When broken things break you

You probably haven't noticed. I've gone to great lengths to hide the fact. The world feels so broken right now that my wee little problems seem insignificant.

It's a long, lovely, broken love story.

Don't be too alarmed. It's about my blog, not my home or my health.

I find it very kind and slightly odd that one of top searches for my name is followed by

"Janice MacLeod Illness"

Thanks guys. Doing okay. Physically I'm fine. Mentally, I'm wrung out.A few months ago, my blog experienced a "fatal error."

Fatal error.

It feels as dramatic as it sounds. It meant a rebuild with weird plugins and themes and widgets and all kinds of other words I wish I wasn't forced to now be an expert on, but there it is. It seems every step forward required a lesson in websites and blogs and patience.

In the middle of all this, a reader sent me a message, saying she missed being able to click around at all the posts. Clickity clackity. Random surfing over at janicemacleod.com was fun and she missed it.

I missed the posts about urban hikes I took around Paris, about big and little moments in my globe trots, and the lovely comments from fun readers.

During the days, I plodded along... building, bridging and bawling. I had such problems with fixing the website that I started recycling through the LIVE CHAT with my website host.

"Hey Rajesh. It's me. Again."

Poor Rajesh probably rolled his eyes and put on the kettle whenever he saw my name pop up.

But thanks to Rajesh and a myriad of other strangers who post tutorials online, the old blog is now on a new platform and better than ever. It's missing some comments and facebook pins and such, but it's back. And once it finally returned, I was able to look around at what was happening in my world while I my blog was rife with FATAL ERRORS:

• Overripe zucchinis

• Faded dahlia blooms

• Messy office of mad artist (both crazy and angry)

• Toys strewn about (not mine)

The detritus left by being held captive by a sad, frustrating project.

My niece, observing this chaos, decided to organize the toys while I tied up tomato plants. Her help made me almost cry with gratitude. That's how close I've been to the edge. When a picked up ten piece jigsaw puzzle makes me weep.

Broken things can break us.

Forcing us to rebuild even when we'd rather just pick zucchinis in their prime. I'm not sure what lessons I've learned except that I've fallen more deeply in love with my little acre of cyberspace. For a long time, I thought I needed to update the posts, rejig, clean up. But now I'm just so happy it WORKS that I think I'll go on some urban hikes around Paris in the comfort of my old (new) blog.