Wow.

It's been a while.  A lot has happened, some of it positive, some of it not so much.  That's life.

The business is no longer.  Reality kicked in when we hit the end of the year and had to pay quarterly taxes right after Christmas when business was slow.  Long story short, the business couldn't survive a multitude of problems, including my own difficult personality clashing with G's.  Looking back, I wish I'd done things differently.  I learned a lot of lessons the hard way.

I miss the shop.  I always look over at the building when I'm in MHC for appointments.  I miss scouring the paper for yard sales and haunting auctionzip.com for upcoming auctions.  Other thrift and consignment shops have opened and closed since we started and ended.  If things had been different, if I'd been more patient or less opinionated or if we'd been better organized and prepared for the inevitable after-holiday slump, I think the shop could have continued.

But it didn't, and life went on.  M finished her master's degree, G got another job, and E & W grew and grew and grew.  I had a hysterectomy (a blessing) and dodged a cancer scare. Our parents have had serious health issues.  M and I had our share of  psychological bumps and bruises as we tried to figure out how to work the day job together and salvage our friendship.  We're okay.  It's not like it was before the building, but it's better than it was when things began to fall apart.

Learning to set up and run and business and ultimately failing at it took away some of my fears of trying new things.  I'm still struggling with perfectionitis, yet I've grown bolder about trying new things creatively: painting, drawing, pottery, jewelry making, cosplay costuming, even figuring out who I am, what I believe, and how I want to present myself to the world.

Life hasn't been easy, but it's still been a gift.

So...what's going to go on in this blog?  Chatter about creative stuff, mostly.  It's what keeps me sane on days when I think it's just better to crawl under the bed with a jar of Nutella and a bottle of liquor.