Creating a website

9 days ago I got it into my head to start a new website.

Head must have been empty when I decided this.  It was at the very least filled with fluff and delusions that this task would be somewhat easy.

To be fair to my silly head, it's past experiences with building websites were fairly simple.  Sign up for a freewebs acount, learn some basic controls and formatting and spit out a website had basic functions but completed everything I wanted it to do.  See www.pawpawrazzipups.com www.jayesdoodles.com www.spottedbeauties.com

This has been a completely different journey.  It has taken me from godaddy.com, to host monster.com to classifeds software and and software tutorials.  I've had to learn about cPanels, and php and FTP, and HTML and domains, sub domains, and SEO.  Almost 9 wholes days later I feel like I have barely started on the journey and have created only a sampling of what I saw coming together at the beginning.  What was I thinking?

The basic shell of the website is done and is functional.  I saw it more "fancy" and less basic but I find myself limited by the hours in the day, the other things to do and my limited knowledge of exactly what I am doing.

As difficult as I found the first part of this journay the next parts are even harder.  Now that you have built the business how do you divert traffic to it?  How dod you get google to recognize it.  Hoe do you get search engion optimization.  How do you get regular clientelle, how? how? how?

Today I must have sent out a minimum of 1000 emails and I can almost see the tip of the iceberg breaking the surface, but only if I hold my breath.

I have to keep reminding myself that Rome wasn't built in a day.  The site has only been live for a day and a half.  I can't expect 1000's of people flocking to it.  I can't expect it to be an instant viral success.  I can't expect it to take off at all....but I can hope.

Hope I have by the bushell full.  Hope keeps me coming back to this chair and turning my monitor on for another 10 hours of staring at it's depths.  Hope has me believing that 6 months from now all this will pay off.

In the mean time please check out www.puppysearch.ca  It's the newest FREE pet classifieds online listing for North America.

So it's been a week...

Last Monday was the day of my knee surgery.  My ACL replacement seemed to go without a hitch.  I had a spinal so the pain was minimal, the nausea was nonexistent and I was discharged a couple hours after surgery for the long drive home, whcih was the most uncomfortable part of the day.

I was really good for the first two days.  I was hurting so I stayed in bed, took my meds every four hours, kept Ice on my knee and watched Greys Anatomy and played on the computer.

The kids spent the first couple days at their Grandmas house which I am so grateful for.  The pain just trying to tilt my foot was bad enough, I couldn't imagine having the extra shifting around and focus on the children.

Come Wednesday I was starting to go stir crazy...laying in bed all day was starting to make other parts of me hurt even though we have a Tempur mattress.  So I went into town with Grant for a playschool meeting.  Now that a lot of the initial pain and throbbing has ceased, sitting up is the most uncomfortable and my foot and ankle starts to really hurt and go numb simultaneously.  So I was glad it was a fairly short meeting.  (The final decision was to put Brook in playschool)

We were missing the kids and their happy faces terribly, so since I felt good enough to attend that meeting I figured it was time the kids could come home.  It was so nice to finally have their faces close by again.

It did end my total rest abilities though.  Thursday Grant was home all day so it wasn't too bad.  By Friday we attended the Spooktacular Breakfast in the morning that is put on for the community to show off all the kids cute costumes.  The whole school attends and the School Council, which Grant and I both run (Grant as the representative for grades 1-3 and myself as the new secretary), So Grant was asked to help with serving the pancakes and sausages tot he younger grades.  It was lots of fun but lots of sitting up and time on my feet.  It was great to get out of the house though.

So great I took some more pain meds when we got home and stayed on my feet.  I was missing the dogs and even though Grant has been doing an excellent job caring for them I had to go outside and visit them all.  Of course I took my camera and had to take pictures of all my little ones.  Dakota came over and helped Grant spread the straw for the ponies and it felt great to be outside.

Until the pain killers decided they weren't going to be strong enough.  Until Saturday morning when my calf muscle decided it wasn't used to being worked this way and was going to cramp up every time I tried to move it.  Needless to say that Saturday was a very slow day and I spent most of it off my feet.  All five kids were home and Grant was gone but they helped out lots and we spent a very long day with my feet up.

Yesterday of course was Halloween.  Normally that would mean lots of walking as we take the kdis aorund.  Fortunately Dak came through again and he took the kids around our little town collecting their candy.  Grant and I went over to the Side Street Cafe and sat and had Coffee and supper with mom.  Sitting up for long periods of time is still painful for my foot and ankle and I was getting antsy and ready to leave after little more than an hour.  Keeping my feet up is the most comfortable position even if I am having difficulty staying off my feet and home in bed.

So the week went better than I expected for getting out and getting things done even if I had to pay for it with Toradol and Tylenol 3's afterwards.  I am more functional than I thought although the trade off is me being a little short tempered.  I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful husband that is able to run after the rug rats and pick up after them and allow me to have my feet up and my knee iced even though his back is also in a painful condition this week.

I am really going to have to rely on some self decipline to keep up with my RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation).  As my knee is feeling better I am ready to ditchthe awkward crutches and do more.  I do have some projects that require me to sit planned as sitting up becomes less uncomfortable, so we'll see what the week brings.