Hi friends!

Welcome to the new blog site πŸ™‚ If you read this in a reader or something similar, then you might have no idea what I’m talking about, so feel free to click over to the new ohdeardrea site and check it out! It’s pretty right?!?! And hopefully you guys find it to be very user-friendly. In the end, that was my goal. I wanted you guys to be able to stop in this place and find something that was easy to navigate and by default, end up being something more resourceful.

Overall, this Β site isn’t changing much emotionally though. Well, I mean, it is in the sense that it’s got me more excited to work on my site again— but, you’ll still final the same rambling emotional spill out you’ve always found, random pretty image posts, vegan recipes, fun travel posts, and yada yada yada…. you know, the good stuff. Bad grammar and long run on sentences included.

I’ve had ohdeardrea for maybe 7 years now? There are 1,600 posts on this site and well over 23,000 comments. And something like, over 10 million page views on this site (I’m not sure, I stay away from the number part). And for the most part, the site has had the same interface the entire time. I mean, I moved a few widgets and changed my icons over the years, but this has been the biggest shift I’ve ever made. Literally. We shifted the website from the blogger platform onto a new one entirely.

This has been one of the bigger investments I’ve made on my blog too. I like to keep expenses minimal and live by the whole, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it mentality” — and well, it wasn’t broke, but I surely just put a lot of money into it to fIx it anyway. So yeah, I’m nervous, guys! This is sort of a big nerve-wracking deal for me. But here we are. No going back now, right? It’s time for the self pep-talk on my end that includes, “this will be great and beneficial to everyone!” and “you needed this change, Drea!”

So yeah, I hope you stay around… and poke around a bit too. There are still some things I want to work on on my end, like changing tags and such. But for the most part, it’s all there and organized. You’ll find all my travel posts under the travel section (no duh, right?). You’ll find things like: recipes, (c. diff and general) healing stuff, what Marlowe eats, natural body care things, and so much more in the new wellness section. And you’ll find everything in between in my lifestyle section— you know, things like: home tours, our garden, pictures of recently enjoyed things, and all my gazillion random thoughts there too.

You can click on the entire section to just browse through or you can use the drop downs to search for specific things. When you’re in a category you can search for specific posts or search for a category within that section. Like I said, I have to work on the tags a bit, but it should be easy enough now. I had well over 700 tags onΒ the old site, eeeeeesh.

If you guys have been here for a while then the about and advertise pages are old news, but they did get a bit of a face life if you want to check those out too. And of course, you’ll notice two new buttons up there: stay and shop. On the stay page, you’ll find our home! Yay! I’m hoping to promote our home a bit more in the upcoming months, as I I hope it gets rented out often this fall and winter πŸ™‚ If you’re looking for a rental space, Β our home Β has a few more dates available next month and is open for rent starting this October! (More on why and how later! Fun stuff!). And the shop page…. ohhhh the shop page. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it here, but I was in the beginning stages of creating a shop right before I got sick. I wanted to create a non profit and have portions of sales go to this. Then the whole hospital stay/ c. diff attacking me thing happened, and the shop obviously never happened. Well, the shop doesn’t have much in it now, and to be honest, I don’t know if it’ll ever be some big, fully loaded shop, but I do hope to add things in there from time to time. I’ll keep you guys posted when that happens! For now, you can find my cookbook and a cleanse guide Β e-book in there πŸ™‚

Oh and now there’s a newsletter subscription! FULL DISCLOSURE: I DO hope you guys sign up for it, BUT I want you to know I HATE spammy newsletters— I do not, in any way want to spam you guys!!! Do expect: links to newer blog posts, cookbook giveaways, or secret love letters– but not often πŸ˜‰ Cool? Cool! You can sign up on the sidebar or that pop up thing will show up πŸ™‚ Sign up, or close out, I won’t be offended either way, I promise. But I do want to promise to not spam you guys!!!

Like I said, I hope you find this site super user-friendly. I’m nervous of course. I’ve never really had problems on my old site. And I don’t really plan to have problems on this one, but still, I’m nervous! Creating a new, well-functioning site is no easy or cheap task. But I think it was worth it to make it easier to navigate and prettier for everyone πŸ™‚ I hope you love it. If you do run into any problems, do feel free to reach out so I can address them πŸ™‚

In the beginning stages of design, Epikly asked me if I wanted to create a website that was community based or e-commerced based (I think thats the term they used). I was a bit confused by this– and maybe slightly caught of guard. Because to be honest, I never considered a blog to be commerce based. Yes, I do obviously make money from this site now— it is my full time job, but first and more importantly, this is a community. I’ve always seen it that way and I want to always see it that way. You guys make up this space just as much as I do– so I hope you enjoy the new changes as much I hope you do!

