When I started my blog and trying to name it I was all, hmm… what words do I like? Lovely? Um, sure. That’s my blog name. Cool.

I never expected the audience and the opportunity that it could possibly bring (and really? Saying my blog is called Oh! How Lovely! sounds silly when all I do is talk about nail polish and babes) plus I have slight design ADD so I decided it was time for a little change here at the House of Lovely.

I present Lovely: Version 2.0

If you click on through, you’ll see I have a new blog design. It’s a little cleaner, not as pink and cutesy but still pretty. I’ve also renamed my blog and added a sassy tagline.

So yes, new name but still just as a lovely. And I’m still keeping @JamieLovely as my twitter name. I’m the original Lovely, dudes. Some things just won’t change.

I’m still tweaking a few things on the sidebars and pages but I’m kind of in love. Many, many thanks to Splendid Sparrow for a great experience. I couldn’t be happier with my new look!

What do you think? Love it or hate it?

Spill.

Thanks for all your comments on Disqus yesterday and today! I removed it and since I couldn’t just activate threaded comments via Wordpress (not compatible with my theme), I had to install the Wordpress Threaded Comments plugin. So far it seems okay but I hate that I have to enter all of my info when I want to reply to a comment on my own freaking blog!

But I’ll live.

And because New Moon is just weeks away, I’m hosting a Twilight themed giveaway over on my shopping blog.

Go check it out for a chance to win a tee of your choice from Firedaughter Clothing.

Stay fierce.

I installed the comment system, Disqus, a few days ago as a trial run to see if I liked it.

I’m not really sure how I feel about it yet. Threaded comments are nice but I’m sure I can find a Wordpress plugin to do that.

Someone commented today that they hated Disqus and of course, I’m going to take that into consideration.

You guys are the ones commenting.

If it’s a pain in the ass, let me know and I’ll scrap it.

Thoughts?

Two years ago today, I wrote my first entry on this blog. And for some reason, people still keep reading it!

Sometimes I feel like I’ve had this site forever and then sometimes it’s like really, I swear I just made this silly thing.

But what I’m sure about it is that this little piece of the internet helped shape me in a way I never thought possible. I didn’t start out trying to find myself, career directions or best friends but here I am.

I definitely haven’t found myself yet. This year threw me in quite a bit of a tailspin and I’m working on the transition of ME from US. When you’re an US for so long, you lose yourself a little bit. I’ve been trying to find me again and it’s hard but I’m trying.

Career wise, I’m getting there. I figure I know which direction I’d like to go in now compared to shying away from conversations asking what I went to school for or where I am working. I have a practical experience in social media from my blogs to my communities and I guess now it’s time to settle down and get the background education to go with it. I figure once that happens, I can officially own the internet and everyone will bow down before me. I’ll be like the Voldy of the internetz and crucio all the Mudbloods (newbs) who post ridiculous shit in my forums.

Just kidding. Damn. Don’t get your internet panties all in a twist!

(Also, that just got crazy HP nerdy right there. I apologize.)

(HAH. No, I don’t. CRUCIO.)

ANYWAY.

I’ve met a lot of bloggers this past year especially with Vegas and BlogHer. Many of whom, I met for the first time, but felt like I’ve known them forever. It was kind of like, “Hi. Just meeting you for the first time in person but tell me how is blah blah blah”. You just fall in step because you know them and they know you. And that is probably the best part of this whole thing.

When people say, oh hey, yay blogger meet up! I’m all, yay hanging out with FRIENDS! Like the whole past week: wine party, dinner with Lacey and Nicole, Chicagonista writer meeting. Not blogger activities to me. Yeah, we may have met through our blogs but I don’t think of them as bloggers anymore. It’s just friends. And I’ve met some pretty amazing ones.

Year two of Oh! How Lovely broken down:

Heartbreak. New friends. Vegas, baby! RPattz and ASkars. It’s Britney, bitch! Puppy birthday. Wine shots. Launching a newspaper. Leaving the newspaper! Nintendo parties. Bangs. Unemployment. Almost wearing leggings in front of Tim Gunn. Meeting the love of my life. Working for crazy people. Cheeseburger parties. Reading through the Chicago Public Library. Developing an obsession with Lifetime. Cheesecake dates. Adorable little French girls. Getting my first official pedicure. The fourth anniversary of my 21st birthday. Friends or Seinfeld? Getting ready to launch the newest Chicago website.

Someone give us a birthday tiara. I still don’t do party hats.

And year three?

Bring it.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about today. Then the record scratched. Someone hit the breaks and my world decided to explode into tiny pieces.

It’s every social media and internet addict’s worst nightmare. The internet decided to quit on me. And the True Blood thing? Well, that just added salt to my wound.

Funnily enough, I had just tweeted this the night before:

(Yes, I did. Ask my sister. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. But seriously, sometimes hashtags are just needed.)

And after all this nonsense today, I think the internet is just trying to spite me and show me who is boss.

But you know what, internet? I have other things to do. I have books to read, shows to watch, jobs to apply for and people to  chat with on iChat. So mess with someone else’s connection, jerk. I don’t need you**.

* Just kidding! Please, don’t leave me.
** I lied, I need you. Please, please bring Twitter back. I promise not to talk back again.***
*** Unless you take my blog down again, then we will have a big fucking problem.

