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The grief process happens to us all whether we are employed full-time, part-time or freelancing in my case.

I have come up with tips through my experiences as to how to deal with grief.

1. Inform current clients that you need the time off – Its OK to take time to grieve and one cannot put grieving on a set schedule.

2. Inform prospective clients – if they cannot understand or need someone to work on something right away, its OK to pass projects up. As Gram says, if it was meant for you, they will either wait or move on.

3. Outsource - If you are eager to help the prospect, but don’t have the energy, see about outsourcing the project to someone that is eager and who can work on the project on you behalf.

4. Set a voice mail message so that people will not be expecting for you to get back to them right away.

5. Journal with pen and paper – Journaling offline helped me to capture memories and good times. It also helped me to face my feelings about loss and work towards being at peace with the situation.

6. Work on work in small doses. With accomplishing small tasks, it helped me to build back my self esteem, so that I would have the courage and strength to get back to the big projects.

7. Take time to clean up your own business. I took my own advice from a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t do any coding for a week. I worked on cleaning out my inbox, prioritized my emails, sorted my filters, and cleaned out my place. Anything that would help to clear one’s head and be prepared to eventually get back to business is a positive step.

This has been the question that people have asked me the most over the past several weeks. The truth is I don’t know. My mood has changed as quickly as the temperature due to circumstances beyond my control. However, the more pressing question has been where do I post my status?

I have been Twittering since late July. I’m careful about posting “my status” or what I’m doing there because Twitter is public and anyone can see what I’m doing.

There is also Facebook. One can edit their privacy settings for each application on Facebook. The advantage is that someone can have a bad day (or a bad week) and no one can know about it except their friends.

So what this all comes down to two things: what is your status who do you want to know?

The following question was submitted by a reader from Squidoo.

I’m looking for web hosting to set-up a WordPress blog. My desktop system is in Windows and WordPress requires Linux. Does the web hosting operating system need to be the same as my computer desktop operating system?

Since things are still hectic from the holidays, I decided to let you see my digg list.

These posts have struck a cord with me in one way or another.

It features my favorite posts of 2007 and then some.

Cheers

As far as resolutions go, I have a long way to go. With working on various websites and personal commitments, I often forget that I need to “take care” of myself. However, I am taking the first step by modifying my website.

I started by purging and sorting items in the blog. Now I’m going section by section of the website putting the new modified template page by page.

So if you’re perusing the site and the site is 2 different colors, don’t be alarmed. It’s a transformation in progress, but is a website really ever done?

YouTube Direkt

Well, its a few days into the New Year and transformation is in the air. I know I’m a bit more philosophical than usual, but I have a good reason.

I love it when ideas for change come through current projects that I’m working on. The result, a new way to see archives and categories on this blog. I have implemented a “drop down menus” on both the archives and categories sections. To the average visitor, this may not seem like a big deal. However to the designer, it means less screen real estate as well as less scrolling.

Stay tuned for more changes to the blog.

Lately, when I’ve set-up (as in design and program) blogs for clients and colleagues, I am often asked, “What do I write about?”

Being that this is a new year (Happy New Year!) I have decided to dwell upon my process of how and where I come up with ideas of what to write on the blog. So this is one of those deep behind the curtains posts.

A blog does not happen overnight, contrary to what some believe. A blog is an organic process. It grows with TLC (tender loving care) and time. Patience and focus is what is needed for a blog to become worthwhile.

Even I get stuck wondering what to write about and when. When inspiration strikes, I typically make it a point to have pen and paper on me at all times. If I think of a headline, I can always hash it out later when I have room to breathe and contemplate. Some ideas make it into this blog, others blow up into a blog of their own like Mama’s Keeper.

I have never claimed to be a literary goddess (my editor can testify to that), but over the past year I have become better at catching phonetic mistakes before I post and FireFox has been phenomenal of catching the spelling errors. Also through clients, I have also learned about how I work from kneading code , finding my voice, and of course following my new passion.

So no matter what or where your destination is regarding your blog, may you be enriched by the journey.