I realise I’m not making the process of having your bathroom re-vamped sound particularly easy (or, indeed, particularly interesting, come to think of it) here, but that’s because… Well, it’s because it’s NOT particularly easy, if you want to know the truth. Especially when you finally manage to get a plumber to return your calls, and he says he’ll come round on Monday to look at your radiator-come-towel-rack, but Monday comes and goes and the plumber… doesn’t… and then he gets his secretary to call you and say "whoops, the plumber was too busy to attend to your stupid ass radiator-come-towel-rack, can he stand you up on Wednesday instead?" and you say "yes" because there’s sod all else you can say, but in the meantime you’ve taken up the floor in the bathroom, so now you step out of the shower onto the kind of dirty, mess-strewn floorboards that would get you closed down if your house was open to the public, and then you spend the whole week trailing dirt from the bathroom floor to the whole rest of the house, which now looks a lot like a construction site, except NOTHING IS BEING CONSTRUCTED because you still can’t get a damn plumber to return your calls.
* BREATHE *
What makes all of this worse, of course, is if you haven’t slept properly since Friday night, because first your dog was sick, then he had diarrhea (Which you still can’t spell, by the way), and then once he’d recovered, he was all, "actually, I think I’d prefer sleeping in YOUR ROOM from now on, and preferably on top of your bed", so he barks loudly every ten minutes during the night, until you’re forced to bring him into the bedroom, where he alternates between snoring like a much larger animal and pattering around looking for shoes and other things he could possibly pee on ALL NIGHT LONG.
*BREATHE *
Oh yeah – if maybe your car could contrive to break down just four days after you collected it from the garage, where you paid the equivalent of a few good pairs of shoes to have a completely unrelated fault fixed, that would just finish things off nicely.
* BREATHE *
The plumber has promised to turn up today. The ceiling is still holding up, despite the massive crack in it. The floors… well, the floors still look like ten kinds o’crap, but that’s really the least of our difficulties at the moment.
Is it not 2009 yet?
Tagged decorating
 Rubin writes…
So, by now Amber has probably been totally whinin’ it up over at her blawg, all, “OMG, Rubin totally vomited all over his bed and we had to buy him a new one, oh poor us, having to clean up all the vomit.” I mean, am I right?
Well, here’s the truth of the matter: I just wanted a new bed. And I got one, too. Alls I had to do was, like, totally regurgitate my dinner all over my old bed. It was, like, totally amazing, I mean, I wish you coulda seen it. Because, it’s like, it kind of surprised even me, you know? One minute I was having me a bit of a lie down after dinner, next minutes I’m staring that SAME DINNER in the face ALL OVER AGAIN.
Well, it didn’t take me long to realise that I was onto a winner with this one. I was all, “If I can keep on doin this, I can totally keep on eating my dinner OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Like, I could eat my dinner all day? This will give you just a small idea of how totally clever I am, but trust Killjoy Terry to put a stop to all the fun. He was all, “No, Rubin, you can’t eat your own vomit,” and then he cleaned it all up and everything, so what I did was, I threw up again, only this time I did it on one of their cushions. Then I did It AGAIN, but – and this was a total masterstroke – I did it ON THEIR BED. Hee! God, it was hilarious, you should have seen Amber’s face!
After that I didn’t feel too good. I think I might have overstretched myself, you know? So I bided my time, and sure enough, next thing I know, it’s the next day, and we’re down at Pets at Home, pickin’me up a new bed. Of course, I went for the most totally outrageous bed in the shop: it’s like, all red leather, and its got this white furry cushion on it. It’s a real KINGLY bed, you know? Like, a bachelor pad bed? A kinda “Come back to my place and see my Goodboys kinda bed”. This is it:
They’re calling it a “belated burfday present” – I call it “yet another triumph of Rubinman over Humans). Also: because it’s red, it matches my RED COAT. That, you know, I don’t even WEAR, obviously, on account of me bein’ a WOLF. Rarrr.
