This week was a test of my character.

After enduring months of offline episodes and ‘Not secure’ messages popping up on this website, I made the decision a fortnight ago to change host servers. My previous server – a lone wolf operator in NZ – failed to send the correct passwords to allow this to happen. That is the most charitable way to describe what he did. Or failed to do.

On Monday I was advised by my new host server that ‘my files were all blank’.

On Wednesday, I received the welcome news that my website was back up. During the 48 hours between those two events, I pulled down the shutters and curled up in a ball. I was incapable of talking about it. Anyone who made the mistake of calling me was – assuming I answered the phone – exposed to incoherent blubbering.

One of those poor suckers was a Crazy Domains guy called Rick. Earlier in the day, he’d held my hand – metaphorically speaking – when I needed help with a technical website migration task. Back when I was still hopeful of a positive outcome. Poor guy was just making a courtesy follow-up call to see how it was all going.

I told him how it was all going. Poor Rick.

To make up for my angst-ridden earbashing, I filled out my first ever Crazy Domains email survey. I gave him full marks in every category. And a fulsome testimony in the Additional Comments section.

Clearly I was unhinged with grief.

And for good reason. I believed my website diywoman.net was no longer. The labour of love I had worked on for the past three years. Created in the belief that writing about my experience of separation, divorce and living happily ever after might offer some advice, solace, or just light relief to others going through it.

After the Rick thing, I put on a coat and set off for a walk, collar up, head down against the bitter wind coming at me from the bay. I was about to give myself a stern talking to when my phone rang. It was my son checking in on my mental state.

‘You sound a bit hysterical, Mum.’

‘Whaaaaaaaat? Hysterical? Meeeeeeee? I’m not hyster-ster-sterical!!!’

I think I got away with it.

The truth is, I needed to cry.

I needed to walk furiously into the wind, eyes and nose streaming. Then I needed to turn the corner for home and think about what had happened. By the time I reached my building I had – almost – come to terms with the loss of my website.

We can rail against injustice all we like, but it changes nothing. I had to make sense of what had happened. By the time I had taken off my coat and poured myself a big glass of shiraz, I had worked out an alternative life plan. One that would push me out of my comfort zone. One that did not involve www.diywoman.net taking over the world.

Plan B still required me to write what I needed to write, but to send it out into the big wide world of The Media. To take my courage in both hands and submit, submit, submit as I had so often encouraged my writing group to do. My aim? To build a profile and a reputation for dishing out good advice on the very few subjects in which I have some expertise. And thus, to work my way up to that publishing deal. So simple!

Luckily for me, the website is back up and I can go back to Plan A.

But Plan B is formulated and ready to go. and there’s nothing to say I can’t do a little plan-juggling in my bid for world domination.

The other positive thing to come from the past week has been the overwhelming support from friends, family and previously unknown followers. It has been wonderful to hear from readers, and to know my posts have touched a chord with them. One of my favourite comments came from Kerri F:

I’m not tech savvy…so don’t understand what the hell is going on…but I’ll be seeking you out …wherever you bob up in this sea of hargie-bargie shenanigans.

I’m paddling as fast as I can, Kerri.

I have grown from the experience, as you would expect of a diywoman. I have learned that FTP and cPanel login details are amongst your most precious possessions. If you create a website, make sure you have those codes. A malign host server can wipe your files if you, as I did, decide to change servers.

The signs are good that my new host is reliable and hands on. Those guys had to work hard to get me across the line to the safety of their server. If you’re thinking of creating a website, email me at elizabeth@diywoman.net if you’d like their details.

The events of the last seven days have been character building. Thanks to my squad, diywoman has prevailed over the forces of evil. One day, with your support, she WILL take over the world.

   

That which does not not kill us, makes us stronger.

Friedrich Nietzsche