Okay, I lie. I didn't decide to shut it down. It was decided for me. My blog disappeared. And I nearly passed out with horror.
A couple of weeks ago I had to renew my ownership of 'kerrisackville.com', and decided I may as well link my blog to that domain name; after all, it's much easier to tell people I blog at 'kerrisackville.com' than it is to say 'lifeandothercrises'. No-one can spell 'crises'. I should have thought of that at the time.
Anyway, I had not the faintest idea how to link my blog to the domain name. After several fruitless enquiries, I asked the most tech-savvy blogger I know, the magnificent Eden of Edenland. She got back to me back quickly, explained that it was dead easy to do - that I could do it myself via my blog's dashboard - but that she would email me detailed instructions shortly.
I should have waited for the instructions. I really should have waited.
Instead, I launched straight in. I logged into my blog, typed 'kerrisackville.com' into 'divert to', and voila! My settings were saved. I logged out of my blog, and typed 'kerrisackville.com' into the keyboard.
"Welcome to Kerrisackville.com" the page announced, in big, bold type. Ads for Go Daddy lined the page. There was no Life And Other Crises. There was just chaos.
SHIT, I thought. I quickly typed in 'lifeandothercrises'.
Nothing. There was NOTHING. I nearly vomited on my computer.
For the next fifteen minutes I typed 'kerrisackville.com' and 'lifeandothercrises' into my keyboard a thousand times. The result was always the same. MY BLOG HAD GONE. I broke out in a cold sweat and my heart started to thump sickly in my chest.
Oh my dear god. What have I done???
Suddenly, I had a revelation. I'll call Go Daddy, I thought. They'll fix it.
I called the helpline, and to my enormous relief, a real life person answered.
"Hello, this is Eric, how can I help you?" he asked (or something like that, I was hyperventilating at the time which made it hard to concentrate).
"My blog's gone!" I cried (or something deeply distressed like that).
"I can fix it," he said reassuringly, and I felt immediately better. Helpful Eric asked some questions and typed some things into his computer (I could hear the clicking through my tears). And then he said the words I'd been longing to hear.
"I'm sorry Kerri. I've got some bad news."
WHAT? Those weren't the words I'd been longing to hear. Not even close!!!
"Sometimes," said Eric kindly, "we have to let things go. How long have you had the blog? Because I think you need to accept that it's gone forever."
I am not even slightly kidding. Eric really did say that. And I started to shake.
"You are not saying that to me!" I yelled at him. "I do not want to hear that!"
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I've never seen this before and I don't know how it happened but somehow 'kerrisackville.com' has been diverted to 'lifeandothercrises' and 'lifeandothercrises' has been diverted to 'kerrisackville.com' and I can't do anything about it."
I collapsed in my seat. My blog. My precious blog. And I hadn't backed it up!
"But... but...." I whimpered.
"Maybe you can ring Blogspot?" Nice Eric suggested. "But I really don't think they'll be able to help you either. I'm so sorry."
"I'm not hearing that!" I screamed. But still, I pulled over my iPad to check for the Blogspot contact details.
And then I saw it. My iPad was still logged into my blog site. With Empathic Eric consoling me on the line, I navigated to the dashboard, removed the diversion and restored my blog to normal.
I restored my blog to normal!
I sobbed with relief down the phone to Pleasant Eric, who then installed the link to my domain name, as I praised the gods of iPads and dashboards.
So now, if you type in kerrisackville.com, you will get to this blog. And I am deeply grateful to have my Crises back. For one thing, I am very proud of my work.
For another thing, I don't know the first thing about Home Shopping.
