On this day five years ago I wrote my first blog post and Semantically driven was born. Normally I don’t celebrate my blogiversary but this year I’m going to and you’re invited.

My idea is that I’d like to find out how your blogging quest has gone for you. You write about it, add a link back to here so I know you’ve done it and then I compile a list of them all so there’s a central repository. I reckon there’s some interesting stories out there.

I’m even offering prizes to kickstart it all off. Please visit the my Blogging quest page to read all about it. I’d love it if you participate and Tweet about it, Stumble it etc - to spread the word.

I’ve no idea if it will work but there’s only one way to find out. Come on, help make my blog’s fifth birthday special.

My linky love posts are too few and far between because I have no easy way of compiling them, or they just slip my mind to actually do them.

A couple of bloggers I read are really good at them. Stand up Shai and Kikolani. So below are a few things I’ve come across this week.

Toni from The Happy Housewife has just had her seventh child - somewhat early - and she still remains happy and she still manages to update her blog just about every day. Luckily baby Cora is now home and being adored by all her siblings no doubt.

Jayne from Our Great Southern Land has a blog full of interesting back-in-time facts. I now know that in 1985 Australia was the first country to test blood donations for HIV.

And I’ve come across a couple of stories about breastfeeding your doll not being allowed at kindergarten, and a teacher telling one of her pupils she was pathetic. I think both these situations could have been handled a lot better and it’s these situations we don’t really want to deal with as parents but make us stronger.

I’m still reading the daily tasks for Probloggers 31 days to build a better blog but until now I’ve lapsed in actually doing anything.

Participating in the challenge has enabled me to find some new bloggers that I probably would never have otherwise come across. Below are a couple of them. For some reason I can’t actually get into the forum as it just keeps on asking for my username and password, grrrrr.

One blog I found was MyMarketer - Understanding Internet Marketing. The author of this is also participating in the challenge and he extended the list challenge to create a list of all the lists created as part of Problogger’s task in Day 2. There’s 603 lists there all in various categories. Imagine how much time you could spend just browsing them and then think how much time it must have taken to collate this list. Apparently he’s a new dad and is having sleepless nights. How I wish my sleepless nights as a new mum could have been spent in front of the computer, but they were spent pushing a pram back and forth.

Michelle from Retarded in Love - although she’s shortly getting married so she can’t be too retarded in love but like most of us has been in the past.

Stay tuned for my fifth blogiversary special tomorrow.

Thanks to one of my gorgeous readers - Jeanie - I found out that my blog had all but disappeared. Any page I tried to view gave me a 404 page error. Everything else was there, just no content.  She emailed me first thing this morning and I didn’t read it until I got back from my mini Easter break this afternoon.

I immediately panicked and wondered when the last time I did a backup was - too long ago I’m sure. Once my little panic was over I thought I’d better fix it.

Knowing that Wordpress runs from databases I logged into my blog’s Cpanel and went to view the post database to see what was there. A message informed me that I had a “WordPress MySQL database error: Table is marked as crashed and should be repaired.”

After doing a quick search I came across this very helpful post, and within a minute had repaired my database and was back in business. So if this ever happens to you, it’s probably a database error. I’m thankful that it wasn’t someone hacking in which has happened to me before too.

Naturally I’ve now done a backup. I was imagining having to manually redo my last few week’s worth of posts since my last backup but it’s all sorted.

As I write this it’s ten days off my five year anniversary for this blog and I’ve been ambling along without any real direction here for that time. Sure I’ve done things along the way and my blog has grown but I still don’t have any clear direction.

If my blog were a roadmap I’d have one major road with some minor roads and lots of little roads off them, some of which would be dead-ends. The main road would be the blog itself, the minor roads would probably be the categories within this blog that I contribute to the most and the dead-ends would be little things I start doing that I stop for various reasons.

I wrote recently about feeling a need for my own business. I keep thinking of things that I could possibly do but all I really want to do is develop this blog. But to do that I can’t keep ambling along dead-end roads.

Then along comes Problogger with a challenge to build your blog in 31 days. Heck, why not I say. I can’t say that I will do my ‘homework’ every day but so long as the tasks don’t take too long I’ll give it a go.

The first challenge is to have a go at writing an elevator pitch. This is very much first draft and if my more regular readers have anything to add, or any other comments, please feel free to do so.

“Semantically driven is a largely personal blog written in an engaging and honest style, where you will read about what life is like as a working, sole parent to one child, and you’ll also go on a photographic journey as I take photos to feed my artistic habit. Recently I started reviewing products that my readers might like because I believe in word of mouth marketing more than businesses marketing fluff.”

I’d like to revisit this pitch at the end of the 31 days to see if it’s changed at all. I’m sure it will - first drafts are just that.

I do have an idea that I hope to ‘launch’ as part of this blogging challenge. If anyone puts their hand up to be guinea pigs I’d love to test it on a few people.

In November some time last year I submitted this site to become a 9rules member. To be honest I didn’t really expect to get in but then you never know ey?

Just as well I didn’t listen to that self-doubt because I got in. I nearly fell out my chair at work (on my first day back after four weeks) when I saw my URL in the list. What a great way to start the day, particularly a Monday.

They don’t say how many people applied but I can only assume that there were quite a few as it’s taken two months for the announcement.

So if you’re here from that site, welcome. I’m accepting all virtual pats on the back. Thanks.

As many bloggers know, it’s hard to get any sort of traffic to your blog unless you have some streak of luck in a lot of cases.

Chuck Westbrook is trying to change that.

You too can join in his project of trying to get bloggers to read lesser-known blogs and you might find something you like along the way. Click on the link above to join in.

It’s been a while since I’ve shared some others’ blog posts that resonated with me. Here goes:

• Phooey on active aging - this post is about our society’s push for active aging. As Crabby Old Lady (Ronni Bennett) says, she worked for 50 years and deserves some rest and relaxation thank you very much.
• Never being totally satisfied with my website’s theme I always eagerly devour Smashing Magazine’s best of Wordpress themes. Here’s 30 free high quality Wordpress themes. I still haven’t changed my theme as it entails a lot of work to get my customisations working with a new theme.
• I love these teacup biscuits. I don’t need to say anymore!
• One day I might make it to BlogHer but in the meantime I’ll have to console myself by just watching the videos.
• Vegemite, you either love it or hate it. This is one I wrote over on Aussie Bloggers.

There you have it. I’m now off to start an assignment.