Why I Decided to Start Writing and Creating a Blog
Maybe, as my children say, the old lady has nothing to do and is just trying to kill time. Children often lose interest in their parents’ stories, especially with their busy schedules and the challenges of life. But one day, at the age of 75, I decided to embark on a writing journey to preserve our family history and my life experiences. Perhaps, someday, my grandchildren will be curious enough to learn where their roots come from.
With the help of current technologies and web design, ChatGPT has contributed tremendously to my writing career. Ten years ago, after my husband retired, he volunteered to design a website for a non-profit organization. I thought he would be a great resource. But over time, he forgot much of what he had learned, and the technology had changed so much. We had numerous arguments during our discussions. In the end, he went to the library, borrowed a book titled WordPress All-in-One for Dummies, and said, “Do it yourself.”
As people often say to me, “Is there anything you can’t do?” I worked from early morning until night, using all my spare time. One day, I spilled coffee on the book, and the library refused to take it back. We ended up paying a $45 fine and keeping the book. A small price to pay for an unexpected lesson.
We chose a domain name to identify our unique address on the internet, signed up with a hosting provider, then selected a website builder and used pre-designed templates to get us started. I thought I had everything set up properly, but the website was hacked almost immediately, which was a major setback. We called customer service for a week, got frustrated, and received no resolution. In the end, they refunded our money because they didn’t know how to recover it. I guessed that, during my learning period, I had experimented with plugins that were incompatible with each other.
Lesson learned: we switched to another website builder. This time, we were more cautious about choosing plugins and fully understood the importance of regular backups. We also followed the design bible – the WordPress manual – in detail. After all, we are engineers, and we learned from our mistakes.
I would also like to sincerely thank my family. My husband has patiently put up with his wife’s difficult demands, often challenging his technical capabilities. My children, despite their tight schedules, have taken the time to offer valuable recommendations to their mother. I am truly and greatly appreciative.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. We still have much to learn. Technology changes every second, and it often felt like we were back in the loop. But it was definitely fun to be part of it.