Archives for August 2007

Top 100 Australian blogs, Adelaide blogger meetup, that offer, little holiday

August 8, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

Last week after my domain change, I found out that I’ve been skirting around the edges (scroll down to no. 4) from being in the top 100 Australian blogs list. So by the hair of my chinny chin chin I’ve missed out until I can claw my way back up the Technorati, Alexa etc rankings. In the meantime I’ve got these kind words from Meg of Dipping into the BlogPond to console myself with:

“I like Jen’s (or Jaycee as she is also known) writing style, and she
blogs about an eclectic range of subjects. If you link to Jen, I’m sure
it would mean a lot to her if you update the link to her new URL “

I’d like to thank those of you I’ve contacted about updating my URL who have gladly gone and done it. I promise it won’t ever (or not for a very long time) happen again.

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I got involved in commenting on a BlogHer post recently about making blog friends and as a result of that I’ve gone and signed myself up, and said I’d help organise, an Adelaide bloggers meetup. It’s happening on 19 November so there’s plenty of notice. I’ve put myself down as a maybe because I have potential childcare issues but I hope I can make it.

My real world and my blog world are so much closer to colliding. They are travelling quite freely on their separate roads at the moment but that intersection is looming closer than I think I’d like. It’s gotta happen eventually if I’m serious about this blogging caper which I must be if I’ve gone and registered my own domain. I don’t really know what I’m worried about. I’ve been accepted by my blog friends without judgement. Am I scared of judgement from my real-life friends? Perhaps that’s it.

Along these lines, I recently updated my About page! I’ll leave that for you to figure out.

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I’ve had one taker so far for my offer of a weblog banner. My main goal for this was to give something back to a member of the blogging community. I don’t plan on making it my bread and butter. Let’s face it though, a link back here would be nice but I haven’t specified this. Perhaps I should have. Everyone else who has some sort of contest does.

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Last thing. I’m off to Melbourne for an early weekend. We leave Thursday afternoon and come back late Saturday night. Now that JJ is a bit older and a lot more grown up than even a year ago, I want to start doing trips like this. We’re staying with an old friend so I’m really looking forward to it. If I were in Melbourne longer I’d love to meet up with some Melbourne bloggers. Next time perhaps.

The upshot of this is that I won’t be even looking at a computer for the next few days. My eyes will thank me.

Memorising numbers

August 8, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

Should I be worried or pleased that I know everything that’s on my Visa card?

I know the name displayed, I know all the numbers from the actual Visa card number, the expiry date and even the three digit code on the back.

How is it that I can memorise numbers like this, and phone numbers, but in an interview at a pub when I lived in London in the early 90s I couldn’t add up 3×3 lots of numbers in my head?

That first birds and bees talk

August 7, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

‘Mummy, why do dogs have penises?’ [Where did this come from and where did he learn the penis word?]

‘Because they need to use them to wee, like boys do. Your willy is called a penis.’ [Good comeback.]

‘Why don’t girls have a penis?’ [Bit of a pause while thinking of the answer.]

‘Because they have a vagina.’ [Ok, I’ll mention the anatomically correct word for girls bits.]

We kept talking more about the difference between girls and boys bits and then the topic moved to how do babies get there?

‘A man and woman make love and the man fertilises an egg.’ [I pointed to roughly where my ovaries are.]

‘Oh, so the man sprays the woman.’ [Mmm, yes, but I won’t go into too much detail here, you’re only six. Luckily he didn’t want the details of how a man and woman make love but I guess he’s not ready for that yet.]

‘We can’t have a baby when I’m older can we because I came from you.’ [We’ve already had the talk, after he proposed marriage to me and I had to gently turn him down, that because we’re related we can’t get married and for some reason I also explained that people who are related can’t have babies together because of inbreeding and I think it’s against the law too.]

He went out the room for a bit to digest all of this and then came back and double checked that we can’t have a baby together when he’s old enough.

‘No, you’ll meet someone who you fall in love with and you’ll have a baby with her.’

Wrapup of All women blogging carnival #8

August 6, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

Last week I hosted the All women blogging carnival #8. I want to do a quick summary of the diverse entries that were received for it in the order they were received. I stumbled across this carnival somehow a few weeks ago and it is a great one to participate in because it’s easy to do and the other participants entries are so diverse and interesting. It’s also a good way to meet other bloggers that you might not otherwise have encountered.

