Hello.  Let me introduce myself.

I am an Idiot.

The other day, as some of you noticed, I posted my Monday night February 13^th Blog post “Lesson 27” in the normal time-frame.

Nothing new.  I try to be punctual.

This time, though, I tried to jump the gun and get it out before dinner.  (I’d prepared it the day before)

As I pressed the magic “publish” button, my computer hiccupped, I lost internet, and I also lost my post.  “Oh no!  That took me hours!”  It was gone.  Just gone.  It wasn’t even in my drafts anymore.  “Ugh!”

I grumbled, and sat down to dinner.  After doing the dishes, I opened up my Blog, praying it would be there.  Nope.  Still gone.  My dog sat there sadly, knowing it was her grooming time.  “Sorry Chloe, Mommy needs to figure this out.”

I opened my dashboard trying to find the draft.  It had to be there, right?  Nope.  Gone.  Chloe whined.  I patted her on the head.

When I glance back at the screen, I saw that two people had commented on the missing post.  “Commented on what?”  Could they see it?  I couldn’t see it.

After meddling with the system for a while, I finally found my post….  Back on January 28^th.

Did I pull a Michael J. Fox?  Did I time travel?

No, but my computer did somehow.  Now I have no Blog post for Monday, and an extra one in the past, and a two-day-old post on my home page.  How the HECK-OLA does something like that happen?

Chloe barked, and I let her out.  Sorry, Chloe.

So, what the heck do I do?  Rather than having people jump to my Home page and not find a post, I copied Lesson Seven from its odd place in the “past”, and re-posted the same article in the “present”.  Now, I didn’t delete the time-travel post, because there were already comments on it, so there are two strings of comments on two different dates about exactly the same topic.

Whew!  Anyway… sorry about that double post.  And Sorry Chloe, for not getting to brush you.

I finished that post last weekend.  Added the art, made it pretty.  And then I left it in my “drafts” folder.  I’ve done this countless times before without any problems.  (When you have three kids, you need to write whenever you get a chance… and life doesn’t always agree with your blog schedule).

Anyway… while I was fiddling— copying the content of the time-travel post to re-publish it— I clicked on a button by mistake.  A date popped up… and my magic “publish” button changed to “Schedule”.

I am such an idiot.

I never knew that was there.  I could schedule my posts weeks in advance if I wanted to, and not have to stress about getting them done on time!  How many times had my posts popped up on Tuesday because I didn’t get a chance to hit that magic publish button until 11:00 PM, which is already the next day in WordPress time.  (Making my incredibly anal brain feel late.)

Let me repeat

Schedule your stinking posts, Jen.

Just in case I am not the only IDIOT in the world… there is a little schedule button over on the right when you compose your post.  Duh.

From now on, if my posts hit your email at 1:00 in the morning, it’s not because I have insomnia.  I’m just giving you a whole day of “reading joy” rather than waiting for me to get home from work, make dinner, clean up dinner, brush the dog, and tuck the kids in before I get a change to press that stupid publish button.

A schedule button

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Related articles

• Why the ‘Publish’ button scares me (papaschoice.wordpress.com)
• Blogger now schedules future-dated posts (buzz.blogger.com)