Six Easy Steps

When you see “Six Easy Steps” for anything…beware.  It is my experience that there will be many more steps than six and they will be anything but easy.  My case in point here would be the most recent experience I have had with putting this blogging website together.

Here is how it went:

1. First order of business:  Brainstorm about what my domain should be and start creating a list of all the wonderful posts that are floating around in my head. This was the most pleasurable and easiest step of all.  My husband and I came up with Jomommasfancyflytes over a Mother’s Day lunch in Tubac—We had a fabulous time in  this historic place and the food was marvelous. More about Tubac later as it deserves its own post.  We dined, and dreamed, and schemed, and just waxed eloquent about my new adventure! Step one a piece of cake!

   

    

2. Purchase a domain-jomommasfancyflytes it is!
3. Pick a theme and purchase along with Genesis, the framework thing….my understanding is that the theme is the pretty part of the car, and the framework is the chassis…DONE and beginning to not be so easy to understand.
4. Get a host for the website.  I did a little research…and all along I am reading articles and small e-books about doing all this stuff.  So, Hostgator is my choice which is okay because that is where I shopped for the domain.  It just made sense. Oh, and this is where I was able to pick up an extra domain and my personal server.  Next thing I know,  the wheels on my new chassis sort of fall off.  I did not know that I bought a server (personal one for a whole year) until I hit purchase at the bottom of the page, and realized I clicked the wrong button.  Thankfully, Hostgator is used to dealing with idiots, and was very prompt about cancelling the purchase and refunding me my $2000. It is not like I had been offered a cabinet position…just want my own blog!
5. NEXT-Cozy up to Word Press and pick your poison, .com or .org. It is  .org because I might want other options down the road.  Yet, it is getting a little murky here as I am wondering what “down the road future ” is in store for the likes of me?
6. Step six should have been the really fun part where I add my own content to the theme.  Tell me why it is called a “Child Theme”? Trying to figure out where to go, what to do, how to work the widgets and the plugins was quite daunting.  It was like buying a piece of furniture at Ikea, unpacking all the pieces, lining up the parts to match the picture, and then you find that there are 3 screws and several washers missing.  BIG aha, the instructions  are in Japanese…on the front of the page; they are in Russian on the back!
7. This is where I admitted my lack of technical savvy and called in the troops, starting with my genius grandson Ian.  He was smart enough to make himself an administrator on the school district’s network so I am thinking that my little project would be easy peasy.  Since Ian does not need pesky instructions, I figured he would plow through my deadlock! Well, he did jump right in clicking,  adding code, and rearranging…my sweet genius left me in the dust and bewildered.  Nano, as the grand  kids call me, just could not keep up….not the kid’s fault as it turns out he speaks Russian.

   

It should be obvious that 6 easy steps just will not work here, and the story is way too vast,  and there are way too many steps to cover in one post.  So, if you are still interested, check out Part TWO…or if you find that the destination is more important than the journey, this blog may not be your cup of tea.  After all for me, “the journey is what it is all about”!