1) when it comes to kitchen stuff, QUALITY IS KEY. Pyrex, Anchor, Pampered Chef, OXO, Le Cruset, KitchenAid, etc. All those name brands you see? There’s a reason they’re so popular. Now some brands are better than others. Pampered Chef and Pyrex are like tier 1 for kitchen stuff, and KitchenAid mixers will last for literal decades (my mom got hers for free from my aunt when she shut down her pie shop and she’s had it for 2 decades and it’s still fucking running) but that shit can get expensive. Which leads to tip 2
2) DO NOT BE AFRAID TO BUY USED. Go to Goodwill and Salvation Army. Go to thrift stores and antique stores. Fuck go to family and friends and ask if they have any extra baking dishes or utensils they never use and can part with. Recently a friend of my grandma’s was moving into assisted living cuz she was starting to have bad memory problems (thankfully she was not forced into moving cuz my grandma’s friend knew she was having problems but that’s besides the point) point is her family needed to get rid of all the things she had accumulated. So they were holding an estate sale where you picked out what you wanted and paid whatever price you felt was fair. I bought real Tupperware storage containers, Corelle baking dishes and dinnerware, Oneida flatware, Pampered Chef earthenware stoneware, a full set of antique pyrex mixing bowls, AND a le crusete dutch oven and sauce pan, and a repurposed Singer table for $125. I saved hundreds of dollars and I still paid them more than what they would get selling it to an antique store.
3) Seriously if you can avoid it, go to a thrift store. I was at a Goodwill a couple weeks ago seeing if they had a dining table I liked and I strolled past the glassare and saw Pyrex baking dishes and full sets of glassware and cocktail glasses. I recommend going to the thrift stores or Goodwills in swankier neighborhoods since they’ll probs have nicer stuff.
4) if you have to buy new, check out stores like HomeGoods or TJ Maxx which carry over stock or out of season items. Depending on the time of year, the variety of items available will change, but HomeGoods will typically always have items like baking sheets and cake pans, cookware, utensils, glassware, sheets, towels, shower curtains and the hardware, furniture, pet supplies, much cheaper and better quality than walmart or target. Ross is also a good option, but that place is hit and miss.
5) IKEA!!!!! Seriously. Go to fucking IKEA. Or at the very least check out their website. If you can, take a trip to their store. I don’t have an IKEA close enough to me to visit whenever I want, but there is one within a reasonable driving distance. (3 hours) I was able to look at their items in person, see their quality, check out colors, and even try out some mattresses for future reference. Now I know how everything is and the relative size so now whenever I go online and want to order something I know exactly what I’m getting. Even if you can’t go to one of their stores check out their website. Their dinnerware is cheap but good quality and you’re not forced to get those stupid matching mugs other dinnerware sets make you buy.
6) Check out apps like Mercari, Letgo, Offerup, and even Facebook marketplace. You can get good quality furniture for cheap, and some even let you search by locale and allow you to come visit the piece to see it in person. I’m fairly certain Facebook does this.
7) Drive around your neighborhood or town. I’ve seen people throw away seemingly perfect items. One time my friends and I were walking to a Pokestop (shut up a lot of people still play pokemon go) and noticed this dumpster had two perfectly nice looking desk chairs next to it. We didn’t go check it out but I’m sure they were still useable (albeit probably very smelly) And even if you don’t wanna check out dumpsters (this one was located at the edge of a park’s parking lot with nothing but grass behind it so it’s not like we were walking down an alley way) you can just see what people put out on the curb. That shit is free for the taking. My brother found my mom’s exact vacuum. We scrapped it for parts and was able to get like 3 more years out of it. Although, use this method with caution. You don’t know why it was thrown out, especially if it has fabric like a chair or sofa. Check it for bugs, bed bugs, spiders, rodents, termites, what have you. If you really like it, have it deep cleaned by a professional or something.
8) DON’T SKIMP ON THE MATTRESS! Buy a cheap sofa. Buy low budget bookshelves. Buy a cheap ass bed or just leave the bed on the floor, but don’t cheap out on the mattress. You spend 1/3 of your life on your mattress. Make sure it’s a good 1/3. A bad mattress can cause back problems for your entire life. Nowadays, you can get a really good foam, latex, or memory foam mattress for around $500-$800 if you look around. Ashley Furniture has some nice ones for that price. IKEA has nice ones as well. Hell, Sams Club has some nice Serta mattress available. Wayfair has a shit ton of mattresses around that price. Be wary of buying online. Unless they have a trial offer, i wouldn’t recommend it. Casper, Leesa, Nectar, and Purple are all good options. They’re on the pricier range. The gist of this is save up the money and buy a good mattress. THIS is the only thing I recommend splurging on.
