No problems there, I agree completely. I get several e-mails on a daily basis from link builders who’ve clearly not read my blog or contact page who make out that they can provide me with content that’s the next best thing, beneficial to my site, bla dee freakin’ bla. Yawn, delete.

Sally links to a post she wrote for Tots100 in the beginning of her post. Unless you’re a parenting blogger, you’re probably unaware that Tots100 is a “community” that ranks bloggers who’ve signed up “using a unique scoring algorithm that reflects a blog’s popularity, influence and engagement”. That’s a toplist, to those of us who’ve been around since the 90s. Sally, incidentally, is the founder of Tots100. Anyway, the post discusses nofollow and why it’s important to add the attribute to paid links. It’s not the most technically accurate but given the audience is generally non-technical, I’ll forgive it that.

What bothers me about the Tots100 post, and the “bloggers aren’t stupid!” follow-up, is that it completely fails to mention the link to the family holidays website (‘familyholidays.co.uk’) contained within the Tots100 badge that all participating bloggers must place on their website to be included and/or ranked in the toplist/index/community/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The link to the family holidays website is provided without the nofollow attribute. Now, the bloggers adding it to their sidebar might not be paid for its placement but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Tots100 don’t include this as a friendly gesture to the company behind familyholidays.co.uk. To spell that out for you: Tots100 will be financially compensated for their affiliation with the family holidays site. Financial compensation = it’s a bloody paid link! See update below

So why the hypocritical double standards? Haven’t figured that one out yet…

Update @ 20:11

Sally from Tots100 has stated that they are not paid or compensated for the links to the family holidays website. The links, across hundreds of blogs, are purely there (quoting #43687):

[..] Because it’s a great company, we’re happy to be associated with them, and that’s about as far as it goes.

I would argue that they still need to be nofollowed (untrusted link) but at least this means that, apparently, Tots100 aren’t slapping dofollowed advertising on member’s sites.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

Turns out all these questions were mostly founded on unwarranted worrying, because Isabel is a pooping, peeing, potty training natural. So much so that she not only jumped straight into pants, no nappies for nap time and is happy to use either/both potty and toilet, but she also decided that she wanted to be dry at night too; I wasn’t expecting that for another year or so!

We had a minor blip a few weeks ago where Isabel had a little cough, which meant an accident or two (if I mention we were co-sleeping for one of those you can use your imagination a little there … yeah, it does occasionally have its downsides) and I chickened out and put her back in nappies overnight for a week. @SquintMom inadvertently guilted me into giving Izz another chance though, and we’ve been dry overnight again for the past 3-4 nights (and interestingly, in her own bed, not sure what’s inspired that!)

So yes, there we have it. Pretty much cracked I think? Touch wood. Just in time for number 2 to arrive safely (hint hint). Don’t know what I was worrying about…

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

Except, so many of these blogs are just… ugly. Sure, not everyone can afford to hire an awesome designer like Lilian to sex their blogs up but even if you’re stuck using a free theme, there’s no excuse for these:

I tried to anonymise these – it’s not my intention to ‘out’ anyone in particular

Different size ad’ banners, blocks overlapping columns, seemingly random mixtures of fonts / sizes / colours etc. :(

I considered maybe it was just my long standing bias against ad-supported blogs making me grumpy, but Jamie has advertising spots and hers don’t look like they were vomited onto the page. PhD in Parenting has tons of adverts, well over my comfort zone even, but they’re all evenly sized and organised neatly.

I get that these bloggers are not (generally) web designers and that most have better things to do with their time (like mopping up sick and all the other fun crap that comes with having kids) than moving buttons and banners and content blocks 3 pixels to the left / right / up a touch, just one more tweak … I think I just turned into an awkward client. Ahem.

