Happy Monday!!
Ugh…who am I kidding? I can’t pull that off. Who CAN pull off a “Happy Monday” with double exclamation points?
Mondays are too far away from Saturdays to be double exclamation point worthy. But I do hope you’re having a good one nonetheless.
So, back to this blog thing. And just to prepare you, I’m switching gears and going a little lighter today on my topic…
I found out a few weeks ago about the write31days.com challenge. Strangely enough, about a week or so before that, my dear friend was reading me a blog in the car from one of her favorite sites where many different authors submit thoughts on faith. I asked her if she knew whether or not it was a site where I could submit material because I’d been interested in blogging for a while and my writings seemed similar to those she was reading. She didn’t know at the time but ended up finding out about the challenge, which I believe her site was advertising, and she forwarded me the information.
I was excited!
I loved the idea of being challenged to write for 31 days in a row. I knew it would indeed be a challenge on top of a fairly busy teaching schedule but I went to the site, found out more and signed up.
That was the easiest part.
Did you know initially three different companies/services go into building a website? Yeah, me neither.
I hadn’t been a blogger yet and needed to figure it out quickly. The challenge was going to begin in a couple weeks and I had limited time to devote to the project. It felt like being back in school just to try and get the website up and running. My teachers were online tutorials and YouTube videos and bloggers blogging about blogging. Interesting stuff.
Not really, I just wanted to write.
So, for the girl who isn’t all that tech savvy, this was a bit of a stretch. A challenge before the actual challenge. I mean, I do ok but I tend to use technology for the bare minimum. I’m not a social networker, much to my friends’ dismay. I’m not a Facebooker. I’ve never tweeted a tweet in my life. And when it comes to the even newer forms of social networking, whatever those may be, forget about it!
I was following a blogger who was teaching me how to purchase my domain and I got to the point where I needed to put my credit card info out there…which, let’s face it, always feels a little too divulging. Or is that just me?
Long story short, I picked a very affordable plan. But it wasn’t so affordable when charged for 36 months of that 1 month cost all at once. Apparently, I didn’t see that setting. Ouch. And I had put that on my debit card. Double ouch. I called the company that sold me the domain. They were very nice and they fixed it right away. But my bank freaked out, shut down my debit card and charged me an astronomical amount of fees.
Ouch, ouch and ouch!!
I’m still fighting the fees. We shall see how that goes.
And my computer issues…
I’ve already fessed up that I’m not really a social networker. My computer needs are pretty simplistic. I don’t ask for much. Give me my WordPerfect and an ability to check e-mail and I’m pretty well set.
So, my laptop was still running on Windows XP. Who would have thunk but that’s apparently not good enough for building a website. I was told to update my browser and when I went to do that, the site said (I kid you not), “get a new computer”.
I have a desktop as well which, if memory serves me, can’t be more than a few years old. But it was getting a little “virus-y” as they do and running so slowly that nothing was being accomplished. Compound that with hours on the phone with tech support for various little issues along the way with the three, count them, THREE companies already involved in the building of my site and I was about ready to shut down.
After a fairly distraught phone call with my parents, it was decided that we’d get my computers to the computer repair place and in the meantime, I’d use their laptop to keep the process going. They talked me off the ledge and it worked. I settled. I got back to it.
And then the ride to downtown with my mom to drop off my computers. Ah, yes. Another fond memory…
We got to the computer place. It was a pile of rubble. Yep, rubble.
As my grandpap used to say, “if it’s not one thing, it’s two.”
My mom and I had no idea the computer place had moved or where to find its new location but my GPS claimed she was on top of it. Oh good, I thought! She took me to a corner of town I was not too familiar with and told me to turn down a certain street. Now, this “street” was an alley at best. It was heavily advertised with colorful “Musica” signs left and right so I’m pretty sure we had happened upon an entrance to the city’s underground Latin dance club. But as far as a computer store? Nowhere to be found.
The irony of all of this is that my mom doesn’t like to drive downtown. It makes her a little nervous. I’ve never been nervous driving anywhere. Guess who scraped the car? You guessed it. I did. In that alley. My mom’s SUV. All in the name of blogging.
And now, I’m a nervous driver too.
In my defense, I’ve been driving since I was 16. No accidents other than a damage-less bump to the car in front of me and a bump to a pole that caused a disappointing but certainly not catastrophic dent to my bumper. Just a few speeding tickets because apparently I have a little more lead in my right foot than most. But that’s it!
So, blogging blew my fairly clean driving record.
And it almost took my sanity.
Because I wasn’t even done. I had to design a “button” for my link and header for my site. I had to learn what links and permalinks were. I had to learn new programs and designing tools and had to involve even more companies/services to do so. It was a bit much. It was stealing my down time and my sleep so I was getting cranky and melodramatic.
Then the big day came! October 1st was my first official day of blogging. I got up early (after going to bed very, very late) to link up with the challenge. I had read up on how to do that. I had already written my first post. I was ready.
Well, let me just say, my website looks nothing like anyone else’s involved in the blogging challenge. I am clearly the newbie.
I guess I could be embarrassed. I guess I could have pulled the plug on the whole project. But I’m just grateful to have a foot in the door. The rest can be learned. The car can be fixed. I have upgraded computers and amazing family and friends who love me still and…I’m a blogger!
I know it’s a silly story but I’m glad it’s brought me here. I love writing about life, faith, family, friends and the God who stays up late with me and dries my tears when nothing seems to be going right. I am excited to have a platform to speak of His great love and I’m not sure anything would have stopped me. I am, however, quite grateful things didn’t get any worse than they did!
Thank you to the God of great and small things. It might be a small thing to be a blogger, but it feels pretty great to me.