to sweeten the dough, or drizzle the honey over the top of the challah just before you apply the first egg wash. You can also make patterns with the honey drizzle, which will appear as darkened lines on the finished loaf.

Instead of separating each loaf's portion into six long pieces, roll out three 'snakes' and assemble them in an asterisk configuration. Pick up one side of the 'snake' in the middle, weave it alternatingly over the topmost piece and under the bottom piece until it's been woven with each other end, then do the same with the next end in line.

Most challah recipes can be proofed, mixed, and kneaded in a bread machine, but unless you halve the recipe you'll wind up with dough spilling over the sides if you try to let it rise. Also, for obvious reasons, you won't be able to cook it in a bread machine without sacrificing the egg wash and the braids.

2. I live at 6,000ft altitude and have a chronic over-proving problem because of the low air pressure so the honey actually nerfs the yeast to the correct degree.  Not sure if this would work in other recipies but I’ve always had good sucess adjusting for altitude by either nerfing my yeast a bit or keeping the egg whites in for recpies that call for just the yolks.  Great tip about the honey streaks though, that’s going to be fun to try!

3.  You’re a fucking genuis and that’s a MUCH better way to plait than what I was doing.

4. I’ve never used a bread machine and I know this recipie is enormous but I am hoping for an end product roughly the size of a toddler when fully assembled so we’re good on that front.  I don’t think I could cope with using a bread machine, emotionally. I gotta watch the bread. Having it in a box makes me anxious. 

I can specifically speak about lagonegirl as I was a follower. They never spoke to their followers. Their posts all had a similar format to Vox posts at the time. They would leave a written funny comment on their posts turns out those were taken from Twitter users and written out like it was their own words. The many popular Black tumblr users rebloged the posts and added more funny comments and post would get widely shared.

1. people saying yes, russian psyops on social media accounts were totally a thing. they copied real content (which could be traced back to their original sources) but edited and modified in ways that helped them shape the conversation in the direction that served their purpose.  source: here are 5 sources documenting it

2. people saying no, russian psyops was never a thing.  uhhhh, duh! pfff, you believed that? cringe. OBVIOUSly fake.