Winding Down

All the email that had been stored on Yahoo now has been transfered to my external HDD. The Yahoo Group mail is archived so that I did last. It was all the personal email from friends and family that I wanted to archive. Everything else can be found online one way or the other. But I got all of it done. I feel better having done that.

I invited my gmail address to all the groups I own or moderate and changed the admin settings and went on no-mail for auntyalias@gmail.com . A "just in case" preparation because once I lose this land line and DSL all my Yahoo stuff will go with it. I really regret going for that AT&T/Yahoo partnership set up. I couldn't find any email that said I had a choice. It just sort of happened to those of us who use PacBell.

My website is backed up. In January I have to renew two domains and pay for my web hosting. I wrote to my contact at the webhost asking if I could go month to month while things are slim financially. If I can do that then maybe I can afford to renew the three domains (Norajean.com, Norajean-Designs.com and CITY-Lists.com) when they come up.

I posted the SOS to my website.

Now that I have the "virtual" house in order I look to the future, as uncertain as it might be. I have this attachment to the email I've exchanged with my friends and family. Back in the day we wrote letters to each other, had paper we could hold in our hands, something for our children and grandchildren to refer to. Now the exchanges are digital saving one's history is a technical challenge.

Push come to shove I'll do all I can to save the NoraJean.com domain. Even if I lose the webhost I can get another and reload my website when the finances are better. I might have to take a couple of steps backwards but I feel confident that I can regroup, no matter what.

I've gone through worse than losing an apartment. I've had practice in taking the big tumble when money dries up like a shallow pond during a drought. One just has to be determined to get back up, dust oneself off, and say, "Well that was real." and keep on moving on.

Where I'll end up if I lose this apartment I have no idea. I got a couple of girlfriends out of state who have said, "Come live with me until you're 62 and then get early retirement." I'm 60 1/2 now. That's not a long time to be obachan at a girlfriend's crib. I do cook well and am good company.

Even when I was young and marketable I couldn't get some guy to help out, not very much anyway, not with a couple of kids to take care of, so not being particularly marketable now to someone doesn't strike me as anything odd. Not really.

I am peaceful now that I have my email archived and organized. I've started sending out email to my Moderator teams on the Yahoo Groups, giving them the head's up that I might go MIA for a bit. That's why I am glad there are other co-owners who can look after the subscribers.

I'm so totally glad I have this blog as a back up and I'm going to start using this more regularly now that I am in the winding down mode.

An old hippy boomer who lived on communes, hitch hiked across the country with a baby on her hip as a teen mother, has a certain sort of flexibility when things go wonky. I never had a stable situation to get used to. Things were always on the edge of the abyss. There's a faint sort of familiarity to the oncoming storm.

I know the steps to this dance, the dance of uncontrollable change, the chaos cha cha. Well it's 3am and I should get some rest. Tomorrow I am going to be throwing out stuff that isn't going to come with me should I take a tumble.

SOS and Head's Up

http://www.norajean.com/2009/12-09-09-SOS.htm

The recession is hitting our family hard. I might have to keep contact with the outside world through this blog. My other blogs are connected to my website and if I can't raise the $160 I need to renew the domains and the website those free tutorials will disappear.

The link above is to an open letter and SOS to the polymer clay public and it's on my website, we're paid up until Feb. 2, 2010.

If I take a tumble and lose my apartment and my phone I'll be using this blog to post updates on my situation.

If you've used my free tutorials and want to help keep my website up and running, click the link above and I'll be thankful for your mercy.

NoraJean

Website is up

Just a note to let folks know that my website http://www.norajean.com is up and the problem was my web host's firewall. When I'm editing my website and open the WordPress blog that is on my website the firewall gets twitchy. My IP was blocked, just like last April.

It was fixed in a couple of days.

My website is down again

It's not just NoraJean.com
but it's also CITY-Lists.comWhich has sections for

CraftBizAdvice
Computer-CITY
CITY-Adornment
CITY-o-Clay
Astrol-CITY
Para-CITY

and my "not ready for prime time" e-commerce section...NoraJean-Designs.com

It started around 10-21-09, 10:30pm PST, when I was posting a blog on my WordPress blog that's on my website. It wouldn't go through.

