I'm ba-ack.. Actually, I haven't gone anywhere; if you can believe that. Or, well, that's not strictly true: my daughter and I took a trip down to southern Ohio to visit family gravesites a couple weeks ago, but there was little by way of thrifting adventures on that trip. We did stop at Valley Thrift in Kettering (as seen on the Cult of Vintage YouTube channel). It's HUGE, and if it were local it might be worth a return trip. I picked up a little wood shelf that I'm still deciding what to do with and she got a funny mug, but neither were worth more than that mention.
We did pass on a couple of paintings that I *almost* regret not buying for the awful/kitsch factor. Which is your favorite - the extremely two dimensional puggle, or the headless man with a hat on his neck stump? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Our first stop on the trip was the house my dad grew up in. It's been substantially remodeled - the curved cement banisters that flanked the front porch steps are gone, and the porch itself has been enclosed. And my grandmother's back garden is also no more; a garage/party room now fills nearly the whole yard. I wonder whether the shared closet that connected the front and middle bedrooms still exists? My grandparents lived there until the early 1970s, so I have fairly clear memories of visiting the house, but of course that was half a century ago now (well that can't possibly be right!).
I recalled, and had since verified online, that the cemetery was walking distance from the house - but google maps was in absolute denial of that fact. It took us MILES out of our way, trying to send us to the front gate; even though I knew there was a second entrance which was much closer to the family burials. Eventually we did find our way in and to our destination. We were unable to locate a baby grave that is almost certainly related to us - the only other people buried there with our last name are my great-grandparents - but being a Sunday, the office was closed. I suppose I'll have to call them at some point and see what we can find out about her.
Aside from that, I finally, finally closed out my mother's apartment (she's now in a nursing home). This has taken months. My parents were both Depression-era babies and my dad was a history buff, so there was a LOT of family history artfully packed away in there. Some we'll be able to make use of when (not if! when!!) we move; some of it will eventually find its way to the online estate sale I'll be launching Real Soon Now, Promise.
Oh yes, about that - I've finally started an Etsy shop AND gotten this meshuggeneh website back under control. Yes, this website right here! I'm so old school with web design, I'm used to writing html in Notepad - now get away from my roses you damn kids. Ha. However, Life being what it can be, I didn't keep up with developments much beyond learning that CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is that even a thing, anymore?
So setting out to build something Acceptable in Wix has been - a challenge. I honestly feel like I'd be better off if I were dealing with raw code instead of their 'helpful' little widgets that have settings all their own buried several tabs deep, but here we are. And of course I've changed my concept somewhat since I first started toying with this, just to keep things interesting I suppose. But I managed to get rid of clunky elements that no longer suited my current concept and were driving me nuts. With those gone, hopefully I can start putting in place the things I DO want to be there!
What sort of things would those be, you ask? Well - how about a link to my Koji page? True, it's a bit sparse at the moment, though you can sign up for emails (should I ever send any ha ha), check my yes ok its empty *now* events calendar, or find quick links to my Instagram and TikTok accounts. This will fill out as I have a little more time to devote to it, or at least that's the plan. Who knew setting up shop infrastructure could be so much work? I might just try one of those Let An AI Design Your Website services to see how it compares. But for now, it's - not embarrassing, so I'll count that a win.
Finally, I spent some time over the weekend creating an animated version of my logo. By the time this posts, it should be on TikTok, and if I get really ambitious, maybe I’ll have even added a YouTube channel! It still isn’t as smooth as I might like, but I like the prefab versions you can get on Canva even less; so looks like this is what I’m sticking with. There’s an earlier take of it on Instagram but I think I’m happier with the updated version.
And with that, I think we’ll call this one a wrap for now. I'll certainly get chatty again as soon as I've anything to chat about, so stop back soon, won't you?
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