u/ZucchiniBikini73

I have been freelancing in my semi-niche field for 12 years now and have built up a good business/very solid income.

A lot of my clients are large to very large institutions, which means that different parts of the organisation can operate independently of each other from a budget perspective. I am currently doing a long project (12 months duration) for one such organisation, and another department in the same organisation got in touch to ask for a proposal for a project in their area.

I provided them with a proposal, with pricing adjusted (discounted) on the basis that I have already learned the organisational environment and norms, so I would have a head start. Nonetheless, they declined, stating the proposal was above their budget. Fair enough, that happens!

My dilemma is that they have come back with a different scope and asked me to requote on that basis, but I don't really want to. In the time since doing their first proposal (the one they rejected), I have had another substantial proposal accepted by another client, and timing will be an issue. Moreover, I'm just not excited by the new brief / scope - it's not hitting the things I most enjoy about my work and has added in things I don't usually do (think - if my usual offering is creating flower arrangements, they are now asking for watering plants instead). I also get a strong read that they are looking for a price below my floor of what I usually take on (I have had bad experiences with low price jobs pretty consistently, and now heavily preference longer higher-value projects).

Normally this would be easy - I would just say thank you but no, and move on - but I'm wondering if anyone has encountered the particular trickiness of turning down work for one part of an organisation while still working for another. I can't afford to create awkwardness or bad blood with my long-term project.

In the past, I have always been able to bridle my impulsivity and desire to make inappropriately frank comments (late diagnosed ADHD probably a factor in promoting these!) to the extent that it hasn't had too many lasting impacts on my social relationships. But in the past few months, wow has that changed.

I have repeatedly just said the things I am thinking, even knowing that they aren't the wisest. An example would be saying very forthrightly that I seriously disliked a book at my book club which other members had really loved - and then soliloquising about all the things that were wrong with it (in my opinion). In the past, I would have made some diplomatic comment about the book not being my taste and left it at that.

I actually hate that this new disinhibition is making me less sensitive to social norms and to other people's feelings. I really don't want to be this person, I feel unkind and uncompassionate. I talked to my husband about it and he said maybe I am subconsciously closing down social relationships that I have felt iffy about for a while, which, in my new hermit-adjacent anhedonic state, I no longer have energy to keep performing. That might have some truth to it, but I still hate it.

Has anyone else struggled with this? It's not rage, it's not even really irritation, it's just an irrepressible urge to lay it all out there and not caring nearly as much as I should about how that impacts others. (Yes, I am ashamed of myself).

This is my first post here but I have been reading a lot! I'm an Australian, middle aged, diagnosed with coelias disease in 2007 so a long termer.

I just wanted to vent about the one aspect of this life that, 19 years on, I still find challenging and at times upsetting. Cooking at home is a well-oiled machine now and honestly I don't miss any aspect of gluten food. Eating or ordering out with my husband and kids is also down to a fine art - we have about 20 places that we fully trust to cater for our needs, including two chains that are usually found in most areas in Australia. I have also gotten to be expert at picking safe options in unfamiliar situations, and always carry snacks of my own just in case.

The one thing I still struggle with, though, is the social cost. My extended family and friends try (to varying degrees), but it's still all too usual for someone to pick a venue for dinner with a may contain warning on everything or with one dish only (usually a salad or risotto) that is gluten free. That then gives me the choice of a) pushing back and annoying people / being seen as the difficult one b) risking my health c) going but not eating while everyone else does or d) opting out. None of those choices are conducive to building positive relationships, frankly.

It's even more of an issue when invited to eat at other people's houses (other than my parents and my brother / sister in law, I very very rarely do, because I have been made sick too many times). It feels rude to go to dinner at someone's house and then quiz them about preparation methods and ingredients, or simply not eat what's served, but at the same time, I cannot afford to be sick constantly.

I have fallen into default host and organiser mode over the years to try to circumvent this, and it somewhat works but not totally. I just get tired sometimes of the social friction I seem destined to live with due to an autoimmune disease I didn't choose to have.

I know people have done very advanced rankings of Bones episodes and I respect the heck out of that work, but I was thinking today about my own favourite episodes, which I can't really justify metrically but I just adore and keep coming back to.