I go check a page on my site that I've not gone to since I cleared my cache, no go. I check the C-Panel, no go. I go to the "report a problem" page on my web host's site, no go. The home page for the web host, no go.

It's a big problem then if the web host site is down.

I go look at Green Bay, WI, electrical outage and the picture they have there is the same exact outage problem area that I have in my blog post of April 19, 2009.
http://auntyalias.blogspot.com/2009/04/norajeancom-is-down.html

If I had the money I could consider getting a new webhost, but that's out of the question right now.

So I'm posting this blog as a continual record of the problems I'm having with my website. Let's hope it gets cleared up by tomorrow.

I wasn't at WoodStock

All this talk about Woodstock. I wasn't at Woodstock. I was a former Navy Wife, had two children, was in a marriage that was failing and still hadn't completed high school. All this nostalgic talk about 40 years ago I can just wave away with a roll of my eyes and an audible sigh.

I'm happier now at 60 than I was at 20. Oh that's not me in that picture. I found that picture online when looking for "old hippies" pictures. She's just a darling.

I also feel blessed that since 1975 I've had the pleasure to watch my third born son grow instead of being in jail like Squeaky Fromme (Dangerous but inept). She got out of jail today and it is just mind blowing to know that she and I are the same age. We obviously made different choices in our life.

Anyway, I'll celebrate the moon landing and the crossing of Abbey Road (check out the webcam images of the 40th anniversary of the crossing of Abbey Road) , but Woodstock doesn't resonate with me because I was up to my elbows washing cloth diapers and being in a loveless marriage.

My then husband wanted to go to Altamont Free Concert and I said "With two children in diapers? Do you know that area? I do, it's pasture land, two lane road, it'll be nuts." and it was. One of the reasons he is my ex-husband, we obviously saw the world in different ways.

So this is just to record that for all the looking back that people are doing, especially boomers, looking back at marching for civil rights, to end the war, going to love-ins, living in communes, et al... I'm happier now than I was then. I would not turn the hands of time backwards to live that life again.

I'm content to live in the now, thankyouandhaveanicelife.

It wasn't a Power Outage

My tech guy, Ryan, writes to me asking for my IP address, saying he's going to check the server's firewall. While I was waiting for him to check it out, I sent an email to myself using my website email address, came through lickity split. So the address forwarding filter is working and that only works when my website is functioning. Then I asked the COCModSquad to check out the CITY-o-Clay's web section on CITY-Lists, to check if they can access that site. They could. So I figured Ryan was on the right track.

The power outage was a separate issue that wouldn't effect my website because where my website is stored isn't in Wisconsin. He appreciated my concern.

I'm just relieved that visitors to my three websites didn't get a 404 error message. I would rather be the only person put out about the problem. I didn't want my visitors to be discomforted.

I am glad I keep track of my website outages here. I'd forget otherwise and going through old email is a time sink. It's boring for anyone coming here though. Sorry about that.

NoraJean.com is down

EmonsterHost Outage, 04-19-09: As of 6pm PST my webhost couldn't be contacted, not the home page, not their support page, so my websites NoraJean.Com, NoraJean-Designs.com, CITY-Lists.com, my two blogs, everything is unaccessable.

I thought... electrical outage I'll bet. So I went to go look for Wisconsin electrical outage and the picture there is what I found. My webhost is close to Green Bay. See that grey area? That's where the outage is at this time.

So there's not a lot I can do when that whole area is suffering from an outage.

It's just frustrating because I was on a web page update and build mode today. I sent out a bunch of posts pointing to the new pages and feeling pretty good about getting a bunch of web work done.

So here I am at Blogger.com, venting.

Google Profile

I just filled out my Google Profile.

Rites of Spring

It's been almost a year since I updated my profile picture. I cut the dyed part of my hair, the left over of my 2007 Thanksgiving Tour, so it's back to growing it out again.

