An FYI About Everything Must Go!Adding new items as we get photos so come back often to see if there is something you Correen, Everything Must Go, Nov 2009

The Fun Side of Work

Almost anybody who writes has been there. You need to write something new, maybe because your blog need updating, you write for a site like Squidoo and you’re taking part in a challenge or perhaps you are lucky enough to have been invited to submit ideas. Some days, though, your mind just goes blank, you can’t think of a thing to write about.

This week’s Squidoo Senior Squids challenge was on Labor or Labor Day. I’m English and we don’t have Labor Day here so it doesn’t mean much to me. I knew that for the purposes of the challenge Labor meant anything job or work related. It didn’t need to be about Labor Day.

I didn’t want to write a lot on the topic because I had a Rocket Moms lens to do as well and this week it was a recipe. That meant cooking something and taking photographs of each stage. It was relatively easy to choose Quick and Easy Blueberry Cake because it’s quick and easy!

I still needed an idea for the Labor one. I came up with The Fun Side of Work. It contains a lot of humorous pictures from Allposters.com plus a couple of public domain ones from Wikipedia Commons.  I wrote a couple of anecdotes from my own experience at work.  Then I put in a few funny quotations about working like “Anyone can do any amount of provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.”

Sometimes you can use your own amusing or interesting memories in a lens or web page. Your readers aren’t going to be bored with them like friends and family. They haven’t heard you tell the same stories over and over again.

You can take one particular memory and weave an entire lens or web page around it. Perhaps you took a particularly interesting or exciting vacation, maybe you endured a trauma and writing about it might help you come to terms with it.

When you are suffering from writer’s block, think back through your favourite anecdotes and your experiences. Can you use any of them as the basis of your article?

I’ve installed cms on websites before but never blogging software and hit some small problems which held me up. I solved them, mostly through trial and error. I then installed it in a sub domain of an long standing website I run with a friend. I definitely wanted ‘pretty URLs’ there and that gave me problems. I made such a small mistake setting them up and it took me two days and four reinstalls of Wordpress. I could have given myself such a kick when I discovered the answer.

That sub domain is called Chocolate Recipes and the clue to content is in the name! I’ve stilled got a lot more recipes to put on yet.

The first thing that caught my eye was the fabulous pictures from the Portland Antiques Expo last weekend. They really capture the flavour of the show. I’ve been to many antiques & collectors fairs (shows) here in the UK and the stalls (booths) often have this serendipitous look, as if you just look carefully you’re bound to find the things you love. In fact, in these pictures, I can see several things I would have loved to buy. There were a few pieces of distressed furniture that could be made to look quite special, for example. I rather liked the small four drawer cabinet decorated with flowers – looks quirky to me.

The people in the pictures look like they’re having fun too. I’ve spent time selling at fairs here in England and most of the time, when it’s been quiet, we’ve had such a laugh. I’ve heard dealers saying, “This lot (the visitors to the fair) are useless, they’re all TTs.” When I enquired what he meant he said, “Ticket turners, darling.” He said that they just pick up the ticket tag hanging from pieces and got them grubby so they had to be changed. That would be all right if the TTs ever bought anything.

One time I was at a big fair at the NEC, Birmingham, England, where they hold huge exhibitions of all kinds from Crufts the Dog Show to huge trade shows. This antique fair lasted for about 5 days and the final day was a Sunday. This brought the largest number of people through the door. Unfortunately, most of them had no intention of buying antiques or collectables and takings were the lowest of any other day for that fair. One dealer said, “The people of Birmingham come to the NEC on Sunday for a day out. They don’t care if it’s an antiques fair or an exhibition of heavy earth moving equipment!”

I cannot tell you how many times somebody has asked about a piece and then said to his/her companion, “My granny had one just like that and it was never worth that much.” Us stall holders were obviously meant to be either deaf or impervious to insult. It was never worth explaining that her granny’s whatever was probably an inferior version, not in such good condition or not very like what she’d asked about.

One of my worst experiences happened at the NEC. At that time I wore soft contact lenses which dried out quite quickly in the fierce air conditioning there so I had to keep visiting the toilets to take them out and rehydrate them. One time I did this and, as I took a lens out, I sort of flicked my hand quickly – don’t ask me why. I didn’t know if I’d pushed the lens inside my eyelid or lost it on the floor or washbasin – all with plenty of water splashes on them. It’s almost impossible to find a soft lens in water. The 3 cubicles had women in them and when I exclaimed loudly in annoyance, they asked me what was wrong when they came out. They insisted on helping me search even though I knew it was impossible. Eventually we all gave up and I did the remaining two days of the show with just one lens which was uncomfortable, to put it mildly!