Helping You Help Yourself #37

feature image via shutterstock

Time to start planning your Halloween party! Here’s a calculator to figure out how much candy you need and here’s another one for booze.

Resume tip! How to list multiple positions at the same job.

Your hairdryer and/or curler/straightener are probably on the list of things that you use almost every day but don’t clean regularly. Here’s how!

Apartment Therapy has rounded up all of its many suggestions for storage space throughout your home, room by room. Maybe today is the day you finally figure out the right place to put your creepy puppet collection!

Forever relevant: 10 ways to upgrade a bowl of instant ramen.

A guide to friendship breakups.

I haven’t upgraded to Sierra on my Mac yet but I understand its picture-in-picture feature doesn’t natively support Netflix or Youtube, which are probably the things you want to use it for most. Here’s a workaround, at least for Safari.

What are all those attachments that came with your vacuum cleaner? Now you know.

Super grateful for this article on what to actually do with all your unwanted stuff once you’ve made the decision to donate it — personally, I have no difficulties downsizing or deciding to let go of things, I just don’t know what to do with the giant pile of it after that step. Neat!

I’m staying in a friend’s apartment right now and really want her dog to be as obsessed with me as I am with the dog; I remembered that we have this guide to getting someone’s dog to be obsessed with you right here on Autostraddle dot com, and thought you might want to see it too.

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Rachel

Originally from Boston, MA, Rachel now lives in the Midwest. Topics dear to her heart include bisexuality, The X-Files and tacos. Her favorite Ciara video is probably "Ride," but if you're only going to watch one, she recommends "Like A Boy." You can follow her on twitter and instagram.

Rachel has written 1141 articles for us.

18 Comments

  1. That guide to meeting other people’s pets is so useful! A few weeks ago I visited my friend Laurel at her apartment and met her cats Cole and Porter. Thinking of that article and lessons I’ve learned with my family’s dogs, I tried to remember that I was entering their space and disrupting their norms and routine. Having Laurel there in the middle of the afternoon was unusual, having another human there was a rarity. Fortunately Cole and Porter liked me after a careful inspection of me, my shoes, and my bag and I was even allowed to go on “their” couch which was comfortable af.

  2. Friendship breakups suck. I am guilty of ghosting some of my former friends as a way of breaking up with them. I was just going through too much and we were all toxic to each other. I actually ran into one of my ex-friends on campus the other week. It was nice to see each other without any resentment and we both apologized for not being a good friend. I always thought of myself as a crappy person so it surprised me to know that my ex-friend felt like I wasn’t one. Sadly, we cannot be friends. My fiance will not allow it because she’s afraid it will get super toxic, super fast and she can’t have me relapse again. *sigh*

    • I’m totally, totally commenting on here without knowing the situation or your boundaries here – but it does also seem quite unhealthy that your fiance will not *allow* you to be friends with certain people…

      • I realized that immediately after I wrote my comment. I always thought it was okay until spending some time on this site…. It pushed me to talk about it with my fiance, so that’s a step in the right direction.

  3. I just moved to a farm and there are a ton of stray doggos who visit us so thank you for linking to that advice, I can’t wait to adopt like 300 of them and form the cutest squad ever

  4. Rachel! I know where you can donate your clothes! I volunteer at my local LGBT Center’s youth space and our homeless youth really need warm clothes this time of year. Sweaters, rain jackets, boots, socks, hand warmers, and blankets are all highly sought after items. I hope ya’ll have local youth spaces or shelters you can donate to, but if not I’m going to put a plug in for mine: The QSpot (https://www.facebook.com/SacQspot/). Here’s a link to their Amazon whishlist (https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/154FMU5ZPR2NN/ref=cm_sw_su_w?utm_content=buffer297bb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer). I know they’re also looking for donations of dog food in addition to what I already listed above.

  5. I take it really personally when a dog isn’t excited about me as I am about it. But I realize that is asking a lot of them.

    I love the dog body language chart in that post. My dog has “Please” down. It’s how he got my girlfriend to fall for him at the shelter. Lifted that little paw, “Please, take me home.” And she said yes and then he peed on her leg to seal the deal.

  6. Why is this link round up just links to apartment therapy and the kitchen (apartment therapy’s food site)? I would just read apartment therapy if I wanted to…

  7. It’s like you knew I was going to start properly planning the Indystraddle Halloween party today ….

  8. I feel like I have to mention the most amazing thing a “beef up your ramen” post told me about last week: there are pho broth cubes (or just a big hunk of it that you shave off of for several bowls). I found some on amazon and it is wonderful

  9. Has anyone ever actually had a sit down friendship breakup? Very interest in hearing these stories as I have only ever experienced the slow fade and can’t really imagine actually telling someone I don’t want to be friends anymore

    • I feel the same way! I’ve also done the purposeful slow fade and it’s usually because the other person is way more into the friendship than I am and I have no real way of saying “hey I don’t really like your personality and I don’t like spending time with you, but you’ve latched onto me so…sorry!”

  10. As a dog enthusiast, I appreciate the puppy link. And coz I’m on a super low budget for the next week, I love that ramen post. TY!

      • @eldaness I’ve been there and it sucks. I don’t know what your situation is, but I’m introverted and reserved and have moved a lot to new places where I didn’t know anyone, so have sometimes found myself friendless for long stretches of time. So I know what that feels like.

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