Holy smokes I’ve had a good week.
My niece and her family were here most of last week and our time together was delightful. They’re a nice family who follows directions well. I asked them to treat our home like an AirBnB, making themselves comfortable and at home because I wasn’t going to wait on them. I wanted them to know they had our blanket permission to use, eat, or do anything that struck their fancy while they were here.
They excelled at that. By the time they left, they earned a whole boatload of great guest points. I wasn’t exhausted by their visit because they pitched in with all the cooking and cleaning as well as the leisure activities. The visit was way too short, but I think everyone was refreshed by spending time in the winter sun in Florida.
As regular readers know, I’ve been contemplating closing down this blog because the cost to renew hosting it after the initial, discounted price I got for the first two years is prohibitive. I’ve been vacillating between taking it down and continuing it for a number of reasons, with the most compelling issue being cost. But it didn’t feel right to just quit. Factor into the mix that 1) Randy’s website (ourhighplaces.com) was also due for renewal at the same prohibitive cost, 2) I bought another domain name (lifeinrotonda.com) a few months ago and have been pondering what, exactly, to do with that opportunity, and 3) I bought the domain name grathen.us a few days ago on impulse after talking to my brother-in-law, who owns grathen.com. So now I wasn’t just thinking about what to do with 68andcounting.com, I was trying to find a way to do something with 4 different domains. Finally, I’ve been mulling over some other writing so I wondered how I could incorporate that into any future with the domains I already owned.
Randy hasn’t posted anything new on his website for months, but his Facebook page is growing a lot. He tries to keep his website fresh by reposting old stories, in essence moving them from the bottom of the pile to the top again. He’s not ready to close it down but didn’t like the idea of paying $600 to keep it active either. Together, keeping the 2 websites up was going to be about $1,200 with the current host.
I did a lot of research on what our options are. Moving the sites to another host was certainly a possibility, but would be a lot of work because our current host doesn’t offer a way to convert to other platforms or formats. Everything would have to be recreated. I knew all about that 2 years ago when we made the initial decision to host with an inexpensive web company. Being retired with lots of time helped make that a minor factor in the decision we need to make now.
One morning I woke up and thought I had the “right” answer. I’d combine all the websites under grathen.us and we’d have the other 3 sites as subsites in that one. I found what I thought was a good deal and bought hosting for that domain for 3 years ($156). The next day I noticed that the same host (Bluehost, which I’d worked with before) had another hosting package deal — 3 websites for $143.64. Wow! Hard to pass that up so I bought that package hosting for 3 more websites. All in all, for under $300 (as opposed to $1,200 for 2 sites for 2 years) we would have 4 sites up for 3 years.
You know that feeling you get when you’re grappling with some choice and the deciding is really hard? It’s such an unsettled feeling. But when the RIGHT decision presents itself, you have peace about it. In addition to solving the current indecision with our retirement endeavors, buying hosting for 4 sites for 3 year at a bargain price presents opportunities that I’ve been thinking about for months (years, in one case, which you’ll hear more about soon). I had that peaceful, easy feelin’ the Eagles sang about in their 1972 song, though not for the same reasons as theirs.
After our guests left I started to design both mine and Randy’s websites with WordPress. I worked with WordPress in the past when I had the thinking2stepsahead.com website. It was a bit of a struggle to get back to it since it’s changed some, but I felt a surprising and satisfying feeling of accomplishment that I kinda, sorta, knew what I was doing and was able to make things work. And since I’m a fan of lifelong learning, I was actually having fun. It felt amazing to be able to pull it all together and watch the replacement websites take shape.
That accomplished feeling morphed into an almost overwhelming, very physically tangible, wave of happiness. I woke up Sunday morning and was in love with living in Florida, my life right now, the things I’d achieved the past few of weeks, how I felt physically, the anticipation of tackling some worthwhile projects over the next weeks, and the world in general. It felt wonderful to be alive. How cool is it to feel so happy!???
It’s Monday as I write this and I’m still feeling great, full of hope and anticipation of the bright future. It feels like I’ve turned a corner, or got a new beginning, on the rest of my life this morning. And I’m here to tell you, it is FANTASTIC.
I wish feeling this way for all of you. Why not share the wealth? Be blessed and happy, everyone!
P.S. Because I was feeling so good this morning (Monday, as I write this) I tackled a few household administration issues. I called Xfinity about our internet billing. I’ve been dreading that because dealing with Xfinity on the phone is pretty close to hell on earth. But our 2-year “deal” expired this month and the cost of the internet went from $30 to $76 per month. My happiness must have rubbed off on Jason, the nice young man who answered my call. When all was said and done, my internet bill for the next year will be $31.05 per month. Score! I’ll deal with the next increase when it gets here.
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