Sitting watching a World Cup special edition of Celebrity Come Dine With Me (yes Jen and Karen, that reference was thrown in for the both of you, I know how much you love it!) with my football crazy husband, I groaned audibly when one World Cup themed advert was swiftly followed by a second, then third. It reminded me of some advice given by Robert Bravery a few days ago.

He said (and I’m paraphrasing heavily) “The World Cup will dominate everything for the next few weeks. You might as well grab some of the traffic!”

How does a happiness loving, community inspiring, charity write about football? Add into the equation that this charity writer has been a football widow for more years than she cares to remember and it’s not looking like a natural subject for a blog post

So instead, think of this as the antithesis of the World Cup. (Matthew, I did warn you didn’t I?!) It might be thought of as a cure or survival guide but it’s really just a way to stave off loneliness. How about I get us started with my favourites and you chip in with your additions? With a shift working husband I’m the Queen of Loneliness Cures (actually, I’m just the Princess of Loneliness Cures, I’m the Queen of Procrastination ) but I’d welcome some new ideas.

• Read a book

I had no intention of expanding on this list but just had to add that this could be the perfect opportunity to snuggle up with that epic.

• Write a book

Ditto the above, just substitute reading for writing. I’m looking forward to getting lots of writing done over the next few weeks

• Take a long hot bubble bath

I personally like to dig out my favourite bubbles and save them for emergencies such as this.

• Got children? Start a special month long project together

Credit must go to my own mum for this one. I still remember the pre-Christmas adventures we had as children making decorations for the tree.

• Exercise

Whether this be for the health benefits or to counteract the damage done by comfort eating , using anything as an excuse to move more is great.

• Find a hobby/passion/love

As intimated above, I’m using my husband’s addiction to football as an excuse to engage in lots and lots of writing. I recently revamped my personal blog and it’s all set for the creative overspill that might not be welcome here

• Cook?

I’m not a great cook (dad, if mum is reading this, tell her to stop snorting!) but if you’re a bit of a dab hand in the warmest room in the house, why not see if you can create some themed concoctions? Be careful though. Cooking is always risky if boredom leans toward comfort eating

• Can’t beat ‘em? Join ‘em!

Some of the newspapers here in the UK are giving away massive posters for collating match results. They even some had some pretty stickers of all the little people Seriously though, there is something to be said for rolling up your sleeves and smiling sweetly.

Really? Hehehe, fooled you

How are you planning on coping when the loved ones in your life go all crazy over the wrong shaped ball? Let’s talk.

I’d love my own company but the prospect of talking to myself for a month is not so great What do you do to stave off loneliness?

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After the now infamous wish-list and cry for help video, lots of lovely people have been offering to write posts for Give A Brick. The idea to include lots of different voices was first introduced a couple of months back and despite that, it’s only now that I’ve gotten round to putting some ramblings about the process down into full sentences

First things first: What to write about

The best way to know what sort of things you could write about is to have a look around the site. We like to make people smile and as such, try to offer a mixture of light-hearted, thought-provoking, challenging and sometimes, tear-inducing posts. We also use this space to share ideas for how you can help develop Give A Brick so if you’ve got some fresh ideas, that’s always a great place to start

We have some very broad categories that were introduced a little while ago. These are in place to help me plan the week better but they might also be a helpful starting point for you as you think about what to write.

Here’s our categories and a brief description of each:

Monday Movers

Whether this be motivating you to take action or moving you to tears with parenting talking, Monday will bring you a healthy dose of motivation. This very post is an example of a Monday Mover. The aim of it is to move you to take action and write for us

Charity Tuesday

Every Tuesday is Charity Tuesday on Twitter. Given how much Give A Brick loves to tweet, Tuesday seems the natural day to write charity specific posts.

Wednesday Warmer

When I was teaching full time, we referred to Wednesday as hump day. Once you got past the mental hump of a Wednesday, the weekend was in sight and all seemed better with the world.

