Wednesday W’s #2.

What’s top of my mind: The disappearance of this blog.

I’ve had the most stressful day since my retirement. A few weeks ago I migrated this blog across to what I was told was a far cheaper hosting company than the one I’ve been using. All well and good, though no one mentioned shifting the domain name as well. This morning I opened the laptop to write this post and my blog was gone. Vanished.

omg

There was an email from my old hosting company (Siteground) saying I had a week to pay them or the blog would be permanently deleted.

Lots of you are bloggers. Can you imagine the trauma? I’ve been blogging at the Frogblog since 2007, so even though this blog is only a baby by comparison, to think of all of this work vanishing in the aether was horrifying.

Fortunately, the good folk at Panthur were able to show me how to retrieve something called an EPP and I was able to transfer the domain name across to them. In the process, I saved myself $330 A YEAR.

omg

I’ll send a huge Thank You to Captain FI, Michelle and Sarah and Laura who told me about Panthur when we had a blog meet in Adelaide last year.

Where I’ve been: At the sewing machine.

I’m making a quilt for my cousin. She lost her Mum a while ago and I had the perfect idea for a quilt to celebrate my aunt, who was an artist, a keen golfer and she loved colour. Unfortunately, I had all of those Christmas present quilts I was making, so I had to put it on the back burner. I’ll blog about it soon, though. It’s a fantastic frugal project and I’m loving it.

Where I’m going: To get a wine.

Honestly, today with the blog disappearing was incredibly stressful. I think I need a cheeky shiraz to show myself that all’s right with the world.

What I’m watching: My lilies explode.

Just before Christmas Ryan27 and I drove over to his friend’s house and we dug up some calla lilies. You know, the ones you see at funerals all the time. I chopped off all of the leaves and planted the bulbs in the ground in the lower part of the backyard, under the roof. I think the outdoor room will look lovely with lilies running along the side.

Well, they seem to like it here! I’m not kidding when I say that every morning they’ve grown at least 2 cms. You can almost SEE them getting bigger.

Ryan27 told his friend and she laughed and said, “Welcome to the weeds!”

What I’m reading: Murderous Robots and ex-husbands.

Helen from the comments a couple of weeks ago mentioned the Murderbot series, so I grabbed the first one from the library. It’s called ‘All Systems Red‘ and it’s a rollicking good sci-fi read. It’s a novella, so it was a quick read as well. I have the next 3 to get through – just waiting on someone to finish reading #2 before I get to #3 and #4.

In contrast, I also finished ‘Oh William!” by Elizabeth Strout. She’s such a beautiful writer – she’s the woman who wrote ‘Olive Kitteridge’. Her novels never disappoint.

What I’m listening to: The Other Half podcast.

There’s a podcaster I really enjoy. His name is James Boulton and he specialises in history podcasts about women. His first series was The Queens of England, which I absolutely ADORED. He started from before the Norman invasion n 1066 and then kept going. Then, once he ran out of queens, he began a podcast called “The Other Half.’

“Women make up half of the world’s population, and yet history books often consign them to the sidelines. They are dismissed as merely the wives of powerful men; babymakers and nothing more. Yet women have been the driving force behind history for millennia, from female Pharoahs, warrior princesses and pirates, to the revolutionaries who sought to topple the male-dominated political systems of their day. From the host of the popular ‘Queens of England Podcast’, The Other Half tells the forgotten and ignored stories of the most powerful and influential women in history.”

It’s fabulous. And he’s just lovely. If you’re interested in history, then I highly recommend.

What I’m eating: Homemade pizza.

I told Ryan27 that he’s cooking tonight, so we’re having homemade pizza. It’s his go-to when he’s told to put the chef’s hat on. We have a rule in this house that you always have to have green leaves from the garden on our pizzas, as well as the pesto that I made last year and froze in icecube trays. Soon, with a bit of luck, there’ll be homegrown capsicums as well.

And yes, sometimes we put pineapple on it. Who wouldn’t?

Who needs a good slap: Novak Djokavic.

What an absolute tool. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

What I’m planning: When I can get everyone together for when Tom29 turns into Tom 30.

Tomorrow is the day when I become the mother of a 30-year-old. Yikes! (I must have been a mere child when I had him… I’m too youthful and dewy to have a child that old, surely???)

We were going to have the family over on Sunday for lunch, but covid is really ripping through Victoria at the moment. When the state’s hospitals get put into a ‘Code Brown’, it’s clear that now is not the time to be gathering people together. Hopefully, in a couple of months things will settle down a bit and we can celebrate then.

David27 and Izzy have their engagement party planned for next month. Who knows if it’ll go ahead? (The party, I mean, not the engagement!)

What has made me smile: Evan25 when he realised he ghosted me for days.

Last week he was earning himself a slap – this week it’s a smile. It took him 5 days to get back to me last week. I decided I was going to wait the full week and then call Jenna to complain, but he beat me to it – thank goodness. It seems like he’s learned his lesson – I just got a text that says: ‘Can calllll tonight.’

He and Jenna have been looking for a place to rent on their own. Fingers crossed they’ve found something.

Dad joke of the day:

When I found my toaster wasn’t waterproof, I was shocked.