I hope all this helps everyone looking to move out on your own for the first time and are feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.
ELON MUSK DESTROYS A SOCIALIST: “I support half a million families. What have you done?”
These people really think to be wealthy is to swim in a pool of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. If a person is a wealthy business owner that means they have assets you moron. And a lot of those assets actively provide money to other people.
it’s the fact that she wanted to go into her isolated car instead of into the public building. going to her car gets her alone, where as going inside the well lit building with other people gets her around people who could protect both of them from the people she’s claiming are after her.
any actual victim will go straight for a well populated area. they may want you to come with them for help, but they would never try and get you away from a populated area and into an isolated car unless the car was the only option, because a dark car late at night is a fantastic way to isolate and capture a mark without anyone’s notice.
other tactics often used include:
1) pretending to be a heavily pregnant woman stuck out in bad weather she’s not dressed for and asking a good samaritan who asked her if she’s ok to buy her some coffee. if the woman refuses money and wants you to go with her specifically, becoming agitated when you don’t agree and only offer her cash, this is a trick. the person who found this out managed to follow a woman doing this and saw her arguing with another woman and two men. the men insisted she needed to be more convincing so people would be more sympathetic, and she watched her tell him to be the one out in the snow in the thin hoodie and fake belly, and she watched her take off a fake baby bump.
(someone taking the money can still be a scam, but it’s a scam for money, and not to traffic you. traffickers want to get you to leave a populated area, so refusing to go with them will upset them, and that’s the biggest reveal of their true intentions.)
2) a woman banging on your door screaming that a man is chasing her and begging you to let her in, saying he’s going to rape her if you don’t let her in. this was brought to everyone’s attention by a teenager who shared his story about it. his mother wanted to help her, but her husband had grown up in a ‘bad part of town’ and wasn’t so trusting. he unlocked the door but not the chain lock and handed her a brick, telling her his family was calling the police and he would stay with her at the door. if the person did show up she could use the brick to defend herself and he would come out with his..I think it was a baseball bat and help her fight him off. she became very angry, asking what was wrong with them and demanding they let her in. his only response was to close and lock the door again. she got quiet and when the police got there, she was gone but the brick was just sitting on one of their steps.
the next night the police were back, as the woman showed up again at someone else’s doorstep doing the exact same thing, only this time an officer was basically already there. that family had let her in, and she in turn let her partner in who proceeded to murder the entire family before being caught by the officer.
3) similarly, men have been known to use a recording of a baby crying playing at womens’ doorsteps in order to entice them into opening the door, this giveaway being that A) it’s recorded and that’s usually fairly obvious, but also that after a little while, the sound will move, typically under windows around the front of the house, something an actual baby clearly can’t do on its own, and is clearly someone attempting to get closer to the presumed sleeping women in the hopes of getting her attention, since she seemingly can’t hear it from the front door.
this was caught when a woman noticed this ‘baby’ moving and the cry looping and called the police. again an officer was nearby and found two men hiding in bushes around her house.
4)more of an example of something very common, a young woman shared a story of when she was little many years ago. she and a friend were going to some sort of event (she was into something. she was ether part of a sports team or dance team or something to that affect, something done by her school as she was around 6-7 at the time) her mother stopped off at a grocery store real quick and left her and her sleeping friend in the car. another little girl looking to be about 4 was in a car nearby with what this girl assumed was his father. he too got out of the car and left her there, going into the store. the girl was all smiles with him, even waving to our storyteller and smiling, until the man left. once he was inside suddenly she looked scared, and was acting like she wanted her to get out of the car and come to her. she tried waking her sleeping friend to tell her about this, thinking now the man wasn’t her father but someone who was a danger to her, but her friend gave her the dirtiest look, demanded she shut up and let her sleep, and rolled over. she looked back up at the 4 year old who was now looking at the store. she too looked over and saw the man just standing right at the window smiling and encouraging her. she smiled at him and then looked back to our storyteller, with her face instantly dropping back into that scared look on her face. she refused to get out of her car, and when the 4 year old looked back at the store, the man came back out, without having bought anything, gave the girl a smile and a pat and driving off, with the little girl waving at her as he drove away. after seeing this, she was convinced he was coaching her and using her to lure other children out to abduct them.
