Archive for the ‘Miscellany’ Category

Be back soon… I hope

I updated this here website’s header. Some of you may wonder what is going on, or that you like the other house better.

Here be the story… First of I found out that the house that I had used in the header was actually art done by an Etsy artist. I had found the picture online and when I found it there was no association to it being art and instead looked like clipart. Once I realized that it looked rather stolen, I set out to find a suitable house and instead made, from scratch, the house you now see on the site.

Reason number two… I will be opening a website called The Whimsy Attic for selling me art pieces and the occasional piece by my Mom. I wanted a tie in to Boo Spooky, so I decided to use the same house as the tie in. I’m still working on that website design…

Now the bummer… I ordered business cards for Boo Spooky and it has the old house on it. Heh! I think I will now order a new set of cards for The Whimsy Attic instead and put a note that states Boo Spooky as the blog. Or something….

Give me feedback on the new design. I take criticism well, so fire away.

Today is the day my only full bath gets a remodel. I’m excited! This is one of the major steps in getting this house ready to be sold. Even though the time line for a full remodel is a couple of years away, it represents the ability to one day move to the states. Yea!!!!!

So the Etsy store is coming along. I have the logo for The Whimsy Attic to finish and it will have a tie in to my Boo Spooky logo above. Going to work on it this week while I’m off from work.
The other projects I need to finish is to refinish a medicine cabinet for the new bath,  get a photobox built for taking photos of the artlings and to figure out how to setup the secondary website for The Whimsy Attic.

To my Da,

Dad I love you more than you could possibly know. I may not show it with gifts and cards but please know that I think of and cherish you every day. You have taught me many things I may have never known and supported me in whatever my newest grand idea may have been. The only thing a regret is mom and I not finding you sooner in our lives than we did.

I love you Dad!

My driving desire to move from Alaska has reared it’s head again. Actually the desire never goes away it just fades as I deal with life and my loves (read: my family). My loves have finally showed signs of wanting to move to the same location that I have been newly interested in. That location? Vancouver’ish Washington.

Why Vancouver? Well my Da turned me on to it originally in telling me it was a neat place to live and close to lots to do. Although I worry about the rainy’ness of the whole area, I believe it will be tolerable coming from an Alaskan girl that is severely sick of the snow and darkness of the winters. Not only does the weather depress me, there is no real Halloween season. People attempt to decorate their yards and houses, have parties, go to Bars with their costume contests… and then there are the feeble haunted houses that we have here, with the exception of one, which is out in the Valley. Not to mention our seasons, our Fall lasts about 2 weeks, not to mention our Spring, we basically have winter and not winter.
Then we have the cost of everything up here. Shipping is through the roof and so is airfare, so not only are you stuck if you are on a tight budget, you can’t order things that may be cheaper online due to the shipping sending the total over the top.

So back to Vancouver… The one thing that really scares me is finding a job. We have talked about staying within commuting distance of Vancouver for that reason. Maybe I should back up a bit. We are looking for a 4+ bedroom house with at least 2 bathrooms, 3 car garage but 2 will do if it has a shop on the property. The shop part is extremely important to all of us. Dad and I want to use it as a shop and mom wants it so that we have all of our tools out of the way, heh! My dad loves working with his hands and needs a place he can spread stuff out and not have to worry about not having the car in the garage for the winter. I don’t have a garage or a shop, so its another factor in me wanting a new house.
If you haven’t guessed already, yes, I will be living with my parents. I’m 43 and single so until I become unsingle there shouldn’t be any issues with it…except I am use to being alone and need my ‘me’ space. It will help all of us financially and since they will both be retired by the time we are ready to move in, it should be a huge help. I should be able to save money, finally and they won’t have to tighten their belts as much. If I sound like I’m trying to make excuses or convince myself that living with them is a good idea… I am. I’ve lived on my own, by myself, for 10 years now and it is rather nice.

It will be a huge change and adjustment but I am more than ready and actually very excited. My parents? I believe they are still in the total dread phase of leaving Alaska, but I don’t understand their love of the place. Yeah the dividends are nice, the money that we get in a yearly check for being an Alaskan Resident, it’s roughly around $1000 a year. It’s free money but you have to pay taxes on it. ::: rolls eyes ::: I think we can save more money than that by being in the lower 48.

Vancouver… besides the house type/style we would also like 3+ acres. I don’t think we need over 20 acres unless it is treed and we don’t have to mow a field. We would like to buy 40 acres and subdivide it for 3 plots. One for the Parental Units, one for the brother and one for me. The 40 acre thing will have to wait I think. We are all relying on the sale of our homes, three total, to be able to buy our homes down there. Having said the plot size, yes, that puts us out of the city and into a rural area. Battle Ground is one area I have been heavily searching. Clark County property taxes are a bit high but with that comes better utility’s, roads, fire coverage, etc.

