Halloween Storytime!

Since it's that time of the year, why not share a little scary story? This is a quick look into some fear that I wrote for another project but it didn't quite get there so I figured I'd share it with the lucky peeps who venture in. It's not erotic, maybe not even that scary but I gave it a try and hope you enjoy it!

Just spend the night

Colleen felt the pit of her stomach pulling at her. She could literally feel her stomach move down inside her body in a full sense of dread.

“This is how horror movies start!” She thought as she walked up the farmhouse steps to enter the old abandoned place that was easily over a hundred years old. The sun was already dipping down in a cool grey sky of mid October. A gentle breeze blew which made an already cool night add in a bite of crisp cold to the mix. In this part of Michigan, the leaves had already turned and fallen. Bare trees stood stoic with branches reaching out to the sky which made the evening feel cooler than it already was.

It might have been in the 50’s during the day but at night, it would surely get into the 40’s and the breeze would not help. Colleen scanned the house as she stood on the long porch, most of the windows were gone and inside was an inky black that seemed endless. The house was big with 3 stories and had been abandoned for over 20 years according to the sorority sisters. Sitting atop a gentle hill, this house that once was majestic had fallen into disrepair.

This was considered one of her biggest tests to endure to get in. Up until this point, the party planning, memorizing sorority history and members, doing tons of menial chores had been pretty sucky but she wanted to be in this group. Popular and powerful on campus, the sisters of Tau Beta had it all and to be part of this group meant a great deal on campus and after graduation.

Colleen was here for the ‘Fright Night’ test as the other pledges had called it. Each year a few girls would go out to this old house and spend the night in the dark to prove they had the courage to stay all night. It mostly was a chance for the sorority sisters to prank them and scare the crap out of these young girls. Typically, they only stayed a few hours before one if not all the girls came out of the house screaming. Once they realized it was a prank, everyone would relax, the pledges would go back to the house and enjoy a drink and celebrate the hazing.

Colleen looked over and saw the other two girls that were going in with her. They each had a flashlight and a blanket with them and whatever they wanted to wear. Bundled up, the joined up and went inside. The house was mostly empty, with wood floors that were creaky and grey from the weather. The rooms were big and had papers from books strewn about. Going to the master staircase, they went upstairs and went to the rooms they each had been assigned. The pledge coordinator came in and gave them all some advice about what was going to happen. Of course she said they had to spend the night (although nobody ever made it through the night, they either left screaming or were brought out after a few hours by the sisters as a reward). They could talk to each other but had to remain in the rooms unless they wanted to leave and put their status in jeopardy.

With flashlights in hand, they all sat in their rooms and began to wait things out. At first they chatted a bit to keep things light. The rooms were cold and with the wind blowing through the windows making it downright chilling. The girls could not see each other but could talk as well as flash their flashlights out the doorway into the hall to light it up. For almost an hour, things carried on like this and darkness quickly settled and the entire night was black. With the cold temperatures, it was quiet except for the wind which had a lonely whistle to it. It creeped all the girls out. Colleen looked outside, she could see the two cars of the sorority sisters parked out there with the girls sitting by a nice fire. The four of them appeared to be drinking and snacking and enjoying the night wrapped in cozy blankets while sitting on folding chairs. She sighed and wished the night was over, even with the girls next door, it was creepy and she bundled up from the cold.

As she sat on the floor she could hear noise coming from another room. It was faint at first, the sound of something moving. A gentle scrape that was heavy but slow and stealthy. “Oh great, its scare the girls time” she thought to herself. The other girls in the other rooms didn’t hear it yet and Colleen moved next to an old end table to prop herself up against it. Her hand slipped as she moved the table causing her to drop her flashlight and it turned off, leaving her in pure darkness. That caused a quick chain reaction with the other girls.

“What was that?” Beth shouted

“Is that Colleen?” Sandra gasped

In the inky darkness Colleen tried to find her flashlight, hands grasping into the total black infront of her and the floor she could feel with her fingers.

“Colleen! Are you ok?” Beth shouted with fear in her voice

At that moment, Colleen found the flashlight and said to the others “I’m ok, just dropped my damned flashlight.” She clicked the switch but nothing happened. “Great” she thought, “Broken flashlight is totally worthless”.

