The Sewing Mom

I spent the last week gearing up to not only clean up my blog, but also to begin selling my fabric bags. My Tackle It Tuesday is exactly that, a cleaned up blog and my first bag is up for sale.I week or so ago I upgraded this site to WP2.3.2. This was definitely not what I would call a smooth process. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had a wonderful support team to help me, I probably would’ve walked away from my computer, never to return! The upgrade was finally completed though, but some very strange things happened along the way.

The site itself seemed to be working properly, but there were things in places that they shouldn’t be. Search boxes on top of feed buttons, text trailing across my calendar and a blogroll that has all but disappeared. I have to send a huge shoutout and thanks to my sister Karen at The Pond for diligently sticking with me yesterday and helping me get things back where they belonged. Somehow, code had been shifted all throughout my WP php, it was as if a tornado had gone through and just moved everything arbitrarily. She managed to get things put back where they belong.

Just when we thought everything was good, my comments all disappeared, plus, there was a period of time last night, when my readers couldn’t leave a comment. Very frustrating. After more persistence on my sister’s part, it was fixed. I must apologize to anyone who was here during that time, I’m sorry I missed you.

While all of that was going on yesterday, I was busy adding items to this site. One thing is the Sticky Plugin that allows me to have an announcement remain at the top of my page. Of course, I wanted that in order to be able to announce the other major item I added yesterday, and that is my WP Auctions Plugin that has allowed me to begin selling my fabric bags, right here on my own site.

I am very excited about the Auction plug in. Afterall, my only New Year’s Resolution this year was to get my sewing business up and running and begin selling my bags. I feel that after yesterday, I have begun the process. I am continuing to consider selling via Etsy.com. I have registered, but have not yet set up my shop, it’s a bit intimidating and I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on it yet.

While all of the above was going on yesterday, I also managed to finish this bag and it is the very first item that I listed on the auction. I love this bag and have started a second one. So, here is the photo before with all of the supplies I needed to make the bag, and then of course, the finished product. I am feeling somewhat proud of myself! I do however still have the issue of my missing blogroll. The links are all still in my WP dashboard, they just don’t seem to be appearing on my right sidebar where it says “Blogroll”. Not sure what’s going on there, I’m still working on it!

Have a great Tuesday!

I have no pictures for this weeks Tackle It Tuesday, it was a technology tackle. I have this site and my new site It’s My Imagination on WordPress and needed to upgrade both sites to WP2.3.2. Unfortunately, I’m not very tech savvy, to say the least. I spent the last few weeks procrastinating and asking various tech savvy bloggers for guidance. I did get input and directions.Yesterday, I spent the morning backing up all my databases and files. I even went so far as to download software to open the compressed files that were the new backup files located on my desktop. My desktop is becoming more and more cluttered, now I need to figure out when I can delete all that stuff, a task for a different Tackle.

So, this morning, I tackled it head on. I deactivated all my plug-ins, I downloaded the updated version of WordPress and I opened up my FTP. With my directions laid out in front of me, I set out copying new files over the old files and everything went very smoothly. That is, until I went back to my site and tried to get into it. It had died a painful death and I couldn’t get into it.

While all of this was going on, I was on IM with my sister Karen and she was helping me out. The biggest assist she gave me was when she sent an IM to Techie to ask for help. Within 30 minutes, he had fixed whatever the problem was on this site AND had upgraded my other blog as well. I am forever grateful and am so happy to be able to say that my blogs are updated and my Tackle is complete.

THANK YOU TECHIE!