I have to hand it to Apple. They’ve really spoon-fed me for years. I’ve had my own website for about 6 years now. And not the “Here are all our family photos for the 3 people on the planet who might be remotely interested in seeing them” website. Rather, this site was built for public consumption! Christianbedtimestories.com was built on the premise that parents need great stories to read to their children, that our society needs to return to the simple every now and then, and that children should be given the opportunity to return to childhood if even for 5 minutes at a time.

Well whadya know, my Mac just happened to have a wonderful program called iWeb, where you just type everything onto a fantastic template, drag some stuff over here, and drop in a picture over there. You hit the magical “publish” button and *poof* just like the magic in my stories, all sorts of great
and wonderful things would happen, fairy dust would fly around, and the page would be complete and viewable from North Alabama to Timbuktu. Just like that. The annual subscription for email with Mac came with one website host, but it was on Mac’s own servers, which meant it would have their long name, a slash, and then whatever you wanted to call your page. Being the fun girl that I am, I just knew that no one would want to go to www.wowthiswebsiteisreallylongandnoonewillrememberit.com/Sipps, so I decided I would dip my toe in the water of true website-land and get a domain. A Domain! Ooooo!

I remember when I first purchased the Domain. This is what the name of your website is – all the stuff that comes after www. I’d thought about what I wanted to name my site.  Karen’sWorldofFantasticStoriesYouWon’tWanttoPutDown.com. Hmmm.  GoTellAllYourFriendstoCometoThisSite.com Eh. How about pickmepickme.com? Nope, not right either. And then I thought: If I were a mom, and I were googling, why would I google Christian Bedtime Stories and then try to remember Karen’s website after I got there? Why can’t the two of them be the same? And so it was.

And then began the illustrious task of making the wowthiswebsiteisreallylong site point to Christianbedtimestories. And vice versa. Literally this one act alone was so traumatic that I can still picture me staying up all night one night trying to figure out which site to type in which square, with a chunk of ibuprofen set up beside me like a salt lick. I firmly believe that a section of my head that is missing some hair is in direct correlation to that day. So why am I telling you all of this? Well it seems that Apple, for who knows what reason, decided they just weren’t going to host web pages anymore, and that their iWeb application would not be supported. Oh heaven help.

A little background info about me… I have built diesel engines for a living, and have three technical degrees from some awesome Universities. I write just because I love to, for God’s glory, not my own. It brings me an immeasurable joy. I plan Disney vacations for my fantastic travel clients – I literally do have a magic wand that I wave over these trips to make them spectacular. I sell purses, and I teach others how to sell purses and support their families and put food on the table, and I love that I can do that. I train my team. I encourage, I reward, I celebrate life’s little victories. I build stuff. I paint. I read. I am artsy, and fun, I’ve watched the movie Elf 1,927 times, year-round and I am the mom that envisions myself in a 1950’s Audrey Hepburn dress, heels, and pearls with a pan full of cookies, and living life in a black and white sitcom.

I do not, however, know a plumb thing about the internet, web hosting, and how to rescue my website off a slowly sinking cyber-Titanic.

Several months ago, panic set in. I asked some friends what they were doing, and all I got were blank stares in return. They looked like I felt. I googled, and received lots of bobble-headed sympathy from those in my predicament, but no checklist of things to do. I listened to technical radio programs that tried to help me, but none of them had what I needed to know. For the folks who were using their webpages to post pictures of Great Uncle Ned pulling his bottom lip over his nose, they had long moved on to Facebook, and really didn’t have a need for that website anymore. For small businesses, they moved on to professional services who did the work for them, which was fine, because they could cover that expense with sales. But for me, it’s different. I’m not offering anything for sale, so I don’t have a chance to recoup that investment. I really did need to figure out what to do, and all I could see were more bald patches of scalp and an ibuprofen lick the size of my house in my future.

So this past Friday I discovered I really needed to get the lead out. My website was currently pointing to NOTHING. Eeewwww. Children going to bed with no stories? Oh, the humanity! So I sat down around 8:30 pm to determine I *would* make it happen, and it would happen that night, by golly! I put on a very serious face, and googled away. I finally found a golden nugget. It was an aha moment – I needed a web host! I thought I had this in my domain registrar (or as I call them: the ones who let me pick out a website name), but I finally figured out around 9:15, maybe 9:30 that I did not have a web host. (I equate this to years of telling yourself that the furry animal meowing and purring at your feet while you feed it kitten chow and break out the catnip, is in fact… a skunk.)

What a revelation. So I’m off to investigate the type of host I need. Finally, at 11:53 pm on Friday night, I am hooked up with an awesome host! Lo and behold, their service department is wide awake too! I tell the very nice gentleman that I’m clueless and inform him of what I’m trying to do, and that I read something about FTP, and does he know anything about that? And then, at midnight, I discover that FTP does not mean Fried Tomato Pies, or Fun Times w/Purses. Golden nugget #2.

(At this point, the ibuprofen lick is down to the size of an English pea, and I’ve developed a slight twitch in my left eye.) I hang up with Jim, and head off to look into FTP’s, feeling a bit like I’m standing in front of a shell game. Where are my files, where do they go, where they’ll stop, nobody knoooooows. I *think* FTP files are like a mannequin, in a department store. There are three people. Me, the FTPMannequin Molly, and WebHost Wanda. I give this file folder with stories and pictures, and lovely pretty things in a nice package to FTPMannequin Molly, who holds them in her hand with a happy plastic smile. WebHost Wanda talks to Mannequin Molly and grabs those files from her, and puts them on the web. My question is, does Molly still hold them in her hand ALL the time? Is she a control freak? Is Wanda holding them too? And if Molly takes a nap (i.e., goes down or is inaccessible) does Wanda still function, or does Wanda have some serious co-dependency issues that will never allow her to function on her own?

So that’s where I stand currently. Three full days, two new bald patches, a left eye twitch and I think I’m limping. If you can explain to me how Molly and Wanda interact, by all means, explain away. In the meantime, if you’re in the same predicament, you now know at the very least, that you need a domain, a web host, FTP, two friends named Wanda and Molly that won’t mind that you’ve named your nemeses after them and a new haircut to reshape your hair and cover the bald spots.

Go ahead and make that haircut appointment ahead of time, I’m 100% sure you’ll need it. And if you see me sporting a new bald patch that I earned in phase 2 of this project, please be a dear and tell me so I can make an appointment of my own.

XOXO,
~Karen