This is day one of the Magic Up Your Life Blog Challenge.  When I signed up for this challenge I had a decent looking blog/website.  Since I had recently recommitted to blogging more consistently after a rather long dry spell I felt signing up for this would help support me in following through on that new commitment.  And I also hoped to connect with other spiritual badass and magic making bloggers.  It felt like this challenge came at just the perfect time and spirit was moving to support my renewed commitment.

A few days after signing up Mr. Beloved accidentally deleted my site. No I didn’t kill him.  Twenty seven years is too much of an investment.  In the time we’ve been together I’ve known him to do a few stupid things like this (God knows I’ve done my fair share of stupid things too), but I also know he does so much more right and has a heart of gold.  Perspective is everything.  I knew he already felt terrible, and when you’re willing to look deeper there is always a blessing to unfold in such challenges. So honey…I love you and this site is going to be beautiful again…and have some other capabilities it didn’t have before.

I had hoped to have my blog more or less restored by the time this challenge started…at the very least I hoped to have it looking and performing better than it is at the moment.  I considered giving myself a free pass to not do the challenge.  It may even make more sense to just focus on getting the blog all straightened out…right?  It would definitely be easier and more in my comfort zone to fix things behind the scenes and then worry about getting back to blogging later.  That would be my typical MO.  But the other reason I wanted to do this challenge was to push myself to show up and be willing to be more visible. That doesn’t happen behind closed doors.

So I’m flinging the doors wide open and inviting you to follow along as I figure out where and how to go from here. You get to see the before and the after. People love before and after stories right? The before is this:

1. managed to salvage the written content only (huge blessing this part was not lost)
2. the links no longer work
3. all my beautiful images have vanished and need to be replaced (thankfully most if not all of these are saved on an external hard drive and restore-able)
4. navigation is a mess
5. sign up box is no more…need to replace this pronto
6. other bits and pieces missing …like my free downloads.
7. Ugly Fugly!!!

I’ve been a little stuck (okay a lot stuck) with finding the right theme.  I loved  how it used to look.  I always got a lot of compliment about the site’s appearance. Ideally I’d like my site to look and feel basically the way it did before, but more responsive, load faster (I’m an artist…and so the way it showcases images is vital).  Oh geez! I’ll not bore you with the long list. I’ll simply say it needs to be easily customizable. I’m having some trouble envisioning how to adapt my old look into a new format.  Specifically I have some images of Gratitude and me I want to incorporate in a way that makes sense.  Previously these images were used in my sliding door navigation.

Oh and for our new visitors Gratitude and I are in the middle of writing a book called Gratitude’s Journey together. She came to my rescue five years ago, during the second week of my ARTbundance™ Certification Training program, when I was stumped with how to proceed with an ARTsignment™, which I need to complete for certification.  In fact the seeds for the book we are presently working on first began in a  more humble form as that ARTsignment™.  So over the last five years Gratitude has become a dependable friend, creative muse, and business partner.  She’s taught me a lot about what it means to live a Great Full Life.  We invite you to join us as we continue our journey to living a meaningful life every day.