Sharing Day, Auto-pagination, the Future of Blogger and Blog Themes

Let's try this again...

 

Wednesday was a beautiful but emotional day for me. I felt sad as I said goodbye to my leadership role and the friends I had made. Each hug and smile carried both joy and sadness. We will still see each other occasionally in passing, but it won't be the same. You know us women, we get emotional...I wasn't the only one stepping down - there were eight of us.  Some were leaving to take on a greater role in their church, others were moving to be closer to their grandchildren, and some were finally retiring. 

I appreciated all the gifts that I received, 

and they certainly weren't expected. 

It was also Sharing Day - held during both the leaders’ brunch and with the broader membership. The women took the microphone to share the remarkable works God had accomplished in their lives over the past year. Among them were young children, just three and four years old, eager to thank their leaders -though, truthfully, many simply wished to hold the microphone. Their tender, heartfelt words brought tears to my eyes. What a generation of little ones being raised in the Lord, grounded in the knowledge of Scripture. May they grow and flourish as they walk with our Lord Jesus.

Needless to say, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. 

I had to change my Blogger theme, and I’m not thrilled about it. The problem was caused by auto-pagination, which happens when the post limit is reached due to size, programming, or template settings. I had no idea there were post limits! Some themes don’t have this issue, which makes me wonder about my previous blog. I’ve been reading up on ways to work around it and am still figuring things out, but I’ve noticed that some Blogger themes are definitely more troublesome than others.

The Simple template is the best for stability. 

I was using the Soho template with large text and plenty of extra-large photos. I noticed that some of the fonts I experimented with were messing up my posts, and I couldn’t get them to look right. Eventually, it seemed to crash - at least that’s how I interpreted it. Some ideas to make the blog run more smoothly include 

• using a jump break (which I’m considering), 
• avoiding pasting from Word or Google Docs, 
• compressing large images, 
• and switching to a different template.

The Future of Blogger

There’s really no future here. The platform hasn’t seen an update in eight years, and they don’t respond to complaints—in fact, they shut off the comments. No one knows what’s happening or if anyone is even running things. Are they just waiting for us to fade away? In the meantime, back up your posts and start exploring another platform now so you can get comfortable with it. I’m not giving up blogging. I’ll find a new spot and just keep checking things out.

That’s it for me today. My husband is out front, digging in the yard, while I’ve spent nearly the entire day trying to figure out this blog. I’m done, and though I’m not thrilled, at least it’s working for now.

Until next time, have a great evening and enjoy your weekend, in case we don’t catch up before then.

Debby