I am about to take the plunge and launch my new website. I gather people have been seeing dribs and drabs of it posted to social media here and there, but this next step involves cutting ties with my old site and jumping.
You might think this a fairly simple matter. It probably is.... but for the past few months as I've laboured away I have been feeling like such a dinosaur. I'm almost reluctant to jump now!
I've been designing this site myself, as one does here — learning new software, a new language, a new way of presenting information. It has been a tremendous learning curve — in more ways than one. . .
At one point in this process I spent an entire day simply trying to figure out how to create tabs and margins.
Seriously. An entire day.
"Go paint, play piano, do something else — you're making yourself crazy" — said my mother.
No. I had to get through this, I thought. The problem wasn't going to go away if I stopped working on it . . .
Finally, over dinner, and in tears, I sought the advice of my friend who always gives me the straight goods.
"Do something different" he said, showing me various social media sites on his cell. "Tabs are obsolete."
Finally something hit home.
I tease my friends with an old joke —
A guy hits his finger with a hammer.
"It hurts! he says
He does it again.
"It hurts! he says, again.
This goes on and on until he ends up at the doctor's office.
Doc says "So stop hitting your finger. Then it won't hurt."
I don't know about you, but I think most of us are a lot like that guy. We keep hammering on at things that hurt us until finally we realize that when we stop doing the things that cause us pain, the pain stops too.
So I listened to my friend and I stopped trying to create old fashioned layouts and embraced this new model. I don't know what you'll feel about it, but it's been quite an adventure. I hope you like where my new site takes you.