Wednesdays at Give A Brick will bring something to make you smile and warm your heart. All these categories are being purposefully kept vague enough to allow for freedom. Warming Wednesday is no exception. It might be a short video or a fun story. We’ll work out the details as we go

Thoughtful Thursday

As the name suggests, we’ll be saving our thought provoking posts for a Thursday.

Friday Friends

Originally I had thought to make this Follow Friday to link up with the weekly Twitter event. However, this would seem rather limiting. What about our lovely fans on Facebook? Surely they deserve some love too?

So Fridays will be about celebrating our friends. It might be introducing a star fund raiser or a brilliant blog post one of our friends has shared with us.

Give A Brick asks everyone to Give A Brick and tell their friends so you can understand how greatly we value friendship. Fridays will celebrate that.

Saturday Smoothy

Every Saturday we’ll aim to bring you a concise round up of the week’s posts. There is a good chance we’ll include some of the fun stuff we’ve enjoyed elsewhere too. I love lazy Saturdays and the longer reading time involved in our Saturday posts reflects this. The great news for you is that whilst you can’t really write the Saturday Smoothy, the community post you write on any other day of the week will crop up again here with you name and a link to your blog. Always good to know

Sunday Surprise

And finally, Sunday will give you the opportunity to surprise. It might be something that fails to fit in any other category or just something that caught us unawares. Who knows? It’s a surprise This is the least used category, mainly because the site seems to get a little less traffic on a Sunday so we prefer to try and make best use of community posts by publishing them on a busier day.

The best tip I can give you when choosing what to write is to think about the things you enjoy doing or experiencing and writing about that wouldn’t otherwise fit on your own blog. Give A Brick is a great place to be heard by a wonderful community and is proving to be a wonderful means of expression for folk when their burning thoughts don’t fit elsewhere

How to get your post published

Whilst you can email us your finished piece, there is a better way When we get our new site we’ll ensure it’s a lot more prominent but in the navigation bar at the top of the site there is a label which reads ‘Join and/or Login’ Click that followed by the large ‘login’ button and you’ll be taken to the default login screen. If you need to register, please click on ‘Register’, otherwise, log in as normal.

Everyone who registers is automatically given the role entitled ‘contributor’ which allows you to write a new post and then submit it for review. If you’re not familiar with Word Press, please get in touch and we can talk about how to get you some help. However, for seasoned bloggers, this will be like second nature

If you’d like to include a picture, feel free to add that as you would normally do at your place. And similarly, if you’re a whizz with SEO, feel free to include that information as well

One last point about all this:

The start of every community post will include information about you, your website and how readers might engage with you. It would make my life an awful lot simpler if you could tell me what I should say about you The easy way to do this is to log in to the site and when the dashbard loads, click on Your Profile from the list of the left. The bit that will be particularly helpful for me is the big white box labelled ‘Biographical Info’. I’m hoping to find a plugin or some code that will allow this information to be displayed as a matter of course. In the meantime however, I can use the information you enter here to include a bio box manually.

And we’re done

That was fairly straight forward (or at least it was from where I was standing) but if you get stuck, please, please, please don’t give up. Get in touch and tell me what you need.

Thank you to everyone who has offered to write for us. I look forward to reading what you, the community, have

Just four days ago, the GAB trustees agreed a mechanism for finding our next project. (If you haven’t read about that yet, you really should. It’s going to be a lot of fun!) In short, it would mean people and projects who needed help putting together a video application about all that they hope to do and how we here at Give A Brick can help.

So this morning I’m making breakfast for the children, cup of tea, Twitter, Facebook, usual early morning routine, when I read a shout out via Facebook from a friend in need. Without help, he wouldn’t be able to pay his rent or his school fees and would fail to graduate. I have no money. How can I help? I did the only things I could do: I told my friends about this need and asked God to help him out too. Before the sceptics jump on my case, I’m not suggesting God has a bank vault up there but if this job has taught me nothing else, I’ve learned that God really does move people to help out in miraculous ways if you talk to Him about it. In fact, I should re-phrase that. He has been known to help out when only offered a barely inaudible cry for help

I re-posted the note on my personal Facebook page whilst drinking a cup of tea. Within 90 minutes I had an excited message saying that the tuition fees were covered. Thirty minutes later my phone rang. It was my dad, Give A Brick treasurer, authorizing me to send $500USD via Paypal to this young man. I was speechless, completely lost for words. I had hoped we could help a little but boy, oh boy!

