This morning I woke up to the sounds of RL Burnside’s ‘Let my baby ride’. No it wasn’t the clock radio, it was going on in my head.
I don’t think I was dreaming it because I couldn’t see anything, it was like a stereo playing around me and I was dancing – also in my head. The time, 6.05am, about 15 minutes before my alarm goes off anyway.
I dare you to listen to it and not get moving, and maybe you will wake up to the sound too.
About three weeks ago I updated my weblog banner and decided that I would offer someone a chance at receiving a new one from me also. I was inundated with requests (not) to take up the offer. I think there are two factors at play here. One, not that many people knew about the offer, and two, the people that did know about it are quite happy with the banner they already have.
Nonetheless, two fine people, Megan and Lacey, said they’d like to take me up on their offer and they both did excellent work in pleading their case.
Here’s part of what Megan said:
"So my plea: Please Ms J. I need your help because I don’t know how to
do this and because I love you and because I linked to you and because
I was a single Mum for 27,000 years too (but the toad I kissed a few
years back turned into a Prince and now I am in love and got married
again in March) and because you can make the header part of my blog
look less like the incredible hulk hiding in the grass."
and part of what Lacey said:
"I love Your eye, and would simply adore working with someone who could
create something visually appealing to draw people in. Do you think you
can help me?!"
Megan definitely won the award in the sucking up department, but she needed quite a bit more than I thought I could give. She needed a WordPress guru to help her tidy up other aspects of her blog, not just mow the lawn on her banner. Luckily there are some very kind people out there and she found such a person so she didn’t need my services.
Actually, because I only received two requests I was going to let there be two winners, but as I’ve just said Megan has been sorted, so I will be doing a whizz-bang banner for Lacey. Psst, I think she could do a good job of it herself because I think she’s got a good eye too.
I will keep you posted!
No, this isn’t about those sorts of little presents you’d rather you didn’t have to clean up, it’s a bit more fun than that.
Last weekend we went to Melbourne and got back late Saturday night. JJ was a trooper considering the lateness of the hour. Nonetheless he and I were both very glad to get him to bed. He climbed in, snuggled up, then pulled a lemon out of his bed and said, ‘Look what was in my bed.’
I could see, as only a mother can, that it wasn’t him that had put it in there. So who did? The only people who could have were my friends that stayed on the Friday night to be close to where they had to be on Saturday and give Monty some company. We thought it was pretty funny and harmless so laughed about it and pretty much forgot about it.
The owned up to this during the week so we definitely knew it was them and not some weird burglar.
Saturday morning, as we were in the area, we dropped into their place to give back something they’d forgotten.
They had some lovely mandarins and JJ was given one and went outside to eat it. He came back up shortly to get another one, which I thought at the time was a bit odd but I was glad he was eating fruit so didn’t make a case out of it.
He then took another one for the trip home.
On the way home, he very matter of factly told me that he’d popped a mandarin in their bed. I had a laugh and thought good on you lad.
My friend rang up later that afternoon and asked to speak to my son. Okay, I said, and passed the phone over. They spoke for a bit then when I spoke to her she asked if I’d known about the mandarin in their bed? She’d gone to change the sheets and found it there. I told her that JJ had just told me when we were on our way home.
She said that he’s one funny boy.
I’m a member of the BlogHer community, just incase you didn’t notice the ads on the right there. Ads aside, BlogHer is doing other great stuff, like BlogHers Act.
In short this means:
"BlogHers Act is a year-long initiative in which members of BlogHer,
both on BlogHer’s network and in our extended communities, will work to
make a measurable improvement in Global Health (as distinct from
BlogHer’s Election 2008 Voter Manifesto initiative focused on the
domestic issues of importance to Presidential candidates)."
As you can imagine global health is a huge issue, so they’re trying to narrow the focus on which to act in the coming year.
Below is a poll, or you can vote on the BlogHer website.
It’s hard to choose just one, but it looks like you can choose more than one.
The poll closes on midnight 25 August, so you’ve got about one week.
After the poll closes is organising and action time. All the information is here.
Update – The poll has now closed and maternal health has been chosen.
This is one of the great things about blogging, and connecting with other people, is the potential to do some good in this world.
I’ve been distracted for various reasons this week and this is my last post for the week. I’m going to turn off the computer before the end of today and not turn it on again until Sunday or Monday.
Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to this week.
Public meeting about music taught at public schools
I went to what I think was my first public meeting on Tuesday night. That is I turned up, but was turned away. It was about instrumental music being taught in public schools here in South Australia and the government wanting to cut funding to it. I think that’s a fairly accurate summary anyway.
