You spend at least four hours working on a post you are excited to share with your readers.
It’s the one post a year that takes FOR-EVER, and that you say you probably won’t do again the following year (out of the sake of time), but you do. Because it’s fun to recap a whole year’s worth of recaps in one post and see what adventures this blog has captured over the last 365 days or so.
You stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to compile nearly 100 links (not an exaggeration) in celebration of this year’s Move-iversary. Three years ago, you and your husband uprooted your lives and moved across the country! To celebrate and look back on where life Up North has taken you, you gather all of your adventures into one post to look back on. The task is terribly tedious and annoying, but you do it anyways. Because it will all be worth digging and digging through the archives once you hit that Publish button.
As you get into covering the last couple of months, you click to save the draft… just in case. You haven’t been worried about it though, because you already have about fifteen versions of this said draft saved. You’ve been in the situation before where you’ve spent countless hours prepping a post and then – boom – like a smack to the face, it disappears into cyberspace. You feel like the Internet Gods are actually laughing at you, and you have no choice but to start again from square one. There’s no way that’s happening to this post. Not today!
But then it does.
As you are hovering over the “Save Draft” button, the Internet goes out. No worries though, you’ll just edit your preview and copy the HTML code to your clipboard. Worse case scenario, you can always just paste it into a new post altogether. You’ve done that countless times, and thank goodness, it works!
You copy the code. You go downstairs into the dark and unpleasant corner of the basement to reconnect to the Internet, and you wait the appropriate amount of time to try and connect from your computer again. It’s been several minutes, so why not give it a go. You move your mouse to the Wi-Fi connection button and your computer freezes. It just stops living.
At this point, you have all of your hard work strategically copied and nowhere to past it “just in case”. After countless attempts of placing your beloved posted draft in copied form somewhere, you face the inevitable. You restart the computer and hope for the best.
The computer comes back to life and you obviously hit “yes” to the “would you like to restore your previous session” prompt while opening Google Chrome. You log in to your blogging software and look… your post is there! You click over to edit it and scroll to see that it only saved about half of your work. Only half? Not going to fly.
So, you do what most would and try to paste the copied HTML version of the post into your draft. You can always click “Undo” if that doesn’t work. Paste. Nothing. Paste again. Nothing. Zip. Like that Blank Space T-Swift has been singing about. You click “Undo”. Nothing. You repeat that process about ten times and then feel defeated. Now, not only have you not successfully updated your draft, but you deleted the only “saved” half version of it.
You search the WordPress forums for what feels like hours and can’t crack the code. You try to contact them via phone and, apparently, that customer service doesn’t exist. You would send them an email for support, but that isn’t even available until the middle of next week. (What?)
You are in disbelief and then go into denial. You actually scream into a pillow. (It helps!) You open five more screens to do the same steps and only get the same results. It’s lost. You start to accept it, then you cry. It’s that dramatic, and you go between laughing about it with your husband to smacking your forehead wondering what the heck went wrong.
Then you feel bad for disappearing on the blog today, so you start writing this post…
Yup. That moment happened today. And I don’t even know what to do about it besides start a new post to share the story with you. Blogging has taken me on many exciting journeys, and I’m glad that you guys get to see the glamorous side of it with bubbly new posts and content week after week.
The not-so glamorous side? Mornings like today.
I don’t currently have time to re-do my work, so I thought this post would share a preview (or at least a giggle) towards some of the craziness that goes on behind the scenes around here. While I’m very thankful for the opportunities blogging has brought into my life, it can be a tricky and frustrating little business at times!
I’m leaving for a last-minute 5-day trip across the country tomorrow (whoo!) and planned to spend my entire day (outside of working at the gym) drafting posts to publish while I’m away. I’m off to do #allthethings and I am going to try my best to pretend like this morning didn’t happen.
Also, since we’re on the topic of blogging fails, there will be more sponsored content than normal coming up. I apologize for it all snowballing into one short period of time, and I hope you enjoy reading about some things I have been reviewing lately. I guess that’s just how the cookie is crumbling. But hey, next Monday includes a (delicious) giveaway!
So at least there’s that.
Here’s hoping your Wednesday is off to a better start than mine!
I’ll see you back here (if everything goes according to plan, of course) tomorrow morning. <3
![[in our elementary school era] 🚌😭
Skyler did great walking into KINDERGARTEN with a big smile on his face this morning. I, however, was a bit of a mess on our walk home. 🥹
It’s wild how fast these 5 years with him have gone … 7 since we moved to NYC and into our apartment, dreaming of the day our kids would someday go to the *awesome* school right down our block. 🏫
That day is today, and I still don’t believe it — feeling allll of the emotions and thanking God for placing us here and for being able to trust His timing through the journey. 🫶🏼 #hbshinnyc
SO proud of you, SK - you are going to rock your first year at your “big boy school” - WE LOVE YOU !! 🩵👑](https://lifeinleggings.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
oh no so sorry, happy blogiversary!!! I have so many problems blogging. I feel like a complete idiot some days. Then there are the internet issues and the fact that I am old and out of date. Keep your head up.
bakingrunner.blogspot.com
Sometimes even the help forums lose me. It’s crazy! Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
Gah, I know this feeling, on a different scale. I actually was working on a novel, and had written over 80 pages. Two days before finals, along with three essays due in that week, my hard drive crashed. I lost my novel and all of my essays for my finals. As an English major, it was devastating. I’m really sorry this happened to you! 🙁
Julia @ Lord Still Loves Me recently posted…WIAW: A Day in the Life of a Sophomore Resident Advisor
Oh my goodness, a novel? 80 pages? Yowza. I don’t know if I could bring myself to rewrite that many pages! Oh, technology.
