birthday gift ...

It wasn't my birthday but Meg's   and she was giving away gifts ... and I won one!!   This pretty packaging ...

contained all these lovely goodies ...

 

Thank you Meg!

missing link ...

 This is posted at the request of Lavender Dreamer - not sure how we can help but this could happen to any of us - this will at least help you find her blog again.

 

 

Saturday, February 23, 2019

The Behemoth squashes the little Lavender Dreamer

That's right. "The Rise of the Machines" is upon us. Our former happy little blog (lavenderdreamstoo.blogspot.com) was suddenly terminated.

Why and how was it done? It wasn't someone reporting us. It was Google's automated piece of software (a bot) that roams the Blogger world looking for pre-programmed words of woe. Once it detects something it kills the whole blog without warning. Without any notification about these supposed offending words. Without an opportunity to fix anything. Just ZAP ... your digital life is deleted. Everything is gone!

Ten years of blogging, thousands of posts, many thousands of photos, over ten thousand comments and a hundred thousand heart-felt words all gone in an instant. Devastating! Be warned all you innocents in blogland.

The blog was actually removed twice, for "phishing". Which, as you all know, is absurd. We have never asked for your personal, private information. The Appeals process reinstated the blog the first time then the Google Bot zapped us again the next day. But the second time we were locked out of the Appeals process. We tried sending Feedback. Never got a answer. Tried to post to the Blogger Help Community. They never published the post. Located twenty phone numbers for Google. The numbers are all automated and only a couple allowed you to leave a message. We left messages. Never got a callback.

Google/Blogger pronounces you guilty using an "automated system" (their words) and gives you little or no opportunity to prove otherwise. It's been a nightmare. (for more details see the timeline post below)

So what choice do we have now that Google/Blogger has burned down our blog? Like the Phoenix from Greek mythology we shall rise from the ashes with this new blog. We will start over and hope that our many friends and followers will be able to find us and that they will never ever have to suffer the same fate.

Mr. Lavender D.

---

You can imagine how devastating this has been to me. I appreciate my sweet hubby taking the time to help me start a new blog. But can I ask all of you to do me a favor? Will you please put a sentence or two in your next post to let people know where I am and what has happened to me? You can say that my blog was unfairly removed by Blogger and we are trying our best to get it back, but for now I will post updates on the process here:

lavenderdreamsnew.blogspot.com

And also a plea to Blogger to bring back lavenderdreamstoo. We're a supportive community! Maybe they will listen if we all voice our consternation together!

Thank you, Lavender Dreamer Diane

You have our permission to copy and paste any part or all of this post to your social media. At the very least please post a few lines on your own blog about what's happened to Lavender Dreams and include our new blog address. Thanks. MrLD

Blogging

Let me be clear, we love blogging. We've been doing it since 2005.

I personally have created probably 60 or more blogs for family, friends, clubs, organizations and given blogging classes in our retirement community. All for free. All on Blogger. They all have worked well, present issue excepted, because Blogger has provided the best platform. Plus it's free.

We use numerous other Google products, again all free. And they work well. As you can see, I believe in free (and open source)!

This present issue has shown us that the customer service area of Google/Blogger may need some improvement. And the process of automatically removing a blog or other product really needs some work because, as we discovered, there was no warning mechanism or contact prior to execution. We were only notified after the death of our blog.

Because we ran into so many roadblocks on our quest for answers we had to resort to making this issue known to our friends and followers. It is with the blogging community's help that we hope to solve this issue.

Thanks to all who have pitched in with their support and encouragement.

MrLD

PS: We're not mad, we're sad.

Timeline

The beginning of the end was Monday, February 18.
     The end of eternity was Tuesday, February 19.

The timeline is being compiled and will publish soon.

(new comments disabled until timeline is completed)

Posted by R+D at 11:21 AM 1 comment:

spring cleaning ...

I've been keeping busy doing some 'spring cleaning' - why wait till spring to do it when that's when I want to be outdoors.  So all the kitchen, bathroom, linen, and bedroom drawers, closets, etc. have had a thorough sorting and tidying, furniture and cabinets have been polished.  There is still the storage in the garage to be dealt with but it's just a bit too chilly in there just now.  There is also a box of paper to be shredded but since the shredder is at the cabin it will have to wait.

These are a couple of cards I made for neighbour birthdays this month.  I backed the x-stitch with interfacing then secured it to the card stock with double faced tape.  The envelopes were made from a pale grey parchment.  They aren't fancy but it's the thought that counts - right?! 

Our weather is totally not the usual and has us confused - makes me wonder if the wildlife and birds are confused as well or do they adapt better than we do.  This month has alternated between extreme cold and lots of snow.  However, we are enjoying that the days are longer and the sun is warmer.  Just the other day there was a flock of cedar waxwings dining at the cherry trees - what a sight that was!! 

kindness is free ...

sprinkle that stuff everywhere

i'm in love ...

I'm in love with this wee mouse ...

 When I saw this sweetie I simply had to have one - the designer is Little Muggles.

it's not what you look at that matters - 

it's what you see

a quickie ...

 

Last month when I was checking out my February pieces I was surprised that I had so few so this one was a quick stitch and finish.  I used DMC variegated red (115) on white and the fabric is a mottled red - poor photo, I know, but it is what it is.  It's a design  by Sandy.  It works up quickly so you have time to have it done before the 14th!

if you want a rainbow

you have to tolerate the rain