Anyway, they gives me the bed, and I has a bit of a think to myself, and I was like, “I think I’m going to mix things up a bit here, see if I can’t set me a new kinda record or somethin.” So what I did was, I waited until it was, like, WAY early in the morning, then I crapped all over that stupid bed of mine. Hee! So, I totally got me my record: that bed had only been in our house for a matter of hours -HOURS, I tells ya- and I had already totally crapped on it, and it had ALREADY been washed and everything. Now I don’t got no red leather bed, because I’ve got to wait for the furry cushion thing to dry, but it’s like, it’s OK, because there’ll be somthin else I can pee on tonight. Like, probably the washing machine, or somethin.
Smell yas,
Rubin
It hasn’t been the best of weekends.
Friday morning kicked off with a comment on one of my blogs from someone informing me that I "deserve to be shot" because I’d said I liked a certain handbag. So that was nice. After that, it all went downhill.
We reckon Rubin ate something funny. Actually, to be completely honest, we think the "something funny" might have been the thing otherwise known as "Rubin’s dinner", because not an hour after he’d finished eating it, he abruptly brought it all right back up again, all over his bed.
Now, I am a squeamish person. I don’t really "do" vomit, not even when it’s … well, let’s just say it was in pretty much the same state it had been in when Rubin last seen it. This was very thrilling for Rubin. "Lookit!" he seemed to be saying. "My dinner is BACK! Result!" So pleased was he with this trick, in fact, that he decided to repeat it ten minutes later, this time vomiting all over the cushion I’d given him to lie on while his bed made its final journey out the front door and into the rubbish bin.
(In fairness, I had been planning to buy him a new bed anyway, so it wasn’t just laziness/squeamishness that made me take one look at the upchuck and say, "Nah, let’s not even TRY to clean that up.")
Terry was given the unhappy task of cleaning up the mess, while I attempted to comfort Rubin, who was now slightly less impressed with his own ability to regurgitate his dinner, and was feeling very sorry for himself indeed.
We were now one dog bed and one cushion down, so, because I am a FREAKING IDIOT, I did what only stupid people would do, and took Rubin into our bedroom, to lie on the snowy white duvet that…hey!… had only just been changed. I think you can probably guess where I’m going with this, can’t you?
Yes, Rubin performed the third and final installment of his "amazing re-appearing dinner" trick all over the white duvet. We were now one dog bed, one cushion and one duvet cover down. So I washed the duvet cover, gave Rubin Terry’s beanbag to sleep on for the night (no, he didn’t throw up on that, although it would have made a better story if he HAD), and the next day, en route to my parents’ house for dinner, we stopped at Pets At Home and bought Rubin (now restored to full health – or so we thought, anyway) a new bed.
Specifically, we bought him a red "pleather" bed with … wait for it… a WHITE FAKE FUR CUSHION ON IT.
I mean, it seemed a good idea at the time, but all I can say to you now is NEVER DO THAT. Never buy your dog, who has a reputation for peeing on things, crapping on things and now vomiting on things a freaking WHITE FUR CUSHION to sleep on. No good can come of that kind of crazy-ass behaviour, and, indeed, when I awoke at 5am on Sunday morning to the sound of Rubin barking in his "I’ve done something and I don’t think you’re going to like it" way, I knew even before I opened the door to his room (Well, it’s really the "office", but he thinks it’s his) what I would find.
DIARRHEA – that’s what I found. All. Over. The. White. Cushion.
"That was really stupid of us, giving him that," said Terry, as I crawled back into bed some time later, being careful to wake him up so I could share the sorry tale of what had just gone down. "Like, really, REALLY stupid."
And you know what? It totally was.
Final tally:
Soft furnishings "soiled" this weekend: four.
Number of times Rubin has been bathed: two
I think that pretty much sums it up. Thank God it’s Monday…
 Because I’m still aiming for that “most boring blogger in the whole wide world” award, this week’s Friday Photo depicts the new radiator in our wreck of a bathroom. The one that’s STILL not been actually attached to the wall, on account of NO PLUMBER WILL COME AND DO IT. I hate plumbers. (Note: Unless any plumbers are reading this, in which case, I totally LOVE plumbers. Also: will you come and fix my radiator?)
