I’m making lemonade out of an ‘S’ load of lemons
ohbrooke.net is now ohbrooke.com!
On Tuesday I signed closing papers for the sale of my Sacramento home, chopped my hair, and lost my domain name {ohbrooke.net}, all before 11 am. Apparently my hosting company had the wrong email address for me, so they were unable to inform me that the domain was expiring. Somehow in the 20 phonecalls I’ve had with them this year, they haven’t mentioned, “oh, and hey, your domain expired 2 months ago…” It was the only product of several I have with them that was not on auto-renewal. Fantastic!
So, needless to say, despite the excitement of the close of the house, and the mediocre haircut, I was devastated by the domain loss. Here I am, 25 year old wife that drives my husband crazy with my boring independent films and need to rearrange furniture incessantly, just feeling my way through this blogosphere. I have been cultivating the traffic and content with the help of friends family and new blog friends.
This brings me to yet another transition that has reared its ugly head this week. An unstable day job, the loss of a real estate investment, and now a blog identity crisis. This imposed transition has me thinking:
Should I change what I write about?
I would love to write about more personal things, not just design, is that okay?
Should I cut my losses and quit?
As I scrambled to find a new domain name to see if I could somehow recover and patch together the traffic equity that I have gained intensely in the last few months, I found a very expensive light at the end of the tunnel. ohbrooke.COM was purchased but not in use, and so I emailed the owner to see if I could take this unfortunate event and spin it into a positive. Here is how the emails went:
Me – Are you using the domain ohbrooke.com? Is it for sale?
Him – I currently am not using ohbrooke.com; It was in development but the model flaked out. If you are interested in the domain, please make me an offer. I would be curious what you plan to do with the domain name.
Me – It looks like you own it for about 6 more months, I’ll give you $40 for the six months.
Him – A fair market value for this domain would be in the $550 to $750 range. I would sell the domain for $550.
Me – $200
Him – $375
Me – $300
Him – Deal.
So, the lemonade in this “S”-load of lemons is that I’ve now upgraded to ohbrooke.COM. Now I have to figure out – how to let my readers know I’m here, what direction I want to take this blog, and what on Earth I’m doing with my life.
Thoughts?
Let me know you stopped by »
Brooke – that SUCKS. I’m so sorry. I know what a pain it is to have to juggle domains around like that. Can you talk to your host about setting up a redirect for, I dunno, say 6 months? They should still be able to route the DNS for you for a little bit. Or can you re-register ohbrooke.net? Unless someone else has snapped it up, it should become available soon.
Bleah. My sympathies!
I was wondering what was going on! I was about to email you about it, actually.
I say write about whatever you like. I have some ideas for you, too, about some other things. I’ll email you with my thoughts next week.
I’ll also post on my blog about your lemonade. I’ve been there! My traffic is only now starting to get better after moving urls. Had to be done, but I still wince when I see my stats.
Jumping in to give you a great big hug!!!! Wow! What a crazy day!!!
Lemonade is my favorite drink when I go out for dinner. Wisdom is the result of our postive and negative experiences. I think you should write about various lemons in life and and how to overcome them…potentially through the use of your design skills. For example, projects you should do if this happens to you. You already design our homes and our web pages…now you can design our souls.
Change what you write about? If it isn’t interesting to you or if monetization isn’t worth the effort then potentially yes.
Write about personal things? My experience is it depends on your readership. When solving technical problems, I often happen across a blog that is useful for the solution. I will sometimes hit their other links if they are related. But if they have a lot of personal…I generally move on. Again…this speaks to blog purpose. Depends on your audience and why they come and stay on your blog.
Quit which? What is the alternative if you do? I assume you are talking about your day job? Having just seen my company go from 2500 to 25 employees…I recommend only quitting once you have something else to move to that is as good or better. You may qualify for some sort of severance package if a lay off comes.
Call if you want to talk.
Love you B.
I’m so sorry! That stinks. But I’m glad you’re back in action. I personally would love to hear about more personal stuff like what you’ve been up to and your thoughts on stuff. I have fixed the link to your blog on my blog. Congrats on selling your house! That has got to be a huge weight lifted. I miss you!
Thanks for the words! Potentially this was for the better… I was able to get the ‘dot com’ domain, and has given me much to think about. I love my new blog friends!
@BJ – Not thinking about my job. I feel that I make a difference and I have fun there… however, I wondered if I should discontinue writing. After much thought, I decided that I would open up and write about design as well as other experiences I have. That’s what I’m drawn to in other blogs – how they are JUST LIKE ME, and have a few lemons themselves!
YEAHH I found you!
Hang in there girl! It’ll be all right, and I thought your hair looked cute! I very much enjoy your blog and what you have to say as well as the advice you have to give. Keep writing about whatever you want to write about. I think you have a lot to say and you obviously have a captive audience to say it to.
I miss you guys…it’s lonely at home :(
That’s great that you sold your Sacto home!… That calls for celebration, maybe you should change your domain to .com! oh wait… haha. I bet you’ll get even more hits with this address, don’t let it get you down. Miss ya.
Awe, I’m so sorry for your stress Brooke. Wish I could help ya. I love your blog. I get so many ideas from it. I’m sure that whatever way you choose to go will be great. Miss you!!!
Thanks for making lemonade!! I would hate to see you go- no matter what you’re writing about, it’s endearing and enjoyable.
I found you again! I was so sad every morning when I clicked on my bookmark for ohbrooke.net and… nothing. I was wondering what happened to you! I’m so glad I re-found you and I got caught up on your posts. I love the new stuff & am excited to hear more about your life and such :)