Just when I was having a peaceful day - the hell of broken websites

It's raining hard here today. A perfect day to be inside. Wednesdays are a bit of a day off for me as my colleague at my main client's workplaces has the day off, so doesn't chase me with emails and phone calls.

I decided I would devote this afternoon to self-improvement and relaxation.

I attempted a twenty minute yoga session. I say attempted because every time I did the Downward Dog our puppy raced up and licked my nose. I should, on reflection, have shut her in the kitchen but her whimpering would have been too distracting.

After that I lit a candle and did a twenty minute guided meditation, and felt peace flowing through me. I was relaxed, so beautifully relaxed.

Then I made the mistake of checking my email. Another client had written saying she wanted a change on her website, which is one where people can buy tickets for a charity sleepout. She wanted an extra, cheaper, ticket for school students. I checked the back end of the website. Looked easy.

My second mistake was updating the core software and all the plugins including the event plugin. Suddenly there were no tickets any more - none on the front end and none on the back!

All my peacefulness vanished. I had a headache almost instantly.

Of all the clients, it had to be her site. I swear, this woman is a jinx. She has two websites and every time I touch them they misbehave. Something goes wrong. Now these are simple WordPress sites. There shouldn't be the issues I have with them; when I've fixed one thing another pops up. I don't have any other clients with the problems she has.

So I've given up and posted a question on a support forum for the event software. I've decided if it's all too hard I'm going to pay a contractor to fix it and bill my client for their time. I am OVER fixing websites, I find it all too stressful these days.

I'm now going to find a quiet corner and try and meditate again. I feel sick to my stomach with this website issue. If only I could afford to retire and give this website bullsh*t up!

I grump therefore I am

Is it ridiculous to be unexplainably grumpy? And a bit blue as well? For no reason? The sun has come out after a cloudy day, and I know there are people in this world let alone my own world who have good reasons to be grumpy and blue. I have my health, a roof over my head, food on the table and an income, sporadic as it may be. There should be no cause for the way I've felt today. I should be counting my blessings, which are manifold.

Human nature is such that we, of course, are the centre of our own universe, and we are, after all, animals. Self-centred grumpiness is pure animal behaviour.  Neither of my cats would contemplate the greater world if they were in a bad mood. They'd probably narrow their eyes and grumble at me. They wouldn't consider poor little starving cats hanging around the docks in Piraeus Harbour or the cats facing death row at the RSPCA, for example, to bring their own minor or non-existent problems into perspective.

Part of today's grumpiness has been software-induced, fighting with a misbehaving menu in WordPress that won't do what I ask it no matter what. I found myself shouting at the computer (don't we all?) and before I embarked on some self-harm (a good hard bite of my own wrist eases my bouts of anger, I'm ashamed to say, and has done since I was a toddler) I emailed the theme developer instead. Another client had some major changes to a site under development, so that put my plans for the morning on the back burner while I sorted out those issues.

Part too has been the grey skies. I find as the years go on I feel happier on sunny days. When I was younger it didn't matter. Today started out gloriously sunny but as the clouds covered the sky during the course of the morning they covered my psyche as well.

I gave up on work at five and took the dog for a walk in the fresh air, with the chilly north-easter blowing in our faces. I think a lot of my grumpiness today is lack of exercise. I woke blearily at six this morning, thought I'd close my eyes for a moment and suddenly it was 7.30, too late to head out walking really as the email and phone pestering usually starts around 8.30. This time of year, coming on summer, I have broken sleep too; waking hot one moment, throwing off a blanket and then waking up cold an hour later.

A migraine has been slowly building all day which doesn't help; whether it was induced by grumpiness/blueness/anger or whether it's the cause of same I'm not sure.

At least I have one thing I have accomplished today - all the Christmas cards and interstate/overseas presents are now in the hands of Australia Post.

$#%^& computers

Blimey, what a day.

Woke up this morning (just like in a blues song) to find my company's website had been suspended by the web hosts and my email had also ceased to function. A phone call to the host informed me that my site's server had been hacked and was being used to send spam. Apparently people now think I'm a Libyan trying to persuade them to hand over their bank account details. Thankfully my hosting service, with whom I've had my site for seven years, believed me when I said I wasn't so all was back online by 9.30am. Not an auspicious start to the working week though.

I then decided in my wisdom that I'd update my iPad to the latest iOS, with iCloud and other goodies. Oh, and I'd activate iCloud on the MacBook Pro too. How hard could that be? Everything Apple usually works a treat.

Not this time. I couldn't sign in to iCloud with my Apple ID. Frustrated, I went to my Apple ID page on the Apple site and all was well. I changed my password. That didn't help. I changed it again. That didn't help either. Loathe to change it for a fourth time, as there are only so many passwords I can remember on the fly, I phoned Apple.

Apple support is great. It's actually located in Australia so you talk to an Aussie who understands you and you can understand them too, unlike many of the call centre people I deal with.

Turns out I mysteriously have created, unbeknown to myself, a second Apple ID account. No idea how that happened but it could be iTunes related. I have an Apple ID for my Mac, and as far as I know used the same one when I set up iTunes. Not a problem, said my friendly Apple man, we'll just change the email address of one of them, verify the email address of the other, and we'll use number two as your ID for everything. Ha!  Easier said than done. I didn't get the verification email. Or the second one we tried to send either. I'm now waiting for iTunes support to contact me. I only hope I can still access all my i-stuff in the meantime.

I'm already having a bad day in a way as I have to attend a networking function tonight with 95 people and my sociophobia is kicking in. I run these events for a Chamber of Commerce on a monthly basis and inevitably feel depressed on the first Monday of every month as a result. I'm the last person who should be running these events but it brings an income in. On the plus side my screaming frustration at all things electronic has kept the depression at bay (probably at the expense of my blood pressure).

I'd much rather just jump on one of my bikes and go for a ride. Fat chance though, having lost two hours to call centres and fixing problems there's a healthy backlog to get through before I head out the door to my function. I hope the gods who manage the interweb look down more kindly on me tomorrow.