Yes, it’s been over 48 hours since I’ve blogged.
Yes, I’m going into withdrawals.
No, I haven’t had a baby.
I’ve just been in transition….
After a few months of agonizing about making The Big Change, a failed attempt at doing it on my own, and a few weeks of working with a great crew of people at Blogalicious Designs to help me with it, I’ve finally transitioned. Welcome to my new WordPress blog!
(Insert Cheering Crowds of Other Bloggers Here.)
(Insert Confused and Indifferent Looks of Non-Bloggers Here.)
I’ve been wanting to do it all my life (or at least for the past year) because of the plethora of problems with Blogger. But what really put me over the edge were the problems that so many of you have been having with commenting.
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I love to blog because of the relationships. I’ve met hundreds of amazing people through blogging that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and although I try to read all of your blogs (if I know about them), the best way for me to interact with you and get to know you is through your comments. So it pains deeply me every time I find out someone wanted to comment but wasn’t able to.
WordPress is different, for sure, but it is a MUCH more stable platform, and hopefully you will find it easier to leave comments. It SHOULD save your information after you leave your first comment (if you have cookies enabled) so that you won’t have to enter it each time, so if your first comment is clunky, cross your fingers that it will get easier after that.
Also, you do NOT have to put in a website – if you don’t have one, just leave it blank. You DO have to put in an email address (which will not be visible to anyone but me). The email address is great, because it enables me to respond to your comments in my preferred form, via a response email. As I said, I love the interaction!
This change also should make it easier for those of you who read blogs on iPhones or other mobile devices – let me know if it doesn’t load faster.
B-Sides and Alabama Bloggers are still hosted at Blogger for now – I’m starting with one site at a time. At some point, I hope to transition the other two, but I’m not in a huge hurry – change scares me, after all.
PLEASE let me know if you have any questions or problems, or if things don’t seem to be showing up right on your screen. It will take me a while to work out all the quirks of the new site (including getting all the comments imported from my last few posts), so please let me know of anything you notice that isn’t working quite right, that is missing, or that you have problems with. And, of course, PLEASE let me know if you have any commenting problems.
Also, if you’re a feed subscriber, nothing should change – it should be seamless. But if not, let me know and I’ll help you get it fixed.
Thanks so much to Blogalicious Designs for my new design and all of their work on getting me transferred, and welcome to my new home!!!
I’m the first one to comment on your new site – yippee!! Looks great and, hopefully, it will accept my comment. Good luck with your new platform.
I love the makeover!!
I am just checking to see if it works. Tell Ali and Noah hello.
This is awesome — I haven’t commented in forever — not because I haven’t tried — but because I just couldn’t seem to get it to work. I’ve followed your blog each day, and I still love it just as much as ever. Congrats on Noah — I am so excited for you and can’t wait to read all about him when he gets here. Your pregnancy posts have really resonated with me — I’m expecting my first in February.
Love the new look!!!
Looks great!!!! :)
As you know, I’m a big WordPress fan. Congratulations on your new “baby” and let me know if you have any WP questions!
LOVE IT! I hope to make the change one day too….but I’m like you, I HATE change!
Change is scary! So proud of you for embracing it! Did you do it as a baby-step for the BIG CHANGE that is coming up? The site looks great! I’ll be sure to adjust my link.
Love the new look and glad that commenting will be easier now!
Love the new design!
Love the new look! =) I’m kinda itching for a new design on mine but I’m still happy to stay with blogger. You’ll have to tell us all about the pros and cons of switching though…I might eventually change my mind. *GRIN*
Wow, it looks really different! You are braver than I am! I tried to make the switch to wordpress but I couldn’t figure anything out. :P Maybe someday I will get some computer savvy and figure it out. One of my friends just had to create a new blog b/c blogger told her she was “out of space” and needed to purchase more. I will definitely switch to wordpress if that happens to me, but for now I’ll stay with the familiar and comfortable world of blogger. :) And I’ll let you work out all the wordpress kinks and give me hints later. Haha:)
Hey Rachel! I was wondering where you’d gotten to… because, yes, I do read you every day. :) Glad the transition went well!
Love the change. It loaded on my Android phone so fast!! I use to click on your site and then give it 5 minutes to load while I did something else.
I was slightly confuzzled at first, but then I remembered when I just changed the colors on mine last month….
Yay you!
Love the new digs! I need to do this myself and get rid of Blogger.
I am going to say that I am a little bit jealous of your change! Mostly its the commenting- I just wish that blogger would get on with the whole “reply” option on their comments. It is so nice to have a conversation that way.
However, I am not savvy enough to change over…. so I”ll wait awhile longer and live vicariously through you. ;)
I will also add (see how nicely I can add to my own comment?!) anyways, that this also explains why my dashboard is filling up with your last umpteen posts… Explains it all now…
woohoo! a great new look! though it makes me all disoriented, like I need to go and read the “real” grasping for objectivity. :) obviously, I hate change too. :)
Good God don’t leave it like this! The colour scheme is agonizing and makes it difficult to read. The lack of border is also painful:(
Really like the new format! I started with Blogger, but I’ve been with WordPress for almost a year now, and find that it’s got a lot more bells and whistles to play with, and once you get the basics down, it’s pretty easy to use. I do wish they’d leave the stats pages alone, they seem to keep changing them, for some reason. But overall, it’s a nice place to hang my hat(s).
I too am one of your loyal every-day-checking-in fans, but had found leaving comments to be awkward and sometimes impossible, so hadn’t done it in a while. I relish being able to come to your site and being invited so graciously into your “home”. Your daughter’s pictures are a highlight of my day because her smile is just so infectious!
Oh, I NEED to change to WordPress, but keep putting it off. Still researching to see if I can do it myself. LOVE the new look here. I know you’ll be glad you did this.
Love the new look! Love your blog. The only thing I would say is the bright purple makes it a bit hard to read. It hurts my eyes. Although, could be because I am practically blind as a bat :)
ch-ch-chaaaange. I like it. The purple is a little bright. I think I like the white font better than the black for your main posts.
But I don’t know if you wanted feedback on those things.
But the comment portion is MUCH easier here. :)
Congratulations on the switch! I love all the plugin options for wordpress. Let me know if you need any tips.
Wow! It’s like you are in HD! Congrats!
Mine’s in the works. I’ve got the content over there…just have to pull the trigger.
Change is good! But the color scheme is *really* hard to read – it hurts my eyes terribly :-(