Time to be honest here. I have not been actively posting. The last two weeks or so for me have been mostly a tech nightmare with writer’s block thrown in for fun. (Okay, may not nightmare – more like a scary dream.)
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
It all started with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and trying to make this site compliant. After working on making this site compliant, I worked on our business website to do the same. It really wasn’t that difficult to do. It mostly was the overwhelming amount of information and weeding out what exactly I needed to do.
I did manage to get one post up on June 28 amidst the researching and figuring out how to get GDPR compliant on my site. I am new to this blogging thing. Sometimes it just rattles me when I read about things that I’m supposed to have in place!
Google and https
And then there is the change with Google and https.
I was totally unaware of this change, maybe because I just started my blog in May and didn’t do enough research or enough of the right type of research. Regardless, I spent last week trying to figure out this problem. HostGator informed via email July 3 of this SSL certificate issue and said they would have a free one provided, even for us hatchlings. They also included a link to their blog about it
I watched for an email that would tell me when it was ready for my website. I waited, and waited. It didn’t arrive.
So today, when I saw notification that my site again was loading intermittently, I engaged the chat option at HostGator for technical support. While chatting, my site came back up on its own, so I took the opportunity to ask about the free SSL certificate.
Success!
The agent was very helpful. He checked to see if HostGator assigned one. He wrote that I had been assigned one on July 5. (I did not receive an email notification.) When I logged in to my HostGator portal the last several days, there was no indication that I had been assigned one. Fortunately, he was able to get in to my account and get the SSL certificate in place so now my blog site is secure! Whew! Not that I gather much personal information from people at this point, but I am relieved to have that technical issue cleared up.
Wait…
Then, the writer’s block. I have several pieces, but some are just too personal to post right now, if ever. So after looking at what I thought was a cache of posts to pull from, I became a little discouraged. Then, brainstorming ideas kind of overwhelmed me as to where to start, would it be of any interest, should I really be doing this blog thing. The creative juice was not flowing for new pieces. So, I was “this” close to giving up.
Get a Grip
Then I turned to Google and Pinterest. Tons of ideas about blog post topics. I felt a little better, and realized all my brainstorming ideas were going to be okay. I just have to hunker down and focus, and write, write, write.
So, a preview of things to come.
Upcoming/Possible Series Ideas:
Living Through Remodeling and What We Learned
Songs of My Life
Book Recommendations
Teaching Tips?
Continuation of posts about family, being a teacher, life on the farm, and life events.
Persevere
The quote for the month I wrote on my calendar – “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot*
I will not give up.
*”George Eliot Quotes.” BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2018. 12 July 2018. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_eliot_161679