Q: I know there are more personal things going on in your life, why don’t you post more personal stuff on your blog?

A: Nothing like a question from a friend to kick in my long-windedness. I might wind up doing a podcast about this in the future, but I’ll go ahead and answer this here as well. I was raised not to “air your dirty laundry” as it were. Basically, no matter what is going on in my life, good or bad, I have a problem with exposing it to everyone that could possibly stumble in here. People are watching.

Sound paranoid? I didn’t used to be, but even employers are now searching the web to see what they can come up with on a potential job candidate. People have been fired for postings they made online. Think you can just delete anything personal so that job you’re applying for, your current job, your ex and his/her significant other, or your parents won’t find out just how neurotic you really are? Check out The Wayback Machine.

Granted, there are a lot of broken images, but I can see what Macabre Manor looked like back as far as April of 2004. All the textual content is still there.

So, I post inane things that don’t mean much most of the time. It makes for a very boring blog, I know. Granted, I’m hiding behind a pseudonym, which will probably make me bolder in the future, but as long as my daughter still lives at home I will remain very guarded. I know this makes me sound uber paranoid, but I’m really just being careful.

This isn’t the answer the questioner wanted, but for now it’s the way I feel about posts that are overly personal.

It has been awhile and after a couple of friends threatened me with bodily harm… I decided it was about time to update if I wanted to stay alive for awhile longer. This isn’t the podcast update they wanted, but I hope it will do for the moment.

I made a list of all the things I wanted to cover, but I can’t find it now… of course.

Ok, I’ve been lectured from people on both sides now. The “you shouldn’t post anything personal in your blog” camp and the “what else is a blog for but posting personal thoughts” camp. And… if you think you haven’t lectured me about this, I’m probably not talking about you! I think I fall somewhere in the middle and I’m starting to care less and less every day. I try not to be too personal… try not to talk about my cats too much or personal turmoil or things about myself that could be damning, but that doesn’t leave much to talk about now does it?

I have started a new writing project with a long time friend. He might even jump in on a few things I already have going. We’ve supported each other creatively for years, so this should be a fun and interesting venture. I’m excited to get started and nervous for him to read what I’ve been working on.

As always, I have a million and a half things to do, but I’ve been trying to be less of a workaholic lately. I’ve always been amazed at the people that can balance or at least appear to balance things that they have to do, need to do, and want to do. I bow in reverence to those that have combined the three (have to, need to, and want to) into one thing. I’d love to get to that point in my life.

In April, we took my grandmother’s cat to be put to sleep. Jessica was a sweet little kitty that had a hard couple of years before my grandmother adopted her. She was a good companion for a long time, but at 20+ years with a thyroid condition and failing kidneys, life became agony for her. We were there… we watched her take her last breath. It was so… sad is not a descriptive enough word… I’m not sure I can find a fitting one…

I know there was more I wanted to cover, but I can’t think right now. It’s late and my brain is shutting down for the night. Hopefully I’ll find that list tomorrow. If not… hopefully good stuff will happen that I can post about soon.

Still working on updating more, but I’m not making any promises about anything to anyone at the moment.

It feels rather pretentious to be making this post, but I talked myself into it anyway.

Yep, today is my birthday. I thought long and hard, trying to come up with something witty or wise to say in the blog today, but I came up with squat.

Another year has gone by in a blink. When I was young and rushing to be older, my mother kept telling me that the years go faster the older you get. I started to believe her when I was a teenager and the years seemed to fly by, but it wasn’t this fast. I guess it’s one of those things you have to experience for yourself before you can possibly believe it… or at least, I had to.

Now, I’m trying to back peddle and slow time down. No matter how long I stare at the clock and attempt to make it go backwards, it never seems to work. It actually skipped ahead two minutes once just to spite me and I thought I heard a quiet, metallic sounding chuckle, but it was probably my imagination.

I’m starting to feel older, but I still refuse to grow up completely!

Ahhhh… Valentine’s Day. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve hated Valentine’s Day. Giving out little cards to kids wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day. I’d rather take a test. Once I was a teen, Valentine’s Day was just a reminder that I was alone. Everyone that was in a “couple” seemed so happy, until I was in a couple myself and the daggers and drama came out of the woodwork. The worst was the expectation placed on both men and women to give something amazing and almost everyone seemed to be disappointed.

I was happy with a peck on the cheek myself.

My husband usually has to work on Valentine’s. That’s where he’s at now. Although Valentine’s Day just seems like another excuse to spend money, he always does something sweet for me anyway. He’s a bigger romantic than I am. That was hard to admit years ago, but it’s true.