This isn’t the radiator, of course: the one that was the cause of Watergate. No, this is the radiator that has, you know, been sitting in our shed for FIVE YEARS NOW because we were too lazy to call someone out to install it. Five. Years. I actually think we may have owned the radiator for longer than we’ve owned the house. I’m pretty sure we rushed out and bought it as soon as our offer was accepted (because clearly it was, like, really important to us at the time to have a radiator that is also a towel rack. Warm towels rock. Or I’d imagine they do, anyway. I don’t actually know, on account of we don’t actually HAVE a radiator in our bathroom. Not one that works, anyway), and I remember it living in the spare bedroom for a few years, before it made its way out to the shed. Terry did try and convince me that we should stick it on eBay at one point (this was around about year three, I think), but I was all “NO WAY! We really need that towel-rack-come-radiator! And one day we will have it installed in our bathroom!” Oh, the innocence of youth. Or, you know, the innocence of a couple of years ago. Whatever.
Also shown in this picture is the mess that is our walls, sans tiles. It’s still only without half of the tiles, though, and this is because…. it’s something to do with the radiator. I think. Terry has now called almost all the plumbers in the phone book (Note: I totally made that up because I have no idea how many plumbers he’s actually called. I may be boring, but I’m not quite at the stage of counting plumber-phonecalls yet. OK, it was about five. And he emailed a couple as well.) For some reason, all of them just say, “Yes, no problem, we can do that! Can you call me back tomorrow?” And then when you call back tomorrow, they say the same thing. WHY? What’s with the calling back thing? Is it just to get rid of us? And if so: WHY?
What I’m basically trying to say here is: we are no further forward with the bathroom project. And I think it’s started to make me insane. I mean, where have all the plumbers gone? I’m not good at dealing with rejection, and these dudes just keep on rejecting us, day after day after day. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? Is our radiator-that-is-also-a-towel-rail not good enough, huh? Is that what it is? Will it never enjoy a useful life, fulfilling the purpose it was made for? And will it even care, given that it’s now spent five years in the shed/spare room anyway?
Anyway, at least one person in the house is happy, and that one person is Rubin, who has just updated his blawg. And it’s not about radiators, either. (It’s about a Tennis Ball on Legs. Which is much more exciting.)
Tagged decorating, radiator saga
Because the inanimate objects in my life have developed the knack of all breaking down at the same time, it came as no surprise this week to learn that my car? Was broken. Actually, this happened last week. In fact, it happened on that same, doomed Sunday that saw us dealing with both The Watergate Affair and my ill-fated trip to the gym. Let’s just call that day "Black Sunday". I think the only reason I haven’t been on here whining about the car breaking was because I was trying to block it out. I mean, let’s face it, that’s how I normally deal with things.
I had been blocking out the broken car thing for quite a few weeks. See, the thing that’s broken is the exhaust. It has a hole in it. Now, I had known about this hole for some time, but I’d been employing my usual method of dealing with car problems, which is to turn the volume on the stereo up REALLY LOUD, in an effort to disguise the fact that the car sounded like it was trying to take off every time I drove somewhere in it. This technique works up to a point. That point came on Black Sunday, when I slowed down to negotiate a roundabout on the way home from the gym, and heard a noise that was not unlike gunfire.
"Hey, maybe it’s just gunfire," I thought optimistically. "Maybe it’s not the car at all!" And I reached for the volume control on the stereo and cranked it up a notch. The car, however, was determined not to be ignored this time.
"RAT-TAT-TAT!" it said, as I put my foot down. "RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!" And also? BANG!
"Aiieeeeee!" I shrieked, reaching for the volume control again.
"Ooooooh!" said Aimee Mann, from the stereo.
"RAT-TAT-TAT!" said the car again. "I’M NOT GOING TO STOP THIS UNTIL YOU SPEND LOTS OF MONEY ON ME!"
"OK, OK, I get it," I said. (I’m not joking about this, by the way. I really do talk to my car. It’s only polite, really.) "I will take you to the garage tomorrow."
