I finally did it! I migrated off of Blogger and onto WordPress! I fell all grown up or something. Like I just did an overhaul on my closet for spring. Cleaned house. You get the idea. Don’t get me wrong, Blogger served me well for over 2 years, but it was really time to bite the bullet and grow up! The process was not as difficult as I thought it would be, but really most of the thanks goes to my Super-Star Husband (seriously, this guy ROCKS!) And now I’m finally the owner of my own stuff! Whoohoo!
So right off the bat you’ll notice that I have a super easy to use “search” box right at the top right of my blog. You can put anything you like in here and hopefully, if all went well, it’ll find it for you! How nice right? Just trying to make it easier for you all to find things that tend to get lost in “blog abyss”.
I also installed a nifty new slideshow for my most recent and featured posts! You should be able to click on the [read more…] link to read the entire story. (It’s working in I.E. but not Firefox right now, we’re working on it, but you can also scroll down just a tad and see all my posts as well.)
Next, and I think most important, is the super-sweet “Subscribe Via Email” form. You can just enter your email address here then click “subscribe”. (You’ll get another screen to confirm this choice) then, voila! You’ll get all my posts in your in-box so you won’t miss anything! Good, no? (Okay…I know…that was there before, just wanted to point it out.)
And finally, I worked hard (seriously, this took the longest I think!) to keep my lovely horizontal navigation bar for you! (And me, I know it’s sad, but I actually use that to find things on my own blog.) It’s my only complaint with WordPress thus far. They have a snazzy little interface that allows you to drag and drop things around to make a navigation bar…cool if you don’t know HTML…bad if you already spent HOURS creating one in HTML. The problem is mine was H. U. G. E. I say again, HUGE! So I would have seriously preferred that I could copy and paste my existing HTML into their file, but ya…it’s one of the “features” of WordPress, so apparently it doesn’t have that option. Anyhoo, thanks to my lovely daughter who made lunch for the family today so I could work, you all now have a fairly substantial navigation bar to get you around my blog! You can click on any of the items, or hover over them to get a secondary drop down bar with tons of more topics, posts, and information! 
So how did I do all this? Well, I already mentioned my Rock-Star Husband, without whom I NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS would have been able to do this without! He was seriously the backbone to this whole operation! He was dedicated to “making it work” and I was dedicated to “making it pretty”. What can I say, I’m a girl, I like fluff.
But technically speaking, we went with the Genesis Framework, and downloaded a Child Theme which I then modified to look all nice and pink like what you’re seeing. It really wasn’t that hard to do {ahem, thanks to the Rock-Star Stud living in my house}, and if you’ve changed up your blogger you can probably handle it too. So minus a few minor glitches and some tweaking I’ll be doing over the course of the next few days, I think it all went fairly smooth.
Frankly, I was scared to death to move, but it was long past due! I have to say I’m really liking most of what I can do over here. I don’t like that there’s no HTML for me to mess with…I like tinkering around…but that’s okay. I can mess with my CSS file I suppose.
I also had some hand-holding by a super nice lady named Sharon from Good, True, and Beautiful blog. She was super awesome and answered all my newbie migration questions. Sharon also offers her services as a WordPress designer and will do the migration for you as well! If you stop by let her know Erica @ Confessions sent you!
Here is a list of some of my favorite WordPress resources, and as usual there are tons of sites to help you if you just Google.
- Sharon Hujik
- Free guide to move from blogger to wordpress
- Design By Insight
- Blogging with Amy
- Word Press Chick
So that’s it! If you’re reading this in your RSS feed, then I’ll be breathing a sigh of relief because that mean’s all went well. If you didn’t get your feed and are coming here to see what the heck is happening, please email me at erica {at} confessionsofahomeschooler {dot} com and let me know! P.S. We’re still working on the Google Friends Feed, so bear with us ;o) My husband’s a Rock Star. He can figure out anything. Right babe? Babe?
Erica,
Your new site looks just WONDERFUL!!! I used Sharon to migrate a few months ago too and was so blessed to have her help through the whole process.
😉
Yes, she’s super nice! And thanks! I was so scared ;o)
Love the new look! I will be moving to WP soon and I am very excited about it! 🙂
First of all, I’m new to your site within the last few weeks and let me just say it was ordained by God that I find your blog! Answers to questions and prayers that I’ve had were right here & easily found! Second, I love wordpress so much more than blogger and am so happy you made the switch. Now when I find myself on here to find something specific that I read before and one of my kids closed the lid to the laptop before I could bookmark it, it will be much easier to navigate. My husband also switched my personal blog (blogger) to a wordpress with our own domain a year ago and I was terrified… until I found out how much nicer the change would make things. I’d link it, but we’re migrating again to a new domain and I’ve been lazy about it. Too messy to let anyone see! 😉 Congratulations and God bless!
Congrats on the move, I got the new feed without a problem :).
Oh good! Thanks for letting me know!
Your new site looks great! And yes, sometimes fighting HTML with WordPress is a hassle, but I love the clean look and easy posting of WordPress. Congratulations on getting it all set-up again. I know that took a lot of your time.
OH! I just got to wondering. Will your old links work? For instance, I just emailed your Letter of the Week and K4 links to a friend. Will they work for her now that you’ve moved? And what about the links that I have in my own blog posts leading back to you. Are all of those still working?
Yes, they should! I have some re-directs set up and all. The best way to tell is to click on them yourself and see what happens LOL! let me know ;o)
I don’t know if this is still an issue for you, but I’m in Firefox and I’m having no problems with the read more clicking and expanding. 🙂 Love the new look! I was just thinking of getting a Blogger for Dummies book…..maybe I should get a WordPress for Dummies book since this looks so much nicer than Blogger!
Hi Jessica, Can you try it now? It wasn’t working at first when we launched, and I’m on firefox too, but it’s working for me now…that’s 6pm EST.
I had no problem. 🙂
I just tried to open the examples of your sample weekly plans for letter of the week and received a virus. i am hoping the notice that it was stopped is true. Thought you might want to know.
Teresa
Hi Teresa,
I’ve had issues with 4shared and they are not being too helpful. That is part of the reason for migrating today. I’m SLOWLY, but surely moving all my free printables off of 4shared and onto my new host. It’s just taking some time! I’m sorry for any inconvenience!
Wow, everything looks great! The only thing I can’t find is where the “Blogs I love” part went to. I loved visiting those blogs from your site, but I didn’t bookmark all of them because I could link it from your site. Is that something that will be coming back? Thanks! Carla
I know, they’ll be back, just taking some time getting everything migrated, don’t worry! :o)
Again, I marvel at your skills! (And your husbands) also, I will now know who to ask about it, if and when I make the move. 😉
I just now got on Blogger with Your Help! 🙂 Thanks for all you DO! 🙂 I pray it all comes back to you multiplied of course! This looks great!
OOPS that should read your skills and your husband’s!!! Lol
Way to go, Erica. Looks great!!
P.S. Thanks for the shout-out. 🙂