Happy Muslim Mama: Can Blogging Make You Crazy?

I received a message about two weeks ago informing me that my domain name purchase (for www.happymuslimah.com) would not be renewed.  This happened to me once before years ago when my blog used to be at www.happymuslimmama.com and I had to think of a new domain name and register that instead (many years later, I still get e-mails and the occasional call asking me if I want to buy the old domain name back at silly prices.  So far they haven’t accepted my offer of $10 maximum, I’m not paying $500 either).

So I have spent two days trying to find out why and how to rectify (I needed to update my payment details).  Blogger has been bought up by Google who have created a dashboard to manage all their apps.  They created an account for me which I didn’t know and a Google Wallet payment method, which I also didn’t know.  After trawling through numerous online blogs and forums I found out how to login and after two hours of trying still hadn’t accessed my dashboard to update my payment details and renew my domain name.

I was so fed up and ready to pull my hair out by this point that even the kids had noticed.  Little Lady instructed the boys to get into bed and leave me alone.  She was probably more concerned than me when I told her I would lose my blog and six years of writing.

I decided at this point that I would think of a new blog address, buy the name and move to WordPress.

Next morning, I prayed two nawafil for salat hajat (prayer for difficulty or need) and another two for istikharah (the prayer that helps you make a decision), to ask for guidance if blogging was a good thing to continue with.  I tried looking at the blog sign-in instructions again and found a link buried in a blog that let me sign in straight away with a password and username that I remembered from many years ago.

I managed to update my payment details, verify them to Google and renew my domain.  I also set it to auto-renew every year.  That solved one problem and caused another because my bank noticed a $1 administration fee and a low value transaction by a foreign organisation (Google) looks suspicious.  They blocked my debit card.  Once I had called them and unblocked , I was happier.

It’s made me think though, about blogging in the future.  I would like to use a platform that is more professional and joins up my various blogs better and doesn’t drive me crazy as blogger has on a number off occasions before with its changes that cause all sorts of problems.  It also mad me rethink the purpose of my blogging and refresh my desire to write insh’Allah.

Can any readers/bloggers who have experience of WordPress or both Blogger and WordPress please advise on whether it is worth making the move to WordPress or if that has its problems also?