I’ve been hosting this website on GoDaddy for a couple of years now. No complaints with them, neither price nor service. I’ve had the domain for longer—I think five years, total—and I used to redirect to my old wordpress.com site.

Well, I decided it was time to empty the old blog. I kept the url in case I ever need to go back, but all the content has been deleted as of this morning. There was no tangible reason to delete it. The content moved with me to this domain, so it’s not like I was embarrassed of it. It was just sitting there unviewed. But you know, a need to start fresh has simmering below the surface, evident in the ebb and flow of my new projects. Shedding the old blog was a symbol, I guess, of releasing old and tired ideas and habits, of mental clutter.

When I checked my email this morning, I got the confirmation that WordPress had deleted my content as requested, along with the domain expiration notification from GoDaddy. I have to make this decision every time the domain expires, but this time it is really tempting to let it go and just not have a blog or a website at all. The social networking sites have the capability to add any content I wish, free of charge and light on maintenance. I haven’t been posting here much, anyway, because all my ramblings have occurred on Facebook or Google+.

I don’t know. I have a lot to think about. I daydream about deleting my entire internet presence (as much as I can) and starting over.

The next one I tried was called Dark Wood and I thought it was near-perfect. Elegant with whimsical touches, natural, tiny flowers next to each post title to fit my theme…but in the end it wasn’t customizable enough (for a code idiot like me) so I took it down. I might try it again later, though, if I don’t find anything else I like. The one I’m using now, called Arclite, is cute. I love the colors, and eventually can change the header to my own image. I’ve already brought along the CSS changes from the old blog to make the rollover links pink. For some reason I just love that.

Problems with this template: No nested comments; if I use the optional 2nd sidebar it squishes the main content too much; lots of people use it.

I could probably make a new header with my old flower, but I’m actually getting tired of the whole flower thing. I guess it’s a memorable title, Sherri Blossoms, with its play on “cherry blossoms,” but then I always have to have a flower, and flowers get boring if you look at them too much. I don’t know. Changing my blog is gut-wrenching. There are simply too many ways to go with it. Plus I love playing with it, so it eats up a LOT of my time.

The reason behind all this change is because I’m changing from the free WordPress hosting to GoDaddy’s paid hosting. They have a plan especially for WordPress users, where they do all the hard work of installing the WP open-source software on your site and changing your domain servers and such, and now I’m using an interface near-identical to the one I’m used to on the old WP blog. It even has the same options for themes and widgets, so changing the look is easier than a traditional website. I can’t recommend it enough. (And no, I won’t be in any GoDaddy commercials. One bimbo is all they need.)

One benefit I hadn’t considered with getting paid hosting is that the page seems to load faster than on the free one, so that’s good.

I feel like an expert now, on domain names and hosting and WordPress and stuff, so if you need any help with it, let me know. I don’t know much, but what I do know I know very well, as I’ve been over it a thousand times.

Thank you for all your input, folks. And thanks for following me around during my time of wandering. Now I have a lot to do today, so I won’t be around as much as usual. Don’t feel like I’m ignoring you. Have a great day.