It’s Fall, and life is still insane!

Life is crazy.  I know I say that a lot, but it´s still true.

Pretty decent weekend.  Sold some product at a garage sale on friday / saturday / sunday, which was good.  Saturday went to my uncle´s wedding, which was quite a lot of fun, if not really loud.  Sunday went ot Snohomish to get out for a little while, and found out they were having a car show.  Parking sucked, but the cars were absolutely amazing, so that was a blast.  Hit Ben Franklin on the way home, in Monroe, for some supplies for Halloween crafts – should be really cool.  And cleaned the bedroom, which really REALLY needed it.  It´s really quite an amazing difference, and it´s not even done yet.  Very nice.

So tomorrow, Sept. 28 2004, is my two year wedding anniversary. I cannot BELIEVE that it has been two years.  Looking back is certainly an interesting and introspective thing to do.  I have definitely grown a lot, as has Janene.  It is painful to realize that a lot of the growth is things that I should have dealt with years ago, but I suppose better late than never.

Other than the anniversary, which is the most important item of the week, there´s monday night football tonight with the guys, and a TON of work – both Fresh Rain Studios, Seasonal Essentials, and A Higher Standard.  Lots of interesting things going on, that´s for sure.

Holly Moe, one of my closest friends, sent this link through today.  http://www.okcupid.com/politics  In her own words, “Kind of interesting, albeit probably quite worthless scientifically. ”  Too true – but kind of fun to take.

Andy Moe (Holly´s hubby and also one of my closest friends) recently put up a statistic generator for everybody to use when looking for statistics on pretty much anything.  You can check that out at http://www.moedaddy.com/random.php?ref=ct.

I´m working on Jon and Alia´s wedding website, and will let people know once that´s up and running.  I´m also working on Janene´s art website, janenerenee.com – I´ll update people on that as well, once it goes live.

On a different note entirely, I´m still trying to figure out this crazy thing called life.  There´s so much to do, so many possibilities, so many ideas and things that are simply amazing, that I just don´t know where to start.  If you want to donate anything, from money to ideas or solutions to things, then do drop me a note. chris@christindall.com will do just fine.

Also, I´m brainstorming about writing a book.  I don´t really have anything I´m set on, so I´d love some opinions.  I could go either fiction or not, and I´m open to serious suggestions about subject matter.  This is mostly just for the fun of it, as I really enjoy writing.  There´s no deadline, and it will realistically be a very long term project, I would think.  Just enough else going on and all.

There´s a couple of really fun things going on in Snohomish these next few weeks.  Stocker Farms has their corn maze and pumpkin patch, as does Craven Farms.  We´re talking about going sometime to one of them (probably whichever is free, or if not the least expensive.)  If you´re interested drop a note and we´ll try to keep everybody informed.  I´m not 100% certain it will come together, as we´re trying to get into a few additional craft shows over the next couple of months. 

Man, I would kill for land, and a home on that land.  Preferably somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, yet close enough for Janene to commute in to Children´s if she decides (longer term) that she so desires.  I´m not really interested in being a farmer, necessarily.  But I am entertaining a few possibilities of things that could be similar in lifestyle, from the standpoint of the property paying for itself and allowing us to work from home.  It´s a dream, that´s for sure.  And also for sure, I intend to work dang hard to do whatever I can to move in that direction.  Problem of course, as always, is funding.  Even if I was working a paying job, instead of trying to get these businesses off the ground, we´d be like 120 before we had enough to move that direction.  So my brain, as ever, is going in circles kickin´ up gravel.  If you have any thoughts, or are interested in contributing to the funding, let me know.  I have more solidified plans / possibilities than I´m willing to post here for the world to see.  Such as it is.

Got to hang out with Andy this last friday while Holly, Janene, and Gretcen spent time talking and doing crafts.  Played some starcraft: brood wars, which was cool. I´m hoping that things start to take off here so that I can free up some hours to play some additional games, or even just hang out.

