If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might have noticed that it looks a little different now than it used to. And it does look just the tiniest bit unlike itself – mostly some color and font changes, and new social media buttons, plus I’m missing some widgets on the righthand side. But as little as it’s changed, let me assure you, it took a whole lot of work to get there!

Last week, I secured a new web host for my domain, http://www.compassandquill.com, then a friend helped me figure out how to install WordPress.org. I had been getting a 403 whenever I tried to get to the admin panel, so since he’s a coder, he took some other steps and figured it out while I tried to keep my brain from melting. This area of tech is not my forte.

Anyway, once the domain was connected to WordPress.org, I uploaded a new template, then exported all content from my WordPress.com blog (compassandquill.wordpress.com) and imported it into the .org site. After that there was some more fancy footwork in the dashboard for making the template work for the information I had, then installing some plugins, like the ‘Follow’ button. The most important plugin thus far has been Jetpack, which allows me to have almost all of the great (free) amenities on the back end that a WordPress.com blog has, like site analytics. For me, the biggest reason to install Jetpack was to keep my followers. There are over 1,000 of you now, and it would suck to see you go! My posts should be showing up in your Reader, if all has gone as planned.

The last step was to purchase a site redirect, so that any time someone types in “compassandquill.wordpress.com” they’re taken straight here, instead. I’ll let that run for six months to a year, just to make sure that people can still find me (assuming someone is trying to do so).

Now the fun part begins. I was going to wait to take the blog live until I’d made all of the changes, but I missed it – and you – too much. So over the next few weeks, you’ll probably notice a little change here and a little change there as the new idea for the look and feel of the site begins to take place. I’ve spent A LOT of time thinking about how I need it to “act,” but I’m also going to be working with a designer friend of mine to make sure that the look is right, too. Thanks for your support as these changes come about!

XO,

A