Hi…hey…howdy…hello!!

It’s been pretty quiet around these parts for the last few weeks, friends!! Aside from writing two election posts last week, you haven’t heard much from Yours Truly.

Until now!

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen my enthusiastically exciting tweets over the weekend. I got myself all in a tizzy because I knew today was going to be a VERY special day. It’s a day I’ve been talking about for awhile. It’s a day I sometimes thought would never come. It’s a day that is sure to go down in history — well, in my mind, anyway…

So About What I Said has a new home with its very own domain!! It’s official new home is melissablakeblog.com…

Yes, that’s right — let the celebration begin, let the church bells rings from every village in the land, let balloons and confetti line all the streets of the world!!

Can you tell I’m pretty stoked, friends?? In honor of this most glorious of days, I thought it only appropriate to celebrate with a big blowout posts. Although the blog looks the same, there are a few things that have changed, so let’s dive right in…

The Backstory

When I started So About What I Said in 2008 (this month, actually!), blogging was really in its infancy; no one knew exactly what this new medium was. Was it just an online diary? The Internet equivalent of simply spouting off? At first, people weren’t sure what the purpose was, never mind the idea that you could actually become a legitimate blogger, but I knew one thing: I needed to have an online presence — especially for my writing — so I naturally wrote my first post on Blogger.

The years flew by and something pretty amazing happened: I soon fell in love with everything about blogging and the whole blogging community. I discovered just how powerful this medium is, but more important than that, I found my career. It was sort of like finding my place in the world, like coming home, and I knew I wanted to do this for a very, very long time.

In the beginning, the Blogger platform served my needs perfectly. But the more I looked toward the future, the more I began to see the value of owning my own little corner of the Web. Not only is it more professional, but moving to a self-hosted WordPress blog would allow me more flexibility and opportunities; I could take my blogging and my writing to the next level.

That’s where Lisette from High Note Designs comes in. I may be creative, but, umm, tech-savvy has never been one of my strong suits — plus, the thought of trying to migrate EVERYTHING myself and losing 5,000+ posts nearly gave me a heart attack. Lisette is an amazing designer and specializes in moving blogs from Blogger to WordPress, so I knew I needed her in my corner. She was such a joy to work with and helped me bring my new blog vision to life. She never minded answering my millions of questions and took the time to explain everything. I felt like I was enrolled in WordPress 101 and it was a really fun learning experience! And, no blog posts were lost in the transfer process!

An Update on a Classic

Like I said, the overall design of the blog doesn’t look that much different. It was really important to me to keep the essence and feel the same, but you know me — I do like to tweak things every now and then. So you’ll notice a couple subtle changes. The most obvious? The blog went from three to two columns, which means that the sidebar needed to be rearranged a little. I also want to update my ‘Daily Reads’ section, so look for that coming soon — got any suggestions?

As for other changes to be aware of…

I changed the look of the drop-down menus…don’t you love the background color and font size?

My social media icons are also new and spiffy looking. I wanted to incorporate more of the blog’s color palette (read: pink!) and also feature the social media’s logo on each one.

When you click on posts, you’ll see two cool things at the bottom: A collection of Related Posts and social share buttons so you can go to town and share on your favorite social media platform. We’re still in the process of transferring all the photos from Blogger, so if you see a related post without its accompanying photo, don’t worry — all will be fixed once the photo transfer is complete!

Let’s Get Social

Speaking of social media, have you perused my social accounts lately? I gave them a little makeover too — and I did this all by myself!

Facebook: After almost five years, I finally updated my profile photo and added a cover photo!

I also fleshed out the ‘About’ section — some fun facts included!

Twitter: I did the same thing — updated my profile pic and added a cover photo. Why did this take me so long? I also rewrote my bio, adding a few of my byline hot spots!

**Side note: In the name of full disclosure, I didn’t get a chance to make all the changes I wanted to on Pinterest and Instagram, but they are coming! It’s on my massive to-do list, so it will get done! AND, as always, feel free to subscribe to the blog via RSS or subscribe by email to stay in the know!

Are you still with me? Bonus points if you are! Anyway, I couldn’t be more grateful to Lisette for a smooth transition! I think the finished product truly reflects the heart of So About What I Said — honoring its past while also making room for its future. Of course, there are still some things to fix — like making sure all 42,000 photos transfer and fixing broken links — but I’m so excited to get back into the blogging groove! Thanks, friends, for sticking by me this month and being so patient while I got everything in order. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning!

Is there anything you’d like to see? Any posts you’re dying for me to write? Let me know and don’t forget to update your bookmarks to melissablakeblog.com! As always, I love you and our awesome community!! xoxo