So this guy hadn’t submitted a video, he hadn’t applied specifically to us for help. He just put out a cry for help, trusting that the right people would see his appeal at just the right time. Give A Brick weren’t the only ones to help him. I already know of at least one Give A Brick friend who sent money directly. People gave as they saw fit and in line with what they could afford. The power of everyone working together to make a massive difference. Give A Brick in action to make the impossible, possible. Here’s the message I got via Facebook from our thankful friend:

“It’s all paid off! Thank you SO MUCH! I can’t tell you how much of a load you just took of my shoulders!! God has always shown Himself faithful this whole year and He never ceases to amaze me. Thank you so, so so much… It’s all taken care of and paid. Rent, tuition and all. Thank you!”

All that was before half past ten in the morning too! It’s been an amazing day (this coming yesterday after the exciting news that Katrina from A Star Media has a contact in a global brick company who wants to helps us!) and I love my job! OK, so I get paid in love and warm fuzzy feelings rather than your traditional pounds and pence but does that make it any less of a job? That one’s still being debated over at Christine Livingston’s place

All I will say is that this is an awesome job and it wouldn’t be anything like as much fun (or even possible now I come to think of it!) without you here with me. So, thank you And remember, whilst we did something extraordinary today, we really do need to see those application videos so be sure to tell everyone and anyone who will listen Give A Brick: Making the impossible, possible! (And I love it )

Nearly three months ago I left the relative rural solitude of South Wales to visit the big lights of London town. Ever the country bumpkin, the cars were faster, lights were brighter and everything bigger. I had a wonderful time both in college (the real reason for my trip) and later going sight-seeing with my dad (an added bonus!)

As is often the case with college, I was given an assignment to do by the time I return to college on March 5th, one week from today. Just to shorten the deadline a little, one of the students asked the tutor if we should email him our work ahead of the next teaching day. The tutor thought this was a brilliant idea

The problem

So here’s my dilemma: I have an assignment to do by some time before March 5th. I need to read books, reflect on the books and try some things out before writing up an evaluation of the whole thing. So when should I start?

On December 6th I dutifully sat at the lap top … and wrote a single paragraph. When I opened that document today I saw it there waving at me, teasing me with it’s shortness.

Because I’ve been doing what everyone says you really shouldn’t do when you have a task to complete – procrastinating. The longer I left it, the harder it was to start. The books I was supposed to be reading were supplemented by others which seemed much more interesting and pressing. It’s hard to reflect on a book you haven’t read and so things were pretty stationary.

Between you and I, getting this done has been something of a black cloud looming over me. Every night for the last few weeks I’ve told myself that I’ll get cracking with it, just as soon as I get that pressing blog post up I haven’t lost sleep over it (except the morning when I got up at 5am to finish reading one of the books) but it’s been there, niggling at me.

A solution?

Late last month I learned some time management hints from The Big Red Tomato Company. When 6 Aliens advocated early morning work routines I wondered if that might be the answer to my problems. And just a few days ago I smiled wryly at a post about paperwork from the lovely Heather of Shades of a Dream. But the word count remained static.

Until today. Whilst it’s not finished, I have a healthy 5371 words under my belt. Better than that, I now know how to continue and get finished. This was not something that looked promising just 12 hours ago. Originally this post was to be called ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ because having made good progress, the black cloud has lightened. However, as is often the case with anecdotal evidence, this has developed into much more of a encouragement to not procrastinate than anything related to worry.

