Sarah Franc

Samantha Lewis wrote:You can sell your art in the permies digital market!

... ... !

Do people here tend to buy print-outs for seed packets?
Or for crafts to do in the winter months while their gardens are out of commission?
Or cut files for cricuts, silhouettes, laser cutters, that sort of thing?

Yeah, good ideas. I'm already applying for basic retail in my area - anything to slow the financial bleeding (the going rate in most local stores won't cover my costs unless they offer full-time). Most places have already closed the doors in terms of hiring for the Christmas season, which is feeding my desperation.

I'm doing more research on tutoring - how/where to start offering tutoring, golden rules, etc. Thanks for the suggestion! I never would have thought of that on my own. I don't know a lot of people with kids in school, so the need is practically invisible to me.

I would like to sell art, I'm just not sure what people want, nor how to market it. I did make a few things to put into my Etsy shop (a few print on-demand and one digital download), but until I'm consistently cranking out art and slapping it on objects, I don't expect to see much traffic. My store's one purchase was enthusiastically made... but by a family member.

I am intimately familiar with cottage food industry work in Texas, so the part about molding chocolate piqued my interest, especially with valentine's day around the corner. Most of the work I do is fantasy animals, though. Is that something that people would be interested in having as food? I used to decorate cakes, but that's a little less feasible in my current living situation than it was when I first started the business. Something sturdier that can survive trips down a few flights of stairs whilst dodging yellow jackets would be a much better option.

@Nancy specifically thank you so much for reminding me of postal work. I never completed that application. No positions open in my area, unfortunately.

I'm really bad at asking for help, but I've been out of a job for almost two months now and I'm getting desperate.

By sheer force of will, I have cranked my spending habits down to Bills+Absolute Necessities, to the tune of roughly $1400 a month. A good $1220 are housing, car, insurance. Groceries are $160- AFTER splitting the bills three ways with the roomies. We're cheapskates, cook instead of buying prepared food as much as we can, and we're constantly short.

This was not the plan. The plan was to save up a year's worth of bills and leave this dreadful city behind with enough cushion to weather the lifestyle change between "hourly wage manufacturing line worker" and "subsistence farmer with a part-time remote job and, like, ALL of the livestock."

But some financial burdens ate up the reserves, a car was totalled and a new payment added itself to the necessities, and just as we were starting to get afloat, HR came to me and said, "One of the supervisors said you were sleeping on the job."

My standing job.

So in spite of it not being likely, I couldn't prove that I wasn't doing as the supervisor said and was escorted out that day. Apparently I just have one of those faces when I'm bored out of my mind. I was still getting my work done, and doing it well (my perfectionism would accept no less), but apparently looking asleep while doing so. I don't know what else I could have done.

The thing is, this isn't the first time this has happened. I haven't been able to prove that I'm not sleeping on the job before, and I don't want to be in the position of having to defend that point again. I would rather my work speak for itself. I would rather not have to point at it and say, "Look! Proof that I was awake!" I would rather not have to present my face for judgement.

I'm hoping to find remote work. I have some creative skill in writing, drawing, and sculpture. One of my more successful jobs was in data entry, and editing for spelling or grammar is second nature to me (although most editing gigs won't accept me because I don't have professional experience). I'm really not sure what to DO with these skills. I've got lots of ideas but no workable direction, at least not one that I'm certain will help me pay the bills. I don't mind working hard as long as there's even modest certainty of payout. Without that certainty, though, I keep freaking out and trying to go in several directions at once, ultimately getting nowhere.

I could really use some advice from y'all who have things relatively together and are mostly living my dream. (Everyone else keeps giving me advice for getting onto and climbing the corporate ladder, racking up more debt in the process.)

