We bought a Wii.

For someone who gets out of breath climbing the stairs to go to bed, having spent almost a year blogging, this may be a little adventurous, don’t you think?   Well that’s exactly why we bought it.

Since I caught the blogging bug, I have never been so unfit!  Something had to be done, and I wasn’t about to give up my blogging!  Luckily Mo felt the same so this was her Christmas present from me - thank goodness she’s having fun with it as well as me!

I have to say, I was a bit concerned that it would be one of those ‘five minute wonders’ but I somehow don’t think so.  I played a mean round of golf today and enjoyed a game of tennis with Mo.  I even had a few rounds in the boxing ring.

If this is the way of future gaming, I have to say it’s a vast improvement over sitting with a controller in your hand, exercising your fingers!  It would be nice to think that kids may get hooked on Wii.  The games are  not the real thing, but they come fairly close.

I think this is going to be the most fun way ever to get fit, and hopefully lose some extra pounds!

Mo victorious in her tennis match!

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What to do? …. What to do?

I’ve been getting a bit concerned about posting every time I receive an award.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I posted daily like a lot do, but as I only post every few days, it seems wrong to make one of them about me receiving awards.   If I was one of my readers, I think I would get a bit bored with feeling obliged to say ‘Congratulations’ every time.

Please don’t think I don’t appreciate the awards, because I certainly do - every one of them, but I’m sure you understand my dilemma.

So……well…..I’ve made a decision.

I will put them on my ‘Awards’ page with a thank you.  I will visit the blog of the person who passed it to me, and leave a thank you in a comment, but I will no longer write a post about them.  However,  There may be the odd exception to the rule, like this one.  This award is fun and you get to know a little bit more about the people you pass it on to.

I was given this ‘Your blog is fabulous’ award by  Awake in Rochester, Jaffer and Drowsey Monkey

The instructions are simple, list 5 of your addictions and pass the award to 5 other Fabulous bloggers.

My addictions:

I am addicted to Macaroni cheese.  Well, most food that involves cheese.

I am addicted to blogging, and all that goes with it.

I am addicted to my Mac.

I am addicted to late nights, or rather early mornings.

I am addicted to Nicorette - don’t ask.

I will pass it on to:

Sandee @ Comedy Plus - Laura @ Can You Be A Part Of My Life - Jay @ The Depp Effect - Maureen @ I’d Rather Be Blogging and Lady Banana

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Despite losing my Simplycats blog, having updated my WordPress without deactivating my plug-ins.  Only myself to blame for the mess.  All’s well that ends well, and I managed to get it all back and running smoothly again.  I then updated this blog and It went like a dream.  That was enough to make me happy, but something else made me even happier.  Look what I got for Christmas!

I’ve been snapping away every minute I get, testing all the various settings out. I wanted some outside, daylight shots so Mo and I went out yesterday, armed with my camera.  We almost froze to death!  We hadn’t gone prepared for the freezing cold wind, so the trip was a short one.  How could I keep the camera still while I was shivering?

Today I decided to use my lightweight tripod and try some indoor shots.  It’s an aluminum telescopic one.  As I extended all the legs I got my finger caught in it somewhere.  I screamed out!  I didn’t know where it was caught but the tripod was firmly closed with the fleshy part of my finger trapped inside!  It wasn’t trapped for long because it cut the flesh right through, freeing my finger.  Oh man!  It hurt!

Still, a bunny that is happy is what I am!

I would like to wish everyone a really great 2009, full of joy and peace!

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I was surprised to receive this very special award today, from Liza at mommyslittlecorner.  Liza’s blog has lots of tips on food, nutrition and health, amongst other things.  I have no idea where Liza gleans all her information from, but it’s all nicely packaged into her blog for easy reading.  Each helpful tip only takes a minute or two to read but they are all little gems, like this one Dots, Flecks & Spots.   And don’t we all want an excuse to tuck into some chocolate?  Try this one 101% Chocoholic.   Why not pop over?  You’re bound to find something useful.

There are quite a few rules that come with this award, these are:
This Award is presented to bloggers who display consistency in any one or a combination of these conditions:

1. The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervades amongst different cultures and beliefs.
2. The Blog contents inspire; strives to encourage and offers solutions.
3. There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.
4. The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5. The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The Blogger who receives this award will need to perform the following steps:

1. Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.

2. The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.

3. Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older Post to support.

4. The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.

5. The Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

I would like to pass this award onto the following people:

Christa @ Giggle On - Christa provides invaluable help to many, through her blog.

Mimi @ Mimi Writes - Mimi’s tireless work for world peace spreads throughout the blogosphere.

JD @ I Do Things -  Well JD does EVERYTHING so we don’t have to….How kind :O)

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Dropping on EC’s has become a nightmare experience lately!

I don’t know how many of you are getting a bit peeved, when dropping EC’s, by the automatic multimedia and gazillions of ads flashing and popping up everywhere, slowing down the loading of pages.  It has been getting worse of late, as more and more people decide they want to earn money from their blog.

How many of you have gone to click the ‘Drop’ bar on an EC and at that exact moment the page jogs and you find you’ve clicked a ‘pay per click’ ad?  I’m sure this is set up deliberately by some,  Searching for the EC when it’s crammed in the centre of a bunch of ads. Multimedia that opens up on a layer above the blog.   My dropping has slowed down considerably, and often my browser freezes up and I have to restart.  When using the EntreCard toolbar and opening ten tabs at a time, it’s difficult to know which blog is the offending one, making it impossible to avoid those blogs most of the time.

