Happy at last

I am not a writer, and for that matter I am not a story teller either. But I do know where you can go for a good story, and I will share that at the end of this post.

I lost access to this blog 3 days ago, and just now did I get it back. It has been a nightmare that is hard to describe. But if you use gmail, you need to read this and you need to be aware of what happens to you.

While it is true that Google's list of products is vast, most blogger's use gmail and blogger, along with YouTube and possibly a few others. To give an idea of how vast the products are I have taken snips of their product page for you.

And, with Google there is so much more. So like most, I was sucked in. What I did not understand is that many of their products are not supported. And, gmail is one of them. The problem is my blog is linked to my gmail account, so when my gmail was locked, so was my blog. I could care less about my gmail, but the work I have in my blog I can never recreate. It has taken over 2 years to build my blog to where it is today, and as most everyone knows, this entails hours and hours of work. To have it locked and to find out from Google "tough luck" was devastating to me. I did not lock my blog, I did not do anything to cause this. My internet went out, so I had to sign back into gmail. Suddenly I was asked for a 2 step verification to text my phone. I did not sign up for this as Google does not support my iphone 5c. I was asked over and over again, and told at the end - basically "sorry about your luck" - we will contact you in 3 to 5 days via a pop up at the end of answering endless questions to prove I was me. Seriously! I doth protest, how is this right? It does not matter what I think. I am a peon amongst millions of other peons. Despite it being devastating for me, it is nothing to Google. I offered to pay to get my gmail back ... they do not even offer a paid service.

It is by coincidence only that I rescued my blog. In mid April I bought the domain for aplaceforkia and you will notice my name is no longer aplaceforkia.blogspot.ca - it is now aplaceforkia.com.

It is only through that purchase that I rescued my blog and, a fantastic person at Google Domains named Michael. He spent a great deal of time getting me my blog back and linking my blog to my domain. So, now everything that my old blog did, my website now does. Had I not bought my domain, I would be in the soup and lost everything that I have worked so hard at for the last couple of years. 

So, lesson learned ... my domain has more than one email associated to it and they all have admin capabilities. Yes, they all belong to me. I control my blog, not Google. As much as I love Google, this episode had me furious at them. 

So, if you have gmail, protect yourself, and if you have a blog, protect it from the host platform. Be sure you control all your hard work. 

That is the end of my story ... I am happy to be back and will post a thank you card tomorrow that I will make with Michael in mind. And to those of you who are subscribed to my blog, I have managed to transfer your subscriptions to this new website, and I can only hope it works properly.

For those of you wanting for some good reading, visit my friend Lydia's blog Understandblue. Not only does she write beautifully, she is funny and tells the best stories, and she makes beautiful art.