As someone who lives in an area where three seasons of the year are just different flavors of blistering summer heat, my own personal reason for keeping hair long is different from most: hair long enough can be braided or tied in a bun and stay out of one's face without the use of a tie, clip, scrunchie, or any other easily lost/forgotten hair-holder whereas shorter styles either need to be trimmed frequently or secured to stay out of the way. It serves as its own tie (with no actual tying, just friction) and has held itself in a braid long enough to more than cover some grueling 12-hour work shifts. Oddly enough, it seems to tangle less than it did when it was shorter.

I've been carrying things since I was a kid. Seeing the little girl at the end of The Jungle Book carrying a water jug on her head triggered a life-long habit.

I have NEVER in all these years considered a padded ring for carrying them, even though I've balanced plenty of hard objects with uncomfortable lumps and textures. What an idea! What a concept! Making a tool to make a task simpler?? Who would have thought!

Related to keeping track of these pads and having them on hand, what about stitching a belt loop or tie onto edge of the pad? And/or using a tump line as a belt?

My knowledge of wind energy is, uh...limited, but not entirely absent. Feel free to fill the gaps.

Let's say a wind turbine lasts 20 years. When it stops working or, more likely, when its upkeep costs more than the energy it generates, what happens to it? Do we break it down, burn it, just leave it there? My understanding is that the sturdier ones, the ones that don't degrade very readily (if at all) just get buried and hopefully forgotten forever. (That'll be one hell of an archaeological dig site in a thousand years! Big, too.) Maybe they chip them into pieces before burying them? I don't know.

What if someone bought them and made them into housing? Towers of a castle-like build? Maybe split them down the middle and half-buried them, for insulation? Sustainable housing, if only sustainable because it doesn't break down for a good long time (and therefore doesn't need to be replaced for just as long).

Why isn't someone already doing this? Are they made of something horribly toxic and detrimental to human health? Maybe someone's already doing it and I just can't find it? What am I missing, here?

I feel a bit dumb, because I'm pretty sure this information is listed somewhere and I'm just missing it, somehow:
Is this an employment or a contractor position?
Forty hours maximum or forty hours minimum?
Is overtime encouraged or discouraged?

While I have most of the VA survey filled out, I would be going from a 60-hour work week to this, and don't want to answer question 3 in such a way that it turns out I cannot afford to work at that rate for six months.

I did the research on BT dunks some years ago with concern for local dragonfly larvae.

BT stands for Bacillus Thuringiensis. It occurs naturally in the soil and has been farmed and used extensively for mosquito control over the last three decades.

It kills the larvae of mosquitoes, blackflies and fungus gnats only. It's about as targeted a biological attack as you can get.

However...

Amphibians are very susceptible to changes in their ecosystem, and recent studies have shown that BT doses may affect their intestinal microbiota and gene expression. Their tadpoles may take slightly more or less time to become frogs. They may become more or less susceptible to parasites.

In short, an application of BT won't kill them (especially if they're not eating mosquito larvae), but it may change them.

However, since BT is a naturally occurring organism, such a change may have occurred without your help in a more natural setting.

Should you choose to use it, I would only use it in the barrels, and I would wait until you see the first hint of mosquitoes for the season (BT effects mosquito larvae, but not pupae or adult mosquitoes - the function being that it causes larvae to stop eating). Since you know the capacity of the barrels, you should be able to restrict the dosage appropriately, and limiting the treatment to the barrels alone should reduce any potential risks to the local population.

Hopefully I didn't miss someone else suggesting this, but when you swap in those plastic containers? Put brine in them instead of water. And then maybe seal the lids with aquarium-grade silicone, to prevent leaks.

It takes more to freeze brine, and should help keep spaces open whenever the tops of the water tanks freeze over.

Permies job seems thus:
Skill level: negotiable;
Desire: a must.

Current job…not great.
Demands change of employed state,
yet I hesitate.

Past wisdom ingrains
Distrust of pay rate queries.
(I detest such games.)

What good be such work
that demands a heart be bought
but sustenance not?

Yet I overstep
While other expectations
have scarcely been met.

As an example:
Most of my activity
Remains in this thread.