Okay back to my story, ten years of blogging. Thanks for all the kind comments on my awkwardness. You know what my most favorite part of blogging for ten years has been? It’s been you. The interactions, the friendships, the amazing people my silly little blog (hip housewife ahhh!!) has connected me with. I love it. I think it’s the biggest reason I still blog today.
So as you may notice from the photo above, once Miss Davenport got her hands on my website and introduced me to wordpress things were beginning to look a lot nicer.
In 2006 I had links, remember when swapping links was a big thing? Now I guess sponsorships are the way things work? When it comes to stuff like that, and me sitting here reminiscing about links I feel like a grandma talking about walking to school in the snow-up hill both ways. But its crazy to think how much blogging has changed in just the last decade.
Once my website was set up like this, it did not change for a very long time. More recently in the last few years I had wanted to add side bar items, but once again did not have any training. I did searching in wordpress and at first could only change things like the side photos and header bar. I loved my website design, but after so many years I just really wanted something new.
Meanwhile I had switched over to Etsy and was no longer using the zen cart shop, which was still hooked up to my website. Imagine my surprise when people told me that when you googled mypapercrane.com all sorts of stuff for prescription drugs were coming up. In fact even though my website looked normal to me, this is what people were coming across when they looked for my website.
It took me weeks, maybe longer really to read info on what to do, where to look. I believe that my website was hacked through the outdated zen cart, so I removed all that, but then had to go through all the files and find the hidden code to get the prescription drug stuff that was hiding on other pages of my website. It took a long time, but I did it! At this point I am sure a lot of you would of hired a professional, but I’m stubborn that way.
Once my website was finally fixed I was more determined then ever to get a real grasp on how it all worked. I realized I needed to start updating wordpress. I know that sounds so incredibly dumb, but when you don’t have any training in this area, unless some one tells you these things need to be updated you just don’t think about it. I read everything I could about using wordpress and customizing it, and took a big step and began using a new theme that was highly customizable. It has still changed a few times, and I’ve asked you guys for help with questions on more then one occasion, but I finally feel after ten years that I’ve got a real handle on my website and how to change what I want, when I want.
This still doesn’t really delve into what it means to me to have been blogging the last ten years. To be honest I don’t know if there is anything amazing or insightful I could say about the whole thing. It certainly doesn’t feel as though it’s been ten years. I’m not quite sure when I will stop blogging, but I know it’s not something I plan to do forever. Blogging not my job, but more of a way to show you what I am doing at my job. I guess my job is being a maker, this is just who I have always been. But as I am sure you can see from my blog-this is is not all that I am. Thanks for allowing me to share it with you world, for the last ten years. Thanks for being mostly kind, I appreciate that.
Now there is a new way of sharing….instagram. Instagram is super satisfying for me because it has my favorite part of blogging, the sharing and connecting with other people, but faster. Without the pressure of writing out a blog post. I like that people can offer little glimpse’s into their process, or life without the time and care it takes to publish a blog post. I mean, I guess there are people using instagram to upload beautiful photos they’ve taken with their point & shoot cameras. But for me I like the quick photos, the ones that show us what is going on with them right then & there. Sometimes however, instagram makes me lazy about blogging. I am trying not to think of it as an obstacle though, instead just a different way I can share. Do you think that instagram is changing blogging?
When I was thinking about what kind of frosting could work for these donuts I knew I wanted something that would coat the top in a nice thick layer. Then the chocolate melts came to mind and I thought they would work great. When I got to the store and saw they had a peanut butter flavor, it was the perfect color and flavor. You could also do chocolate, or pastel cats.
