Posts by Lilith __
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Russell Brown,
I do wonder why it's taken me so long to cook aloo gobi. I made it for the first time yesterday and it wound up being the best dish of the lot. Simple and seriously delicious. The only way to eat cauliflower, imho.
Aloo Gobi is very tasty. But I have wondered how ultra tasty it might be without the cauliflower. :-)
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It's a fact that not only have all of Elisabeth Windsor's children's marriages ended in divorce
Uh, Edward and Sophie?
And must we pour scorn on newlyweds for daring to get married? Who knows, it might even work out, they know each other well and seem well matched. They probably have as much chance of making it work as any of us do.
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Fergie’s daughter’s just looked gauche, didn’t they ?
Such a pity. Might have been OK without the moose antlers and the blue trowel.
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Neil Graham,
To the kitsch I add this work of genius.
http://guandongenterprisesltd.com/</q>
Ummm...isn't that Harry?
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Hard News: Any excuse for a party, in reply to Islander,
One wonders what they did before they discovered coitus? Fissioned?
They may have been too polite to mention it. :-)
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This is IMHO the funniest item of royal wedding memorabilia:
"Founded in London, England's historic capital, Crown Jewels Condoms of Distinction is the proud purveyor of an exclusive range of heritage love sheaths.
England boasts some of the finest lovemaking in the world, with a tradition of coitus going back generations."
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Up Front: Home is Where the - Ooo, shiny!, in reply to Rich Lock,
I just borrow Danyl’s.
Huh, I was just wracking my brains to think which blog I read that on. Danyl’s, of course!
ETA: also saves me the bother of ever watching it myself :-)
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Up Front: Home is Where the - Ooo, shiny!, in reply to barnaclebarnes,
Don’t put off the work you really should be doing. Make those calls that you know you need to make
I used to really hate calling clients who hadn't paid their accounts on time and I would put off calling them, or not do it at all. Then one day I decided I was being silly, and I needed to treat it just like any other task, so I would make a list and sit down and do all those calls at once. And I made a point of never saying I really needed the money, even though I did. I would just say I was calling regarding my invoice dated -/- and it'd be nice to get that sorted out. And then I'd give them a week and repeat if they still hadn't paid. And I found calling was hugely more effective than posting reminders, which usually had no effect at all. I once had a client ring me, angry because I "hadn't said anything" about an unpaid bill gong back some months: in fact I had written three times.
It's so easily to take these things personally, if people don't pay or don't treat you well, but it's pointless to get upset about it. The only thing to do is to get what you're owed, and it they go on being difficult, consider not dealing with them again.
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Up Front: Home is Where the - Ooo, shiny!, in reply to Sue,
make sure you have ‘water cooler’ moments as scheduled coffees
For a while I had a flatmate who also worked from home. We were at opposite ends of the house, but we'd meet from time to time in the kitchen getting food and drinks for ourselves, and have a quick chat. It cheered us both up a lot!
If you know anyone living nearby who works from home, see if you can get together sometimes. I've found the sense of isolation one of the hardest things about working at home. Email and internet chat are OK, but actually seeing people gives me more of a buzz.
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My experience of working from home, particularly if you’re running your own business, is it’s a great idea to keep a log of the time you spend working, and how long your different tasks take. I think a lot of people working for themselves are really good at some things and useless/slow at others. If there’s something that’s taking a lot of your time and effort, would it make more sense to pay someone else to do it? Or can you find some way of doing it less? Can you focus more on your more lucrative clients and shed some of the others?
It’s good to log your breaks and other activities, too, like how long you spend doing housework. It’s easy to spend potentially-productive time cleaning and tidying the house just because you’re in it. You might find it works better if you put off the menial tasks until later in the day when your brain is tired anyway.
In any case if you have a log you can keep an eye on the big picture, and experiment with structuring your day in different ways.
One thing I’ve never known how to deal with is phonecalls from family and friends when I’m attempting to get stuff done. I suppose ideally you’d let the answerphone take all calls and then call back at a more suitable time, but in practice it’s hard! It’s so nice to hear from people when you’re home alone.
And likewise with emails. Answering email, even just work-related email, can be so disruptive. Perhaps you need to set certain blocks of time aside for doing email, has anyone out there managed to do that?
ETA: what Russell says about exercise, and generally getting out of the house sometimes: +1