Jem's field notes

This week (24th-30th June) is National Breastfeeding Week. The aim of NBW is to raise awareness of the health benefits of breastfeeding, increase social acceptance and promote support for breastfeeding. This week also sees the publication of Breastfeeding: Stories to Inspire and Inform; a collection of stories from breastfeeding mums detailing their experiences nursing their… read full entry »

Oliver is 4 weeks old on Wednesday. On one hand he’s slotted into our ‘routine’ so well that it feels like he’s been here forever, but on the other … holy cow, that means I only have 11 months of maternity leave left. Yes, I’m keeping count. What’s your point? (I have a lot I… read full entry »

rev.iew.me is a website / web page reviewing community. Launched in 2008, it was designed and developed specifically to help web designers, developers and hobbyist webmasters receive critical feedback for their website projects. As part of a larger package of updates and new features coming to the site, I have been plotting a conversion to… read full entry »

Cherie Blair, the wife of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, has pissed a lot of mums off this week by criticising stay at home mums (SAHMs); apparently they’re all “yummy mummies” who’ve married rich men so they don’t have to go to work. It’s making women “too dependent”, wasting their education, etc etc. I wanted to… read full entry »

After I had Isabel I had my shoulder-length hair chopped off. I think it’s a new mum right of passage or something. I loved it. Loved the fact that it took minutes to dry, that I only needed a teensy blob of shampoo, it didn’t get in my eyes etc. Karl wasn’t so taken but,… read full entry »

Now that I’m on maternity leave for the next 12 months, my monthly income has more than halved. At the end of my leave (last 3 months) I’ll be earning zilch. Nada. Nothing. With a mortgage, childcare costs, usual household bills etc I need to find ways to make all that fit. We have savings,… read full entry »

Do you remember Amelie? My sofa, that is… Turns out she’s not as comfy as she looks when you’re stuck on her nursing 24/7 (oh, newborns…) Still, being sofa-bound means I’ve been able to (literally) one-handedly launch Jem On WordPress. I wanted to do a full, ‘official’ launch, but as making a big deal out… read full entry »

WordPress 3.4, code-named “Green” after jazz guitarist Grant Green, was released yesterday. To ensure maximum security for your WordPress site, be sure to keep your core install & plugins up to date.

If, like me, you’re responsible for multiple installs of WordPress, you’ll know what a chore it can be to keep both WordPress and plugins up to date; just as you get one blog upgraded you log in to another and discover it has a different set of plugins that need updating too. Logging in to… read full entry »

When I set up a new WordPress blog or website, which can be several times a week these days, there’s a short list of must have settings to configure, tweaks to make and plugins to install. Below are my top 3 ‘must have’ plugins for every WordPress install. WordPress SEO by Joost de Valk Although… read full entry »