Then I drove home, parked it in the driveway and attempted to block out the whole thing. In my defense I did end up with my finger stuck in a radiator later that night, so I think I can be excused. Maybe. After that, I decided to employ my second line of defense for dealing with Car Troubles: use Terry’s car. Again, though, this tactic will only work up to a point, and that point came today, when Terry and I made the mournful journey to the garage, where my car will be fitted with a shiny new exhaust (it freaking better be shiny, for what it’s costing), and I will have my money taken from me. I’ll get the car back tomorrow. My sanity may take a little while longer to return.
In the meantime, of course, the bathroom saga rumbles on…
So far, the bathroom has been divested of around 1/2 of its tiles. No, I really wasn’t joking when I said this project would take a while, was I? Dust is everywhere. Bits of …stuff… are everywhere. My sanity is… everywhere. See, I don’t deal well with mess. (This is pretty unfortunate, given that I live with Rubin.) Mess makes me feel claustrophobic. It makes me feel stressed. It makes me feel like taking my credit card and checking into a hotel, to be perfectly honest.
Other things that make me hate our house right now:
Mount Doom – still in situ on the living room ceiling, now fully erupted, but looking like there could be a landslide from it at any minute. (For which read: we got all the water out of the ceiling, but I still think the plaster is going to fall down.)
The San Andreas Fault – i.e. the huge crack on the floor in the hall, caused by Watergate. It’s still there, and looking worse to me by the day, although Terry still insists that no one would notice it except Eagle Eye Amber.
The Grand Canyon – i.e. the crack on the living room floor caused by Watergate. Still there, and now joined by some other, smaller gorges, which actually don’t seem to have had anything to do with Watergate, but which are just there. GOD.
I don’t know why it helps to name these things after geographical phenomenons (well, other than Mount Doom, obviously), but it does. Not as much as, say, a NEW HOUSE would help, but still.
So, basically what I’m saying is that we now need a new bathroom, new ceiling, and two new floors. Meanwhile, we went to Ikea on Sunday. To look at new kitchens. Because we are that kind of crazy.
Still, at least my car is fixed.
 For this week’s Friday Photo, I present the evidence of the one and only time in my life when I was persuaded that dungarees were an acceptable item of clothing. Of course, I didn’t call them “dungarees”. No, to me they were, and forever shall be, “dongledees”. (“Dong’el’deez”). To this day, I have a deep and abiding mistrust of anything that looks even remotely like it could be related to the “dongledee” family. Hey, I wonder why?
In other news, the gym called. They wanted my membership card, my free towel and a written undertaking to never whine about them on the Internet again. Nah, I’m just kidding – although this would possibly be a much more interesting post if they had. No, the gym were doing one of their regular “user surveys”, and let me tell you it COULD NOT HAVE COME AT A BETTER TIME. Terry took the call, and I could see from the panicked glances he was casting in my direction that he was thinking, “Oh God, what have you said in your blog this time?). But it was all good. In fact, the manager who called us said there had been other complaints about the “pool full of kids” things, and that this is something that tends to happen any time there’s any influx of new members, which there has been after new year, as everyone makes resolutions to get fit, lose weight, and leave their offspring in the middle of the fast swimming lane while they lounge in the spa.
Anyway, the woman said the gym are going to “take steps” to resolve the situation, and hey, you know, “steps” are all I ask. So basically Amber – 1, The Gym – 0. Even although I didn’t actually do anything other than whining in my blawg.
In yet other news, our house is still standing after the Watergate affair, but I’m not sure how much longer that’ll last. The huge crack o’doom in the ceiling (or ‘Mount Doom’ as I like to call it) had widened, and also bulged, giving every appearance of being about to fall down or heads at any seconds. The wood floors in the hall and living room, meanwhile, are slowly rising UP to meet the ceiling (Terry says no one else but me would even notice this, but I think not. And also: don’t care, I want it fixed.). Everything else, including me, Terry and the dog, is just permanently coated in a thick layer of dust, which is replenished every time Terry goes to the bathroom and begins knocking more tiles off.