I found a very interesting post by Laura at junkfoodaholic called 6 Helpful Entrecard Dropping Tips. Not all of it applied to me, but I took on board some of it.  This is what I have now done and it has made my dropping much, much faster!

I downloaded the Firefox add-on: Noscript
I also took some tips from ‘Junkie Yard Dot Com’ How fast can you drop? EntreCard dropping tips and tricks

Most of you have more than one browser installed.  I think it’s the best way, but it’s not the only way.  I do my blog reading and browsing in Flock, so I set Firefox up for dropping.  If you use Firefox, why not download Flock as the drop browser?  It’s built on Firefox 3, as I’ve said before.  Anyway, I installed the ‘noscript’ add-on and followed the instructions here for setting it up.  I turned off images in the browser.  I have set up ‘bookmark’ folders marked top right, top left etc.  This way I can drop any blog I want in the folders as I go, making it obvious where their EC is on their page, and group them together by folders.

With Noscript installed, using the Enrecard toolbar I can load twenty tabs at a time with ease.  You hover over the EC area with your mouse, using the keyboard shortcut for ‘close tab’ (command w for Mac) and just keep clicking away .  The blogs load immediately so you can fly through 300 with no stress at all.

I will just add that it is not ideal if you want to drop and read as you go.  It has to be done as a separate thing.  With the ‘no images’ and ‘noscript’ installed it’s often hard to know who’s blog you are on.  I read and comment during the day and I drop at night.

You can set this up in one browser but I definitely prefer to use a second one that is already set up for dropping, it’s much more convenient.

It was taking me anything up to an hour and a half to do my drops lately.  Last night I did 300 in under twenty minutes and I don’t have my folders set up yet.  AND the cat was laying all over my keyboard!

Just imagine dropping with no automatic music or movies, no ads, no pop-ups, just a bunch of text and standing out prominently on the page, the Entrecard!  It’s a droppers dream.

Thank you Laura for pointing me to your post.

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I’m so sick of trying to salvage my cat blog that I’ve decided to go back to Blogger - Nooooo, not really!

I have decided to completely zap Simplycats off my server, including the sub-domain.  Then I shall load a new copy of WordPress 2.7, make my sub-domain again and drag my old back-up into the directory.  This, should downgrade it to WordPress 2.6.  I will deactivate EVERYTHING! and upgrade again.

This may, or may not work.  Wish me well!

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What a Christmas present!

The only reason I have not put my ‘Frustrated Babs’ doodle here is because it’s Christmas, and I didn’t want to spoil the Christmas mood.

About a week ago, I updated my Photo Blog to WordPress 2.7.  I chose just the one so I could be sure it would go OK, and to give me a chance to get used to the changes.  It all went fine, thankfully.

Late Christmas Eve, well early Christmas day really, I decided to update my other two blogs.  I thought I would do it while it was quiet in blog land.  I chose Simplycats first .  I followed the prompts, and clicked the link to check it was all OK.  FATAL ERROR! My blog had vanished!  I followed all the instructions in order to recover my previous backup.  I had several long, boring and less than successful attempts to get the directory back.  Finally I did it.  By now it was Christmas day afternoon!  I had had 2 hours sleep, and been to the Christmas morning church service in between though.  Now I had to replace the database.  I stared at the database that I had to empty.  Should I, shouldn’t I?  The instructions clearly said ‘Empty the database’ and who was I to doubt their superior knowledge?  I nervously emptied it, as instructed, and imported the old one - many, MANY times!  It will not complete!  It times out every time.

I now have half a blog.  Well half a blog that is no blog at all actually!  The part of the database that wouldn’t import is the user info and posts.  You’ve got it.  I can’t sign in!  In effect, I have no blog!

It all looks very pretty with it’s header and side bars with all the widgets intact, even though they are now on the wrong side, but as they say in Yorkshire, “There’s nowt else there”

I am now at a loss as to what to do, or where to go for help!  In all my Twenty years with computers, I have never been this helpless!  I have always fixed my own system problems, never had to send my computer to a hospital or had a house call!   What is it with WordPress?

Will they ever make it user friendly?

If anybody has arrived here because they have discovered Simplycats is not functioning.  I am sorry.  I will do my best to get it up and running again very soon.  Until then, I will cry and pout.

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I thought that as it’s Christmas, you may like to read about Christmas day at my house in the 1950’s.  Before you click the link, we did a dance for you - just to make you smile.

Have a very joyful Christmas!

If you liked the story, or the dance, maybe you could smiley me :O)

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Here it is.  Mo singing last Sunday night.  The sound quality is not brilliant, but not bad considering it was recorded through the video camera.

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She did well, but notice the microphone was not switched on when she started.  Her nerves must have got to her, because I’m sure I saw her switch it off at the beginning!   She really jumps at the end, when the audience screams.  We fell about when we saw that played back :O)

They must have liked it, because they have asked her to sing it again at our ‘Carols by Candlelight’ service.

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Today, I am posting a link to a very unusual fairy.

This fairy, many of you know.  This fairy is a Chanukah Fairy.  This fairy, when she isn’t fairying, is known more for her political rants and her search for a good man!  You’d think that she would just wave her magic wand and ‘Hey Presto!’ One hunky male, ready do do her will.  But does she?  No!  For some reason she only uses her powers for the good of others.  I expect that’s what makes her the good fairy that she is.  All together now….”How saaaad”.

If you click on the little fairy wand, you will be transported to her fairy den, where you can give her some love.  Maybe send her a good man for her Chanukah!

I need smileys!

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