Archives for April 2009

Blog disappeared

April 13, 2009 by Jen

Thanks to one of my gorgeous readers – Jeanie – I found out that my blog had all but disappeared. Any page I tried to view gave me a 404 page error. Everything else was there, just no content. She emailed me first thing this morning and I didn’t read it until I got back from my mini Easter break this afternoon.

I immediately panicked and wondered when the last time I did a backup was – too long ago I’m sure. Once my little panic was over I thought I’d better fix it.

Knowing that WordPress runs from databases I logged into my blog’s Cpanel and went to view the post database to see what was there. A message informed me that I had a “WordPress MySQL database error: Table is marked as crashed and should be repaired.”

After doing a quick search I came across this very helpful post, and within a minute had repaired my database and was back in business. So if this ever happens to you, it’s probably a database error. I’m thankful that it wasn’t someone hacking in which has happened to me before too.

Naturally I’ve now done a backup. I was imagining having to manually redo my last few week’s worth of posts since my last backup but it’s all sorted.

Happy Easter

April 12, 2009 by Jen

photo credit: Sakurako Kitsa

Easter bunny came last night and he left easter eggs in a plastic container because we’ve had a marauding chocolate loving cockroach in this house and I’m too scared to leave any food out just in case. Now I have to go and do Easter bunny’s job for him so JJ can still have the thrill of the easter egg hunt.

Yesterday was a lovely afternoon. A friend I haven’t seen for 18 years (I can’t believe it was that long), and her husband came around for lunch. They live in Sydney and are here visiting family and friends. I took some photos but because this is a quick post I’ll write more about that later.

Today we’re off to visit a friend for her birthday and we’re staying the night so I’d better go and get organised for that.

Hope you all enjoy Easter and the long weekend. It’s beautiful autumn weather here – just gorgeous.

I’ve been forced out of my bedroom

April 10, 2009 by Jen

I love my bedroom. It’s my haven from a busy day, a stressful day, a good day, any day, and when I hop into bed I look forward to my usually peaceful sleep. Some nights are restless but that’s either because I’m sick or just thinking too much about something.

About a week ago I woke up to an unusual noise in my room. I couldn’t figure it out. I turned on my light, had a look around but could see nothing. The noise continued on and off throughout the night but I kind of slept anyway.

A couple of nights later I heard it again and it sounded like it was coming from my wardrobe nearby. I opened the door and had a bit of a look around and again could see nothing. After work that day I pulled out some of the stuff that was sitting at the bottom of my wardrobe – it’s a place where I keep presents that I buy people including an Easter egg stash.

I picked up the chocolate Bilby that mum had bought JJ for Easter and had a closer look at it. It had a small hole in the bottom where the foil wrapper had obviously been eaten, and some chocolate was eaten as well. As I’ve had recent encounters with mice at a holiday shack I was pretty certain it wasn’t them but my other thought was cockroaches. I do see the odd cockroach inside and outside my house and they’re generally not a problem.

I put all the easter eggs, including the eaten one in a plastic bag, tied a knot in it and placed it on top of my little stepladder in my room – a place that JJ would never look. That was the end of it, or so I thought.

A few nights later I heard a rustling noise again. A pattern started where I’d turn on my light, sit up and try to figure out where it was coming from. I eventually got up, got the fly spray, gave the room a bit of a spray and went back to bed. The rustling continued. About the fourth time I turned on the light I realised the noise was coming from the plastic bag with the easter egg stash. I got up, shook the top of the bag a bit and a huge cockroach jumped out the bag and dashed to the wardrobe. As he did this, I screamed and jumped out the room – my heart pumping.

I got the bag and took it to the kitchen. The cockroach had obviously eaten a hole through the plastic bag and eaten more of the Easter Bilby so I threw it straight in the bin. The others were unscathed. I made sure there were none of cockroaches friends in the bag and put it into the fridge and went back to bed. By this time I’d been awake for nearly two hours.

The cockroach was obviously hungry, however, as he kept scouting my room for food. I have wooden floors in my bedroom so there’s no carpet to mask the sound and they’re quite loud – especially this big one. The next time I turned on the light I saw him jump out the rubbish bin. I tried to go to sleep yet again but this time he thought he’d have a party under my bed.

That’s it I thought – I need my sleep. I got up, got some blankets and went out to the lounge and bedded down for the two hours that were left of the night. This was yesterday morning.

Yesterday after work I bought some cockroach bait and put it in my bedroom and in the kitchen. When he started making some noise last night I didn’t even hang around to see if it really was him. Hopefully he’d eaten his bait and was in his death throes. I went out to the lounge, set up the lounge cushions on the floor and had a kind of okay sleep.

