Merry Christmas…and a Prayer Request

First of all, Merry Christmas to all of you! I appreciate you so much and am thankful for those of you I've been able to get to know over this past year. I'm especially thankful to my RSS & email subscribers, and all of my loyal readers. I'm also thankful for you “lurkers” out there, too, those who like to read but aren't into the comment scene. That's how I am at many sites I read, so I can relate. (Yes, it's true, there are some places I visit where I actually keep to myself!)

photo by midiman

IT MAY BE A WILD RIDE…but I hope not

I'm hanging onto my hat, because Friday I'm going live with my new website. It will probably be down for a short time, but I really don't know what to expect. It's supposed to be seamless, so we'll see. (By the way, due to all of this I won't be posting anything new on Friday morning, but may get something up later that day or Saturday.) My thanks to Ann Marie who has helped me tweak quite a few things, but I have to say that once again, I've had to learn WAY more than I ever wanted to about building websites, because I couldn't afford to pay someone to do it all for me. Sadly, I still haven't even scratched the surface, I've just figured out little “cheats” for getting things to look how I want…translation: many late late nights!

Questions People Have Asked:

• What do you mean you're moving to a new site? Won't you write for your Kelly the Kitchen Kop blog anymore?

Yes, it's the same blog, only a new “platform”, which means it won't be hosted at Blogger anymore (a free hosting service), and instead I'm going to a “self-hosted” WordPress blogging platform. After the initial switch, when I'll be working through who knows HOW many “bugs”, you'll still be able to go to the same web address to read my blog and nothing will be changing for readers or subscribers, except it will look a little different. More about that below. Also, hopefully it will be much easier to navigate around.

• Why did you want to switch from Blogger to WordPress anyway?

Well, there are a few reasons…

1. Supposedly this will help search engines find my blog easier. Although I already get a lot of Google hits, so we'll see…
2. As mentioned above, this will make it easier for readers to navigate around my site. There aren't as many options for setting things up in Blogger.
3. There are many many more things I can do with WordPress that are just not remotely possible with Blogger. WordPress has a zillion different “plug-ins” – which just means different bells and whistles that either make it a better experience for you, the reader, or me, the writer.
4. I was able to get a 3-column template, so I could run a few more ads on my site. Don't worry, I'll never use those nasty pop-up ads that dance across your screen, but hopefully this will bring in a little more cashola to justify the hours that I work on this each week.

Those are the main reasons, and boy will I be glad when I've got it live and all the bugs are worked out.

THAT'S WHERE YOU COME IN

Please say a prayer that it all goes smooth! With Christmas and decorating and wrapping and baking and get-togethers and last-minute shopping, not to mention keeping up on writing posts and answering emails, along with my day care and typical Mom stuff & household things to do, it's been pretty difficult getting the last tweaks made on the site. But I'm in the home stretch now!

Over the next few days I have NO idea what you'll see as you click into my site. It may look all garbled or each post may look weird, you could get an error page, I just don't know. Please hang with me and hopefully very soon it will all be going smooth again.

THE PERFECTIONIST IN ME IS STRUGGLING…

One last comment I have to share: when you see my site for the first time, you'll probably feel like I do, that it's quite…plain. Believe me, this drives me crazy. But if I wanted to get a sweet new design, it would be at least one or two thousand dollars, and hopefully someday I'll be able to bite the bullet and have it done. It reminds me of having people over when you're house isn't just how you want it. Someday maybe I'll be able to pay for a more snazzy site, but for now, this is all I've got!

While it's nothing that someone will click on and say, “COOL SITE!”, my main goal was that it was at least easy to navigate around, easy to find the subscribe buttons, and crisp and clean looking.

I'm making an attempt at letting this be “good enough”, for now anyway. My type triple A perfectionist personality is struggling, but it's good for my soul to just let it go. (I'll have to keep telling myself this over and over…)

That's probably more than you really cared to know. Thanks for your prayers, if all goes well, I'll see you over at the new site soon!

• Wonder what Kent thinks of all this?
• If you need something to read while this site is down, you could check out my other blog.
• Read about how it helps me & this site a little if you buy from the links in my Kitchen Kop Shop: see #3 at this FAQ site.