Blog Value

Do I feel cheap or what?

I was catching up on extremely overdue blog reading tonight when I read through Lorelle's One Year Anniversary Review: Blogging and Blogging Tips and was pointed to this creative use of Technorati.

It turns out that my poor old blog is only worth a measly US$ 1,129.08. Geez am I a cheap read or what?!

If taking a look at these sorts of cute (and informative) applets are something you like to do, take a wander across and enter your blog's URL and see how you do.

My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?



Update: Just a quick note that since posting this nifty little thing my blog has appreciated in value. It is now worth a whopping $ 2258.16 as of 19 July 2007.
If only my bank account was able to jump that much, that fast, I'd be a very happy person. :)

Update 2: Checking out my assets today and it turns out that my blog has appreciated in value again.

My blog is worth $3,387.24.
How much is your blog worth?

What's On The Bookshelf? - VII

Aha. The boxes for packing have finally arrived home.
That means you are going to get a condensed pounding of bookshelf details until they are all packed away. I promise it shouldn't be too painful.

I have two shelves left to go, plus the stacks on top of this particular bookcase, so lets not waste any more precious time with introductions.

Here are the books.

• Letters from Egypt: A Journey on the Nile 1849-1850 - Florence Nightingale


• Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis


• Time of the Twins - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman


• War of the Twins - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman


• Test of the Twins - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman


• The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco


• The Unlucky Family - Mrs Henry de la Pasture


• Fugitive Prince - Janny Wurts


• The five people you meet in heaven - Mitch Albom


• Property Investment in New Zealand - Martin Hawes


• The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff


• Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman


• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - Vonda McIntyre


• Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds


• Pawn of Prophecy - David Eddings


• Queen of Sorcery - David Eddings


• Enchanter's End Game - David Eddings


• Guardians of the West - David Eddings


• Castle of Wizardry - David Eddings


• Belgarath the Sorcerer - David and Leigh Eddings


• The Earthsea Quartet - Ursula Le Guin


• The Road to Mars - Eric Idle


• Better than Life - Grant Naylor


• Greatheart - Dixie Lee McKeone


• Red Dwarf - Grant Naylor


• The Collins Robert French Dictionary


• The Collins English Dictionary


• The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language


• The Aztecs, Maya, and their Predecessors - Muriel Porter Weaver


• Managing Organisations - Stephen Robbins and Debu Mukerji


• A Shadow on the Glass - Ian Irvine


• Planning and Building Paths


• Roses - Bill Ward


• Colour London Streetfinder


• Dragons of Summer Flame - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman


• Weaveworld - Clive Barker


• Faerie Tale - Raymond E. Feist


• A Darkness at Sethanon - Raymond E. Feist


• Silverthorn - Raymond E. Feist


• Signs of Life - M. John Harrison


• Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card


• Sniper's Moon - Carsten Stroud


• The Spider's Test - Dixie Lee McKeone


• Growing Plants for Free: A propagation guide - Geoff Bryant


• Vegetable Gardening in New Zealand - Ralph Ballinger


• Bar Companion - Bridget Jones


• Booth's Handbook of Cocktails and Mixed Drinks - John Doxat


• The Water Garden - Philip Swindells


• Calligraphy Made Easy - Gaynor Goffe


• Persuasive Presentations - Geoffrey Moss


• Yates Garden Guide


• Companion Planting in New Zealand - Brenda Little


• The Origins of Civilization - ed. William H. McNeill and Jean W. Sedlar


• The Celts - Nora Chadwick


• The Waning of the Middle Ages - J. Huizinga


• From Roman Britain to Norman England - P.H. Sawyer


• Traditional Knitting


• Europe in the Sixteenth Century - David Maland


• Europe in the Seventeenth Century - David Maland


• Europe in the Sixteenth Century - H.G.Koenigsberger and George L. Mosse


• Seventeenth Century Europe - D.H. Pennington

I should give fair notice on this particular shelf. Nearly all of the fantasy fiction listed is the other half of the OhWaily household's taste. I have only read a tiny smattering of them.

And here ends the second to last shelf. Only one to go! Then I can move on to attending to the hernia that develops through the lugging around of awkwardly shaped and sized books while trying to pack them into boxes.
See you at the next edition.

