Some Explanations, and Some Catch Up
Oh the neglectfulness. How the once mighty blogger has fallen, etc etc. I haven't been posting here to Parentheticals lately (have you noticed?) both because this whole running-our-own-business(es) has been grueling enough to wring every last drop of 'net-participation out of me (plus I feel like really what I *should* be doing is posting to our business blog and if I don't do that, I don't do this--it's kind of a vicious cycle) and also because I've taken to posting (mostly fluffier stuff, admittedly) over at LiveJournal, where there is more of a community for me (or at least it feels less like shouting out into the void) and I can friends-lock posts more easily when I really want to whine or vent. And Twitter has certainly become far more addictive for little brief updates than I ever imagined it would be.
But I don't want Parentheticals to die. I got lazy with LiveJournal and haven't been cross-posting, so I am going to try to be better about that (I need that nifty widget that lets you automatically cross-post so I don't have to do it manually!) And as long as I'm "living out loud" and declaring intentions here (with the hope of being held to them by self or others once they're made public) I'm also going to try to re-create all of my digipix galleries. It's been roughly a year (oh the shame) since all my lovingly sorted and labeled gallery albums went boom, and even though the task of re-sorting approximately 23,000 pictures is a bit daunting, it's not going to get any better by putting it off. I have so many great pictures, but they're harder to enjoy (even just for myself) when they're all in one big undifferentiated blob. Flickr, here I come.
Since it's been 6 months since my last post here, I might as well hit some highlights so that at least *I* might remember some of the things that have happened when I look back at this in the future. Let me do a rough month-by-month.
February: this was the month that Eli turned seven. SEVEN! Officially a big boy, and a full-fledged mini-geek, because what did we do for his birthday? What did he request as his heart's desire? A D&D party. That's right, we had his cousin and 2 other buddies over to play kid-level D&D for 3 or 4 hours, with daddy as the Dungeonmaster. Supreme geekiness. We win!
March: a big month. Not only did our "baby" Isaac turn 3 (we had a small family birthday party with a Mickey Mouse theme, in preparation for our big trip to Disneyland a few weeks later), but the really big news was that Josh quit his job at the CSU so that we could run our web business full time. Leaping off the cliff into full-steam-ahead entrepreneurship has been quite a wild ride, to say the least. We are learning an incredible amount and getting better at business every day, but it takes (warning: dry understatement ahead!) a lot of energy, both physical and mental. And emotional, come to think of it: we are constantly dancing with fear and anxiety and that certainly takes it out of ya.
April: the best part here was that we went to Disneyland. Dri & Jim came with us and we drove the party van down to SoCal, stayed 5 fun-filled days, and drove back home. We truly had a fabulous trip, and most importantly Isaac had a peak experience at just the right time (right in the middle of the Mickey obsession). We took a zillion pictures that someday will be posted (sigh). Other April highlights included hosting Passover for 23 people (!), Josh passing a kidney stone, and Eli starting Little League again (his team was the Marlins).
May: I remember May as mostly a jumble of busy. My calendar (and my iPhoto) tells me that we had a lot of school events (walk-a-thon, open house), a lot of baseball, a lot of cub scouts, a trip to an SF convention (Baycon), and a trip to visit family in Chico. We joined a business networking group and the local chamber of commerce to help boost our business, and slowly started building the mead business as a real entity as well.
June: Our first Mountain Play (the Wizard of Oz). The end of first grade for Eli. Visits from family. Pirate Fest. An anniversary trip to Calistoga, including a hot air balloon ride. But most importantly, and jarringly, and miserably: our beloved family dog, Tomo, got sick and even after major surgery, declined so rapidly that we had to put her to sleep last week. Josh wrote about it here, and I put a little bit up on LJ, but it's still hard to talk about. I am still heartsick and grieving. I miss her every day.
That's it for the catch up now. Hopefully you'll see me around here more often.
But I don't want Parentheticals to die. I got lazy with LiveJournal and haven't been cross-posting, so I am going to try to be better about that (I need that nifty widget that lets you automatically cross-post so I don't have to do it manually!) And as long as I'm "living out loud" and declaring intentions here (with the hope of being held to them by self or others once they're made public) I'm also going to try to re-create all of my digipix galleries. It's been roughly a year (oh the shame) since all my lovingly sorted and labeled gallery albums went boom, and even though the task of re-sorting approximately 23,000 pictures is a bit daunting, it's not going to get any better by putting it off. I have so many great pictures, but they're harder to enjoy (even just for myself) when they're all in one big undifferentiated blob. Flickr, here I come.
Since it's been 6 months since my last post here, I might as well hit some highlights so that at least *I* might remember some of the things that have happened when I look back at this in the future. Let me do a rough month-by-month.
February: this was the month that Eli turned seven. SEVEN! Officially a big boy, and a full-fledged mini-geek, because what did we do for his birthday? What did he request as his heart's desire? A D&D party. That's right, we had his cousin and 2 other buddies over to play kid-level D&D for 3 or 4 hours, with daddy as the Dungeonmaster. Supreme geekiness. We win!
March: a big month. Not only did our "baby" Isaac turn 3 (we had a small family birthday party with a Mickey Mouse theme, in preparation for our big trip to Disneyland a few weeks later), but the really big news was that Josh quit his job at the CSU so that we could run our web business full time. Leaping off the cliff into full-steam-ahead entrepreneurship has been quite a wild ride, to say the least. We are learning an incredible amount and getting better at business every day, but it takes (warning: dry understatement ahead!) a lot of energy, both physical and mental. And emotional, come to think of it: we are constantly dancing with fear and anxiety and that certainly takes it out of ya.
April: the best part here was that we went to Disneyland. Dri & Jim came with us and we drove the party van down to SoCal, stayed 5 fun-filled days, and drove back home. We truly had a fabulous trip, and most importantly Isaac had a peak experience at just the right time (right in the middle of the Mickey obsession). We took a zillion pictures that someday will be posted (sigh). Other April highlights included hosting Passover for 23 people (!), Josh passing a kidney stone, and Eli starting Little League again (his team was the Marlins).
May: I remember May as mostly a jumble of busy. My calendar (and my iPhoto) tells me that we had a lot of school events (walk-a-thon, open house), a lot of baseball, a lot of cub scouts, a trip to an SF convention (Baycon), and a trip to visit family in Chico. We joined a business networking group and the local chamber of commerce to help boost our business, and slowly started building the mead business as a real entity as well.
June: Our first Mountain Play (the Wizard of Oz). The end of first grade for Eli. Visits from family. Pirate Fest. An anniversary trip to Calistoga, including a hot air balloon ride. But most importantly, and jarringly, and miserably: our beloved family dog, Tomo, got sick and even after major surgery, declined so rapidly that we had to put her to sleep last week. Josh wrote about it here, and I put a little bit up on LJ, but it's still hard to talk about. I am still heartsick and grieving. I miss her every day.
That's it for the catch up now. Hopefully you'll see me around here more often.
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