And again, as always, thank you guys so much for being here. Your visits, comments, shares, emails, everything mean SO much to me. I’m really happy I created this space. I’m grateful for what it’s become. And excited for the changes and growth it has gone through (just like myself, haha). I hope you love this space and find inspiration here. Thank you for being here!!

28 Comments

  1. Hi! i love the redo! It looks really nice. When i move the mouse to the top of the page though a subscribe to the newsletter thingy pops up and i couldnt close it to stay in the page (and had to refresh).

  2. WOW, love this new look, so much easier to read and i can finally use the site on my phone πŸ™‚ . congrats beautiful site …

  3. Charlotte Rigby

    I love the new look! The same thing happens in bloglovin too though, it will only show you the first little part of the post

  4. When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get three emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people from that service? Many thanks!

  5. The set-up looks great! Love your blog so much!

  6. Love the new design. I’ve been reading your blog for the past 5 years (I began during the long nights with a sleepless baby) and have followed it ever since. Nice job!

  7. Hi! I just wanted to let you know that when I click on “wellness” from the homepage I get an error message.

  8. I’m staying here no matter what! Beautiful site Drea, I love it! xx

  9. I have been a follower of your blog for ages!!
    Really love the new look, it’s fantastic! Xx

  10. Love the new look, Drea πŸ™‚

    The one thing I will really miss are the customised icons! But change isn’t such a bad thing πŸ™‚

  11. The new site is beautiful – I love it! And I’m so excited you’ve got a newsletter now, too…definitely getting on the list. πŸ™‚

  12. The site looks great! I think a refresh can serve as a new beginning, or a new intention/motivation. I think change can be fantastic when it serves to uplift and inspire! One note — I always read through Feedly, and it looks like you can no longer see the whole post there — you have to click through to the site. Would love to still read via reader if possible!

    • Andrea

      hmm! I swear I commented— which is funny, because I was just saying I’m not good at this stuff πŸ˜‰ I’ll definitely ask the site developer about the Feedly thing. I would assume that that wouldn’t have changed, but I don’t know anything about readers! Hopefully its something that can be changed πŸ™‚

    • I was going to make the same comment as Kate. I also read through feedly, and not being able to read directly from there is a bummer. Having to click through is cumbersome. That said, your new design is very pretty and I especially like the new header.

      • Andrea

        same message I just sent to kate– just in case: hey hey! so the fine folks who made the site said that you might need to re-sign up to follow my site on Feedly. Like, you’re probably following through ohdeardrea.blogspot.com– but if you follow through ohdeardreablog.com the problem should go away! Let me know πŸ™‚

        πŸ™‚

    • Andrea

      hey hey! so the fine folks who made the site said that you might need to re-sign up to follow my site on Feedly. Like, you’re probably following through ohdeardrea.blogspot.com– but if you follow through ohdeardreablog.com the problem should go away! Let me know πŸ™‚

      • This didn’t work for me — maybe it’s a setting on the back end? I know how difficult that can be to track down! Don’t worry, I’m still clicking through πŸ™‚

  13. Everything looks great! I also love that it is mobile-friendly as I mostly read blogs on my phone.

    • Andrea

      Thank you! And yes, I do think thats one of the better upgrades for sure πŸ™‚

  14. What a change!
    I do Feel a Little sentimental about saying goodbye to the old blogger platform. I thought it gave you something unique that you stayed on blogger.
    But I’m glad the feel and look of the blog is pretty much the same.

    • Andrea

      Same, seriously. If I think about it too much I’ll feel sad and start to second guess, haha. I definitely have an emotional attachment to the old one. But yeah, thats also why I left the format similar– same side bar and scroll down to read, journal style posts, etc. I couldn’t have gone through a huge over haul and made it look like a totally different site. It wouldn’t have felt like me. I just keep telling myself this one will be much more user friendly and much easier to keep up with too πŸ™‚

  15. Noemi Jimenez

    Yay! This is awesome! Very user-friendly! Nice and minimal, but still colorful! Love it!