Earlier this year my website traffic reached almost 1 million unique visitors per month, which meant that 50,000 people were coming onto the site each day for healthy gluten-free recipes, lifestyle tips and my musings on the Paleo Diet.
When I started elanaspantry.com, I had not envisioned, or prepared for such large amounts of traffic. In the technology industry, building a website for heavy use is referred to as “scaling for growth.”
The site began to fail repeatedly in early February as traffic continued to climb. I spoke with technology people in Boulder and was told the site did not have enough server power. Two local website design firms advised me to migrate the site to Amazon Web Services (AWS) –that turned out to be a big mistake. By Easter weekend elanaspantry.com was down for 50 hours straight. That was when things started to fall apart. I did not handle the stress well, taking it all into my body –we’ll get to that part later.
After the Easter weekend outage, I repointed my site’s hosting from AWS back to Media Temple and still, the outages continued. I was on an 8 GB server using only 4GB of power. At this point I figured out that server power had nothing to do with my website outages.
Due to my failure from its inception to scale my website for large volumes of traffic, I had a poorly built database that could not “talk” to the servers my host provided. How did I figure this out? I spent hours online researching web development, learning the right questions to ask of the technology people that were helping me.
Funny enough, this process was similar to my health journey, which began in the early 1990’s. In order to heal myself, I had to take charge, stop abdicating my power to “authority” (i.e., doctors), and know how to interact with such health professionals so that they could be my allies. And once again, it was my job to make this power my ally, rather than listen to it blindly or alienate myself from it.
I learned a lot more than I wanted to about technology, web hosting, and scaling a site to make it operational. I also learned that taking much-needed breaks from the virtual world is a very healthy thing for me.
At first when my site failed I was so stressed I began to have a physical reaction –I seem to somaticize just about everything. However, eventually I came around to seeing the prolonged website outage as an enforced sabbatical. I grew accustomed to the long breaks and became bored. For me being bored is a fantastic thing. It means I have spaciousness, and that is where the healing happens. I used this time to reconnect with my body in a kinder and more thoughtful way. The persistent website outages allowed me to create new habits for healing that I wouldn’t have otherwise had the space to investigate.
During my “sabbatical” I also spent a lot less time working on cookie recipes. Lately, I’ve been cooking more vegetables and making desserts with even less sweetener. I’m really looking forward to sharing these ultra-healthy real foods Paleo recipes with all of you.
In the end, through the fantastic folks at WordPress VIP (a high end hosting service) I found a web development company that rewrote the database of my website and restored it to health.
So my When Things Fall Apart post is also an I’m Back post. I didn’t want to hop on the site and post some healthy sugar-free lemonade recipe and pretend that nothing happened –you know that’s not my style. As I have in the past, I want to connect with all of you, my dear readers.
Now I’d like to hear from you. Was it frustrating having my website go down several hundred times last spring? What will you make now that it’s back up and running smoothly? What are you looking for from elanaspantry.com next? And of course, what is your best healing strategy when times get a little tough? How do you create healthy new habits?
Finally, thanks for your patience and continued support, I really appreciate it, and all of you as well!
Anita says
Elana, thank you for your encouraging words and I love your website. Thank you for all you do for me/us!! Hugs to you.
Jessica G says
I hear wisdom! Also, I’m inclined to let you know what I’d like more of from your FANTASTIC website, that I tell so many people about: more healthy, yet inexpensive, recipes! Many of the folks I help are on food stamps and need more inexpensive options. Many thanks, Elana!
Katie says
Very pleased you are feeling better, give yourself lots hugs and I hope you can feel all the love and affection that is being sent your way from arround the planet. You are such a help to so many of us, sometimes we forget about me time amd just keep plowing on. Get better with love Katie, Australia
Irene Piper says
As of this writing I am a new subscriber and didn’t realize you were having internet issues. Having just finished up with radiation for breast cancer, my radiation oncologist suggested I try the Paleo way of eating as a way to regaining my health. Your sight is the only one that I have found that is user friendly and has the recipes I need to not feeling deprived while changing my way of eating.
Thank you for just being out there and for all the wonderful recipes you share.
Deborah Gullett says
Thankful you are back. Looking forward to those new recipes.
LynnW says
As a photographer and website designer who tries to stay away from the programming end, too, I know how frustrating this can be, and how I also feel responsible for for clients’ sites to the point of my anxiety affecting my health as well. I’ve even seen your name on wordpress plugin sites as we figure out how to make the plugins work.
Kudos for figuring it out! You may laugh to know that when I get anxious with the computer work, I go to the kitchen. I still love cooking; it returns me to myself.
Thank you so much for the COMMUNICATION! That’s the key.
And this also gives me the opportunity to let you know that your website and paleo book is my first go-to for recipes. I think it may have been you who taught me what the word “paleo” in food-lingo means!
And interesting that you’re cutting some of the sugar, the only things that I adjust on your recipes are cutting back on the sweeteners. I’ve been dairy-free, (cane) sugar-free an low-gluten for 9 years, making my own way adjusting recipes from books.
You feel like a fellow pea in my pod. Now I go to you first, and adjust according to my own tastes and needs.
I recently arranged meals for a family raft trip for 10, and between my dietary needs and vegetarians and g-f folks along, made fabulous meals to suit everyone. Your vegan nut-free gluten-free brownies, peach crisp (did twice, once with pineapple!) and cranberry walnut cookies were huge hits! Some cooked in the dutch oven!
You ROCK, Elana! Thank you so much for what you’re doing for your and the health of many of us!
P.S. Have fun with the food photography, too!
Stephaniedem says
Elana ,you have always expressed the “peaceful ways ” you like to run your life. Your postings were perfectly timed!! No one noticed —Thank you for being concerned, but you did not have to worry about everyone.
MonicaP says
You’ll be happy to note that I did not notice if your site was down. I figured lack of posts was just .. recipe development, a break/rest period etc.
Monica.
DamselflyDiary says
I had missed your regular postings but never noticed your site being down.
One thing I have been realizing for myself lately is that I like crispy, crunchy things. For instance, I do not appreciate a soft cookie. I would rather have a crispy one or at least one that is crispy on the outside, or a scone that is crisp on the outside but soft in the middle.
In thinking about this, I realized that the almond flour recipes that I make are all soft. And so while I enjoy the flavor and healthiness of almond flour recipes, I am missing that snap, crackle and pop of something crispy.
Do you know if it is possible to make almond flour recipes more crispy? Or is almond flour inherently soft?
By the way, I too am looking to reduce sugar and would appreciate more desserts and treats with less sugar.
Carolina says
I never had any issues with the website myself, but these things happen in life, and breaks are so important. So glad to see your posts / recipes in my inbox again!