I Am in Blog Hell! It must be karma.

A woman dies and finds herself at the pearly gates. She is met by Mother Mary (Yes, Mother Mary. I'm tired of all the male references). Mother Mary says, "Well, I see that you led a pretty good life. You served as a Child Advocate for abused children, you volunteered at the Children's Shelter, and you worked at a homeless shelter. Buuuuut...you spent a lot of time focusing on yourself and your writing, when you could have been using that time to clean your house or play with your children or have relations with your husband. But instead of doing each of these things, you created a BLOG! There are few things more self-centered and ego-stroking than a blog. In order to cleanse yourself of such selfish tendencies you will have to spend 100 years in BLOG HELL!"

Well, okay, I could never actually picture Mother Mary saying anything like that. But somebody sure doesn't like me "up there!" Either that or I'm reaping karma for daring to have a life separate from my job/role/function as a mother.

I guess I was getting too big for my britches. I decided that I wanted to switch my blog provider from Blogger to Typepad. It seemed innocent enough to me. I like Typepad. It's easier to use, it offers more variety in template production, and it's more professional. So, I set up a new blog at Typepad, then figured I'd import my posts from Blogger. Sounded pretty easy. I've heard that it can be done and figured how hard could it be? Well, apparently VERY HARD! No, more like impossible! At least with Blogger.

I'm really not trying to "dis" Blogger. They've never done anything to me. At least not until today!

So I follow the instructions for importing my data from Blogger. The first step is to delete the existing html code and replace it with new code from Typepad. But FIRST...and this is key...save the existing template! Yes! I did! I saved it! And I thought my bases were covered. I thought I was spared from what I knew for sure would be blog hell if I didn't save it. But nope. Even that wasn't enough to spare me from my karma.

And really. At my age I should know that if something sounds too good to be true, it IS! I mean, come on! Import my posts into my new blog site? HAHAHA The Gods and Goddesses must be having a day of comedy with that one. I've always been naive, but even I can't be this gullible. Can I? But I really wanted it to be this easy. I mean, hey! I figured with today's technology--you know, the 21st Century and all that--that it would be a piece of cake! Go ahead. Laugh.

Well, it didn't work. So I tried to reinstate my old template. Again, should have been a piece of cake. Again, nope! Not only is there no button for uploading or reloading or reinstalling or reverting or re-anything, but there are no instructions, no link, no option, no nothing! I looked up and down on that template page. Nothing. I looked at all of the other edit screens. Nothing. So, I did what any red-blooded mama in trouble would do. I asked for help.

Well, kind of. As much as you can do on the Internet. I went to the Blogger Help page. Again, naively, I thought that I would be able to send an email message to someone, or find a phone number and call someone. Nope. You see, in Blogger Land you are forced to search for the answer to your problem through their Group Help or FAQ. Which is fine IF THE ANSWER IS THERE! But the answer isn't there for this problem. Although, you would think that a serious problem like this would have a solution available. I did find one question about it and one answer that made absolutely no sense, at least to me.

So, I am in deep shit with no way out. I now have an old website that looks like crap and a new one that's probably going to take me a couple of weeks to make presentable enough to go public with it. Sighhhhh...and just when my website was finally looking good, too. I shouldn't have messed with it. I shouldn't have gone for the bigger bang. I should have left well enough alone. I was greedy. Maybe I deserved what I got.

Now, instead of spending more time with my family, I'll be spending time in hell designing a new website. Yup. It's karma.

Originally posted at 50-something Moms Blog.

Cheryl Wenzel also writes at:

New Mom Central
Silicon Valley Moms Blog
Betty Confidential
Type-A Mom