Transitioning from Squarespace 5 to 7

Over the three-day weekend, I upgraded my Squarespace 5 website to Squarespace 7. If you are seeing this post you are seeing my new site!

A screen snap of the last post done on Squarespace 5

Squarespace provides a 12-step process for doing the transition. The first 2 are in the ‘getting ready’ category and then comes the import (step 3). It was significant in my case since I had been blogging daily to my Squarespace 5 site for 5 years. I started the import from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace 7 on Friday and was concerned that the import interrupted before finishing when I stopped for the night…then pleasantly surprised Saturday morning that it had restarted and finished overnight. 3 steps down and 9 more to go!

Enabling content (step 4) was very easy for the blog posts…it was all done with one ‘enable’ and then moving the page from ‘not linked’ to the ‘main navigation’ area within the new site. The galleries were another story. Each of the galleries (sets of pictures), were imported as a separate page so they had to be enabled and moved one at a time. They now are in the galleries archive segment of the site. The other single pages were easy to enable too. Fortunately, I did not have anything I needed to manually move so Step 5 did not require any action. Step 6-9 were all about getting the site looking like I wanted and learning how to use the Squarespace 7 interface to add new content. I experimented with several of the templates before settling on Five and then worked to tailor it the way I wanted. The first days of using a new interface are always a little frustrating and this was no exception. I’m still not sure I understand how do everything but I’m confident enough that I can figure it out that I consider myself transitioned to Squarespace 7 at this point.

Step 10 was to upgrade from a 14-day-trail site. That happened on Sunday afternoon and I moved the domain to point to it (Step 11). I was surprised and pleased at how fast the change propagated. I’m waiting to cancel my Squarespace 5 site (which I can look at using the internal Squarespace address) until I am sure everything imported correctly. There are still a few issues related to galleries that I am working.

I’ve been thinking about what has happened to me over the past 5 years as I’ve looked at the content of my blog and the galleries. It been quite a journey! There are probably some blog posts about the trends I’ve noticed that I’ll post about in the next few weeks.

Use the ‘Contact’ button to let me know anything you notice that I need to fix.

Zentangle® – August 2017

It’s the first of the month – so time to showcase the Zentangle tiles from August: 31 days and 31 Zentangles. 9 of the tiles I chose to include in this post were the backs of old business cards and 22 were square tiles cut from Seltzer water boxes. I realized that I have some patterns that I am using again and again…it’s time to find some new favorites! One theme I used in August was to use some of the lighter – subtler – colors on the cardboard tiles. The color often seems to be embedded into the light brown of the tile: grays, light greens, melons, pinks. The last two are probably my favorites.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2017

August has been a busy month – volunteering (primarily at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy) and the solar eclipse road trip. There has been plenty to celebrate.

Monarch Butterflies. The population of Monarchs in Maryland is so reduced from 15 years ago that I celebrate whenever I see them. Brookside Gardens has a few and they are strong enough flyers that I’ve seen them even on rainy days where most of the other butterflies are hiding under leaves.

Orange dead leaf butterfly resting on my hand. An orange dead leaf butterfly kept me company for the last 20 minutes of one of my Wings of Fancy shifts! It settled onto my hand and used its proboscis to get whatever was on my skin. Periodically it opened its wings – flashed their brilliance for a second or two before looking like a dead leaf again. (picture from back in July...not when it was on my hand)

Emerging Atala butterfly. I was at the discovery station talking with a group of children in front of the discovery station when an Atala butterfly emerged. Its wings were folded so tight that they were almost not visible! The was a great experience for the children…and for me too.

Emerging pipevine swallowtails. One day there were three swallowtails that emerged during the hour I was at the discovery station at Wings of Fancy. There was a different audience of families each time. Someone would comment that one of the chrysalises was moving and then – the butterfly would be pulling itself out. The wings would be very wet but noticeably start expanding almost immediately.

Cantaloupe. We’ve has some great watermelon and cantaloupes from our CSA this year. They are probably all worth a little celebration but there was one cantaloupe that was spectacularly sweet – and that’s the one I’m thinking about as I write this.

August sunrise. Somehow being up and observing the sunrise is my favorite way to start the day. It is something to celebrate even if it potentially happens every day!

Orange striped oakworm caterpillar. Yes – it eats oak leave…but they don’t kill the tree. They are beautiful caterpillars and I celebrated seeing one for the first time!

Spider web on the mailbox. I celebrated a spider web that was naturally misted (with fog) and being in out at the right time to photograph it. As a secondary little celebration – I was relieved that the ants that crawled up my legs, while I was concentrating on photography, did not bite me!

Glow. I celebrated thinking about the glow of light in flowers and glow of interactions with people…sometimes those two things bring out similar emotions.

A day at home. Sometimes with a lot going on, a day at home is just what I need…and worth celebrating.

Flower Glow

Sometimes the light is just right…the flower bloom is at the right stage…it seems to glow from within.

It happened last week at Brookside Gardens. The hibiscus flower was in partial shade but the wind was blowing and the top part of the inner flower got direct sun for a few seconds. There were several fleeting opportunities to take pictures…the one I am including in this post is my favorite.

As I looked at the on the larger screen, I wondered if people glow and concluded that when I think of people glowing it isn’t from light…it is from something within. Looking back at people that came through the Wings of Fancy exhibit – it seems like the people I noticed ‘glowing’ were either young (preschool) or very old.

For the children, the glow came from seeing so many butterflies around them. They don’t appear overwhelmed or overly excited; they just stand and follow the butterflies with their eyes…a little smile on their face…their hands together.

For older people, it is a little different but sometimes the expression is the same. There was a 90-year-old woman in a wheel chair whose family had brought her to the exhibit to celebrate her birthday; she didn’t say very much but the look of her face was one of pure joy of being in that place at that time watching butterflies flutter around her. Another older lady – probably in her 80s – was more animated; she talked about when she was young and loving butterflies around where she lived but being afraid of caterpillars…not finding out until many years later than the caterpillars became butterflies. While she talked, she followed butterflies with her eyes; she was savoring her life – present and past.

The other people in the exhibit may not always glow but the happy voices and expressions on just about everyone’s face certainly makes the volunteer shifts enjoyable. The Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens in my universal happy place this summer!