Archive for May, 2007
Written on May 20, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Journal
Yesterday on our way into town to start our winter of culture at Something on Saturday we were waiting at the traffic lights. I happened to look over at the car next to us and saw a man smoking a cigarette while eating a fast food chain hamburger. Not only that but his daughter (or very young wife) was in the car next to him.
When he finished his hamburger he got his phone out put it next to his ear and wound up the window while still smoking and proceeded to talk on the phone.
After he finished his conversation he wound down the window and finished off his cigarette. I was very happy he was going straight ahead while I was turning right.
Written on May 18, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Weblogs
Is it just me or is everyone else having trouble leaving comments on Typepad blogs? I’ve been trying to leave a comment on Joy’s blog for a while now (I haven’t forgotten you Joy) and I simply cannot.
I then tried to leave a comment on my own blog and couldn’t. If anyone’s been trying to leave a comment for me and has had trouble please email me – jenseeya at hotmail dot com so I can gather some data before I email Typepad support.
Obviously some people have been leaving comments on this blog, so perhaps it’s limited to other Typepad users?
It’s very annoying when your blogging platform doesn’t work as it should.
Written on May 18, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Journal
Here’s a necklace I made last week. My photography wouldn’t win any awards but you can get the gist of what it looks like.
It’s a little bit heavy and it’s supposed to have five strands but I stuck with four. As it was, it was hard enough to get those four strands into a clasp to hold everything together at the ends. It hasn’t fallen apart yet, but for my first effort I’m pretty pleased.
Written on May 15, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Journal, Parenting
It was mother’s day on Sunday and I knew there were a couple of little gifts awaiting me out in the kitchen so I lay in bed on Sunday morning eagerly anticipating a happy mother’s day greeting and a big cuddle with my boy as he’d made a big fuss about it in the preceding days and my hopes were way up. But he forgot. He came into my room and asked if he could watch television which I ignored until I heard a please.
I eventually had to remind him that it was mother’s day and didn’t he have something to give me? He gave me a bracelet (a bit of a lucky dip thing I’d paid for through school) and a sort of a certificate that had form questions on that his buddy at school had scribed the answers on for him. It had questions like what colour eyes does your mum have (brown – in fact they’re blue), what colour hair, what does she know (everything – thanks son), what’s her favourite food (chocolate – yes my top 5 addictions confirm that one), what’s her favourite item of clothing (star shirt – I don’t even own one).
I love these types of gifts where some thought has gone into it and will find somewhere to put it until it goes into the keeping folder. The keeping folder is more like a small archive box where I’ve got drawings and other bits and pieces JJ has done. I’ve still got the drawing he did for me last year and I wish I hadn’t lost the bookmark he did for me two years ago.
Afterwards we went to the farmers’ market to do our weekly fruit and veg shop but had breakfast there as well. I had a voucher for a free coffee and I asked for a cup of milk for JJ which they really graciously supplied for free. For breakfast we had a bacon and egg roll and a honey icecream. I don’t normally have icecream for breakfast but we’d done our shopping inbetween the bacon and egg roll and the icecream so it was more of a mid-morning snack.
Unfortunately the rest of the day went downhill from there. It was one of those weekends where I didn’t want to do anything at all but lie in bed and read and relax but I had to do the housework, cooking and washing so I did a bit of lying around and a bit of work. I also physically didn’t feel that great and thought I was coming down with something but luckily it didn’t manifest into any sickness.
The night was even worse with a local businesses alarm going off all night. That’s for another post, but it meant I didn’t sleep at all well and worked yesterday with what felt like a hangover, but not with the good time preceding the hangover.
Written on May 14, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Weblogs
I recently participated in Problogger’s Top 5 group writing project and my entry got the most comments I’ve ever got for one post on this blog. I think it was my five minutes of fame in the blogging world.
Just to keep it going that tad longer, here’s my top 5 of the top 5 list. There were 893 entries all up so I had to be very selective about what I even clicked on to read which is where the catchy headline comes into play that just about just about every blog advice column talks about.
1. Top 5 sins
This is actually about blogging sins but she’s incorporated 5 of the 7 of those other sins in her list. It’s quite amusing and for a beginning blogger who hasn’t learned lessons the hard way, it’s quite useful.
2. Five simple strategies for stress management
These are all common sense but when we’re stressed, they’re the first things we forget. I’m speaking for myself of course. I could work more on the self talk one.
3. Top 5 ways to make money in your underwear
I don’t have any intention of doing his no’s 5, 4 and 3, I do a bit of 2 and it would be nice to do no 1.
4. Top 5 doggie facial expressions
I like dogs so this was an easy inclusion.
5. My favorite standby knitting projects
It’s getting cooler here and I’ll start knitting again soon. I like small knitting projects these days but I don’t know that I’ll be knitting dishcloths.
Written on May 12, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Journal
I’ve been interviewed by a nine year old boy called Matthew who blogs at In the Air. He lives in California. I came across his site via his mum’s Freak Parade (I can’t remember how I came across hers) but they’re both now in my RSS subscriptions.
Matthew is homeschooled and one of the things he does as part of this is interview people and puts the interviews on his blog. He plans to make his interviews into a book to sell, the profits going to the ASPCA.
As I’ve told him, I think he’s doing a great job. He obviously researches his interviewees and asks some interesting questions. I’ll look forward to reading the book when it’s done as I’ve no doubt it will.
In addition to interviewing me and some others already, he has some exciting interviews lined up – one is with Adam Savage from Mythbusters.
You can go read my interview here.
Written on May 10, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven
Filed Under: Television
Being the tragic Big Brother addict that I am I tuned in last night to watch the Golden Key special. Did I mention I’m also an optimist? You’ll see why soon.
Great, I thought, there’s all sorts of people here who ALL have a chance of getting into the house. There’s people older than 25, there’s overweight people, there’s actual real looking people here. But of course out of the 100 or so (some of the 100 were already whittled away because of psych and police testing) five were chosen, one of which would go into the house.
Surprise surprise, out of the five were three young blonde women, one young brunette woman and one guy. So absolutely no deviation from all the other existing housemates.
As Gretel kept calling out the numbers – was that to try and make it appear as though they were choosing numbers out of a hat – my optimism faded more and more with the ‘choices’ that came up onto the stage.
Come on I’m thinking, what about that woman who would so obviously stir the pot. She looked interesting. But no, was she a bit too old and a bit too fat for what Big Brother was looking for.
Please, how stupid do they think we are? As per a mailbag summary on Behind Big Brother, people are disillusioned with the choices of housemates. How many years do the audience need to say that they want to see ‘real’ people in the house. Real, different, people. Not your young, mostly gorgeous crew. Where’s the Chrissies’ or Sarah Maries’ or even Timmys’ of years gone by?