Perhaps surprisingly, given my previous rants on PPP etc, I get that many of these blogs generate that little bit of extra income per month that enables some parents to be at home with their kids (and for that reason alone I’m tempted to spew viagra links all up my sidebar). I just think that you can achieve a nice looking blog without distracting my eyes with spamerific banners and buttons, and without breaking the bank. At the end of the day, the content is more important than the adverts, and if you think otherwise then you’re seriously missing the point.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

For starters, it goes to show that when a company makes an effort to reach out to customers to fix issues they raise that it can make the world of difference. Here I am, sat wearing my complimentary Well Hung Meat apron (what? it helps create a foody atmosphere. shut up.) whilst Googling for recipes for inspiration on what to do with the massive pork shoulder that arrived in my shiny silver meat box yesterday.

More importantly it has been a proof of concept for me: proof that I can afford to eat top quality meat without compromising on quality, simply by eating meat less often and making the most of what I get. I can’t remember the last time I only got one meal out of a piece of meat (and you should hear the ribbing I get from certain colleagues because of my left-over lunches, ha!)

I still find their website a little awkward to use — am in the midst of trying to edit my regular order to base it off their Household Staples box, but couldn’t seem to get everything off my old regular order first — but I think that’s the web developer in me being a grump. Plus, who knows, perhaps the sirloin steak I scoffed down last night with help my wonky iron levels… fingers crossed.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

So, tentatively ‘back’…

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

“Miss Turner, we’ve had the results of your blood test back and your iron is low. Please ring your doctor to collect some iron tablets.”

How about no. How about stick it up your arse. I’m not going through the stress I went through last time only to be told it was all for nothing. It’s back on the Floradix for me, and if that doesn’t work, baby might find itself born on the sofa.

That’s the last time I let a midwife sweet talk me into having blood tests.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

It’s almost bittersweet, because of late I’ve been hiding away from the bloggy world. A combination of continuous workload + raising a toddler has taken its toll on my time and inspiration, but actually, the real cause of my ‘disappearance’ has been the feeling of Being Watched.

Never before in 10 years have I let anyone dictate to me what I should and shouldn’t write (perhaps unwisely at times; not every post has been… err, sensible) and yet here I am admitting that I’m letting an unidentified threat push me away.

Whatever I decide to do with myself in the long term, the reality is that jemjabella.co.uk isn’t going anywhere. 10 years is too much of my life to let go.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

Anyway, while we were on holiday last week, Izz obviously got fed up and decided to take matters into her own hands. I don’t know whether it was because we’d taken disposable nappies on holiday (the thought of a nappy bucket full of wet/pooey nappies for a week was a bit stomach churning) but she started taking herself off to the potty, pulling her trousers down/nappy off, and peeing. Can’t exactly avoid the issue if she requires no intervention from me!

Took the bull by the horns on Sunday and stuck her in some shiny new pants, and she had just the 1 accident when something spooked her in the garden. She went in to nursery yesterday with just pants and lots of spare trousers and didn’t have a single accident. Not only that, BUT — and this is huge, but probably only makes sense if you’re aware of the back-story with Isabel’s poo problems — while I was cooking yesterday evening, she shouted out to me “muuuuum, I need a BIIIIG POO” then took herself off to the potty with a book (wonder who she gets that from) and did just that. No fuss, no holding, no straining or tears. I couldn’t be more pleased :)

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.

Unfortunately, the caravan had a flat screen TV. As a no-TV household generally you’d think it’d be nice to have access to the ‘free’ entertainment but it was a pain in the arse. Isabel, who has previously shown absolutely no interest in TV, became obsessed… asking for it within seconds of waking and throwing complete melt-down tantrums when I said no. I wouldn’t have minded her watching it, we were on holiday after all, but I quickly realised that children’s TV these days is puerile shite interspersed with grating adverts clearly designed to trigger the words “mummy, I want…”

Seriously, I caught the last 5 minutes of In The Night Garden (I think?) and was having to hold back the urge to swear at the TV. Nonsensical tosh. Contrast this to the good oldies: Dangermouse, Button Moon etc where people spoke real English and there was some semblance of a storyline.

Anyway, aside from that it was all fine and dandy. Not a great idea to share a teeny queen size caravan bed with daddy + toddler when you’ve got a huge bump, mind you.

Originally published on jemjabella.co.uk - Ultimately better than you.