5)another example of something very common, a woman who was moving to another state and was by herself, as her fiance had gone ahead a month earlier to get things set up in the new place while she tied up the loose ends at the old one. on her way back to her car, she was stopped by a man in his truck, his passenger side between them, and asked her if she knew where a grocery store was. she said she didn’t know, as she was just stopping through on her way to a new place. he then said something along the lines that this was a nice place to stop on a trip with the family, and she admitted she was alone. it was then when he said it was nice to meet her and reached out his hand to shake hers, but did nothing to lean out, meaning she would have to reach in the car to reach him. it was here where she realized his questions confirmed that she was alone, far from home, and unfamiliar with the area, meaning if she vanished no one would know when she vanished or where on her long trip alone, and it would be a good while before anyone expected to see her, meaning by the time anyone realized she was gone she’d be long gone.
she refused to shake his hand, stating that she was going to go, and he sped off, far too fast for her to read the license plate.
the one thing all these stories have in common, the thing that’s kept people alive, was their refusal to give in to social expectations and protecting themselves as well as the person supposedly in need. by refusing to get into her car, the op story woman saved herself from being abducted and trafficked, as did my last story’s woman, by refusing to be polite and shaking the stranger’s hand.
Op’s woman still attempted to help her, so you absolutely can still help someone in need, but you have to do so safely and logically, without putting yourself at risk, which is exactly what these people need you to do. while it’s true a real potential victim could be screaming at your door for help or a real baby left on your doorstep that’s crying, you still have to be cautious because traffickers have no morals. there is no low they won’t stoop to if it means catching another person.
I know it can be hard to believe a woman would do something like this to other women, and not using such chances to get away themselves, but that’s what brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, and abusive manipulation will do to someone’s mind. we all want to trust other women and believe in that solidarity against our mutual oppression, but it doesn’t always work out like that. girl code and solidarity is important, but we also have to watch our for ourselves, because not everyone cares about that code.
Things like this are why I’ve taught the women in my life how to use a gun and to carry daily.
Okay, this is actually what you do if you’re being sexually harassed in any kind of public space. Draw attention to it, preferably pull away and let EVERYONE know that someone is touching you. This will not only get him to get off you but he’ll definitely think about this situation next time he wants to do something like this.
Spreading the word.
My mom and I were talking about this today after hearing about a woman who was molested on a plane who said nothing until she was picked up at the airport by her parents. My mom looked at me and asked what I would do in that situation and I looked her dead in the eye and I told her “it would take me .02 seconds to realize what was going on and yell angrily, and then I would be straight on to bitch slapping him so hard he wouldn’t be able to see the punch I’d throw with the opposite hand”.
She nodded and accepted my salty language like a seasoned sailor.
I’ve had experience with this before, in Prague a group of five girls and I were followed by three men at night. After a while they started yelling at us, the most common being “how much?” Meaning how much we “cost” as prostitutes. Seeing as they weren’t going to stop, I turned on my heel, faced them (which surprised them), spat at their feet and responded with “You couldn’t afford me.” This prompted the other girls to start yelling back at them as well, starting with our spitfire Czech friend to start slinging curses in Czech as she and the rest of the girls came up beside me. Needless to say the men backed off and pretty much fled. They weren’t expecting a fight. It empowered me and encouraged the rest of the girls to yell back too.
I’ve heard that a lot of people don’t know what to do in this situation because they’ve been taught all their lives to be polite and non-aggressive. Keep your heads down or whatever.
Keep in mind that studies have shown that rapists look for victims who won’t fight back.
Remember that nobody has the right to touch you without your consent or harass you, and you have all the right to make the biggest fuss about it that you can possibly make.
Get angry. Be in command.
FUCKING RELEVANT
If someone is doing something that makes you uncomfortable like this, you do not need to be nice. Swear, kick, scream, make the asshole cry. You don’t have to nice, be as rude as you want
You should be polite out of respect to people in general, but as soon as they cross this line they’ve lost the privilege of your kindness.
say it with me kids american people are not the only white people american people are not the only white people! AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE NOT THE ONLY WHITE PEOPLE.
Excuse you, but Americans aren’t purely white either. Americans are every and any race. Americans have culture too. It’s not a melting pot because cultures aren’t lost in us. It’s a salad bowl. Cultures are welcomed and celebrated by us.
Anyone can be American.
Thanks for adding American cultures, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone add it in.
It got even better
Regressives only think white people have no culture because they’ve been coddled by “white culture” their entire lives
The asshole and I were both made by a couple white guys.
Actually depending on whether or not the social justice crowd are considering jewish people as white today, basically the entire comics industry is from white americans.
