Monday, February 20, 2012

monday musings


i'm doing an alphabet month during february for my 366 project - this is yesterday's  photo - S is for sabin, sunset, silhouette. doing a letter a day (if i count the letters of the english and danish alphabets, it perfectly fits a leap year february of 29) is harder than you might think. we're SO bound to those standard iconic words by which we learned the alphabet - a is for apple, e for elephant, k for kangaroo - and it's really hard once one of those has popped into your head to come up with something else. and although there's a camel in my neighborhood, there are no elephants or kangaroos. but S, that was easy.

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it seems that spring is coming...the horse was running and bucking like a maniac yesterday when i turned her out and the outdoor cat is in heat. poor woody, who got fixed two weeks ago, still thinks he can help her out and she's such a shameless hussy that she lets him.  we hope big brother tiger, who is still intact, gets the job done. no farm is complete without kittens.

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it would appear to be possible for a chicken to have post-partum depression. one of our brown hens, who has been nesting in recent weeks, hatched her chick yesterday. but, being a stupid and still young chicken, she left the nest and it froze to death before we realized it was there. honestly, we didn't think anything would come of all that nesting, since half of them were trying to hatch plastic eggs that we had put out to teach them where to lay the eggs. but there was a perfect little brown chick (albiet dead) in the nest and she was making decidedly sad clucking sounds when husband went to close them in for the night last evening. i thought she'd have forgotten all about it by this morning, but she's apparently still in mourning, as the sad clucks continue. poor dear. i've been watching her neighbor hen all day, in case the egg she's on hatches and she wanders away. it is a slightly dumb time of year for baby chicks with temperatures hovering around freezing, but it's quite nice to know that our chickens are working (so to speak).

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i find it hard at times to work at home. too many distractions and not enough discipline on my part. i need to find another place to concentrate (i'm thinking the library).  other times (like today, actually), i get loads done and am very focused - nearly too focused, actually - sitting too long in one position, not taking enough breaks. i wish there was somehow a happy medium.  do you sometimes work from home? if so, how do you discipline yourself? and those of you who have your own little company - how do you keep the terror that it's all on your shoulders at bay?

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happy monday, one and all.

7 comments:

Tracy Golightly-Garcia said...

Hello Julie

Love the picture and I think the library would be a great place to do some work. I love my library and I drive the workers crazy trying to find books for me!!

Have a great evening.

Best
TRacy

DahnStarr said...

I have tried to bring work home as homework and nope it didn't get done. Too easy to walk past while doing something or nothing at all. I would never survive in the home business world. Lets face it, at this stage of my life I'm lucky to get myself to the office to work! I'm so out of the work mode. Drinking tea, reading blogs, playing with bobaloos and posting pictures is much more rewarding. (That didn't help, did it!?!)

Suecae Sounds said...

Lovely imagery.

Sandra said...

This is a fantastic photo.

We both work at home. Motivation for me is living beasts that need my attention. For Mark, it is also those beasts, as if he doesn't stick to the grindstone, they, and we for that matter, do not eat!

Poor mama chicken, I'm sure she is confused.

JeannetteLS said...

I worked primarily from home for ten years, and at times, it really was tough. What I learned, though, is that those times would have been tough had I been in an office, too! It is simply easier to find distractions at home. When I worked in an office, I simply became quite adept at finding ways to avoid work when I was blocked.

Oddly enough, bookstores and coffee shops with wifi gave me the ability to concentrate sometimes BECAUSE of the white noise and because I treated myself to something yummy. It made me feel good about the luxury of working where I wanted.

Also: Handel, Bach, Mozart... music without words sometimes calmed me down. And sharpening pencils. The rhythm put my mind in a work place.

That's all I've got, I'm afraid.

Jody Pearl said...

I'm not going to be much help I'm afraid - I figure you've either got the organised, focused start-here-stop-there gene or you haven't - I haven't and at 50yrs it ain't gonna happen & I'm done beating myself up over it.

I too work from home mostly and find now-a-days I don't break my day into periods of work, I break my weeks into days where certain things will get done.

I could probably achieve more if it was otherwise but I'd be feeling too guilty when it eventually didn't work.

Having something to work toward, a project to finish or a deadline is helpful, although in saying that, I know I do my best work under pressure so will usually leave it til the death nell.

Now I'm off inside to do the dishes & hang out the washing, I'll probably make a cuppa before venturing back to the Studio to do something constructive.

kristina - no penny for them said...

i love working from home, and after having done so for years, can't really imagine otherwise.

for me, it's key to have a dedicated work space, i have a tiny office with overflowing shelves (and loads of piles) of books and paper. occasionally, i will proofread a printout on the sofa, but on the whole, work is being done in the office, and breaks taken elsewhere in the flat or around the neighbourhood.

that being sad, i'm often easily distracted, but set deadlines get me back to work, as this is how i make my living.

on days when i'm really not productive, i try to do admin, formatting, something mechanical.