It was at the Capri Cinema in Goodwood which holds 800 people and by the time I got there just before it was due to start, the cinema was filled to capacity which meant the remaining 200 people standing around in the foyer couldn’t get a seat to be a part of the meeting. Some people had driven a long way and were understandably annoyed.
I tried to look on the bright side that there were a lot of people there and hopefully the outcome for kids wanting to learn music in our schools will be a good one.
I’ve got approval to go to the Web Directions conference in Sydney
I tried to get to go to this conference last year for work but was knocked back but I’ve been given the go-ahead this year. It’s not quite BlogHer but will be good nonetheless.
Now I have the mammoth task (hopefully it’s not mammoth) of organising childcare for three or so nights because unlike BlogHer I bet there’s no childcare. Not that I want to take JJ if I can help it but it would be nice to have that option.
Anyone else going in my blogworld?
Actually, that’s about all I’m going to say for now. Have a good weekend everyone.
As I posted my last post I realised it was the 600th post. Woo-woooooo! I don’t know if this includes posts in draft, or published posts – I suspect the former. Regardless of this it’s an achievement. Regular readers of my blog know that I hardly do any small posts – they’re usually reasonably substantial in content and therefore take a bit of time to compose. What I’m trying to say is that 600 posts (how many times shall I say it?) is quite an achievement don’t you think?
In other news, after I got back from Melbourne on the weekend I checked my emails and blog and noticed that I’d been awarded a Thoughtful blogger award from Jeanie in Paradise. This is a lovely thought on Jeanie’s part to give me. She also recently received this award and deservedly so because she gave me tips (albeit unknowingly) on being a thoughtful blogger by finding me, continually commenting and making me feel special.
It’s only this year that I have become more of a thoughtful blogger. I used to be lucky to get a comment at all on any of my posts – thanks Joy and more recently Jeanie. I then decided that I needed to get out and network and socialise and leave more comments on my travels. This has paid dividends in visitors, subscribers and commenters to my blog. But I also try to make my visitors feel welcome.
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I’ve extended the deadline for the offer for one person a chance at getting a new webblog banner.
I’m guessing it’s the same for most people, that it’s easier to travel with your offspring when they are a bit older and more self-sufficient. It certainly is for me.
Last time we went on a plane JJ was just over one-year-old and he couldn’t even walk. This meant I had to lug a stroller with me, organise a port-a-cot and carseat for our destination and it felt like I had to pack a heap more stuff so long as I could lug it on my back because I had JJ to lug on my hip once we offloaded the stroller at check-in. They wanted him to walk through and probably didn’t believe me that he couldn’t walk yet as he was a big boy and looked like he could walk.
This time he had his own little case that we took on the plane as his carry-on luggage. I had my checked-in bag and a smaller bag for carry-on. We even caught the bus to the airport. Actually it was two buses. Five years ago I didn’t contemplate this, but the catching the bus this time added to the adventure for him, and saved me some money.
We had two days with a girlfriend and her family consisting of husband and four children. Luckily she is a good friend because she drove out to Avalon airport to collect me (from near Frankston – over an hour trip) and then we drove back through Melbourne in the tailend of peak hour traffic. She even had a cold beer to give me for the cartrip. They also took us back to the airport on Saturday night. This made it so much easier for us, but we would have managed if they couldn’t do it.
Their four children all play sport so I saw more games of basketball in two days than I’ve seen in my entire life. And I missed the football and tennis. When we weren’t driving to or watching their sport, we were eating and drinking and doing more talking. Despite the sport thing, it was a relaxing weekend and something I should do more of, especially now JJ is older and so much easier to handle.
Some more differences between now and five years ago. He slept in until about 7am but five years ago I was lucky if he slept past 6am. He could play with the other kids this time but last time he was too young. The next one up in age to him is three years older but they got on really well in spite of their age and gender difference. The three boys were a little bit too old to be hanging around with a six year old but they all spent some time with him and tolerated him quite well.
JJ had problems coming home with the airplane descent. He’d been okay on the way over, just complaining a little bit about his ears, but on the way back it was late evening and he fell asleep not long after takeoff. When we started the descent the pain in his ears woke him up and he started crying. I gave him something to eat but that didn’t ease things at all. We just had to put up with it until we landed.
Overall JJ was amazingly easygoing, apart from a couple of behavioural hiccups, and was a joy to be around. I can’t wait to do some more travelling (that involves flights) with him.
I’ve submitted this for this week’s All women blogging carnival.
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I’ve extended the deadline for the offer for one person a chance at getting a new webblog banner.
