Yesterday’s blog went up late, and this is why.
If you guys have been along for the ride for a while now, you know I’ve had some bumps in the road with my blog hosts.
It all began with WordPress, when I chose it over Blogger. I had a blog in high school through Blogger, which was fine, but I was advised that WordPress was a bit more customizable than Blogger, and I felt I was ready for that challenge. So I build my blog on WordPress and was able to make it pretty much exactly how I wanted it.
A couple of years in, out of nowhere, I was uploading photos to a big post (Was it a birthday post? Lake day post? I don’t remember.) and I was notified that I was just out of space. Just like that. Nowhere to go but to pay and upgrade that moment. I was INCREDIBLY frustrated! I wasn’t opposed to having to pay and grow my blog, because really, that itself felt like an accomplishment, but there was no warning. There was, however, no other option, so I upgraded. But it was clear I was going to run out room again eventually. So I started shopping for a new host.
I was recommended to Bluehost. It had good reviews, and it was well known. I looked into it and discovered I could purchase a package that gave me unlimited space! THAT was what I needed, and I signed up as soon as I could put together a template that I was happy with. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, but I figured I could tweak it along the way and make it my own. Except I never did. The whole web design thing doesn’t come naturally for me, and I can slave and slave over it with little to no avail, sometimes even making it worse.
I’ve been stuck on Bluehost for quite a while now and I can honestly say I wish I had either never switched, or that I switched to somewhere else. The ONLY thing that Bluehost offers me that matters/works is the space. Its sucked at everything else. No developers seem to update their blog themes, so I’m usually behind with lots of glitches. My pictures are regularly sideways for certain people on certain browsers, and when I inquire with Bluehost, they tell me to ask the developer. I do that next, and they say to ask my readers to clear their caches. I have NO control.
Last night, it got all messed up again and I was SO mad. I opened up a new post page and was greeted by an ENTIRELY NEW LAYOUT. Aren’t there usually grace periods when you know its there but you don’t have to jump on board right away?? I like to let bugs get worked out before I jump on updates, or do some research so I know how to use it when it comes along. Well, that was not the case. The whole stupid thing is different now, and not user friendly. Worst of all, it would only show the thumbnail views of my pictures, and they were horrid. As in “heads cut off” level of horrid. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to show the full pictures! Cher offered to come over, being way more knowledgable in the world of blogs/computer errors and fussed with it while she ate breakfast sandwiches with us. She got it fixed somewhat, and I can now make the pictures show up normally, but not without fixing every single one manually. Its so dumb, guys. SO dumb.
So I’m feeling the need to switch my blog to another host. Which is SO out of my comfort zone. I’m wondering if maybe I’ll hire someone to help me. I’m happy with how my blog looks, but if I could have it my way, it would actually look SO different!! My blog looks as simple as it does out of necessity. I don’t know how to change the things I want to change. I have lots of little ideas of what I’d add where, and its probably as simple as adding widgets, but those things confuse the heck out of me and I just know so little about it. I could get it there, but I don’t want to mess up my blog! I know its boring sometimes, but its kind of like my memoirs, just super duper early. I have 6.5 YEARS of our lives saved on here!! I don’t want to mess it up 🙁 But I want it to be good, too. And I want to enjoy doing it. Today, I dreaded sitting down to write because I don’t like the setup. Yet here I am. I’m not bailing. Not over this. But I’m pretty annoyed with all the changes over here. I’m not afraid of change, but I would’ve loved some heads up!
I used to feel a bit “good riddancy” at WordPress. Still do. But I don’t like Bluehost either. Whats next??