New Site/Rebranding Update + Sneak Peek!

Hey guys!

This will be one of the last posts under this domain. Eep!

I’m working hard on the new site, and with all the ideas I have for it, I think it makes more sense to just launch it imperfectly and keep working on it as I go, and sharing the process.

Because realistically, it’s not going to be perfect from day 1, no matter how much time I spend tinkering.

But I thought I’d use this post to share some tools I’m finding helpful in case you’re considering a similar shift.

And also to answer a couple of questions I’ve gotten. 🙂

First the questions:

Why go self-hosted?

It’s definitely a big change and a learning curve. I’ve gone with Bluehost, so, so far, the actual hosting part hasn’t actually been too complicated.

I just want all the options and freedom that comes from self-hosting. Plug-ins and widgets and themes and just more creative control.

Plus, all the advice I’ve read from established bloggers is to self-host.

So, I’m giving it a try and hoping for the best haha.

With the caveat that I don’t 100% know what I’m doing and may regret part or all of my decision.

---

Why stop being “Blushy Ginger”?

I’d be lying if I said my heart doesn’t ache a teeny bit for moving away from this domain.

But I really want to stop having to manage (and pay for) two sites. I’ve had sadie-hall.com through Squarespace as my freelancing site for years. And I don’t like it, and I don’t have the time to manage two sites. So sadie-hall.com was being neglected.

At the same time, I don’t feel like I can use Blushy Ginger for everything I want to do.

So, what I think I’ll be doing is keeping my Instagram account as @blushyginger. I’ve been debating changing to something like its.sadiehall or bysadiehall or withsadiehall, but I think I’m not ready to say goodbye to blushyginger yet.

So yeah, that’s my thinking on it all.

---

now the list of resources!

• The whole section of Anxious Lass’ site. Especially this post: HOW TO START A MENTAL HEALTH BLOG.
• Ashley’s Blogging and Writing Tips section of her site (Mental Health @ Home)
• This YouTube playlist by Cathrin Manning: Blogging Tips (she has other blogging playlists worth checking out too)
• This podcast: Blogging Breakthroughs with Faith Mariah

I’m working on compiling a complete list of blogging tools and resources I’ve found helpful, but the links above give you the top of list! 🙂

---

And finally, a sneak peek at the new site!!!

Still some changes to make but this is the general look!

---

I hope you have a lovely weekend! 🙂

I’ll publish an announcement when the domain redirection is about to go live! The sad thing is that I think I will lose all my wordpress.com Reader followers, because the Reader is only a wordpress.com feature. So… that’s probably the biggest thing delaying the switch as a I figure out what to do.

Leave any questions below! I’ll answer them here and add them to a future post as well.