::: Sigh ::: I’m rambling. Wee bit on the tired side so forgive the blathering. I miss this blogging thing and haven’t done much spooky searching on the interwebs in awhile, so I haven’t had much to post about.

The short of it… if any readers know the area please give me your input. I have lived in Alaska my whole adult life and most of my childhood (I was born here but left for about 7 years)  and because of that I’m oblivious to some things the lower 48 is quite used to. Examples: Fleas, Termites, Snakes, poisonous Spiders, Ants,Racoons, coyotes, and on and on… We just worry about Moose and Bears in the city, we don’t even have to worry about our mosquito’s having West Nile.

Help a girl out and give me some advice about Southwestern Washington.

If you would rather email me than list out a long comment, email is: boospooky dot com AT gmail dot com (yes my website boospooky.com is part of the email address, it totally freaks out the spam bots)

We couldn’t have asked for better weather today! It’s been sunny and 65 to 70 degrees with a very slight breeze. The breeze comes in and cools you off just when you think your going to sweat to death.

I got a few things done around the yard… trimmed two trees, got the lawn furniture out of the greenhouse and hosed it off. Hosed off the back deck, then rearranged the hoses. …and the biggy, I got to help Da (my Dad) get some old Cedar wood for a project that he is working on for mom. We have a 30 year old Cedar fence that we have slowly been taking down, and keeping the wood for projects. He is making her a potting bench from the old wood. Should look awesome when he is done. I will try to get some pictures of it.

Now I am sitting down to BBQ steak, corn on the cob, okra and sauteed mushrooms.  Mmmmmmmm

Is there a bad blogger award? I nominate myself. I miss posting but have a hard time searching the internet during the day, due to work, then when I get home I eat and veg.

If an apocalypse did happen, money would be worth nothing so we wouldn’t have to go to a 9 – 5 job. But… it would be a 24/7 survival mode instead. I’m thinking work doesn’t seem so bad. Heh.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter! We have declared this Easter a pajama day and we all stayed home. I have done just that and stayed in my pj’s and watched The Haunted all day.

Hope everyone has a restful day too!

Updated and added some Etsy stores. If you guys have suggestions for Etsy or Ebay…let me know.

Some may have already read by idea about having a Haunter Community type place to dwell. The basic idea is to have a large place, say 100 acres of land, for a community of Haunters and Artists to live that won’t be bothered by others of non-like mind. Simple idea really, there are many factors that would have to be worked out of course, but since this is my dream/idea I will bypass all of the legalese stuff because it’s, well….boring.

So my new idea incorporates my love of abandoned buildings. I have always wanted to live in an old church, warehouse, school or old place that is open and has history. Wanting to find something to blog about I decided to go in search of abandoned building photos. I swoon when I see peeling and chipping paint and rust… oh rust how I love the. A quick brain roll-a-dex scan and I remembered that Detroit is suffering greatly with the amount of abandoned buildings, they seem to be everywhere. Off to Ghougle and wala, I find a fabulous website that is about just abandoned buildings in Detroit.  I was frigging giddy looking through these photos.

The site is Detroiturbex.com

How the idea formed then on to some show and tell. While looking at these photo’s, on break at work (ahem), I kept showing my co-worker how large and gorgeous some of these places are and how multiple families could live there. I mentioned the people from Japan being able to live in a few, until things get worked out for them and BOOM, idea. What do you think of privately owning a whole High School for nothing but Prop making, Haunt building, etc., etc., etc.? Parts could even be built has apartments for visiting builders/artists, or anyone wanting to live on grounds.

Now remember… even though the chipping, peeling, rustiness makes my heart aflutter, I know we would have to go and make the buildings inhabitable. Please don’t mention asbestos, I’m totally aware of all of the dangers… this is my dream and don’t want to be bothered with reality.

The photos from this website I’m about to show you are vast and I HIGHLY recommend you looking through all of them. The person is anonymous because what they do is, after all, illegal.  :::Gasp::: yes I am showing you something that was done outside of the law! Don’t tell my co-workers, ahem.

The website : http://detroiturbex.com/index.html if you wanted to be kept updated on what new photos the site has to offer, I suggest you use this link for your Readers/RSS  http://detroiturbex.com/updates/

What I’m about to show you can be found in this section of the website http://detroiturbex.com/content/schools/cass/index.html. For some reason this page is different than all of the others, not sure why, but if you mouse over the word Today below the photo, then click the photo, it will take you into the photo viewer for this school (or click here).
If you want to see some seriously awesome Now and Then photo’s, go to the same Cass link above but mouse over the Now and Then button, then click on the photo.

The school is the Cass Technical High School, and for a goosebump moment… I was just looking at Wiki to get some info about it’s closure, etc. and as of yesterday
March 23, 2011 (which is when I found the photos) they started demolition on the building. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Technical_High_School#When_the_old_Cass_Tech_was_new

::: Moment of Silence :::