My Bracket Won and 5 Implications for This Blog ***With Updates 5/2/18***

On Tuesday morning I found out that my bracket won the NCAA Basketball bracket challenge at my husband’s work.    Here is my winning bracket:

I bring this up because I have found myself with a small sum of prize money.  I asked myself what I wanted to do with it because it isn’t that much fun to spend an unexpected windfall on diapers.  After some deliberation, I have decided I want to spend my winnings on this blog. After all, blogging is one of my major hobbies right now and up to now I have been using the free version of WordPress.com.  I decided I want to make an investment in my happiness.  I have decided that I will “self host” this blog instead of relying on WordPress.com to host my blog.

What does self-hosting mean?  Well, currently when you view my blog, you probably see ads on the side or bottom of the page advertising goods and services.  Since I do not currently self-host my blog, it is like I am creating content for WordPress.com and they are using the content I create as a space where they can generate ad revenue. In a sense, it is like I work for WordPress.com right now.  There is a saying “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.”  I want to start creating product for me!

I started this blog using the free version of WordPress.com aiming to get my feet wet with blogging and to see if I would really stick with it. It has been eleven months since I made this blog public and first told friends and family about it using Facebook.  Not to go overboard, but making this blog public has brought me more happiness that I could have imagined that starting a blog would bring me.  I feel more connected to family and friends and I have even made some connections with people I would never have known otherwise.  This is why I have decided that I would like to get more serious about blogging and take the next step toward self hosting.

So what does that mean for this blog?

Here are 5 Implications That Self Hosting Will Mean for this blog

1.  It means that when I take the plunge and begin self hosting, my blog web address will definitely change.  It will no longer live on wordpress.com’s server and thus it will need a new address.   I will let you all know when the web address has changed.
2.   When I start self hosting, I might change the name of this blog to match the web address.  I like Hicsuntdraconessite (Meaning: There be dragons on this site) but it is hard to spell and I would like to make my blog easier to find.  I think I might choose a name spells out what the blog is about.
3. I am considering more sharply defining the focus of this blog.  When I started this blog, I though of it as a “brain dump”, a place to get my thoughts out.  It had more of an introspective purpose. However, through sharing my blog on social media and making it pubic,I now view it as a more public sharing space that is a little less about me and a little more about the reader.  I am not planning on vastly changing my blog but I might more sharply define what it is about.
4. My blog might take on a new look once I have migrated to a self hosted site.
5. I would like to challenge myself to write 5 non-Wordless Wednesday posts a month once I have migrated to the new site, thought I certainly plan on continuing to do Wordless Wednesdays.

So that is it!  This decision feels big to me because it is something that I have been thinking about doing for a while and I am glad to make this investment in myself.  Look for the new changes to come by Memorial Day which will be the one year anniversary of when I decided to publicly share my blog on social media 🙂

*******UPDATES********

5/2/2018

I decided to self host and migrated Here Be Dragon blog during the last week of April.  As of this week I am still working on fixing up my blog and changing its look.  I decided on the name Everyday Adventures With Katie.

I plan on continuing to improve the look and function of the blog .  Migrating means that you can take your previous posts with you to the new blog but many of the posts need to be reformatted and the links need to be fixed.  I also want to learn some new tricks.  

I will begin writing new posts the week of May 22nd.