So, in honor of this day… here’s a poem I wrote for him years ago. Not exactly a happy piece, but it reminds me of where I’ve been and how lucky I am to have such a wonderful man in my life.

Hey, I never said it was a good poem!

New schedule made. We’ll see how it goes this week. I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to get everything done in the time I have scheduled to do it, but I’m gonna try!

And yes, writing and podcasting are on the schedule.

Happy New Year everyone!

I changed my mind about resolutions. I’m making one resolution for this year. I resolve to figure out how to budget my time more wisely. I get sidetracked too easily. Even if I can’t accomplish everything I’d like to, I’d like to at least accomplish more.

We’ll see how it goes.

Anyone else making resolutions?

We just got back from a breakfast Christmas get together with the other side of my in-laws. I’m so lucky. Both sides of my in-laws are so nice and easy to get along with.

Afterwards, we stopped by my father-in-laws place of business and got to see an old friend. I thought the kiddo was gonna knock him over when she literally jumped into his arms to squeeze the life out of him.

The kiddo came home last night. She spent the first part of Christmas with her dad. I almost feel bad that we’re not celebrating until the 31st, but she doesn’t seem overly anxious. Overtly, anyway.

I haven’t had time to take any pictures of the snow this year, so here are some pictures taken around this time last year. Sorry guys. I know some of you have seen these before, but maybe we’ll have another snow storm after the first of the year so I can post some more snow pictures for those of you that are snow impared.

“Get this cold crap off of me!”

Fraidy hiding from the camera in his igloo.

“Where’d the stairs go?!”

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Yule, and all other seasons greetings to everyone.

We’re kidless this year so we’re not celebrating with my family until the 31st. Kind of a Christmas and New Years bash at the same time, which should be fun.

We just got back from one side of my in-laws. They have an incredible place out in the country with horses, goats, chickens, and a dog. It’s beautiful out there and their house is huge and gorgeous. I wanted to steal my mother-in-laws kitchen and walk-in closet, but we couldn’t figure out a way to get them home. Bah!

I often feel very awkward around so many people I don’t know, but it was good to see everyone again. My mother-in-law is an amazingly sweet woman and I’ve missed seeing her.

Hope everyone is safe, warm, and having a blast with friends and family.

I was going to try to keep myself seperated from the business so as not to drag it down with all this “goth stuff” and horror and such, but I find it impossible to keep something that is such a large part of my life seperate from everything. So, hopefully no one will look down on my business if they happen to stumble in here and see all this.

Originally posted on Macabre Manor’s forum: http://forum.macabremanor.com/index.php?topic=153.0

In Jan of 2007, I started my own business called Crescent Moon Haberdashery. We started selling at local shows then and in March of 2007, we started selling on Amazon.com. The business has been growing and growing ever since. It’s been keeping me pretty busy of late.

I love photography and also in Jan of 2007, I started putting photos and art on cafepress.com. So far, it has been supporting itself, but needs a huge update. I have tons of photos sitting here begging to be added. You can find it at http://www.cafepress.com/crescentmoonhab if you’re interested in seeing what I’ve done so far. At some point, I’m going to be putting some of my poetry on mousepads and framed pictures as well. I’ll be crushed if they never sell, but I’m doing it anyway.

In June of 2008, we launched Crescent Moon Haberdashery’s own store at http://www.crescentmoonhab.com We haven’t been doing too bad considering we only launched a few months ago. We sell t-shirts, incense, greeting cards, knives (until they’re gone), and some magnets made from photos I took. I’d love to carry more of the magnets, but they aren’t selling enough to warrent bringing in more. Our biggest seller is the Life is Crap line of t-shirts.

At the moment, we’ve sent more Life is Crap shirts to New York than any other state… I wonder if that means something…

We have a few goth shirts too, which is our second best seller. I wanted to get in more goth shirts before Halloween, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. We’re going to be adding long sleeve shirts, tank tops, and hats soon, too. Don’t know where we’re going to store it all, but that’s the plan.

While I’m not the only slave to CMH, I’m the primary slave and it takes more time than I ever anticipated. I really enjoy it though. It’s nice to be the boss and not the peon for once. It’s also nice because I feel like crap more often than I feel good anymore, so I can do as little or as much as I feel I can accomplish. Most of the time, I work way too many hours anyway, but when I really feel like death warmed over, I can take it a little easy. Still have to work, but not quite as hard.

So, check out Crescent Moon Haberdashery and laugh at the shirts! They’re a lot of fun.