Movement Matters

It is the end of Week 32 of my 40 week journey.

Part of the things you learn about having a small, living human as a co-resident of your body is that they like to move just as much as you do. And when you get to the point where you can actually feel them moving about, it becomes of interest to note how often they are nudging, prodding, kicking and generally elbowing.

Specifically it becomes important that they are continuing to move. To make sure that they are, your midwife may provide a simple kick chart for you to note the 10 movements per day that seems to be the baseline measurement.

In our case there is very little chance of a mellow 10 movements per day.
Miss OhWaily is destined to be a sports person of some kind. We are debating whether it is likely to be tennis, golf or some sort of sport requiring great hand-foot co-ordination. Even with all this activity I thought I would do the kick chart to keep the midwife happy and for my own curiosity.

Not surprisingly the most activity seems to happen early in the morning or later in the evening when I am lying down and there is plenty of elbowing space.
During the day she makes her views known about the upright, working mother mode and chooses to show that through some serious foot-in-rib pushing combined with elbow prodding directly on or around the bladder. Apparently we are truly in competition for the space that I once fondly called my own insides.

I have chosen to rub, push and use the force of gravity to try and remove the offending foot and/or feet from my ribs. Sometimes it works, sometimes she is stubborn (must get that from her Dad - yeah right!) and keeps right on pushing.
I can vouch for the fact that it is not fun to have a baby stubbornly pressing their feet into your ribcage. It makes for tender spots and constant aches.
Fortunately Miss OhWaily appears to have shuffled into a new position and has become much less inclined to express her need for space through vertical stretching.

I made up my own chart for doing this as the one provided only covered the hours of 9 am to 9 pm and this didn't match my movement patterns. It's a simple thing to create in Excel, but as Wordpress only allows images or document files I have uploaded it as a table in a word document. Feel free to download it if it meets your needs.

OhWailyWaily's Kick Chart

What's On The Bookshelf? - VI

The sixth entry in the "What's On The Bookshelf?" series is coming to you courtesy of the need to begin packing up the shelves in our study in preparation for a much larger event... renovations.

Last time around I gave you a warning, this is the double depth shelf, so the list is going to be pretty long. Read on at your peril.

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K.Rowling


• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K.Rowling


• Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki


• Patrick - Stephen Lawhead


• Scottish Trades and Professions ~ a selected bibliography - D.R.Torrance


• A Song for Arbonne - Guy Gavriel Kay


• Last Human - Doug Naylor


• The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay


• Sailing to Sarantium - Guy Gavriel Kay


• The Darkest Road - Guy Gavriel Kay


• Kodak Pocket Guide to Great Picture Taking


• Legends - ed. Robert Silverberg


• Espresso Tales - Alexander McCall Smith


• Family Trusts ~ A New Zealand Guide - Martin Hawes


• Rich Dad's Guide to Investing - Robert Kiyosaki


• Early Socratic Dialogues - Plato


• Blue Shoes and Happiness - Alexander McCall Smith


• The Tao of Personal Leadership - Diane Dreher


• The Complete Medicinal Herbal - Penelope Ody


• Bonsai Basics - Christian Pessey & Remy Samson


• Scholar Warrior - Deng Ming-Dao


• The Awakened One ~ A Life of the Buddha - Sherab Chodzin Kohn


• A Simple Path - The Dalai Lama


• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius


• How to Have a Beautiful Mind - Edward de Bono


• Leadership - Rudolph Giuliani


• The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown


• Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs - John Heinerman


• The Motley Fool Investment Guide - David & Tom Gardner


• Cultivating Stillness - Eva Wong


• Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - John Gray


• Intimacy & Solitude - Stephanie Dowrick


• Return of the Primitive - Ayn Rand


• Eat to Compete - Jeni Pearce


• Women's Tao Wisdom - Diane Dreher


• The Robots of Dawn - Isaac Asimov


• The English Assassin - Daniel Silva


• The Right to Write - Julia Cameron


• Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman


• Dragons of Spring Dawning - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman


• The Dragons of Krynn - ed. Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman


• The Eat to Compete Cookbook - Jeni Pearce


• First Things First - Stephen Covey & Roger Merrill


• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families - Stephen Covey


• The Rich List ~ Wealth & Enterprise in NZ 1820-2000 - Graeme Hunt


• Grass - Sheri S.Tepper


• The Bones - Sheri S.Tepper


• A Plague of Angels - Sheri S.Tepper


• Raising the Stones - Sheri S.Tepper


• Sideshow - Sheri S.Tepper


• Gibbon's Decline and Fall - Sheri S.Tepper


• Jinian Footseer - Sheri S.Tepper


• The True Game - Sheri S.Tepper


• Master Wolf - Rose Estes


• The Price of Power - Rose Estes


• The Demon Hand - Rose Estes


• The Skies of Pern - Anne McCaffrey


• Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey


• Get off the Unicorn - Anne McCaffrey


• The White Dragon - Anne McCaffrey


• Crisis on Doona - Anne McCaffrey


• Treaty Planet - Anne McCaffrey


• Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman


• Mort - Terry Pratchett


• Johnny and the Dead - Terry Pratchett


• Johnny and the Bomb - Terry Pratchett


• Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett


• Pyramids - Terry Pratchett (my favourite book and a good intro to Discworld)


• Small Gods - Terry Pratchett


• Sourcery - Terry Pratchett


• The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett


• The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett


• Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett


• Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett


• Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett


• The Dark side of the Sun - Terry Pratchett


• Strata - Terry Pratchett


• Thud! - Terry Pratchett


• The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett


• Night Watch - Terry Pratchett


• Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett


• Maskerade - Terry Pratchett


• Going Postal - Terry Pratchett


• The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett (the original source of this blog title)


• A Hat Full of Sky - Terry Pratchett


• Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett


• The Streets of Ankh-Morpork - Stephen Briggs with Terry Pratchett


• The Discworld Almanak ~ The Year of the Prawn - Terry Pratchett and Bernard Pearson


• The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy - David Pringle


• The Complete Book of Photography - John Freeman


• Monet ~ A retrospective - ed. Charles Stuckey

So what do we learn through this shelf?

→ If I like an author's style I tend to keep buying?
→ I am personally responsible for all of Terry Pratchett's wealth and success as an author?
→ I like fantasy fiction, with a liberal sprinkling of dragons, magic and humour?

All of the above, I think is true.

In fairness a few of these books have been gifts, and a few have come into the house through the other half of the OhWaily couple. But, by and large they either reflect my individual taste or our joint taste (Mr Pratchett being the prime example of that.)

There are two more shelves to go, but thankfully for your sanity I have run out of storage boxes and that means I will get to those a little later in the week. Enjoy the break.

See you again at the next installment.

Tag...you're it!

So I'm still running behind on this... sorry team.

I was tagged nearly a month ago (blush) by Solnushka and while I did read the post some time ago, I am only now getting around to playing the game.
Can I claim Baby Brain? Please?

Part One: Eight Random Things About Myself.

1. I broke the toe next to my little toe, on my left foot, while on an archaeological excavation.
   That sounds glamorous until I explain that it was done reaching desperately for a toaster that was about to burn my breakfast while inadvertently jamming my toe in the leg one of those awful 1970's wire legged chairs. And between you and me...the chair was always going to be the winner in that battle.


2. I have a collection of Cherished Teddies figurines.
   Don't ask me when this started, but it did. I do like teddy bears of all sorts, but I must insist that I don't do "prissy". I think I have two "prissy" figurines and they were gifts from other people. The rest are all themed like Andre, Barry, Bea, Cassandra, Danny, Humphrey, Icabod, Sullivan or Sherlock. Okay, now you can stop laughing !


3. Once upon a time I merited a national ranking at badminton.
   At the tender age of 14 or 15 (it's so long ago now) I was good enough to be ranked 5th in my age group for singles in New Zealand. Ah, I'm sure that I can hear the refrain from Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days starting up in the background.


4. I own, and have done so since I was 18, an MG Midget.
   She originally started out white, but we spent some (choke, choke) money on preventative restoration a few years ago, and decided that a small car on Auckland roads really needs all the help it can get with visibility. She is now the Yellow Peril.
   Strangely enough I have a small box of toy cars from my childhood (no Barbie dolls here thanks!), and one of them is an MG B-type. Guess what colour? Yellow and Black. Should I call in Dr Freud?


