And Now for the Rest of the Blogstory

This year marks the 13^th year of the creation Shalavee.com and I have blogged consistently monthly throughout those years. See last week’s story about beginning the blog Here. Many who were blogging before me or alongside me, have moved on from their blogs. Perhaps to a Substack account or otherwise in their careers; bloggers are a dying breed. Why? It’s not that we’re saying anything less relevant or necessary. It’s just about technology. Why have a typewriter if you can have a laptop?

Being a highly sensitive creative without proper boundaries and lacking tech savviness flavored many of my blogging years with stress and strife while I attempted to render Shalavee.com beautiful and functional without ads, ever. Non tech savvy me had a Viagra ad on the front page of my website once.

Know that I created my blog out in the hinterlands of .org self-hosting platforms while many people were in the country club environment of wordpress.com. I envied their community over there. The platform supported their community. But I wanted to make sure my content was mine. They didn’t outright own their own writing.

Finally, My Blog was Pretty

Eventually, I had a visually pleasing website. One where I wanted the words and the pictures to both be big and beautiful. But there were deeper darker subplots still playing out. I was on the receiving end of some nasty comments from people I knew. And my revamp began to happen during covid which meant it didn’t really happen well. The fun had died, and I withdrew into just doing the minimum of showing up once a week to write. And then the technology problems worsened. I had 6 months of posts just disappear one day.

So, for many years, I disallowed as much outside interaction as I would have loved. Either I wasn’t telling people enough to come and read or the website’s tech degradation around me made it harder to reach me. I was abandoned and shut down and without hope for quite a while. To think about losing my first born daughter hurt so very badly.

And Then I Said No More

At the end of last year, I decided that I was no longer going to be anyone’s victim anywhere. Feck That! And I began to look for a replacement for the people who had been hosting me rather unkindly. This was concurrent with my decision to drop my health insurance for the year to pay for a private education for my kid, Bioidentical Hormone Replacement therapy for me, and joining a women’s wealth educational course to right our money wrongs for good.  

Get Help When You Need It

That’s when I looked up another person to help with my giant screwed up sight and its rescue. And what do you know, she lived right here in my town. Got her master’s degree in blogging! Christy is awesome!

The longest story shortened, my site is now completely safe and being renovated. I am no longer feeling alone where I am and I am learning what it means to be smart and self-respecting of my words and my creativity. Both my first born daughter known as Shalavee.com, and myself are experiencing a revamp.

Looking forward to what I’ve begun to build with my hope, and that of others on my behalf.

One last thing, I opened up a Substack site too because I want it all. I want community and creativity and conversation. Find me now also at Shalagh’s Substack | Shalagh Hogan | Substack.