My very favourite episode of Bones is the Christmas episode in season 1 (The Man in the Fallout Shelter). To me, it was a perfect bottle episode, with exactly the right balance of forensics, character development and heart. There isn't a single thing I don't love about it, and I rewatch it every year at Christmas as part of my Christmas viewing bundle.

If you have a singular favourite (or even a favourite few), what are they, and why? For me, I definitely prefer the single-plot eps to the longer-running arcs (eg. I skip most of the serial killer arcs on rewatch these days, especially Pelant), so all my faves are single stories. I know others differ though!

I read all of Christie's mystery novels and most of the Westmacott books, too, as a teenager / young adult, and became a lifelong devotee. Since then, I have revisited several of the books in an ad hoc way, but never systematically.

Last year, I decided to fix that, and embarked on a specific project to re-read all the Poirot, Marple, and Beresford books, not in any particular order but just as the fancy takes me. I'm just over halfway through (I fit them in around other reading) and I have had some surprises along the journey in terms of my reaction to particular titles, which has been really enjoyable and interesting.

Some of the books that were my favourites on first reading them 30 years ago absolutely remain core favourites. Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, Five Little Pigs, A Murder is Announced, The Body in the Library, The ABC Murders, Cards on the Table, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Mrs McGinty's Dead, At Bertram's Hotel, and Lord Edgware Dies all read just as well as I remember, and I think I even got more out of some of them this time around

Some books I didn't think much of when I read them as a teenager, I enjoyed a lot more now. A couple of examples - Elephants Can Remember, often cited as a weak book (and it is, comparatively), hit me quite poignantly reading it as a study in failing memory, especially given when in her life Christie was writing it. Cat Among the Pigeons, a lower-ranked Poirot, was much more entertaining than I remembered, despite its oddly mawkish ending.

And, funnily enough, some of the ones I really loved on first reading, I wasn't as pumped by this time around. It might just be because I hated the most recent movie, but Murder on the Orient Express was not as stunning as I remembered. The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side left a sour taste that spoiled the whole thing for me. Taken at the Flood was both less clever and more full of abusive awfulness than I had remembered. After the Funeral felt too guessable and tropey on re-read, and Halloween Party too grim to really be a cosy at all.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the books I had basically expunged from my memory. I had somehow entirely forgotten that Three-Act Tragedy, A Pocketful of Rye, and They Do It With Mirrors even existed, so I got to read them as if for the first time. I thought I had also forgotten Death in the Clouds until halfway through, and then I remembered (I think because, to me, the more memorable and interesting "Poirot book involving a dentist" is One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, and I had apparently decided to only remember one :-).

The two I have read most recently are The Hollow, one I had barely remembered from first read and would rate as mid-band Poirot, and Dumb Witness, which I did remember, and thought it was lower band both originally and now.

Has anyone else found their reactions differ to Christie books re-reading after a long gap / at a different age and stage of life? I'm wondering if its just me!

So I am coming to Auckland on Monday for a week on a work trip. My adult daughter is coming with to have a holiday (she has friends in Auckland). We are both gluten free (Coeliac).

Wondering if anyone has any great gluten free eating recces for Auckland CBD? I have been Googling madly and have a few ideas, but would welcome any personal knowledge anyone has! Our room rate includes buffet breakfast and I'll be stuck with whatever is near my work location for lunch on the weekdays, so it's primarily dinner spots I'm interested in.

I am coming to Auckland on Monday for a week on a work trip. My adult daughter is coming with me to have a holiday (she has friends in Auckland). We are both gluten free (Coeliac).

I'm wondering if anyone has any great gluten free eating recces for Auckland CBD? I have been Googling madly and have a few ideas, but would welcome any personal knowledge anyone has! Our room rate includes buffet breakfast, and I'll be stuck with whatever is near my work location for lunch on the weekdays, so it's primarily dinner spots I'm interested in.

Also, can anyone advise the situation with Waiheke Island? Do you just turn up and buy a ferry ticket day of, or is booking needed? Is it easy to get around the island once there, and how about on-island gluten free food options? I'm thinking of going there on the Saturday we are in town.