Happy Sunday from rainy Colorado. Feeling pretty happy & content today. Also unsettled. Can those 3 feelings go together?
Before I forget: At the bottom of this page there are 6 videos I've recorded in the past several months. Hope they make your ears feel good.
Here's the “happy & content” part: After 4 months and 2 days (Who's counting?) of being off Facebook & Instagram I've accomplished most of what I set out to do! What a relief that has been. Let me count my accomplishments!
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I moved my ENTIRE website from another server to Bandzoogle (yea Bandzoogle - Love you guys!!). I did the entire transfer by myself with guidance from the Bandzoogle guys. Although I did lots of copy-and-paste from my old site, it required me to re-write text and re-upload photos etc. Yes, I asked lots of questions and did lots of research! She who never reads was made to read and try to understand/follow directions! Also, each page needed to be built individually so it was indeed very time consuming. Seems to have taken forever which is why it's such a lovely relief. The site is easy to update going forward and I DO Highly recommend Bandzoogle!
2. Moved my entire email data base from the old site to the new email server I use with Bandzoogle. The email address is the same (beth@bethwilliamsmusic.com) but I had to figure out how to export the whole thing. There was no one who could quite explain it - things I'd never heard of like .csr (which my old site said I couldn't export that way). So I needed to find an unconventional way of doing things. If I had to do it again, I couldn't explain how I did it. Would have to start over. Basically I just kept fiddling around with settings, buttons, codes etc. I honestly have no real idea how I finally made it all work. Regardless, I kept finding “work-arounds” and was able to bring all my email addresses with me! Yay!
3. Made big changes to my radio show. The show is still going strong AND it's taking less time to put together which is wonderful.
Basically the Radio Stations carrying the show now air 3 “Songwriter Shows from the Archives” followed by a brand-new show once a month! Granddaughter/Daughter Mozelle can be heard introducing the Archive Series at the beginning and then she closes things out too! She's such a doll.
For the curious, I used to keep the archives on Mixcloud but it was costing me $15.00 a month. Since I've never made ANY money doing the show (for over 7 ½ years!), I decided to quit spending money. They allow 10 shows to sit on Mixcloud for free, so I'm doing that now. Just adding the weekly show to the top and deleting a show each week to keep it at 10. Check out a recent Archive Show: HERE
4. Have been updating and making changes to my BethWilliamsMusic Youtube Channel. It's explained in the video below. Have gone back to my beginning and will be focusing on songs I've written and songs I love singing.
Have taken down most (if not all) of my lessons and won't be doing any more lessons or tutorials for now. I'm well aware I may lose a number of my 19,870 subscribers but this is what's right for my channel at this time. Perhaps later I'll do lessons again? We'll see. I may hide some of the old lessons and tutorials here on my website. For now they're put away.
So those are some of the changes I've made, things I've accomplished and am happy & content about. Here's the “unsettled” part.
When I left FB and Instagram, I thought I might jump back on once I got through my “to do” list. And yet…I hesitate. Sigh.
Part of that has to do with feeling somewhat directionless (Is that a word?) in how I'm going forward musically. Still figuring some things out.
For now my plan is to continue staying close to home where I spend almost all of my time right here in this little studio. Write more songs. Record, edit and put them on Youtube. Continue to work on letting go. A never ending task, it seems.
And in the words of dear John: Let it be. Until I know what else to do. Oh yes, and one foot in front of the other.
Having said all this, I may hop back on FB any day now. When I do, I hope to see you there.
Here are a few DIY videos I've recorded since being off FB. Hope you enjoy!
With love and affection. Wishing you well. Tater love forever