As for what's new, my website is back up. The webhost had a super duper firewall that blocked my IP. I still can't get the norajean@norajean-design.com email address to filter to my pacball account.

I've been working on building inventory for NJD, getting a new paypal account that actually goes to my bank account and not my soon to be ex-husbands. Picked Mals-ecommerce for the electronic shopping cart.

I'm not surprised that I'm facing a new life as a single woman just after my second Saturn return. It actually feels liberating. There are some things worse than being alone after all. Solitude isn't lonely when one is busy following ones bliss. Having over 1,800 list members in my Yahoo Group, 9 team members helping me administer the group, my two youngest sons, aged 34 and 30, and their girlfriends living with me and near by, it's difficult to feel lonely.

I feel a blossoming of my creative potential. After 10 years of building my polymer clay skill set I feel confident with myself.

Last night I was watching a movie about CoCo Chanel and I was inspired to start sewing again. But not to make clothing for people, but to explore fashion ideas for dolls. I keep on having this desire to do Harajuku dolls, Goth Lolita Lite sort of fashions. It's a recurring idea and it's going to have to be expressed.

That's about it for now.

Website Down Again

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with my webhost. NoraJean.com is down, NoraJean-Designs.com, is also down.

I was working on building my e-commerce section: updating paypal, Mals-ecommerce, and when wanted to change the email forwarding for NJD to go to a NJD email address I found that the site wasn't online.

I checked it last night. I checked NJ.com today. Both were working. Now both sites are belly up and the Cpanel doesn't work for NJD.

What's a grandma to do? I have two emails going to the webhost support and am waiting for a reply. I also tested norajean@norajean.com and the test emails are not coming in either. That tanks my plans of doing ecommerce with this webhost. Without the money to change hosts I'm feeling the effects of the full moon in Virgo raising my urge to grutch.

What would Willy The Shake do? That picture is supposed to be a painting done in his life time and had been hanging on the wall of the home of the descendants of his biggest supporter. Looks better than the engraving.

NoraJean.Com is back up

Well eMonsterHost.com came through and my sites are back up.

Thank you Ryan!

Nothing like a short outage to remind a person to do back up.

It's not just NoraJean.com but it's also

CITY-Lists.com

Which has sections for
CITY-CraftBizAdvice
Strange-CITY
CITY-Computers
CITY-Adornment
CITY-o-Clay

to name a few

and my "not ready for prime time" e-commerce section...

NoraJean-Designs.com

Mind you the sections that use FrontPage themes, like CITY-Computers and the e-commerce section are seen better using IE. FireFox doesn't play well with Windows stuff, so it seems.

I'm so happy I can just dance about. There's nothing more horrid than having my sites down. Some people work jobs and make money and buy a house and fill it full of stuff. My "house" is my website, it's what I've put time and energy into over the years, and when it's down it's like getting locked out of my crib.

I was glad my back ups were just done and if I had to rebuild, for some awful reason, I wouldn't have had a huge job to do. Now I have those couple of days I did add stuff to my website all backed up and I'm a happy gal.

WebHost Problems Again

I can't seem to win for losing with webhosts. eMonsterHost.com is hosting norajean.com and it's not coming up, again. I went to the host's website and that's not coming up either. I sent an email to the support team and the owner and haven't gotten a reply yet.

I know that they are located in snow country and it's been a harsh winter for them. Could be that lines are down. Could be the recession got to them and they are out of business. Could be a number of things and I have no idea what it could be without a reply to my email to them.

It is frustrating because I'm working on building an e-commerce section to my website, got a new domain for it and everything. Good thing I didn't have the doors open and have customers to serve because that would have done more damage to me. This way it's people who are looking for free tutorials who are being inconvenienced.

So I'm venting here because my main blogs are on my website, which was working last night when I mentioned that Bob Wilkins of "Creature Features" died. What ever happened to my website happened between midnight last night and 1pm today.

Mercury turns retrograde Jan. 11th, and my communication problems star two days early.

Rats.