I was trying to clean this dust up as we went along, but I started to feel like I was fighting a losing battle with that one so recently I, er, just haven’t been bothering. I’m not much liking this “2008″ business AT ALL, to tell you the truth…
 Here’s a basic rule of public relations for you: if you don’t have a good news story to tell, you create one. Here’s how to do it:
1. Throw a Launch Party
It doesn’t matter if your business is a few months old, or just newly opened: if you haven’t thrown a launch party, it’s time to do it. Invite everyone you can think of to your party: invite the local councilors and MPs (who will never turn down an opportunity to either have their photo taken or attend a party. Trust me on that one.), members of your local business community, your friends, family and prospective customers – and, of course, the media. Here’s another secret for you: journalists rarely turn down parties either – or not if they can help it.
2. Run a Competition
Just as everyone loves a story, you’ll find that there are very few people who can resist a freebie. By running a competition, you’ll be able to tap into that opportunistic streak all of us have – and promote your business at the same time.
3. Give something away for free
I know, I know – when your business is new, you want to hold onto every last penny. The very idea of giving something away for free is anathema to you! But trust me – freebies not only help you get into the local media, they also help bring in more business. By offering freebies, you do two things:
1. Generate goodwill towards your business
2. Gain media exposure
The media couldn’t care less if you’re selling something (even at a discount) – that’s why they have an advertising section. Once you start giving it away though – that’s when they’ll be more likely to take notice.
4. Get sponsored in an unusual way
As any PR-person will tell you, sponsorship doesn’t just benefit the charity you’re raising money for: if you’re a small business owner, it can be of great benefit to you as well. Cynical? Well, probably. There’s no getting away from the fact, though, that being sponsored to do something, whether it’s a charity hike, sponsored silence or a walk halfway round the world will give you a better chance of seeing your business name in the paper.
If you can be sponsored to do something unusual (because let’s face it, thousands of people do sponsored walks every year: and when you work for a newspaper, you get to find out about every single one of them), then so much the better. Get a good picture of you either completing your sponsored task or handing over the cheque to the charity benefiting, and your local paper may just find a space for it.
5. Sponsor someone else
If you don’t fancy being sponsored yourself, then try sponsoring someone else. Local clubs, sports teams and organizations are always on the lookout for extra cash, and while you may not be able to spring for a sponsorship deal with your local premiership club, sponsoring your local kids’ football team will earn you goodwill – and your business name on eleven shirts for a year!
6. Piggy-back on someone else’s press release
We’ve already discussed politicians and how media savvy they are. The same goes for many other organizations and businesses, who are just as desperate for publicity as you are. It makes sense to get to know the PR people working for these organizations. Say your business is in a health-related industry, and you find out that your local hospital is about to put out a press release about an issue affecting them. Why not contact the hospital press officer and ask if you can help? You may be surprised at how willing they are to have your voice of support quoted on their press release – and that means getting your business in the media.
We all dream of being able to just walk out of the day job one fine morning, and walk right into a comfortable freelance writing business. A tip? It’s not going to happen. As with any business, when you start out as a freelance writer, it will take time to build your reputation, acquire a solid client base and have enough steady work coming in every month to stop you worrying about paying the bills.
Paying the bills. It’s the one big obstacle that prevents many talented writers going freelance. You see, freelance writing isn’t what you’d call a stable career. Some month you may do really well: you’ll have money to burn and the not a worry in the world. Other months? Other months you won’t be quite so flush.
It’s hard to adjust to a freelance career if you’re used to a steady income. It can be really tough when you don’t know where next month’s mortgage is coming from. Sometimes it can be so tough that the worry will break you: you’ll stop thinking about how to find those freelance writing jobs and start wondering whether your old employer will have you back.
Those kind of circumstances aren’t exactly conducive to productive writing. That’s why I strongly recommend that you don’t start a freelance writing business unless you have enough money in the bank to see you through at least six months of mortgage, groceries and other bills – even if you make nothing.
If you don’t have those kind of savings and you don’t want to wait, then I recommend one of two thing:
1. Start your freelance writing business without leaving your dayjob.
Yes, that means working evenings and weekends. No, it won’t be fun. But it will get the bills paid, and until your business is making enough each month for you to give up the day job altogether, it’ll do.