Holy crap – have I mentioned yet that Fall is my all time favorite time of the year?  I LOVE the colder weather, the colors, the smells (both inside and out!), the rain, the crisp air – oh my word. My heart both aches and sings for joy in the fall.  To have a house in the country right now would be so amazing.  Someday I intend to enjoy fall from my front porch, drinking hot chocolate and being with friends, and sitting by a fire with family.  *sigh*

Brief update, and sorry I’ve been gone.

It has once again been a long time since I updated my blog, but I suppose that´s just what happens when life is too busy to comprehend.

There have been a lot of things happen since I last wrote here, so I´ll start with a brief general life update.

I sprained my clavical at the Johnson family reunion (Janene´s extended family, and a great time all around) throwing around the nephews.  It didn´t show itself until that following monday, and then proceeded to get worse over a few days.  Unfortunately, it meant I got very little work done as I couldn´t even sit at the computer.  I think I´m fine now, though.

I´ve done some work for Grandpa Ed and Grandma Esther, on their house.  This next week I get to go back up and help some more.  I enjoy it a lot – it´s physical labor so I´m not stuck in front of my computer, and on top of that I get to spend time with my grandparents, who I rarely get to see – entirely at fault for that is my schedule.  Which is not something to harp on ´cause if you know me enough to pick through this site you already know what my schedule is.

Seasonal Essentials has been growing quite nicely.  We were accepted into the Warm Beach Lights of Christmas Craft Show, so we´re very excited about that.  We also “sponsored” the Life Choices Pregnancy Clinic Annual Conference this last weekend (Sept. 17-19).  Janene has volunteered as a counselor at Life Choices for close to 4.5 years now.  We provided soap for the welcome kits, and in return we got some amazing advertising and a table at the conference from which to sell product – and we did well.   Additionally, our new site is coming along nicely.  I have a few more pieces to finish on the technology, if I can pull my head out of my … long enough to get it done.  Just too much to balance! 🙂  The new site will feature a lot of new technology, bug fixes, new design, and new products.  We´re very excited about it all.

A Higher Standard is also making some good progress, and is a prayer request for you all, too.  We´re finishing the business plan (this week, maybe?)  Once that´s done we´re going to talk to some investors we have indirect contact with, assuming God grants us a meeting with them.  They´re some really big players, so it would be a miracle to get them interested in what we´re doing.  I´m really excited about it all, and the possiblities – AHS still holds my attention and a lot of passion.

The ecommerce technology that I´m developing is almost done. There´s a few things left to do, and once it´s done I´ll have an amazing product to sell.  Speaking of, if anyone knows anyone who is looking for web work, shoot them my way – or to Fresh Rain Studios (www.freshrainstudios.com), my web company. 

I need to purchase a high volume printer, and am really hoping to get into the Xerox Free Color Printer Program once I have the money to get started.  Seasonal Essentials has a very hefty printing requirement, as does AHS and FRS. Not to mention some of the stuff that we do on our own.  We also need an industrial paper cutter – I used to have access to one when I worked for Digital Possibilities, but that was a while ago.  With all the cutting that we have to do (product labels, etc) we really need that.

Oh, and if anyone is looking for an amazing real estate agent, either to buy a home or sell a home, let me know – I am very close with an agent who will bed over backwards to help any of her clients.  She´s absolutely amazing, and an old family friend.

I´m still in recovery mode from last week and this past weekend, and just can´t seem to shake that “exhausted” thing that comes with too much stress and work and not enough rest and sleep.  Unfortunately, there´s so much to be done in order to release our new site, finish up a contract, do a couple of proposals for new contracts, fix a lot of the technology that´s on this site (which will go into a web package for sale), etc. etc. etc. that I´m not sure when things will slow down.  I have decided that I simply cannot take any more on, other than real live paying contracts. Again, if you know of anybody looking for some really sweet technology in a professional design, complete with tech support and help getting up and running, let me know.

That´s it for now.  I´ve gotta eat, and then back to work.  This week is going way too freakin´ fast, and it´s only Tuesday.