Embracing Little Changes

Sometimes changes might be only subtle, but do you notice them?

Often it can be difficult to see indistinct changes from one day to the next, but the differences are hard to miss in the following two photos.

On April 27, blooms were just emerging on my Poinsettia.  This morning, that same bloom is looking significantly more elaborate than it did 12 days ago and my White Bat Plant has also undergone a few subtle changes.  It’s trying to ‘grow up’.

And then there are the subtle changes in the Moon that are a little more difficult to see but are still there nonetheless.

The Moon is classified as full the day before and the day after it reaches 100% illumination.

In the photo I took yesterday, the Moon’s illumination is at 99%, while in the photo I took this morning it’s at 100%.

In both photos, the Moon is big and beautiful, lighting up the night sky like the incredible beacon that it is.  But there are subtle changes and while it’s now at its fullest, tomorrow it will begin waning, gradually decreasing illumination to 0% on May 22 when the Moon will be ‘New’ once more.

Change, as they say, is as good as a holiday and while I’m not sure how that applies to the Moon or the flowers I grow, I do know how it applies to me personally and, even though having a holiday is impossible right now, perhaps a change is the next best thing.

– ⋅ o ♥ o ⋅ –

I recently discovered my blog theme had been retired by the WordPress.com Happiness Engineers and I was (almost) distressed by this.  I liked the theme I had applied and, as recently as the end of February, had spent quite some time making significant changes while implementing a static front page.  I had a wonderful time creating my personal signature that appears below the ‘Welcome to My Cosmos’ message and tweaking a few options I’d not used before.

The next modification I attended to was ensuring my posts and pages didn’t contain broken links.  I found all sorts of things that were not working as they should and believe a lot of those issues occurred when I changed my website domain quite some time ago.  I was relieved to get them fixed.

With several hours of painstaking work behind me, I sat back and smiled.  Finally, my blog was looking and feeling more like, well, more like me 🙂

It’s a labour of love.  I enjoy blogging and all that it entails and I place a lot of importance on keeping my blog fresh so to speak.

A couple of weeks ago I was presented with the following message on the WordPress.com (overview) page for my theme:

This theme is retired.

We invite you to try out a newer theme; start by browsing our WordPress theme directory.

Thank you WordPress Happiness Engineers and I mean that sincerely because, with a little Google searching, I discovered themes are retired because they can’t support the majority of new WordPress features.

Enter the Process of Discovering a New Theme

It’s not easy.  I’ve agonised over changing my theme – again.  The last time I did was in August 2018 and back then I also worried about doing so.

But this time there was an even scarier element to taking that leap – once altered, I could not revert to my previous theme.

Enter Careful Consideration

At the end of the day, I didn’t wish to be using a retired theme and I found the prospect of new features enticing.

With a little help and advice from Shelley (daughter No 2), I found a new theme that’s not too far removed from what I’ve been using.

Enter Trepidation

The main difference with this new theme is the absence of a featured image automatically appearing on either posts or pages.  Together with that careful consideration, I finally decided I can live with this and, moving forward, I’ll include my featured images at (or near) the top of my posts.

Finally

After all of that, this morning, I bit the bullet and hit ‘Publish’!

Ok, I held my breath, closed my eyes and click the button while biting that bullet.

I’ll take some time now to go through the process of ensuring everything is working as it should and (most likely) implement subtle changes over the next week or so.

Did you notice I changed my theme?

I hope you did.

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The new theme I’ve chosen is called Arcane.  It’s . . .

. . . is a clean, responsive, retina ready and modern WordPress theme suitable for personal blogs or small and medium-sized magazine websites.

Have a look around and let me know what you think?