Category Archives: General Ramblings

Bl*gger Behaving Badly

Posted on December 5, 2007 | 6 comments

Okay, so I wrote a little rant about how Bl*gger is ticking me off, what with its changes stopping (non-Bl*gger) bloggers from linking our URL to our comments (not 100% true – hyperlinks can still be included in the body of the comment, it does get a little tiresome typing/cut-n-pasting the html in though).

However. I’ve done a little digging and it seems this might just be a part of the Bl*gger shift to supporting OpenID. Which is, apparently, A Good Thing. I just wonder why Google/Bl*gger made this annoying little change over to the next-to-useless ‘Nickname’ field instead of leaving us with the option of including our (non-Bl*gger) URL in the ‘Other’ section. Really. They’re just pissing people off. The assumption many bloggers seem to be making at the moment is that Google/Bl*gger are trying to coerce everyone into having an account with them (which is possibly also true, I grant you).

I have found many a new and interesting blog through following links in the comment section of other blogs. I’ve been ‘found’ by other readers in the same way. This latest development is just plain irritating, and (cue my very best Pauline Hanson voice)… I don’t like it!

Must go and check out OpenID some more though. Sounds useful.

Then I have to go finish beating Dermot at Scrabble (a rare occurrence) and sew together eleventy-million pre-schoolers’ Christmas stockings. There will be glitter all over this place for months!

Edit: Here’s some of the discussion re. Bl*gger and OpenID, at http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites, http://www.notsorelevant.com, http://mashable.com and http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

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Posted in Blog Blather, General Ramblings

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Ping

Posted on December 2, 2007 | 5 comments

Yes, I am still here. (Thanks for checking up on me Karen 🙂 ). While the mad-posting ruckus of NaBloPoMo was busy filling all your feed-readers, I was all busy not BloPo-ing, choosing instead to afflict upon myself another little pre-Christmas freakout! Thankfully, I’m feeling a little bit more on top of ‘things’ now than I was about mid-November, and I’m aiming to have a ‘less-is-more’ kind of December.

But more posting, I hope. See you tomorrow for the obligatory ‘My baby girl is growing up’ post as Niamh hits the big one-eight. (Months, that is 🙂 ).

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Posted in General Ramblings

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Hallo-what?

Posted on October 31, 2007 | 7 comments

Wow. We just had our first trick-or-treaters… as in, ever! I’ve seen the Halloween-y accoutrements stealthily making their way into supermarkets and craft stores in the last few years, but this is a first for us.

I’m not anti-Halloween per se. I do despair the ‘Americanisation’ of Australia in general (uh… no offence meant to the majority of you guys 🙂 ), and hey, if we’re going to celebrate a pagan harvest festival, then we could at the very least do it at the right time of year (ie 6 months from now, for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere). But really, any event that involves costumes and copious amounts of sugar has my vote :giggle: That said… I just wish the kids who arrived at our door could have gone to a little bit more trouble than black tracksuits and plastic supermarket bags, know what I mean? One had on a ‘scary’ mask, another had on a green wig, but apart from that, I was seriously underwhelmed by the completely crappy ‘costumes’. (We’re talking about young teenagers, btw, not eight-year-olds).

Oh well. Luckily we had ‘treats’ on hand, what with having been to the Bendigo Show at the weekend, so I didn’t let them go empty-handed. But if Halloween is going to make its way into the Australian calendar, I hope we see a little bit more ingenuity next time.

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Thirty-two

Posted on October 11, 2007 | 9 comments

brthday-gifts
Yes, it’s true. I’m another year older and another year wider wiser. Happy Birthday to me 😆

For my inner-hippie, Dermot and the kids gave me a permaculture book. For my inner-geek, a GPS navigator (also from Mum and Stepdad). Actually, perhaps that’s for my inner-hippie as well. To, you know… “find myself”!

Anyone who knows me knows I have the World’s Worst sense of direction. Absolutely shocking. Thankfully I married an excellent navigator, but now, when he’s not available, a lovely man named Tim is going to tell me exactly where to go :giggle: Hooray for birthdays. Now, can someone tell me exactly when I am going to feel like a grown-up?

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Because I am a Dork

Posted on September 13, 2007 | 8 comments

I recently acquired a new mobile phone. With inbuilt camera. Big whoop, I know a lot of you are thinking, but this is exciting stuff, trust me!

Yesterday, I had a sudden need to document an impending and very much anticipated family event, and thanks to my happy little SonyEricsson, you too can now share in the dorkiness that is…

The Rollover™!

199999...

The Money Shot
(Why yes, I was driving and camera-ing at the same time. But shhhhh, don’t tell!)

200000!
Whoohoo!

