Hello friendly readers! My name is Tom Rafels, and as you might already know from my previous journal entry, I’m a 5-year-old house cat dealing with some chronic health issues that have left me a bit down in the dumps. Dr. Stacy, my wise vet, recommended I start journaling for my mental health, while she works with me in trying to get me physically better.
So, I thought, why not take it a step further and create a blog? This could either help motivate me to keep journaling and write my way into a healthier mind set, or…I guess it could plunge me further down into the depths of mental health issues, as there’s a possibility that I develop delusional feelings of importance and grandeur with this new blog, believing I’m writing to a captured audience that’s hanging on my every word and waiting to read my latest post. Only time will tell which way this goes.
The Tools Needed to Start a Blog
For those who would like a gentle reminder, a blog (short for “weblog,”) is a type of online journal where individuals, like yours truly, can share their thoughts, experiences, and ideas with a wider audience. It’s a website designed for self-expression and allows us to post regular entries, called “posts,” in a chronological order. Blogs can cover various topics, from personal musings to more specialized subjects, like travel, fashion, or cooking. With the help of user-friendly blogging platforms and an internet connection, anyone—even a house cat—can create and maintain their own blog, connecting with readers and building a community around shared interest.
After doing some googling, I discovered that there’s a lot of online platforms that cater to future and active bloggers. A lot of them say they are free, and some of them might actually be free. However, I decided to set my blog up using a traditional method that millions of bloggers have used in the past, WordPress. Although WordPress is a free website building software, I still have to pay an initial fee for my website’s domain name as well as a hosting fee to a webhost provider.
Essentially, I’m building my own website. Which is really neat because I’ve never done that before and I’ve always wondered how that works!
So, before I could start posting my journal entries to a blog, I needed to gather some essential tools. Here’s what I found lying around the house that allowed me to get started building my own blog site:
- A computer with internet access (Thanks Kristin, my human companion!)
- A working credit card (again, Thanks Kristin! I’ll pay you back. I promise!)
How Do I Create a Personal Website?
There’s a bit of a learning curve involved in building your own website with WordPress, but there’s tons of YouTube tutorials out there showing how you can do this step by step.
I was able to do everything from Kristin’s HP laptop, which isn’t my favorite (I miss the MacBook Pro that my sister, Tonya destroyed), but it gets the job done.
For my domain name, I decided to keep it simple and go with www.tomrafels.com.
The YouTuber’s tutorial I was working from recommended www.hostgator.com for my webhost provider. I was actually able to register my domain name through them in addition to signing up for a basic hosting service.
With my domain name and hosting site in paw, I followed along with the tutorial as I set up my website using WordPress. Which was really great because it didn’t require that I know any fancy programming languages, like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript (all languages which are apparently used to build websites). WordPress codes it for you. You just drag and click where you want your text and pictures to be!
Getting Started with a Blog
All in all, I spent $40 of Kristin’s money (I promise I’ll pay her back) to get my website up and running and my first blog entry posted! My website is far from complete, but I’ve learned a lot and I’m starting to get a lot more ideas for potential future goals.
A New Sense of Achievement and Future Goals
I must admit, I feel quite proud of myself for achieving this goal. Who knew a cat like me could enter the world of blogging? It turns out that goal setting can be a form of self-help journaling, and I’m excited to explore this further in future journal entries. Maybe, just maybe, setting and achieving goals will help lift me out of this funk.
So here’s to future goals, personal growth, and discovering new things of interests!
Happy blogging,
Tom Rafels