I go through long periods of not playing any online games, or any games at all for that matter, because I’m simply too busy. Shroud is still playing WoW and recently I’ve played some myself since things have been slowing down a bit after the back to school rush… and I needed a break… needed to have some fun for a bit. However, we’re about to start gearing up for the Christmas selling season, so I doubt I will have time to play much very soon. That and I need to run an inventory. Wheeeee!

Since I had so many friends jumping from blog site to blog site and wanting me to follow, I decided to start my own permanent blog at http://www.kryson.info awhile back. None of those friends actually go to my blog, of course. It’s only stuff I can post to everyone though, so no ultra personal stuff there. I’ve found that most people don’t want to read about the drama with the insurance company on the damage claim for our house, problems with bank screw ups, and family drama anyway.

I started a podcast on http://www.kryson.info as well. I’m planning on podcasting my short stories for now and work my way up to podcasting the 3 novels I have in the works. I’m not sure how I’m expecting myself to free up the time, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do since 2005 when I found out what a podcast was. I just recently decided to stop planning it and just do it. The podcast sucks at the moment, but I’m hoping it will get better as I get more practice at it. If not… well, it’s something that takes me away from working for awhile. I’m only interested in having some fun, making some friends, and sharing two of my hobbies with others (writing and now… podcasting).

Shroud changed jobs and is working 3rd shift now. It’s an adjustment and difficult for him to find the balance between sleeping and getting things done that he needs to do, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon… probably about the time they move him to another shift. He’s enjoying the new job though, which is the important part. I’m hoping he’ll become a trainer there at some point. He’s so patient and so good at teaching, I think he’d really enjoy it. I tried to talk him into being a teacher at one point, but with the way our school system is now, I don’t blame him for not wanting to. I still think he’d make an awesome teacher though.

Speaking of the school system, Sara is still making incredible grades and is becoming more active in school. She’s going to be in a musical this fall. Fiddler on the Roof! She has a bit tougher classes this time around, so we’ll see if she maintains her excellent grades. Traditional Chinese is probably her hardest class. In December she turns 16. Pick your jaw up off the floor! Time flies.

My mother always told me that kids grow up before you can blink and I never believed her until now. When I was a kid, time seemed to pass so slowly and now… I blinked and 10 years just flew by. Makes me wonder if tomorrow I’ll be in a wheelchair watching my grandkids graduate from high school. Yeah Sara… I know… you’re not going to have kids! Remember, I said that, too.

Sara’s got a boyfriend I absolutely hate. Just kidding. Did ya have a heartattack there, Sara? He’s actually a pretty nice kid. Pretty typical “indestructible” male teenager. As a matter of fact, the song Indestructible by Disturbed is her ringtone for him. He asked me, through her, what I thought about him one day and I told her to tell him that I don’t really know him very well, but I thought he was a pretty nice guy… and the best guy she’s gone out with so far. It’s funny though… she asked him what he thought of me and I guess he’s never given her a straight answer. Understandable though. I mean, most of her friends like me, but only her boyfriend has to put up with how strict I am.

Sadly for Sara, Shroud and I are some of the strictest parents. I just can’t understand parents that let their kids run wild. So many kids Sara knows just flat scare me with all the things they do and are allowed to do… or rather the parents never know because they don’t take an interest in their kids. I just couldn’t do that. At least Sara seems to understand that I care and that’s why she can’t do all the thing these kids do. She’s a lot like I was as a teen… I understood why my parents didn’t let me do things, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I haven’t actually written much of anything in years, but I’m slowly changing that. I need to have something to actually podcast after all. I’m hoping that eventually, people will want to play in my world and write for the podcast as well, but every time I’ve tried to get community activity going, it hasn’t actually happened. I’m hoping this time will be different, but if it isn’t… well… people will just have to listen to my rusty butt try to put something out there worth listening to. I’ve already had one person say I suck and I haven’t even podcasted any fiction yet! LOL!

I’m thinking about taking a few of the pieces of story I wrote for the round robins we did years ago and turn it into something else as well. Like the whole scene with Mordin in the virtual garden… I’m thinking about turning that into a sci-fi stand alone story… pulling all of the fanfic out of it and doing something completely different with it. There are a couple of others as well. I toyed with posting the pieces I wrote on my blog, but I didn’t think anyone would really be interested in reading bits and pieces of stories. I haven’t posted any poetry there either. I’ve posted it so many places it feel like beating a dead horse, ya know?

Man I miss those round robins.

So… that’s what we’ve been up to. How about you? What have you been up to?