Lavender oil?!? Have some knives instead!

 

Well, let's see if we can continue to improve our life without really trying, shall we?

11 Get the lighting right
Apparently we do this by turning off the overhead one and turning on lots of lamps (but turning them off when you leave the room).  I can assure you that if my wife and daughters were to do this, then my life (and electricity bill) would be improved immeasurably.  But I would find myself wondering what had happened to the "big light" fans that I currently live with.

12 Sharpen your knives
Yes!  Although, I suspect that getting someone else to sharpen my knives would have more of an effect - whenever I try to use the weird steel thing, I stand there for hours (ok, maybe minutes) and have absolutely no impact on the sharpness at all.  However, I did buy a new knife recently and both my wife and I have expressed our amazement at how that one glides through meat (and, after I've had a few beers, also my finger) in exactly the way that our other knives don't.

13 Feeling sluggish at work? Try the Pomodoro technique!
What's the Pomodoro technique, I hear you cry.  Apparently, it's 25 minutes on, five-minute break, and repeat.  And I have to say it sounds perfectly dreadful - I mean, the thought of having to work for TWENTY FIVE MINUTES without once distracting myself with something non-work related! <shudders>

14 Buy a cheap blender and use it to finely chop onions
Apparently it saves on time and tears.  However, it won't save on washing up.  And it won't save on arguments when I get asked where I put it away last time (which will be met with a blank stare because I've forgotten it even exists).  Just no.

15 Keep your children’s drawings and paintings. Put the best ones in frames.
I do one of these things.  I also keep the stories they write in their English exercise books.   I also used to keep their maths exercise books as well until I realised I was unlikely to ever look back at illegible long division with fondness.

16 Set aside 10 minutes a day to do something you really enjoy
Examples given are reading a book or playing Halo - I don't think I've ever met anyone who'd be able to play just 10 minutes of any video game though.  But video games aren't very Guardian now, are they?  Not unless they're hand-woven from recovered sheep's wool, at least.  I like the idea, but I'd have to say 10 minutes doesn't sound enough to me.

17 Don’t be weird about how to stack the dishwasher
It would vastly improve my life if SOMEONE ELSE could learn to do this.  But I graciously accept that's never going to happen, so I've learned with live with SOMEONE ELSE hovering behind me waiting to move every item 5 seconds after I've put it in the wrong place, whilst silently shaking her head and despairing of the man she married.  I'm not going to tell you who the SOMEONE ELSE is though.

18 Reuse all plastic bags – even bread bags.
Bread bags?!?  BREAD BAGS?!?  Surely every self respecting Guardian reader has a breadmaker?  I know I do and the magic bread fairy makes bread most days in our house.  We are pretty good about recycling our plastic though - bags go back to the Ocado man and St Albans was top in the country for percentage waste recycled.  Middle class?  Moi?!?

19 Take a photo of the tag you are given when leaving your coat in a cloakroom.
What?  How is this going to make anyone's life better?  I guess if you lost the tag then you'd be pleased you'd done it, but conversely if you got back to the cloakroom to find they've given your coat away to someone who claimed to have lost their tag but had a poorly photoshopped picture of it, then I'm guessing your life would not be improved.  I'm somewhat perplexed by it all, but I'd also have to say it's been about 20 years since I left a coat in a cloakroom, so it's probably not aimed at me.

20 Can’t sleep? Try a relaxing soak with lavender bath oil before bed.
Seriously, you can fuck right off with that idea.  I can assure you that anyone getting into bed next to me smelling of lavender oil is not going to experience an improved life.

Sharpening your knives and then taking more than 10 minutes doing something you like in a room with proper mood lighting takes the round for me.  And the lavender bath oil is far and away the worst idea for me - but it takes all sorts, I guess!  The coat tag picture one is just weird though.

1-10 : If only there was some way to make my life better...
21-30 : Let's have a close look at that cup of tea