Today I will give my room a good clean and hopefully I find him flat on his back with his legs up in the air – DEAD.

Sometimes a list is just it and a bit

April 7, 2009 by Jen

Today’s (although the posts are out in my evening time so should it be tomorrows?) challenge for Problogger’s 31 days to a better blog is to write a list post.
I’m going to take the list challenge literally because I’m in that sort of mood tonight.
Lists allow writing to be readable and flow, but it means being succinct.
And succinct suits me.
Lists help me through the day, whether they’re mental or written down lists.
But the list doesn’t allow for children.
My child tonight was particularly painful to be around.
I think tonight I was probably particularly painful to be around too.
Tonight we’ve both cried and we probably both regret some things we’ve said to each other.
Tonight we’ve been the best of mates reading Snugglepot and Cuddlepie together. They’re great stories and I’ve made him promise to read him more.
Tonight we’ve hated each other’s guts but deep down we both really love each other.
Tonight as I kissed him goodnight and chatted about tomorrow, I left him laughing.
That laughter made me smile.
Thank God.

I don’t think I could have done this post in any other way than a list.

My blog’s elevator pitch

April 7, 2009 by Jen

As I write this it’s ten days off my five year anniversary for this blog and I’ve been ambling along without any real direction here for that time. Sure I’ve done things along the way and my blog has grown but I still don’t have any clear direction.

If my blog were a roadmap I’d have one major road with some minor roads and lots of little roads off them, some of which would be dead-ends. The main road would be the blog itself, the minor roads would probably be the categories within this blog that I contribute to the most and the dead-ends would be little things I start doing that I stop for various reasons.

I wrote recently about feeling a need for my own business. I keep thinking of things that I could possibly do but all I really want to do is develop this blog. But to do that I can’t keep ambling along dead-end roads.

Then along comes Problogger with a challenge to build your blog in 31 days. Heck, why not I say. I can’t say that I will do my ‘homework’ every day but so long as the tasks don’t take too long I’ll give it a go.

The first challenge is to have a go at writing an elevator pitch. This is very much first draft and if my more regular readers have anything to add, or any other comments, please feel free to do so.

“Semantically driven is a largely personal blog written in an engaging and honest style, where you will read about what life is like as a working, sole parent to one child, and you’ll also go on a photographic journey as I take photos to feed my artistic habit. Recently I started reviewing products that my readers might like because I believe in word of mouth marketing more than businesses marketing fluff.”

I’d like to revisit this pitch at the end of the 31 days to see if it’s changed at all. I’m sure it will – first drafts are just that.

I do have an idea that I hope to ‘launch’ as part of this blogging challenge. If anyone puts their hand up to be guinea pigs I’d love to test it on a few people.

Wooden toys

April 6, 2009 by Jen

Last week after we’d climbed the big rocking horse at Gumeracha, we then had a good look around the toy factory. I wish I’d gone there when JJ was a lot younger, although if I had I probably would have spent heaps more money.

We bought a few things – mainly presents for other people but they’re so cute I had to share.

This is a novelty toy where you press the bottom of it and the top bit wobbles around. We bought it for a friend who’s recently found out she’s got breast cancer to hopefully make her smile.

Below is a door stop. I’ve been using a doorstop that was here when I moved in and it always leaves a mark on the linoleum. This is so much more stylish and doesn’t leave a horrible mark that I always have trouble removing. He’s got a wobbly head too and he is very cute. Unfortunately the other doorstop we bought doesn’t work for the door I want to use it for because there’s too much of a gap.

Wooden doorstop

There’s heaps more that you can buy and it’s not all for kids. Check out the Toy Factory where you can shop online.

Handpicked – launching a first novel

April 5, 2009 by Jen

handpicked_by_siew_siang_tay

I was delighted to witness a friend and colleague’s book launch the other night. It’s taken Siang a few years to get to this stage and I admire her dedication and drive in achieving this goal.

When she’s not at work she’s inevitably at home writing and when you work full-time even just writing a book is a great effort.

Well, she did have some time off to finish the book, but finish it she did and it was recently published by Harper Collins and launched the other night. The book is called Handpicked, by Siew Siang Tay and the picture below is Siang signing someone’s copy at the launch.

The launch was fun and it was a bit like a work reunion as Siang invited quite a few ex-colleagues so it was great chatting to them amongst the formalities of the evening.

I have a copy of the book (signed by the author of course) but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Buying fiction books for me is a luxury these days but I gladly bought a copy to support Siang. I also don’t read many books set in South Australia so I look forward to reading it for this aspect alone.

She’s finishing off her second novel and already planning her third so hopefully there will be more book launches to come. Keep an eye out for her at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in May.

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