I wrote about changing my weblog banner which is something I do about four times a year. I also decided to offer someone the chance of me making them a banner for their weblog. I’ve had comments saying what a great offer it is, but so far nobody has put their hand up for one. I think it’s a combination of not enough people knowing about it and that people are quite happy with what they already have.
Megan at ImaginIf also had an offer to WIN a Create your own Natural Soap Kit by ‘Talking Dirty’.
There’s some hilarious entries which you’ll have to go over to read.
Gautami Tripathy at Firmly Rooted talked about phenomena, eg mass adulation as a phenemenon. In particular, girls winning beauty pageants being adored for their beauty instead of women being adored for their minds. Unfortunately this is too true I think.
Mad goat lady wrote about how to fold fitted sheets. I’d say the folding of fitted sheets falls within two camps. You either do it or you don’t. One of her readers Jeanie took this one step further and photo-blogged how to fold fitted sheets. Now you have no excuse.
If you don’t know what decoupage is, Avinak explained it. Apparently candlesticks are one of the items that can be used as a base. Does that mean a decoupaged candle cannot be burned?
Becky in Just a Girl in Short Shorts Talking About Whatever brought up the spanking issue. She said, ‘In my mind the behavior clearly called for, what in our home is, the ultimate thermonuclear punishment—a pants down spanking with the back of a hairbrush.’ A contentious subject if there ever was one. Scroll down a bit to get to this and then read the comments.
Karen at Miscellaneous Mum wrote about inflammatory breast cancer a must read for any woman. I’d never heard of this particular type of breast cancer before.
Jill at Write Likes She Talks pointed out the NJDC YouTube tribute to "Dazzling Democratic Dames" YouTube video. NJDC is the National Jewish Democratic Council. I couldn’t believe it is for real but it apparently is. It’s very cheesy.
Patricia at Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker wrote about best friends and how she feels about them. She is blessed to have had five best friends to share her life with and they are blessed to have her.
Linda at Klamath Design wrote about how backups can save your web design business. It gets you thinking. Do you backup and do you store backups offsite?
Country Stitchin’ wrote about her personal chef. She’d made an apron and before making more to sell she tested it out on her son. He looks really happy to be wearing his apron. I hope his cooking is as sweet as his smile.
Debo Hobo didn’t link directly to the blog post she wanted to submit so I’m linking to the one she posted last Monday when this carnival began about working a four hour week. You may have heard of the book ‘The 4 hour workweek’ by Tim Ferris. I haven’t read it but in theory it sounds good. I wonder if it really can work like that though.
Inchoate wrote about niche dating sites. I haven’t clicked through to the ones she’s written about as I’m not in the market for online dating but I’m guessing it’s US based so wouldn’t be for a single Aussie girl.
Mandy at Build a Blog wrote about what is RSS and how does it work? If you want to find out what the heck this RSS thing is that people keep talking about this will help.
Can you believe that Snoskred made 5 million dollars online this year? Talk about a headline to get you reading. But read a bit further and you’ll see that she currently has 5 million dollars worth of fake checks in her possession. It’s a good read to find out how to avoid scams.
Last but by no means least Anne at Tall Poppy asks what is motivation? I love her definition as I think it fits most of us.

The Exorcist in disguise as a three year old boy

August 6, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

About three years ago my son and I were invited to attend a friend’s graduation party. It was one of those parties where you take a plate of food to share, and when we arrived I saw there were all sorts of foods, including a bowl of jellybeans.

A bowl of lollies and my kid is like honey and bees, they cannot stay away from each other.

It would have been rude of me to hide the lollies and I couldn’t really move them away from him or keep him away from them so he managed to scoff quite a few.

I think he probably had considerably more than I thought he did because he started vomiting a continuous green stream of eaten up jellybeans when he was standing in the middle of a circle of people, including me. Luckily he didn’t have the crazy eyes that Linda Blair’s character, Regan, in The Exorcist had, although all that food colouring within jellybeans and the like does make him crazy.

I calmly stood there and said, ‘Who does this child belong to?’ and tried to pretend like I didn’t know him. Unfortunately most of the people who witnessed it knew he belonged to me.

Luckily it was an outside party so the green vomit was easy to clean up and he was perfectly fine afterwards.

I’m submitting this for this week’s All women blogging carnival #9. The criteria is a humorous story about being a mum. Let me tell you it wasn’t that funny at the time but it didn’t take long to see the funny side of it.

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I’ve extended the deadline for the offer for one person a chance at getting a new webblog banner.

A budding musician?

August 4, 2007 by Jen at Semantically driven

I’ve included a link to a Youtube video below but I need to set the scene first.

This morning JJ walked into the bathroom after he dressed where I’d just finished my shower. In addition to the clothes he’d put on, he had a Coopers Pale Ale cap on sideways and a pair of sunglasses. He asked to me to make a video of him.

Sure I said, we’ll do it in the hallway.

This is what he sang (direct link if you prefer):