We had this theory that when the car hit 200000 (that’s km, not miles, btw!), it would fall apart, quite literally. It would stop dead and panels would drop off in the middle of the road and the engine just might explode. And Oh, wouldn’t all that be very funny, haha. Except that, as I approached the magic number, I suddenly realised that at the time, I was going to be very close to, or indeed possibly in the Kew Junction intersection. At Peak Hour. I think funny-haha just left the building. Local readers may know of what I speak. I took a deep breath, eased through the intersection, and we reached rollover just past the Junction, whew. And hey, look, the car didn’t fall apart either. Bonus 🙂

For extra nerd points, here’s the two palindrome photos I took:

199991

200002

Now, wasn’t all that worth getting the new phone for?

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A Simple Life – New Friends – And Old

Posted on September 7, 2007 | 9 comments

A-Simple-Life
Finn, Niamh and I spent yesterday morning with Marita and her girls, and Marita’s sister in law and her boys. There was playing, snacking, and even (shock!) stitching. Not much of that, mind you, but I gave a little bit of love to my Wee Beasties dragonfly. It was such a lovely morning, company and weather-wise, that I was reluctant to leave, but Finn needed to go to kinder, and Niamh to bed, so we had to head off all too soon. Hanging out for the next time! Funny, just a few short months ago, I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t have any crafty friends who also had kids of a similar age. I guess sometimes the universe takes notice 🙂

Then in the evening I spent a good long time on the phone to a close friend who I have been woeful at keeping in touch with these last few years (since I had babies and she went off to other parts of the world – if that sounds a touch green-eyed-monster-ish, it isn’t meant to!). She’s now back home(ish)… in Tasmania, and (surprise, Mel!) expecting her first baby in December. I’m so excited for her, and hoping to make plans to get there for a visit sometime in ’08.

Today’s pic is finally the promised photo of Elizabeth’s Designs A Simple Life. The grass at the bottom was kind of tricky – I didn’t want the variegation in the thread to come through in vertical or horizontal stripes, so I intentionally stitched ‘blocks’ of the grass at a time, trying to emulate dappled sunlight coming through the tree. Not quite sure it was 100% successful, but y’know, it looks okay, I think. And marks finish number 9 for 2007.

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished, General Ramblings

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Stuff 1 & Stuff 2

Posted on September 4, 2007 | 2 comments

(Aka a-very-boring-blog-post)

Stuff 1
My order arrived a few days back, and the bits I couldn’t remember were a couple of Elizabeth’s Designs charts: Red Door and Nature’s Alphabet. Nice! I saw Junette’s finished Nature’s Alphabet ages ago, and liked it then, but when I saw Carol’s finished fobs (here, here, here… and more…), I was completely sold. So pretty!

Stuff 2
It appears Niamh suddenly prefers bottle to boob at bedtime. I am simultaneously saddened yet relieved it wasn’t difficult. Only snuggly-in-bed-morning-feeds left now, and who knows how few of those to go 🙁

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

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Show & Tell

Posted on August 31, 2007 | 8 comments

With the exception of today, Melbourne put on a lovely show of weather this week. Yesterday afternoon, while Niamh was sleeping off a bad case of the grumpies (please let it be teething, oh please let it be teething – I can’t cope if she’s going into the tantrummy-twos already), Finn and I sat under this:
BackyardTree

Finn (with liberal amounts of help) worked on this:
ByFinn
I worked on this:
(which incidentally I finished off tonight, but the photos I took were a bit on the crappy side, so I’ll have another try in some decent light over the weekend).
SimpleLife

Later, I went along to this (you can spot me in one of the pics on the blog if you squint), and I stitched on this for a bit:
ElfGirl

Fun fun. The design is an ’06 Christmas freebie by Hillary Lang, and there is a matching boy-elf, so I’ll be stitching the pigeon pair to make up as Christmas gift bags for the kiddos. Cute, huh?

Have a great weekend – we’re off up north to celebrate Fathers’ Day with multiple fathers!

8 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, General Ramblings, In Progress, Kid Crafts, Other Craft, The Kids

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I’ve Been Shopping!

Posted on August 24, 2007 | 7 comments

“A package was shipped to you…”

Aaaah. Could there be any sweeter words? Stash is on the way 🙂 As Jamie guessed, I did indeed buy some more stash with the money I made from selling other stash. Sounds counterproductive, but honestly, the charts I sold were all things I was never going to stitch (many were from the prize pool from the Wagon Challenge I was on in ’05 – no offense to those who contributed, but they just weren’t my thing – those who bought them from me got a great deal though!). Anyway, I’ve bought a few things at SB&B, but I can’t quite remember exactly what (I think my itemised order notification went astray in the ether somewhere). I know there is this, this and this, but the rest will have to be a surprise!