Therefore, in keeping with any half decent post containing advice, here’s how I got rid of the black cloud. If you’ve got something you really need to get done, give this a try:

Get ready

Gather everything you need in one place. Make a cup of tea (or grab a Red Bull if that’s more your style ) and prepare anything else that needs preparing so that once you start, you can make good progress.

Set

Remove all distractions. Remember all those great blog posts I’ve been enjoying recently? They were worth every second I spent reading them. However, when you’re getting prepared for that important task, turn off your email, set your phone to voice mail, unless you need it for the task, don’t even think about opening your favourite web browser. And your RSS feed? Step away, leave it well alone until after you have finished.

Go

Instead of waiting until you are completely confident of the beginning, middle and ending of what you need to get done, get ready, set and just make a start. Planning is usually highly recommended but when we’re talking about that something you’ve been putting off doing, chances are you’ve done enough mental planning to enable you to begin. In severe cases of procrastination such as this, it really is far better to just start!

So what do you think? What must-do tasks are you putting off?

A couple of weeks ago I was heard singing the praises of your favourite anti-spam provider. I have no idea how it does it’s stuff but it has to be acknowledged that Akismet is very effective. However, after a passing comment from Ryan Hanzel about how he’d written a couple of comments on the site which hadn’t shown up, I decided to investigate the murky depths of the Give A Brick spam folder. (Thanks have to go to Matthew Needham for sliding this one in my direction. If it hadn’t been for the issues poor old Ralph has been having over at Big Red Tomato Company, I wouldn’t have even thought to check there )

When I had a look, not only did I find several comments from Ryan, but the lovely Rose DesRochers had taken the time to visit and leave a comment. Why Akismet felt either of these two treasures deserved to be called nasty names is beyond me however, having learned from the mistake (and read an awful lot of spam too) I’m please to unveil our official comment policy. Feel free to make use of if on your own website or let us know if there’s anything we can do to make it better.

1. Please add your real name (or alias, yes, we know these exist ) when leaving a comment. Any comment which contains a company name or random string of letters will not be deemed appropriate.

2. As much as we love the encouragement, four word posts of ‘great post, good job’ (or similar) will be treated as spam. We want to build this space into a caring, listening community. We take it as read that you enjoyed the post and like what we do. Please use the space in the comment box to add value to the experience of other readers.

3. One link only in the URL box. Please remember that this website is intended for visitors of all ages and cultures. Please be sure to include your website URL, only if it is appropriate for everyone to view.

4. Where you would like to point us in the direction of another website, if it will add value, by all means do so. However, this will be closely monitored. Any posts containing more than two links will automatically be treated as spam. Likewise, if you’re linking to something not relevant to the discussion, this too will be be treated as spam.

5. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. Sometimes people do not agree. That’s healthy and natural in a community such as this. Open dialogue and conversation is of enormous value. If everyone ensures that they treat other people with respect, these exchanges can take place in a mutually beneficial way.

And finally, if you write a comment and it does not appear on the site, please get in touch and let us know. The spam folder will be checked regularly but we’re only human The easiest way to ensure you don’t get treated as spam is to register and then login before commenting.

Over to you. What measures do you take to protect against spam on your site?

Please add a comment and retweet.
It’s just another one of the ways you can Give A Brick and then tell your friends

photo credit: Marco Raaphorst

Give A Brick works to support children, young people, the elderly and those experiencing financial hardship. If you enjoyed this post, please Give A Brick (just £1 ) then ask your friends to do the same.

Give A Brick is a UK registered charity #1121744

Have you seen our 1 Minute Motivators yet? They’re a great way to start your day

I had 13 comments awaiting moderation on the blog today – and all 13 of them were spam! If you’re someone with techie knowledge of these things, do you know if these are computer generated? And can I do anything to reduce or stop them? (other than moderating all comments before they are published and deleting the ones that are spam!)

Answers on a postcard …

Many thanks x

photo credit: SteamboatDigs

Over to you. What do you think?

Please add a comment and retweet.
It’s just another one of the ways you can Give A Brick and then tell your friends