Tuesday, September 18, 2012

the tour de blogosphere

So ... it looks like Blogger is working again and I'd like to take a moment to hug, squeeze and kiss this adorable little blogging platform's head!!! 

My brief stint at WordPress was great and I'll forever be thankful to those fantastic people in the support forum who provided a tutorial on how to upload a picture from my Flickr account.  

But .... 

In the whole six days that I spent trying to understand a new blog platform, I could never crack how to migrate my 1,600+ worth of archives from this blog to that blog and there was no way I was going to leave my archives behind. It felt like I had no idea what I was doing on WordPress and when I received an e-mail from the people at BlogHer telling me that they were deleting my ad account which is hosted on this blog, the decision to move back to Blogger (once it was operational) was an easy one.  While the little ads that I have running on this blog generate the financial equivalent of a small cup of coffee every day .... over the next 12 years - that might be enough to pay a few books when my children enter college. Or a really nice coffee machine. Assuming I ever take up drinking coffee. 


Several of my links on this blog are quirky which will require some work. But regardless! Here we are again and I hope you enjoyed your tour through the blogosphere as much as me! I do plan to keep my WordPress blog alive because you never know if and when this one might tank again and it's good to be prepared. It's like my own little blogging contingency plan, if you will. 

One thing to mention: Last week when the world was dark and grim and I thought this blog was gone forever, I tried to reduce the size of my Blogger export file so I could import it in to WordPress. Because I didn't want to delete posts or photos, I started deleting comments. And what I hadn't realized until that moment was that I'd received more than 30,000 comments before I turned them off last year. While that might not seem like a lot of comments for some uber bloggers, it was a lot to me.  

As I was deleting the comments, I felt like I was erasing so many kind words and advice that had been relayed over the years and it totally bummed me out. I finally stopped the deleting insanity when I got to comments that had been left by my wonderful Uncle Bill and friend Deana in 2009 - just a few months before they both passed.  To add insult to injury, for all the comments that I deleted, I only reduced my export file by 2 GB (which still wasn't small enough for import). 

When I started up the WordPress blog, the default for comments was "on" and I was warmly reminded how nice it was to hear from old friends. (Hello Winecat and Twingles and so many others!)  So I've opted to leave comments "on" again.  Truth be told, I've felt guilty that so many have written to me over the past year to share a story after a post they'd read, and I've been negligent about responding. 

Borrowing from the back of a Papyrus card we recently received in the mail,  "Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation." 

(I love that!) 

Thanks for all the personal connections you've made with me over the years.  I hope that going forward, I can do a better job of making those personal connections with you, too.  

11 comments:

  1. just glad you're back! I, MYSELF, had a heart attack when your blog suddenly disappeared... pewww!

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  2. Sree from singapore9/19/12, 12:35 AM

    so good to see that ur blog is back again...have been a regular reader since 2008 but commenting very rarely.your blog is an inspiration to me to become a better person in life.keep writing...its so wonderful to read from you from otherside of the world during lunchtime-thats what i always do the first thing during my lunch break.
    -sree

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  3. You gave me a coronary when your blog went down. What if MY blog went down? Gosh. So glad it worked out!

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  4. Welcome back to blogger.
    Did they ever say what exactly the issue was?

    Something *I* learned from your experience here is that I should take the few minutes once in a while it will take to back up my blog.


    I am glad that you decided to leave the comments on.

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  5. Good to see you back on familiar ground, Jen. Glad it all worked out and that the comments are back on. I so enjoy reading your stories and watching your brood grow up. Seven and five already-hard to believe, isn't it ?~!

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  6. Hi Jen! Thanks for the shout out! Glad you're back.

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  7. guinnsj@sbcglobal.net9/19/12, 7:16 AM

    I just want to say that I love reading your blog. It is the equivalent of a great book that never ends.

    Susan G (susieg of babysteps)

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  8. I am so happy to hear that your blog was found. Although I rarely commented when you had the comment feature turned on, I wanted to let you know that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog over the years.

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  9. Welcome back! I wondered why a few old posts popped up again this morning. Now I know why!
    Some of your posts leave me very moved and I was sad not to be able to comment on them. Thank you for leaving comments on. Even if it is just "for now."

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  10. I don't fully understand why the blog disappeared - it seems that Blogger "disabled" their custom blog feature for several blogs and swoosh, that was it.

    Luckily, I could see my blog dashboard when I logged on to Blogger, so I knew that all of the posts were there, I just couldn't publish nor import them. YES, backing up your blog is always a good idea. It's on my list of things to do...!

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  11. YEAH for comments again.....I still love your blog. I wish I could get around to updating mine.

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