Welcome to the “new” Velvet Verbosity site. Not sure yet if it will be temporary. As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know, my site was hacked and was sending out spam to people as well as causing some visitors to get a warning that the site was infected with malware (not to be confused with “mall wear”). Fun.

I had a live chat with support at Hostmonster and deleted all suspicious files, updated the part of my site with new code where the “hole” was, but then for good measure downloaded a new theme and upgraded the framework and deleted the old theme entirely from my files. I’ve checked with Google Webmaster Tools and the site has a clean bill of health there, and Hostmonster has removed all warnings.

Whew. Way over my head. I need to marry a web coding geek (preferably with dark tousled hair and big brown eyes), any takers?

I’ll be back soon with a new 100 words prompt. First I need to go lay face-down on the bed for awhile.

Ok, so I love this theme overall, but there are problems that are making me unsure if I will keep it.  Here’s what I’m wrestling with behind the scenes.

• My old header won’t work with this theme, and…
• What size header the theme will accept seems completely nonsensical.  I’m sure there’s a magic height and width and once I figure that out I’ll worry about investing time in creating something that actually, you know, looks nice.
• The theme is designed to display photography, which I like, but…the theme is designed to display photography, not posts on 100 words, or posts without an image. If I don’t include an image, it displays all funky and unattractive on the home page.  Oy vey.
• Same but different, I’m also trying to figure out what to do when I want to write a post that isn’t associated with a photo I’ve taken.  Like word portraits, for which I had previously used others’ artwork.  Word portraits just won’t work with any photo I could take.  They are usually about strangers so I can’t get a photo of them, and also don’t want to. The point of the word portraits is to paint an image of someone with words.  Yet, to use someone else’s artwork when the site displays images so prominently seems like it could easily be mistaken for trying to steal credit.
• I am baffled, BAFFLED by the organization on the home page.  As an example, I set the category of “The City” to “Places” and yet it’s displaying it under the category…oh wait, I just realized what’s going on there.  Never mind.

So, that’s what I’m wrestling with.  I’ve set up the 100 Words instruction page, and as soon as I figure out just a couple more things, we’ll move 100 words back over here.

See you soon!

What else can you say when it’s been a while except, “it’s been a while”?

It’s been a while.

It’s also going to be a little while longer.  I don’t think it’s a secret at this point that I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes to backend IT stuff.  In fact, I avoid it at all costs, which means I have a backup but I’m not sure how to use.  I’m not even sure it’s the right kind of backup.  And it’s from February, so some stuff will be lost.

I can’t even think about it.  All that lost content.

But here I am, again claiming my own little corner of the internets.  I chose this theme because I plan on sharing more of my photography this time around.

Here we go.