That was after putting in a nifty plug-in (Page Links To) that would let me redirct pages or posts to other websites, in essence making some of my pages links.

Then my precious blog vanished.

No posts.

No pages.

Just 6,370 comments in response to NOTHING!

I sat in shock for awhile.

I went back through everything I did, desperately trying to undo it all.

My heart was heavy, with a panicky flicker of nervous despair and a dash of hope.

Why was I so freaked out?

Surely I could just restore everything from backed up files.

Except that was the problem.

I HAVE NEVER BACKED UP MY BLOG.

8 YEARS OF BLOGGING.

I AM AN IDIOT.

My journey in blogging started with a Livejournal that I exported over to a free wordpress.com and then later exported into paid domain with a snazzy webhost (Girly Website Hosting) and a shiny brand new wordpress.org.

8 years of what I like to think of as my scrapbook was summed up by the words “error 404″ and “page not found” and zero counts in the posts and pages section of my dashboard.

I googled my tush off trying to figure out if it could be fixed.

Interspersed by facebook and twitter updates lamenting my sorry existence.

Then my search came up gold.

I read someone elses story, very similar to mine. Posts and pages gone, comments still available.

It looked like my database still had an awful lot of data in it to be “lost”.

I hit repair.

Everything came back OK.

MY BLOG IS BACK!

I have learned a valuable lesson, please take it to heart if you blog as well.

ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATABASE AND FILES.

You can either pay to have the transmission fixed to the tune of at least $1500 or recognize it’s time to say goodbye.

We decided to say goodbye to our Grand Caravan..

She served us well, taking us on many family vacations, lots of soccer games and let’s not forget all those trips to school, as well as bringing two of our three babies home from the hospital.

But she had to go.

It was time.

Problem was van shopping while on vacation 400+ miles from home isn’t ideal.

Yep, you heard right.

We made it in one piece to PA only to have our van start acting up on us as soon as we arrived.

So we spent a lot of time online looking at vehicles, and even more time test driving and jumping from dealer to dealer.

It was high stress and a lot of frustration.

Monday night, which also happened to be Brianna’s birthday was the culmination of our efforts.

After spending all day van shopping, we took Brianna to Build-A-Bear and then to get her ears pierced, and then went off to see if my dream van was in fact at RideSmart Auto.

It was…

A fully loaded Chrysler Town and Country. I’m talking dual DVD people, and heated leather seats, up front and in the second row and power sliding doors, and a power lift gate too! And a back up camera! And.. and… and… so much more!

I am in love with this minivan!

So the very next day we went back to get the van.

After a very long day of waiting at the dealer, Brian taking it to the mechanic for a once over, waiting some more, talking endlessly with our bank, filling out lots of paperwork, eating some lunch, waiting some more..

Did I say waiting?

We got to take home our new baby..

I mean van!

I heart my Town and Country!

The kiddos love driving in style, their favorite thing to do, besides the DVD player of course, is shutting the doors with a touch of a button.

Brian loves the van too, not so much the spending money on a huge purchase, but oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I will end with this..

Buying a van on vacation?

Definitely on my list of things never to do again!

I used to just understand things.. naturally.. there was no work involved.

But I don’t feel that way, not since my three kiddos have zapped the brain cells right out of me.

What was I saying again?

Just kidding… sort of.

I have a confession.

I just don’t get Twitter… at all.

I mean I have an account and if you follow me, I’ll follow you back as long as you’re a real person and not spamming me.

I have TweetDeck on my laptop and on my snazzy android phone.

I even participate in #FF (Follow Friday for those that are more clueless than me), sometimes, when I remember or when Terri over at Terri’s Little Corner faithfully #FF me because she is a rock star with high spirit and I heart her blog!

And occasionally I talk #OLTL and #GH with my soap friends…

Or #TRDC when participating with The Red Dress Club.

And when I read a blog post that I absolutely love and think others should read too, then I tweet the link and give that blogger props.

Sometimes, I tweet links to my posts too.. when I remember or when I become randomly obsessed with comments and stats, which is few and far between.

Otherwise, I don’t really participate. I barely post Facebook updates either, which is somewhat the same right? Okay not really.

I’ve heard rumors that it’s so very addicting, that once you start you won’t want to stop but…

I don’t like jumping into other people’s conversations in real life, so I feel just as awkward and shy doing so in the twitterverse.

Just on the fringes, watching, waiting and feeling like I’m missing something huge, but not entirely sure how to get the most out of it.

The community of which people speak of, I see it, right in front of me.

I’m like a ghost.

A presence not really known.

And since these feelings have fallen into the category Advice for Me: prompt #6 over at the #SummerBlogSocial 2011, I figured I’d join the fun that the lovely and talented Liz of A Belle, a Bean & a Chicago Dog and Jessica of Four Plus An Angel have put together as a sort of blogging conference/networking from home. Make sure you check out all the wonderful bloggers participating in it.

Over twelve months of waiting and praying, crying and anger at not being on the same page as my husband when it came to adding another baby to our wonderful family of five.

Twelve more months of being on the same page.

Twelve months of waiting and praying, crying and anger that finally turned into depression and indifference.

The internet and church, lands of pregnancy and newborn baby minefields, waiting to ambush me and break off another piece of my already weakened heart.

Happiness for friends.

A walled up heart.

Blessed to have my three healthy babies, who are no longer babies.

Trying to come to grips with God’s timing.

Not my timing.

My picture of a complete family may never be realized.

My soul aching to have this month be the end to my waiting and next month be the beginning of someone fresh and new.

But it’s His timing.

It’s been a year of trying.

A year of hoping and praying before that.

A lifetime of yearning.

Number four.

One day.

Soon.

Please?