Speaking of online shopping, I heard yesterday on the radio that 60% of Australians have never made a purchase online! Actually, I was surprised that the figure was not higher. I sat in a Secure E-Commerce lecture a couple of years ago and the lecturer asked who had purchased from an online store, and only about a dozen hands were raised – in a class of over 100! A class of the geekily inclined what’s more. I was astounded. I simply couldn’t imagine not shopping online. 95% of my stash (at least) has come from online sources, mostly overseas. I shop from Amazon, and eBay, and etsy. From bead stores, cloth nappy stores, fabric stores, and more. Christmas shopping last year would have been so much more difficult without the Web – most of my gifts came from etsy sellers.

I’ve also bought groceries online, but only the once – a number of things stopped me doing that again – the prices were a fair bit higher, the website I used was a pain to navigate (in fact we used Supermarket sites as case studies in my Usability course), and when the delivery was made, the ratio of plastic bags to products was ridiculous. (I wonder if there’s a greener option for online grocery shopping now that Australia has become a little more environmentally aware, generally speaking?)

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, apart from the groceries, I <heart> online shopping. That other 60% don’t know what they’re missing out on. Products that simply are not available to us in Australia, or are available at seriously inflated prices, are there for the buying, and it can be done in a shorter space of time than it would take me to get the kids into the car!

And, finally, still on the online shopping, here’s a tip for my Aussie readers. Forget about Amazon for books – the shipping prices are a bit of a killer (though still an order usually works out cheaper than buying here). A trip through the comments of Sooz’s blog one day led me to the Book Depository. I hope you’ll forgive the shouting, but: FREE DELIVERY WORLDWIDE!!! Does it get any better than that?! Admittedly, the book selection is not as extensive as Amazon (they are linked to Amazon.co.uk where a book is not available), but so far I’ve been able to order everything I have wanted, and delivery is fast – they aren’t skimping by sending packages via surface mail. My most recent purchase was this, and I’m off to check it out now. Colour me one very happy online shopper :giggle:

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Not Quite, but Almost…

Posted on August 22, 2007 | 3 comments

…Spring!

Hebe

I seem to have been AWOL again. Oh well. You know. Same old stuff. Actually, these past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty busy. And somewhat social. How unusual! It must be the Springing of the weather, I think. I love the changes as Winter gives way to Spring. Each year, I get all aquiver at the first sight of a blooming Magnolia! The warmer weather over the last couple of weeks has seen us out in the garden – tidying up a little, making plans, moving fruit trees to make room for a new shed… even a little harvesting – check out our first (ever) broccoli:

Broccoli
We are so proud!

Someone else has been discovering a love for the great outdoors:

NiamhGarden

The littlest one quite likes going adventuring (seen here amongst our lovely broad beans). She frequently starts the day off by requesting ‘shoes-on-and-off-we-go’ (okay, not in words, exactly, but you get the idea). I’m not a terribly good morning person, so our walks usually have to wait until a bit later, but we’ve been having a good time exploring the world, and she does like to ‘help’ in the garden. By help, I mean ‘eat worms’. (So far not successfully, but not for want of trying!)

We did another bit of adventuring, too, and discovered a wonderful playground a few suburbs over, where I spent some time trying to take photographs of kids who refused to look at me:

FinnSlide
NiamhPark

Or sit still for more than two seconds:
KidsAtPark

(That’s my lovely sister-in-law and her little boy in the midground there.)

What else? Well, Marita came to visit us last week, and we spent a lovely hour or so playing show-and-tell over coffee. That brings the total number of online stitchy friends I have met to four, and so far not an axe-wielding maniac among them! Actually, bizarrely enough, Marita and I had already met, briefly. We’re both part of the Melbourne Freecycle group, and a month or two back, she came over to pick up some miscellaneous needlework magazines I was getting rid of. It was funny to realise the prior connection, and it’s nice to know someone local, not halfway across the universe like those other Melbourne stitchers I know!

Speaking of stitching, I have been doing verrrry little. I started ‘A Simple Life’, by Elizabeth’s Designs. I also signed up for another exchange. I know, I know, I promised myself I wasn’t going to. But somehow it ‘just happened’! I’m going to be making some kind of ‘small’ for somebody, as part of an exchange on the Rotation Stitchers’ BB. Not sure what yet, but ideas are forming. Must get a move on that.

Also, I’ve discovered that knitting is not as completely beyond me as I always thought it was. I have been doing a little bit of here-and-there practice and learning, and I think I’m kind of getting there. Enough to be ready to start my first bona-fide non-scarf garment, anyway. I’ll let you know how it goes… say in about a year or two!

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Posted in Family, From The Garden, General Ramblings

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