5. I am a huge Jackie Chan fan and have been for many years.
   Thanks go to Nigel for introducing me to the Hong Kong martial arts movie scene. I have never really looked back. American action movies just don't have the style, unless they have employed a Hong Kong choreographer. His early movies are quite twee, but you still can't beat the skill, finesse and humour displayed while kicking, leaping, ducking, punching and generally doing things a pretzel would be proud of.
   He truly launched a modern martial arts version of Buster Keaton, and he is THE master of the genre.


6. My favourite author is Terry Pratchett.
   Now I'm starting to get desperate for ideas. A short viewing of the next edition of "What's on the Bookshelf?" will give that away in no uncertain terms, and so does this Blog title.
   Why do I like him? Well, why wouldn't you? Spending a bit of time reading the Discworld series will give you an idea of the length and breadth of research and/or knowledge base he has generated in order to write so many books with so many "insider" jokes on a variety of topics.


7. My midwife turns out to be the mother of someone I attended school with.
   To be accurate, I knew her son through playing badminton. He was in the year below me, but part of the same school team.


8. I am a Mid-Day person.
   No night owl here, and certainly no lark either. If you have a suggestion for an appropriate bird to describe someone who functions best from 10 am through to 3 pm then let me know, because I am one of those. (And, no, I will not accept Seagull as an appropriate suggestion - the bird must be cute and endearing thank you !)

Part Two: Eight People To Tag.

Right, this is where the wheels really fall off.
Since I can count on two thumbs the number of real-live-in-the-flesh friends who have blogs that leaves me several people short of the 8 to tag.
The rest of my blog reading tends to the non-personal, so that comes up short too. Oh well, here are my nominees for the job at hand. Feel free to run screaming, or insist that chain-memes aren't for you.

Bruce, if you haven't already been mugged to do this, I nominate you.
Marc, because you are new to this blog thing I thought this might be some fodder for your writing if you have time, so I nominate you too.

Whew, duty completed. See you next entry.

Mother's Day

Mothers Day has long been and gone in this part of the world, (May 13th for those who need to know), and I am so far behind in my blogging that this post seems a little out of place.

But please bear with me as I do some overdue catching up with my commentary. This is just a little observation that I would like to share with you all.

Being an expectant person with only 8 weeks or so to go now I thought that perhaps I could share an idea with you all. Back in May, on Mother's Day, I was just coming up on 6 months pregnant. And yet, it would seem, I didn't qualify for the title "Mother".
Now, let me clarify a few things before I go on. The other half of the OhWailyWaily couple has been nothing less than superb, wonderful and amazing for the entire being pregnant time. Our families are wonderful, loving and caring people who would do anything for us and the about to arrive addition.

But they all shared one trait on this past Mother's Day - not one person recognized that being pregnant meant that I already considered myself to be a Mother. In fact a couple of small comments explicitly indicated at least one person clearly thought that until Miss OhWailyWaily is actually out on her own that I didn't qualify for the title!

Please remember, these are genuinely nice and caring people. Not one of them could be considered for the part of nasty in-law, nor annoying family member.

My personal view is that "you are pregnant, you are a mother". This may not be everyone's viewpoint, of course, but if you have a partner, wife, family member or friend who is at the beginning of motherhood (pregnant) when Mother's Day rolls around please take a little bit of time to acknowledge her.
If in doubt, I would say err on the side of celebrating her mothering achievements to date - surviving morning sickness, putting up with huge hormonal rushes that steal parts of the adult human brain, and generally putting a heck of a lot of effort into creating yet another little human life.

If you think there might be a little bit of sensitivity (and/or superstition) regarding celebrating her motherhood prior to the physical arrival of her child, then by all means go gently about having a conversation with her and what she would or wouldn't like you to do for Mother's Day. If she's not comfortable and doesn't share my opinion about being a mother, then go with that.
But for goodness sakes, don't presume and don't ignore it !

Personally I have had what I consider a very lucky experience to date, with only a bit of insomnia and acid reflux to make any real noise about. Many other mums-to-be may not have had it so good and a bit of cheer leading on Mother's Day may go a long way to help her keep feeling positive. For the rest of us lucky souls, it just feels like a validation of the work done to date and that we aren't actually a non-entity stuck somewhere between single-person-dom and motherhood.

Just something for you all to think about.