This is a little fun task created by Ruth of synch-ro-ni-zing She is interested in how people came up with the name for their blog.   Quite a few bloggers will be posting their story today – 1.12.09.  I guess I could be one of the first to post as I’m UK time.  Anyway, here’s my entry.

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A bit higher….over to the left a bit….Ooooooh lovely….Down a bit…a bit more… Oh that’s right…. Now up a bit…. right a bit……. ohhhh, a tiny bit more……

My sisters and I would fulfil this duty on a regular basis.  We enjoyed that little bit of one to one time with our mother.  We were able to give her so much pleasure, with no real effort on our part and she loved it so much.

While watching television in the evening was usually the time I would hear the familiar “Scratch-backs?”  My mother would be sitting there with a wide smile on her face.  I would jump up and head over to her as she sat expectantly, leaning forward in readiness.  Up and down, up and down, I would gently scratch her back following her instructions and giggling as I went.  “You are like a little beetle running all over my back”, she laughingly said.  “I think I’ll call you Beetle.”

She had pet names for all of us girls, but each for different reasons.  Beetle remained my ‘Scratch-back’ name and 30 years on my mother still used it at times.

All these years later, and my mother no longer with us, I decided to create a family blog.  It seemed like a nice touch to use the name ‘Beetle’, for mum.  I called it ‘Beetle’s Blog’  I used an image of a large beetle then.  Like a stag beetle, but an orange colour.

After a while I started to get readers other than family so I needed to re-think where my blog was heading.  As I wrote about my memories of growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, and because I also rambled on about other stuff, I added ‘Memories ‘n’ Ramblings.  I changed the beetle to a ladybird as I thought it more suitable for a female.

There you have it ‘Beetle’s Memories ‘n’ Ramblings’  Had I known how my blogging would pan out, I think I might have chosen something else, though I have no idea what.

Note:  The lovely macro shot of the ladybird was taken by Jay of ‘thedeppeffect‘ and she very kindly allowed me to use it on my blog.

Life is beginning to get back into some sort of order now, though it will never be the same again.   Sindie was such a huge part of our lives, and a huge personality. She will always be missed.

As the post title says, I’m climbing back into the saddle.  I will be getting back to blogging properly now, not that I know what ‘proper’ blogging is.  I’ll also attempt to catch up with Entrecard again.  I apologise to all my advertisers and droppers but I haven’t dropped or advertised in weeks!  It will be like starting over.

I do have a post lined up but I’m waiting for Mo to pose for photos – Well you don’t expect me to pose do you?

I’ve arrived!

I won’t bore you with all the details but a new support chap did, in half an hour, what should have been done in the first place.  I am thrilled to tell you (with my flowers) that I am finally at my new cyberhome!  Better still.  They have now made beetle-blog my main domain again.  Now I can get back to blogging!

YIPPEE!  Hippity hop….hippity hop….

1. You could see a Happy Bunny Doodle
2. You could see an Ecstatic Doodle
   
3. You could see a Stressed Out Doodle
4. Or you could just see an error page

I am getting ready to change hosts, and as my new host will be moving my site over for me, it should go smoothly.  I have no idea what to expect, or how long it will be offline – if at all.

I am glad to say that I have been able to keep my domain name, though who will hold that seems confusing at the moment.   Does this mean that there won’t be any change to my feed URL?  I do hope so.  One other good thing is that they have already given me a full refund of this years fee.

I hope it will go seamlessly, but please be patient if it goes down for a while.  It could happen today, or it could be early next week, I really don’t know how soon my existing host will act, though the refund came pleasantly fast – and I didn’t even ask for one!

Wish me luck on my journey to a better place.

Yes I am!

If you read my previous post you will know the possible horrors of Wordpress updates, and some of you will know that I have had quite a bit of ‘down’ time with my host.  In fact last night my blog was down again for several hours!    While I was searching for something I came across a ‘10 best hosting’ site.  My host was in the list and ranked 6th. Not good, but when I read the reviews it was a real eye-opener.  Not one good review.  All complaining at the down time, all said it had lousy support and ALL asking what on earth they were doing in the top ten list!

I had just renewed my subscription, so was not happy. Out of interest I looked at the No. 1 spot (JustHost) – Wow!  No down time, no complaints, brilliant support, domain name, all unlimited, and all of this for a mere £2.95 ($1.767) a month.  I was sold at that point, but then I read it………

The one thing that would finally sell it to me.  For just £9.95 a year they would make a daily backup of my complete site, and should I mess anything up, they would take it back a day for me.  That’s right.  THEY. WOULD. DO. IT. FOR. ME!

NO MORE STRESSED OUT DOODLES!

What was a girl supposed to do?  How could I not sign up for this?  I did some more searching and couldn’t find a single negative comment about them.  It was all good.

I know a lot of you are Blogger people, but humour me, please.  This is good news!

New domain name
Unfortunately when I leave my host I have to leave the domain name, but I have plenty of time to ease everyone over to the new one (beetles-blog.com).  I shall be running both for a while yet, and will probably have a re-direct.  I will let you all know once it’s up and running on the new server.

I’m a happy bunny…..I’m a happy bunny….They will do it for me….. *dances the happy dance*

I’ve been putting off upgrading my Wordpress for ages.  Every time I post something I see the ‘Update’ message, so tonight I decided I’d better do it.  I use the ‘Automatic Upgrade’ plug-in that makes it a breeze.  Well usually it makes it a breeze.

I carefully followed all the instructions at each stage.  All of you who run Wordpress blogs know how stressful upgrading can be.  It backed up my database, it deactivated the plugins, it upgraded and it was all going without a hitch.  Once it had run it’s course it said it was about to activate all the plugins again.  Great!  It was all done and I could breath easy again.

