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!
Anne says
Elana, if you never posted another recipe again, it would be ok. Your existing website and the books you have written have changed so many lives. Sharing your journey with us has been an incredible blessing, since many of us have gone through, or will go through, “similar but different” health and spiritual journeys. Pema’s book got me through a tough time and enabled me to keep going and searching for my own health, both inner and outer. Life is no longer a struggle for me – each new “setback” is now just another opportunity to fine tune the way I live, the way I think, the way I allow others to treat me, etc. Each day is new and I cherish people like you and others I have “met” online. You don’t owe us anything. We owe you.
Shirley @ gfe & All Gluten-Free Desserts says
Welcome back, dear! You (and your boys) were keeping us so busy with your posts on Facebook that I honestly didn’t realize immediately that you weren’t posting here. ;-) Here’s hoping for continued good health for your site and you!
xoxo,
Shirley
Rose says
Hi! Élana, please remember how important you are to all of us. I am so sorry we have stressed you out so much and thank you for making us so special. I love your site and when it is down, I just think it is my server,not your fault. I will pray for you and your family and can not wait to see the magic you create. God Bless You, Rose
Sue Harmon says
Quite honestly I thought you were taking a break! I still have enjoyed your recipes and my family and coworkers are liking them also! I’m glad your back and can’t wait to see more recipes!!!
Cindi says
Thank you for your transparency Elana. Life is full of little/big surprises and it’s how we view these “surprises” when they come that either makes us or breaks us. Everything you shared I can relate to, as far as being perplexed and to become our own advocate. My circumstance relates to the physical, primarily my health. Two surgeries (of which I nearly bled out) to improve my life and health took a downward spiral where I’m now day by day dealing with small decisions that can make a great impact on my physical, mental and emotional well being. I too am beginning to see this “down” time as a sabbatical. I will come out better as I learn to trust what fight God has given me to survive and to pass along this new found wisdom to encourage others to find their “fight” too. :)
Karen says
thanks for your honesty about the outages. you inspire us all and I am so happy to have your website back and cooking again. Speaking of which (cooking) I’m thrilled to hear you have some (even-less) sweetened recipes for us. Can’t wait to see what’s in store.
jafb says
I am one who told everyone about your site. I am so glad you and your site are feeling better.
teedee1 says
To be honest Elana, we’ve been so preoccupied with getting our house ready to sell (renos, staging, etc.), then came the viewings and finally the sale of this place and the purchase of a new one. That’s why I didn’t notice all the problems with your site. However, I’m far more concerned that you are feeling better and I’m so sorry you went through all that. I must say, I’ve gotten most of my best recipes from your site and I look forward to seeing more of your ideas when we’re settled into the new place in August. Please take care of yourself above all else and we’ll all appreciate whatever you put out there because it’s always good. All the best!
Lynne says
I’m glad to hear your experimenting with less sweetners; their usage can also creep up unnoticed. Love your site and your stories too. Our health has improved 100% since we started paleo and that’s pretty much down to your recipes. Perhaps you don’t realise what a beacon you are (or perhaps you do with 1 million visitors -wow!) congratulations on your success, your self realisations and your return. Very, very grateful to and for you.
deliciousalternatives says
Wow, that is one of those great thing/bad things to have happen. Congrats and good for you for taking a step back. I love your recipes and it looks like everyone else does to and is there to support you as we all do in this wonderful place we call Earth. Take good care of you, we will be here waiting for you- glad you have lowered your sugar intake.