advice
Workplace advice for any issue, problem, or concern; from changing careers to co-working advice and decorating needs.
NOT A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MANIFESTING
NOT A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MANIFESTING A Quiet Word With the Universe From Yourself I am not going to teach you how to manifest. There are enough people doing that already, usually while sitting in a perfect white room with a candle burning, three crystals lined up like obedient little soldiers and not a speck of dust anywhere. My house does not work like that, and neither does my mind. My thoughts arrive together, all talking at once, while the kettle is boiling and something I put down two minutes ago has mysteriously disappeared. This is not another guide promising that the universe will deliver everything you desire before teatime. This is simply a quiet word with the universe from myself.
By ♿ V+ Marie381Uk 2 months ago in Journal
I Ignored the Letter From My GP for Three Weeks Because I Was Afraid of the Word. AI-Generated.
The letter I left on the hall table The letter sat on the hall table for three weeks. It was from my GP, following up on a routine blood test I had only done because my wife nagged me into a general check-up for my sixtieth birthday, the way she nags me into most sensible things. The letter said my PSA was elevated and that I should come in to discuss it. I knew, vaguely, what PSA meant. I knew, vaguely, what "elevated" combined with "come in to discuss" tended to mean.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
My Daughter's Husband Keeps Kosher, and I Wanted To Cook Him a Meal He Could Actually Eat. AI-Generated.
The first dinner I got wrong I got the first one wrong, and I have never quite forgiven myself for it. My daughter married a wonderful young man named David, who keeps kosher, and I, a lifelong meat-and-potatoes prairie father from Winnipeg, did not really understand what that meant beyond a vague idea about pork. So for their first dinner at our house as a married couple, I made what I thought was a safe, generous meal. Beef, which I was proud of. Roast vegetables. And, because my wife always does, a big jug of cream for the coffee and butter on the table, right next to the beef.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
The Workroom My Mother Started Was Invisible to Everyone Under Fifty. AI-Generated.
The regulars were getting old, and so was I I inherited a curtain and upholstery workroom from my mother, in a light industrial part of Johannesburg, the kind of place you only find if someone tells you it is there.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
My Chutney Sold Out at Every Market, and Then a Customer Asked Me One Question I Could Not Answer. AI-Generated.
The chutney nobody could stop buying I make chutney. That is the short version of who I am. It started as my grandmother's recipe, made in a borrowed church kitchen in Johannesburg on Sunday afternoons, sold in mismatched jars at a Saturday market to pay for my son's school shoes. I did not plan a business. The business planned itself, the way it does when people keep coming back and bringing their friends and asking if you deliver.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
We Were Twenty-Six, Terrified of the Word Mortgage, and Tired of a Landlord Who Painted Over Mould. AI-Generated.
The landlord painted over the mould again The thing that finally pushed us was a wall. We were renting a small place in a complex we could not really afford in a suburb we had chosen mostly because it sounded nice when we told people where we lived. There was a patch of black mould in the corner of the bathroom, low down near the skirting, and every few months the landlord would send a man to paint over it, and every few months it would bleed back through the fresh white paint like a bruise coming up under skin.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
The Round Bald Patch I Hid Under a Scarf for Nine Months. AI-Generated.
My hairdresser found it before I did I did not find it myself. My hairdresser did. I was in her chair in Durban on an ordinary Thursday, half listening to her talk about her son's soccer, when her hands went still on the back of my head and her voice changed.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
I Started Lifting Weights at Forty-Seven Because I Could Not Open a Jar. AI-Generated.
The jar of pickled onions It sounds too small to be the start of anything, but it was a jar of pickled onions. I was standing in my kitchen in Leeds on a wet Tuesday, trying to open it for a ploughman's lunch, and I could not. I ran it under hot water. I tapped the lid with a knife. I used one of those rubber grippy things. Nothing. In the end I gave up and waited for my husband to come home, and he opened it in about half a second without even putting his coat down, and I stood there feeling something I did not have a name for yet.
By Josh Maraney2 months ago in Journal