Well I wasn’t going to breath easy for a while yet.  It froze up in maintenance mode and I couldn’t get into my blog. Never mind there was a contact button for just such problems.  I clicked it and was directed to a ‘404 This page does not exist’ page.  Brilliant!  Now what?  I searched until I found a forum, and it appears I was not the only one to have this problem.  I finally replaced the ‘index php’ with the backed up file and managed to get back into my blog.  I then had to re-activate all the plugins manually.

I’m finally running the latest Wordpress version but dread upgrading it the next time.  Have any of you had this problem, or is it just me?

Do you remember I had to zap my feed reader from all the posts that had queued up?  Well I started afresh and was finding reading and commenting enjoyable and stress free – for a day or two, at least.

I am having major problems with my connection and now it is anything BUT stress free!  I go down at least once a day, sometimes more.  When I am up, it is very unstable and the speed fluctuates between normal and about 11kps at it’s worst!  Yes, I said 11kps!  I can use email, albeit slowly, but browsing is impossible.

Please be patient with me as I may not be around as much as I would like.  I may not be commenting but I do a lot of reading in my feed reader.  It doesn’t need the same connection speed as the blogs.

I may be posting a little home video next – speed allowing.  I’m working on it.

I’m very sorry that I haven’t been around much lately.  Since we had the health scare it’s been hard for me to get back into blogging and commenting on posts as much as usual.  I’m sure I will soon, but please be patient with me.

I look at my feed list and it’s so daunting at the moment.  So many posts to read that I put it off until tomorrow.  Tomorrow comes and the numbers are even higher!   I think the only answer is to empty it and start afresh with ‘NIL’ posts to read.  Maybe then I can get my head around it!  Either you are all posting too often, or I am getting a bit slow in reading and commenting!

Sorry if I miss any real gems in doing this, but I have to do something!!  The bigger the mountain gets, the less inclined I am to climb it!  I’ve only got little legs.

Here we go then ….. 1 …. 2 …… 3 …… zaaaapppp!

I’m sorry!

I have thought long and hard about whether I want to stay with Entrecard.  I have read lots of posts and comments from disgruntled users, and although I do agree with a lot of what they say, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t my place to say what Entrecard should or shouldn’t do with their company.

Entrecard has been great for bringing bloggers together and bringing extra traffic to our blogs.  It, no doubt, has been responsible for some of my readers and I think I may have even found the odd blog through it, though it’s doubtful.  Maybe I’m not the usual Entrecarder, because most of the blogs I read, I found through comments on mine, or other blogs.  If the comment interested me, I clicked through to the blog.  Blogs have their own means of networking and maybe we have allowed the use of Entrecard to fog that.  If you enjoyed reading a post and leave a comment, you have a list of bloggers that also found it enjoyable enough to comment.  There you have a list of like minded bloggers to check out.  I have found some real gems this way.

We seem to be caught up in this ‘reading and rushing off to the next blog in order to drop 300 EC’s’ cycle.  This takes away the quality of our blogging time.  I would rather spend time enjoying, and getting involved in the blogs I read than be governed by numbers.  Ultimately I want my blogging to be stress free and enjoyable.  Most social networking sites bring with them a little unwanted pressure, but Entrecard brings the most pressure for me, because it’s a constant, daily pressure.

Since Entrecard have moved over to paid ads I saw little point in staying.  My credit advertisers dropped off completely – and who can blame them? My drops dwindled, and to be honest, though I’m still dropping my 300 a day, I find myself saying “Why am I doing this?”

Entrecard have every right to steer their company in whatever direction they wish.  It’s their company, but recently events have made me seriously question their steering abilities and the methods used.  Now is the time for Entrecard and I to part company.

Now the unnerving part.

I will go back to the methods I used when I had no idea what those 125×125 widgets were for – Reading, commenting and following links.  I know I’m running the risk of possibly losing some readers, along with the Entrecard traffic.  I sincerely hope not.  I always subscribe to blogs I read anyway, so I will not lose any of you.  If you want to continue to drop by my blog, and I hope that you do, I would ask you to please subscribe, or bookmark me.  You can always find me on other networking sites, and I’m active on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account, please friend me, or you can follow me on Twitter.

I will leave this post up for a while as I want to give people a chance to see it.  The widget will also stay up until the remaining ads have run their course.

It’s been good and I’m thankful for the people that Entrecard sent my way, but now is the time to remove the stabilizers and enjoy the ride.  I hope you’ll come with me.

Last week, something happened and I said to Mo “I’ll blog this”.  A day or so later something else occurred and I said the same thing.  I had plenty of material just waiting for the moment.

When the time came to write the post, my mind went blank.  It’s still blank. It’s been blank for a week now!  I have no idea what was so interesting that it deserved publishing here, all I know is that it’s lost forever now.

Those who know me personally would probably say “Your mind’s gone blank? Nothing new there then”  I have often been talking to someone and gone to mention, either a family member, or a close friends name and just stopped mid sentence, waiting for a prompt.  Thankfully I usually get one, though it has been known for me to have to give an account of the person’s (with the increasingly elusive name) life story – including their family tree, before the person I’m speaking to prompts me!  Whatever possessed me to start a blog?  Who was I kidding, that I would be able to hold stuff in my head for long enough?

To be really honest, I have a very good memory.  I can even remember expressions on peoples faces, where they were in the room in relation to me – I can see every little thing quite clearly.  It’s like watching a recording playing back in my head.  I can see things that happened forty years ago just as clearly! Why can’t I remember little things that happened just last week then?

Oh, I almost forgot.  The purpose of this is to tell you – Sorry, no post today ;O)