Sherri Cornelius

I have a choice to make: whether to keep my domain or let it expire.

I’ve been hosting this website on GoDaddy for a couple of years now. No complaints with them, neither price nor service. I’ve had the domain for longer—I think five years, total—and I used to redirect to my old wordpress.com site.

Well, I decided it was time to empty the old blog. I kept the url in case I ever need to go back, but all the content has been deleted as of this morning. There was no tangible reason to delete it. The content moved with me to this domain, so it’s not like I was embarrassed of it. It was just sitting there unviewed. But you know, a need to start fresh has simmering below the surface, evident in the ebb and flow of my new projects. Shedding the old blog was a symbol, I guess, of releasing old and tired ideas and habits, of mental clutter.

When I checked my email this morning, I got the confirmation that Wordpress had deleted my content as requested, along with the domain expiration notification from GoDaddy. I have to make this decision every time the domain expires, but this time it is really tempting to let it go and just not have a blog or a website at all. The social networking sites have the capability to add any content I wish, free of charge and light on maintenance. I haven’t been posting here much, anyway, because all my ramblings have occurred on Facebook or Google+.

I don’t know. I have a lot to think about. I daydream about deleting my entire internet presence (as much as I can) and starting over.

I didn't want the angry post to be up all weekend, so here's one about my new template. I lurve it! See that flower up there? Put your cursor over it, you should be able to change the picture. The old template was pretty, but the code was written for a much older version of Wordpress, and I think that's why I was having such trouble with my website not letting people comment, and losing my graphics and stuff. Since I'm not a code master, I decided to just look for another one. I think this one will do.

The feedback I received on the long synopsis may be the best ever. Many of the reader's comments overlapped, giving me specific areas to focus on, and I have every intention of emailing this tomorrow, just like I'd planned. So raise your glass, or mug, or whatever, and join me in toasting Sarah, Matthew, Vanessa, Dane, Ian and Tony for a job well done. Kristy had offered to help, but life got in the way (this is me officially letting her off the hook). She still gets the brownie points, because it means a lot that she was interested in the first place. So to all my critters, thank you so much! If this thing lands me a deal, you will have had a direct hand in getting me there.

On a technical note, did you know you can register on my website? I didn't either, until I did some snooping around my Wordpress dashboard. If you have an avatar which shows up on every other site but this one, registering as a user might fix it. I'm not sure how it works, so if anybody tries it out, could you tell me about your experience? The link is in the upper right-hand corner of the header.

Funny that I declared on July 1st I would be writing a post every day, only to find out that this is NaBloPoMo! What is up with that? I hadn't heard it mentioned even once that I remember. I'm taking it as a sign that a post a day will be good for me.

I have narrowed it down to two templates on the new blog. One is colorful and bold (the one on the blog right now) and the other is simple and light and elegant (the one pictured here, only with double sidebars and a daisy header). I like the layout of the simple one, but the bold one fits my personality better. And since I am not in code mode, I really don't want to mess with massive changes to one or the other.

I've been unusually busy lately, what with writing this 20-pg synopsis, editing for Eternal Press, fixing my mom's computers, and now changing up the blog. Trying to stay off the social media, letting Twitter and email be my connections. Facebook is the devil, with its quizzes and flair and games and such, so I've limited that to once a day. Hopefully it'll be only another week or so until I knock out these projects and can breathe a bit easier.

Yes, it's Theme Merry-Go-Round time again here at Sherri Blossoms. Well, only on the new site, which is probably where most everybody will read from here on out. I spent a long time working on that simple flower theme, which I liked a lot, but I couldn't get it just right. Then I realized I need more color. So I started looking for pictures of colorful flowers and found some beauties, but it just wasn't working.

The next one I tried was called Dark Wood and I thought it was near-perfect. Elegant with whimsical touches, natural, tiny flowers next to each post title to fit my theme...but in the end it wasn't customizable enough (for a code idiot like me) so I took it down. I might try it again later, though, if I don't find anything else I like. The one I'm using now, called Arclite, is cute. I love the colors, and eventually can change the header to my own image. I've already brought along the CSS changes from the old blog to make the rollover links pink. For some reason I just love that.

Problems with this template: No nested comments; if I use the optional 2nd sidebar it squishes the main content too much; lots of people use it.

I could probably make a new header with my old flower, but I'm actually getting tired of the whole flower thing. I guess it's a memorable title, Sherri Blossoms, with its play on "cherry blossoms," but then I always have to have a flower, and flowers get boring if you look at them too much. I don't know. Changing my blog is gut-wrenching. There are simply too many ways to go with it. Plus I love playing with it, so it eats up a LOT of my time.

The reason behind all this change is because I'm changing from the free WordPress hosting to GoDaddy's paid hosting. They have a plan especially for Wordpress users, where they do all the hard work of installing the WP open-source software on your site and changing your domain servers and such, and now I'm using an interface near-identical to the one I'm used to on the old WP blog. It even has the same options for themes and widgets, so changing the look is easier than a traditional website. I can't recommend it enough. (And no, I won't be in any GoDaddy commercials. One bimbo is all they need.)

One benefit I hadn't considered with getting paid hosting is that the page seems to load faster than on the free one, so that's good.

I feel like an expert now, on domain names and hosting and WordPress and stuff, so if you need any help with it, let me know. I don't know much, but what I do know I know very well, as I've been over it a thousand times.

Thank you for all your input, folks. And thanks for following me around during my time of wandering. Now I have a lot to do today, so I won't be around as much as usual. Don't feel like I'm ignoring you. Have a great day.

Well, folks, it looks like I surpassed 30,000 visitors. I've been thinking about closing the blog down, or else making drastic changes in order to pump up my flagging interest. Well, it seems that Wordpress and GoDaddy are going to make my decision real easy. My CSS subscription runs out in a month, so my beautiful pink links will be gone bye-bye. No reason to lay down $15 to maintain a blog I'm not sure I even want to keep up anymore. Also, my domain sherricornelius.com is expiring, so I guess this will be a good time to just let it all go.

I doubt I will go cold turkey on blogging, but since I won't have any money invested there will be no guilt involved if I don't post for weeks at a time. Most likely I'll also move to another URL altogether, one which has more to do with my life at this time. I guess I don't have to make all the decisions at once.

The editor job is closer to being mine. The final test is to edit a short story for publication. If that goes well, they'll offer me a contract. If not, well, there's always proofreading. (Her words. lol)

Surrender is hard. Surrender can be depressing, if you're surrendering to the hardships and not to Grace. I surrender to grace. Not saying this will be my last post ever, just saying changes are coming that should have come a long time ago, if my ego hadn't gotten in the way of the divine. Wish I could explain that, but I'm not even sure what I mean. :)

Later!