2. Go part time - at least umtil you’re making enough from freelancing to cover your part-time salary.
Of course, you could ignore all of this advice and just start freelancing anyway. That’s what I did. And that’s why I’m recommending that you make sure you have some security behind you before you make that leap.
Sometimes professional blogging is hard. Actually, scratch that: blogging professionally is hard pretty much all the time: it’s just that some weeks are tougher than others, and this has been one of those weeks. The fact that it’s still only Tuesday doesn’t do much to cheer me up about this…
One of the pieces of advice I normally give to people who’re thinking about starting a blog is to develop a thick skin. When you write for the public, you are, of course, opening yourself up to criticism, and sometimes abuse, and this is particularly true of blogging, where we tend to actively solicit feedback by leaving a handy little “comment” box at the bottom of each post.
Sometimes the comments are good ones. And actually, a lot of the time the comments are good ones – or are at least constructive ones. Other times? Not so much. Every now and then, every blogger gets negative comments. In the past, I’ve been called “butch and ugly” because I wrote a post in which I admitted to not being fond of sneakers; I’ve been told I deserve to be “shot in the head” because I admired a particular handbag; called “fat” because of a post mentioning a certain dress, and have opened myself up to a whole world of abuse by writing about Crocs.
Often, it’s easy to see that the people who write comments like this aren’t quite sane. Normal people, for instance, don’t go around wanting to shoot people who don’t share their taste in handbags. Sometimes, though, it can be hard to just shrug off negative comments, and as I mentioned at the start of this entry, this has been one of those weeks.
One thing I’ve noticed in the time I’ve been blogging is that when the negativity comes, it tends to come in waves. I’ll get normal, polite comments for months (and by “normal” I don’t necessarily mean people singing my praises and telling me I’m wonderful. I just mean people who, if they disagree with a post, are capable of voicing their disagreement without telling me I deserve to die.) and then all of a sudden there’ll be a little run of aggressive people telling me I’m ugly and fat and my blog sucks.
When this happens, it can be very hard not to take it personally. Is it me? I wonder. Have my posts gone downhill? Have I suddenly and dramatically lost touch with what my readers want? Am I just really bad at what I’m doing, and everyone’s suddenly realised it, all at the same time?
Well, I certainly hope it’s not that – and the fact that the negative comments I’ve had this week haven’t just been on new posts, but on older ones, which had previously not inspired any kind of aggression, would seem to back this up. Sometimes, though, when you’re in the midst of all this negativity, it can be really hard to convince yourself that you shouldn’t just give up blogging altogether and go and work in McDonalds or something. It can be very, very hard to keep coming up with posts when nothing you say seems to be right. It can be hard, in other words, not to take the comments to heart.
Hopefully things will go back to normal soon. In the meantime, my advice to would-be bloggers remains the same: grow a thick skin. You’re going to need it.
We’ll be looking at the technicalities of setting up a freelance writing website soon. For now, though, just trust me: if you’re serious about your freelance writing business, you’re going to need a website.
Most people who find themselves in need of a freelance writer or editor don’t have a clue where to look for one. I’m not talking here about magazine editors or other publishing professionals: they’re a whole other nut to crack, and not the subject of this post.
What I’m talking about are the employers who find themselves looking for a writer for the first time: the new business owner who needs content written for his website, the established business owner who realizes she could be doing with a writer for that brochure she’s putting out, the new novelist who finishes his magnum opus and suddenly finds himself in need of a proofreader or editor.
These people often have no idea where to find the professionals they need to help them with their projects. If you need a plumber, joiner or electrician, you’ll normally look in your Yellow Pages, or in your local paper. The same goes for accountants, lawyers, chiropractors – in fact, just about any other profession you can name. Writers, though? Where do you find them? Well, on the Internet, of course.
Often when an employer realizes he or she needs the services of a freelance writing business, he’ll do one of two things:
1. Ask around to find out if anyone he knows has ever used a freelancer
2. Look online
If you don’t have some kind of online presence, then, you won’t be found. It’s as simple as that.
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