Congrats on making the move to complete independence!
As a companion to my last post The Ultimate Why and HOW-TO leave your free blog behind! Here's a list of must have free WordPress plugins and what they're for! There's a link for the first plugin, but the rest can be found by using the search function at Plugins > Add New from your WordPress dashboard.
ReplyMe - Sends an email to your commenter that a response was made to their comment. Super easy to set up. Not available from the