This past Friday, I celebrated the annual occurrence of Angela Breaks Her Blog when I realized that because I am an idiot, I didn't renew my domain name and hence it had been overtaken by a vile and probably very successful porn site. I would imagine that the moment that change took place, that URL instantly saw more traffic in one hour than it had seen in the previous year of its life. So, I wish it well, and have moved on to greener--or at least less morally corrupt--pastures.
In the general sense, I'm not terribly distraught by the situation. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I'm a little glad that this happened. It probably won't surprise too many of you to hear that I'd been seriously toying with the idea of throwing in the blogging towel. I recently read an interesting post about the death of a blogger, and will confess that a lot of the points mentioned hit very close to home. Almost all of the blogs that I was reading in the early years of this endeavor have fallen by the wayside or are only very infrequently updated. I've added some more wonderful blogs to my reading list over the past year and a half, but in the past few months I have been very unmotivated to invest the effort into finding new blogs to read and forming relationships with other bloggers like I did in years past.
I also managed to acquire a hateful little troll, hailing from the lovely city of Atlanta, Georgia according to a WHOIS search. A troll that felt entitled to peppering posts with nasty little comments and then becoming self-righteous and highly affronted each time I deleted one of her rude personal attacks without any response. Here's the thing commenters, if you're going to be horrid and hide behind a mask of anonymity, I have ZERO qualms about deleting and blocking your hideous little self. So, anyway, moral of the story, by changing my URL maybe I've managed to shake her, and if not, recent IP blocks seem to have taken care of the issue anyway.
All this to say, I was beginning to feel that maybe a blog just wasn't in the cards for me anymore, and that I would quietly close down operations without fanfare and slip into oblivion. Then my blog went kaput of its own volition, I felt a little relieved for a nanosecond, and then immediately thought of approximately fourteen things that I had been meaning to blog about and realized that no, I'm not ready to give this up quite yet.
So, here I am, all moved into my new digs. I'm sending out change of address cards, updating my address with the internet postal service, and hoping that everyone can come along for the ride. I'm still working through the standard move-in kinks--for example, why on earth have all of the photos in my posts vanished?? And why did my little favicon disappear?? That didn't happen the last time I changed URLs! But I think this was the shake up I needed to get back on track with the blogging world, and I'm looking forward to becoming a more active member of blogging society once more and kicking things up a notch around here!
I've actually been considering throwing in the blogging towel myself, sometimes it feels like more work than it's worth! But I always change my mind and I'm glad you changed yours, too! :)
Posted by: Jenn | May 03, 2009 at 08:35 PM
Smarty pants! You didn't even need me!
Heidi had her baby at about seven this morning! I have been fighting off a cold so I won't be seeing her today (and now I don't have to worry about giving YOU the cold!)
Everything looks perfect!
xo
Posted by: RisibleGirl | May 03, 2009 at 08:35 PM
I'm glad to see you're back!!
Posted by: shelikestotravel | May 03, 2009 at 09:00 PM
I love how people have this completely foolish idea that by keeping a website, they are entitled to give their nasty opinions on what you say.
Posted by: slynnro | May 03, 2009 at 09:57 PM
Happy new blog home! When I moved my blog all of my photo links broke because the permalinks were tied to the old URL (or something like that) -- it as also typepad. Eh, don't worry about it.
I find it shocking that you had a troll... but I guess there are enough hateful people to go around to even the nicest people.
Posted by: Operation Pink Herring | May 03, 2009 at 10:16 PM
woo! And your favicon is present and accounted for.
Posted by: maggie | May 03, 2009 at 10:47 PM
Thank goodness!
Posted by: Brittany | May 03, 2009 at 11:50 PM
So glad to see you back...'twas a very sad day when this site did not exist anymore!
Posted by: Caro | May 04, 2009 at 12:30 AM
Glad you're still here! And cool new domain :)
Posted by: Larissa | May 04, 2009 at 01:43 AM
Hello and welcome back :) I have been tossing around the blog idea again...I don't know how you do it between work, school, and the family!
And, maybe some day the mean people will get sick of wasting their time?
Posted by: Katie | May 04, 2009 at 02:30 AM
Awww ... I totally changed my mind. I'm glad you haven't--yet--but if/when you do, I hope you keep Twitter!
Posted by: Lynn | May 04, 2009 at 02:48 AM
Trolls suck. You want I should beat her up??
Anyway, glad you are still here--even though I am in the "by the wayside" category myself.
Posted by: sophie | May 04, 2009 at 02:49 AM
It is so funny what parallel paths we've been on in blog land really. We've blogged about the same amount of time, and what you've written could have come out of my mouth...or keyboard that is. I loved that link too--I think that's my issue. I've let decay set in by not posting enough and I need to simply blog if I'm going to have a blog! Glad you got this fixed and hope to see you around more too!
Posted by: Steph. | May 04, 2009 at 04:22 AM
I'm still here...and hoping you shook the troll :-)
Posted by: A Super Girl | May 04, 2009 at 05:04 AM
Yay, you're back!
Posted by: shani | May 04, 2009 at 05:24 AM
Glad you are back to blog world! You've been missed!
And sorry to hear about the psycho! It just shows you that there are lots of weirdos out there!
Posted by: Jass | May 04, 2009 at 04:46 PM
You need to keep this going just so I feel like a part of you is here with me:)
Posted by: The Incubator | May 04, 2009 at 05:16 PM
Ah, I was wondering what had happened. Glad you didn't give up completely though. I'm in the same midnset as you in that the energy isn't what it used to be, but I don't want to give it up...yet. As soon as I think of it, a "real lifer" will say how much they love reading it and keeping up with what's going on with me.
Posted by: Becky | May 05, 2009 at 12:55 AM
I'm very happy to hear you're not throwing in the towel just yet.
Posted by: Fraulein N | May 05, 2009 at 01:05 AM
Dude sorry about the porn thing. It's kind of funny, in a not-funny sort of way, I suppose.
Glad you're still here. Heart you!
Posted by: Kateastrophe | May 05, 2009 at 01:43 AM
Funny - well, not funny, actually - about the porn, but it reminded me that I have a half-written post about how quickly porn can take over your site, and now I need to dig it up and finish it.
Ah, well, looks like your site made the transition swimmingly! Glad you haven't given it up completely.
Posted by: wordnerd | May 05, 2009 at 05:16 AM
Sorry about the "old blog" and the nasty troll--here's to your recovery and future success in your new digs.
Posted by: Kate P | May 05, 2009 at 06:31 AM
that is so bizarre that your url was taken over so quickly, but glad you're still here :)
Posted by: katelin | May 05, 2009 at 06:54 AM