Oh no!!! That happened to me in college with a 20 page paper, and when I talk about it, I STILL get anxiety over how horrible that feeling was. I also lost my college design portfolio to the cyber obis. Just relax and enjoy your vacation! We love all your posts anyway. 🙂
NO. That’s got to be so frustrated. Why does it always happen when you’re working on something very time consuming? Thanks Tanya!
Oh no!! I feel so bad for you!! However, I do think your post today turned out to be pretty good – it’s honest which I like. But it’s still too bad about the other post!!
Heidi Kokborg recently posted…My eating disorder story
Thanks Heidi! I appreciate you reading – even on the random days like today. 😉
The. WORST. I hate when that happens!! I think it happened to at least 2 of Lucas’s monthly recaps last year and I wanted to cry (and pretty sure I did lol). Have fun on your trip!
Courtney recently posted…15 of My All-Time Favorite Desserts
Ugh. So frustrating! I cried 3 times over it. Haha. Very dramatic, but it’s just a bad time to have post issues. I hope you were able to rewrite Lucas’s monthly recaps without too much annoyance behind the words. 😉 Thanks!
Oh Heather, I feel for you. That sounds like a horrendous turn of events, and yet, at least you got a post up today — which is quite entertaining, even if not what you had planned for us. No — not much about blogging behind the scenes is glamorous. Not at all. hahaha Hope you have safe travels across the country!!?? 🙂
Ashley @ A Lady Goes West recently posted…A look at some of my regular weekday meals
Haha, I honestly couldn’t believe it. I really thought someone was playing joke. Hopefully I’ll get around to rewriting it in the next couple of weeks. Thanks! I’m actually going out west, but not to Cali. 😉 Have a great week!
I can COMPLETELY relate to that! What a huge pain in the arse 🙁 I’m so sorry!! It’s so frustrating!
Nancy recently posted…Travel Essentials
I’ll survive. Thanks for checking in!
Oh no! There is nothing worse than spending so much time and effort on something and then *poof* all gone. 🙁
Right? You just start thinking about EVERYTHING else you could have done with your time. Hours and hours. Sheesh.
oooo I had one of those, and I said out loud “Are you F******* kidding me?!” and walked away. Couldn’t even bring myself to write it again or write about it. I was so mad. hahaha
Mary recently posted…Currently….
Aww, no fun! I thought WordPress had a pretty good recovery, but that is good to know that it doesn’t always work 🙁 I’m sorry about your start of your day!
Kristin recently posted…Notre Dame vs. Navy Football Game 2015
THE WORST!
A somewhat similar thing happened to me when I transferred blog servers…I foolishly did not back up my blog before transferring and when I opened up my blog to start a post I was back to square one, after 5 or so years of blogging history, my blog had vanished somewhere into cyber land. Boo!
I get your frustration, crying and yelling are definitely justified.
Cara’s Healthy Cravings recently posted…My New Hood (for now)
Oh my goodness, that is the ultimate WORST. I can’t even imagine how frustrated you must have been! I didn’t trust myself with the whole blog migration business, so I left it in the hands of a professional. That’s probably for the best!
I’m so sorry that happened! I’ve lost 10 hours worth of work before, for a client who needed it THAT day. It’s an awful feeling 🙁 Hope you have a good trip and that you can forget about it!
Alexandra @ My Urban Family recently posted…Free Quote Printables #2
Ugh, that sounds awful. But… the show must go on. I’m hoping to retype it all soon!
Oh my that is the worst! I’ve done that several times but sounds like that was a BIG post. So sorry! On another note, hope you have a blast on your cross country trip! Cross country like California?
Thanks Giselle! I’m actually going to Phoenix to visit some girlfriends, but we’re hoping to actually get out to Cali soon!
That’s the worst! I feel like I obsessively click save draft so much, and then the one time I need it it doesn’t save. So frustrating!
Janelle @ WhollyHealthy recently posted…5 Ways to Make Any Fitness Video Work For You
Oh no that’s the worse!! Once I typed a whole draft in WordPress and then it was just gone. I freaked and couldn’t figure out how to get it back. I now type all my drafts in Google Docs and add html & all that fun stuff after in WordPress.
Krystal // The Krystal Diaries recently posted…Fall Shopping Wish List
That’s a great strategy! #bloggerprobs