Anyone who genuinely thinks that the White folk has no culture isn’t paying attention OR just completely takes it for granted.
Maternity and paternity leave is really important, paternity leave is, I think, a really important part of equality. Normalise the idea that men will raise children, be these men hetero or gay.
All parents need time to bond with a new baby, and time to acclimate themselves to all that’s required to care for one.
On top of forming a connection with their child, this can help to simplify distribution of labor when it comes to childcare. This way, there isn’t just one parent doing everything most of the time and then one confused parent in over their head anytime the other hands the baby off so they can go shower, get some food in them, go shopping/to a meeting, etc.
ALSO a woman will need weeks and months to heal from the birth. My husband always felt so guilty about leaving back to work just two weeks after the baby was born with BOTH our kids, because he knew I was still figuring out breastfeeding, getting used to the new baby, far too tired to clean/cook, etc. He obviously helped out outside of work, but that is so much to ask of anyone to work 9-5 and then play homemaker on top of that. Fathers need rest and time to enjoy the baby too.
It’s honestly ridiculous that fathers are expected to only spare a few weeks (at most) post-labor. The mother just went through one of the most physically traumatic episodes the human body is capable of, she’s not going to be bouncing back to normal after a few weeks. It’s a critical time when the father is needed more than ever to ease the adjustment period.
I’ve seen people complain that paternal leave is a “scam”. Certainly a lot of companies seem to think so. But the truth is that our culture is so consumer/work based, that career and money is everything, that we (a) assume that any attempt at paid leave is gimmicking the system, and (b) that parenthood is not a reasonable thing to prioritize over making income
Fathers are often portrayed in media as helpless with children or unable to empathize as well as mothers. And you know what? There’s some truth to that because of how society depicts men’s roles in parenthood since the early 20th century. Their job is to make a living and discipline. Not spend time connecting to their offspring.
Let fathers bond with their kids. It starts at the beginning. Spare them at least a month to get to know their son or daughter. Let them enjoy getting to know each babies’ unique personality outside of late-night wake-ups. Without paternity leave, they must choose between being a good husband and father, or putting bread on the table.
*this is especially important: these days on Tumblr there’s a wonderful atmosphere of being able to talk openly about your mental illness or your struggle. And that’s great! But there’s a difference between sharing in order to help yourself and other people and sharing just because you have no other coping mechanisms. As much as you’re able, try to work on developing a different outlet. People aren’t qualified to be your therapist because they’re nice to you a couple of times. Please remember that they have lives too, and their job is not to make you feel better or pity you, no matter how difficult your life is.
And last but not least:
But…
I really don’t have a way to better this.
Your interests are your own. I can’t advise anyone to change their interests to fit in with a certain group of people – that’s stupid, and actually quite damaging to your sense of self.
Instead, I would recommend that, maybe if you feel like your topics of conversation are falling flat with this group of people, you move on to other, greener pastures. There are bound to be places where your ideas mesh better with an audience.
And of course – try to be considerate about what you say and how you say it.
Sometimes, what might seem like a harmless comment to you might be a very discomforting thought to another person. I recently had a conversation on a forum with a guy who was telling me that his headcanon was that Pearl (from SU) would soon get a male love interest who loved mechanics and weapons next, and that would be her best arc, because she would finally get a ‘healthy’ love interest.
His intentions were good, but he was entirely unaware of how cringey this kind of thing was to a bunch of (probably queer) people, who have spent their entire lives being told that the only ‘good’ character development for them would be to get a ‘male love interest’. No one wanted to be the jerk to say “fuck off, we don’t want that to happen” but everyone was answering him in a flat way, trying to discourage the discussion further. Instead of picking up on the hint, he bulldozed on, thinking he was having a ‘lively conversation’ which was, in fact, in its late stages of death.
I know I’ll probably get a few messages to this saying: What about people on the Autistic Spectrum? Sometimes, people can’t pick up social cues or ‘hints’. And if that’s the case, it’s incredibly difficult to understand why you’re not having any luck communicating despite your best efforts.
I feel that on a person level, please believe me. I made this infograph for THAT VERY REASON. Because I WAS that awkward kid who didn’t pick up on hints well. In fact, I still have trouble talking to people. If any of you have had the misfortune of being my conversational partner, you’ll know that I tend to be overly blunt and come off as very unfriendly. It’s something that I, myself, am working on currently in order to grow into a better person. It’s a struggle in progress, but I am aiming towards the progress side, and I just wanted to help out others while I was at it.
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