Hello world! We are back on the web, finally.

I am so excited to have this website up and running. It was built by the Free Website Guys and they did an AWESOME job in setting it up. Once they turned over the generic template to me, I had to figure out how to load pictures, change colors, and modify design layouts; basically, configuring everything you see now.

We have been working on this for quite a bit; there is a huge learning curve, as I have never done anything like this before. One concept that has been reinforced for me with this experience is “take it is small bites. “

Sometimes we have tasks that are daunting, maybe even intimidating. We don’t want to do it because we are scared. Scared of messing it up. Scared of failure. Scared of rejection, just scared. Often when this happens, subconsciously, I have found myself procrastinating. Putting it off is not a good thing, usually.

Procrastination usually makes it worse; the workload piles up, your memory of details fails and of course other “more important” things are done instead. In this case, the procrastination delayed being able to reintroduce DaLaurJo to the world.

One day I decided to learn one thing about the website every day, and dedicating at least 30 minutes each day doing so. On day one I spent the 1/2 hour learning about loading and delating pictures, “smushing” and installing a plug in to automatically create thumbnails.

On day 2 I decided it was time to try inserting one of the 18 pictures onto a page. The first picture took the 45 minutes because I just could not figure out the layers, groups and columns. The picture was on the left when I wanted it on the right, or the image became stretched beyond recognition. “WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?????? I CAN’T DO THIS!!!!……………… Breathe Laura, breathe……………………. Watch the training video again, take notes if you have to, then retry.”

Day 3: Using the notes from the previous day, I successfully placed 6 pictures on the gallery page, and still had 8 minutes to spare, I wanted to learn how to set the background pictures. These bite size learning sessions went on for more than 2 weeks. Each day trying to learn something new, and practice what I had learned the day before. I am still learning new things even as our site is now “live”. This is my first blog post EVER!

This is a journey; come along with me for the ride.

Today’s takeaways:

1. Don’t procrastinate
2. Take it in bite size pieces
3. Be consistent