I’m a designer’s worst nightmare.

I will badger you and be quite annoying. Send you multiple emails if you don’t answer me. I’m very vocal about my thoughts. I can definitely tell you what I don’t want but find it hard to describe what it is I do want. Because I don’t know, I just know I don’t want that.

I am incredibly picky. I like things to flow nicely. To match. I want this there and that here. Move that slightly to the left and up a couple inches. No, that font is hideous. Yes, I’m sure I don’t want a graphic of a size two, red head because that doesn’t look shit like me. I don’t like cartoony stuff and hearts all over the place. Hawaiian flowers? Really? I’m in Chicago.

I like simple and clean. Give me a great font, some color (but not obnoxiously full of color), good theme and I’m happy.

Anyway, I needed business cards since I changed my URL and email address. The most important reason I needed them though was the branding of my other cards didn’t match my newest design.

Yes, I’m that girl.

I bitched about it for weeks because my designer disappeared off the face of the earth (maybe because I annoyed her to death) and BlogHer is coming up. Branding, branding, branding, wah wah wah.

Then Danni came to my rescue and took my design, modified the font and now I have new cards. I got them printed up and they came on Friday.

I love them.

And I didn’t even pester her to death about them.

Now that is what I call progress.

(I’ll be putting together an ‘Etsyify Yourself for BlogHer’ post this week for the shopping blog. I’ll let you know what you need and make sure it’s super cute and handmade too!)

This past weekend when I hosted the Chicago preBlogHer meet up, there was lots of talk about how we all got started with blogging. I don’t know if I’ve ever really talked about it much here so I figured I’d write about it. Plus, it’s very interesting to hear other people’s stories on how blogging came to be for them.

I started writing on Livejournal in 2002, way back before I even knew what a blog was. In the next couple of years, I found Dooce because someone mentioned she posted photos of her dog with spaghetti noodles around his nose and I thought it was the most hilarious thing. (Hey Heather, bring back the spaghetti and Chuck photos!)

Then that lead to other blogs, like Amalah, Joy Unexpected and Miss Zoot (who are still some of my favorites today). This was years before I knew there were 20somethings who blogged. I kept up with those blogs but stuck to Livejournal because blogs were where they big girls played and I just didn’t feel on that level just yet. I didn’t have anything important to say so I’d stick to my daily posts about my day and bands I seen in my locked LJ.

In fall of 2007, I created a blog that lived for a few short months then deleted it. I think it was once I discovered Brandy’s blog that I decided I was ready to have a grown up blog because I found someone (and a whole network) I could relate to and finally said goodbye to good old LJ. I jumped right into NaBloPoMo and into 20SB, where I was one of the first 100ish members (now there are over 6,000 of us!).

And the rest was history.

How did you get started blogging?

Please update your blogrolls and link pages from ohhowlovely.net to jamieann.net.

Same with ohhowlovely.net/shops to jamieann.net/shops.

Also don’t forget to resubscribe using THIS LINK if you want to keep up with me via feed reader.

BlogHer ‘09 is coming up super fast. I know some of you Chicago ladies will be hitting it up for the first time this year. Or you might have missed out on getting tickets but that’s okay.

I’m helping put together a Chicago-Area BlogHer Group. It’s to help all of us connect pre-event. I know I was super intimated last year when I was headed to the conference so we are using these groups in various cities to hopefully help ease people in. This way you walk in knowing some people there and don’t feel that initial awkwardness like I did last year.

We’re attempting to put together a meet-up for June 13th. All BlogHers are welcome, whether you have a ticket or not. Come hang out and meet some amazing women.

Join our group here and throw in your two cents on date and location. Don’t forget to introduce yourself. And spread the word!

You definitely don’t want to miss out on this awesome meet-up.

Not in Chicago? Check out the Groups page to see if a BlogHer Group is launching in your city!

(P.S. I’ve moved hosts and domains with the help of Nico. Change the link in your blog roll? Feed should be the same so no need to resubscribe. But if you haven’t yet added me to your reader, do so here.)

Imagine my surprise when I get an @reply on Twitter yesterday that looks like this:

And it was true!

In the hours that followed, my internet world burst into flames. I burst into tears. Tons of emails went out. File restoration services had been looked into. Hosting and new domains had been purchased. Emails went unanswered. Oh and my internet wasn’t working so I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. Then I cried some more.

It was an honest to goodness mess.

For way too many hours, I thought everything I had built up the past few years was gone forever. All posts, comments, memories. All of this visual experience I have to show when I try to tell people I know what I’m talking about when looking for a job. My proof. My writing. It was gone.

It’s not a good feeling.

A little while ago, everything fell back into place. For now at least. My blogs are back and you better believe I backed them up. I’ll be moving hosts to another with great support just in case something like this or any other situation arises.

The moral of this story is back up your sites and back them up often. The most recent back up I had was from late last year because I accidentally deleted the one I made a few weeks ago.

Go back everything up right now.

I’ll wait.

Did you do it?

Good.

Now I hope the weekend treats you well and you don’t have an internet crisis.

P.S. Can anyone help me move my blogs? My files are too big to import and I don’t know how to do it and I’m afraid I’ll break things.
P.P.S. I’m giving away a copy of Jen Lancaster’s new book (which is hilarious), Pretty in Plaid. Go enter now!