She stood, working the flashlight switch and heard the sounds build. The sound that scrape was of feet shuffling slowly on the floor. Clearly, feet on loose pages of paper moving in a room probably next to hers. Heavy was the feeling to the sound as the floorboards creaked to each movement. It was getting louder and clearer and she was in pure darkness. Shaking her light gently and feeling her pulse race, it wasn’t funny, this wasn’t cool. In her mind, Colleen thought “Joke or not, this is not funny”.

The flashlight snapped on suddenly and she looked up to see her room lit and for an instant her eyes could see something in the hallway; a shadow cast in that space by the flashlights of the other girls and at that instant the combined screams of the other two girls. The screams pierced the night and Colleen felt her heart skip a beat as she was beyond scared.

At this point, any reason left her head and her feet moved like a blur, racing out of the room and exiting away from the other two girls’ rooms towards the stairs. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and tingled as she went down the stairs in an almost controlled fall. The screams of the girls pierced the silence and echoed in the house as she ran. Feet tumbling and barely touching the ground they moved with an adrenaline-fueled fear. When she got out of the house, out into the open where the sorority sisters were by the fire she found nothing but a fire with no trace of anyone. No sorority sisters sitting around it all cozy with cars parked nearby, both were gone. She was standing next to the fire, alone with her heart racing, thumping so hard her pulse could be felt on her face and lungs gasping in and out from terror. It was at that moment she realized it was silent again. Stone silent, as if the world had no sound. No more screams from either girl. Just the gentle wind on a cold night with darkness all around her as she stood there not knowing what was next. Turning, she looked back at the house and could see on the second floor a light in the hallway reflected off the old wallpaper. A shape stepped in front of the window, looking outside, silhouetted by the light behind it. A tall figure with square shoulders and ragged hair stood stoically at the open window. She could tell that this person was looking at her and in the blink of an eye, the light behind the silhouette went off and the window was inky black.

She wanted to scream but, what good would that do?

It'll only get worse when you add Stalking

So it's been pretty clear that with my ex 'Babs' and her GF putting down the 'reality' I got pretty flippin creeped out. Personally, I didn't buy the whole comment from the GF who said that others were looking, it was Babs that was looking if anyone. Stalking is inside her and natural to her.

Around that time, I started talking to someone new in my world who I'll call 'Sunshine'. She was my contemporary who had been partnered to Babs' GF and was dumped much like I had been. Sunshine was quiet and I reached out to her for a common soul who might be in the same boat as me. Let me tell you, she turned out to be a very genuine and sweet person who was terribly upset by what the GF had done. Suffice to say, GF had really done a number on her and when I had mentioned to Babs before we got all full of venom that I was thinking of talking to her, she got SUPER sensitive.

Babs said that Sunshine was crazy and that talking to her would be a disaster. Yeah, ok. Basically Sunshine was able to help me and I helped her by talking about what had happened and she had done some similar searching and basically confirmed a lot of my suspicions about what had happened. Timelines matched, stories fit into place and for once, I had someone on my side that was happy to help.

The last few times I talked to Babs, she continued to say Sunshine was crazy but I just shrugged it off. What Sunshine was tho was highly suspicious of anyone after that. It's the price that is paid when you get burnt. Anyone in flickr or SL that she met, she worried was an alt of Babs or her GF. She didn't want games and was determined not to get played by them again.

However, after the little plurk event, our talking kind of went in the tank fast because I could tell it was just a game to Babs and the GF. I'm sure they had a good laugh at me trying to figure a way to be a 'good girl' and earn some trust back with them when they had no desire to see me back.

My contact with the girls that Babs had adopted in SL ended and I just plain gave up after a while.

After some time, a miracle happened. Babs and I had a series of IM's via Yahoo after a cooling off period. This is when she confessed to a number of things including the alts prior to our split. Maybe she was chilling out and with me out of her world, things were getting better.

I dunno but for a little bit, via Yahoo, we could chat and be a lot like how we had been when we were close. It's like, without the GF, she was her old self when we talked. Was it a trap? Was it something else? I couldn't tell! Sunshine said it was a trap and for a time, I felt absolutely confused about everything. Maybe Babs just needed to be away from her GF to be herself.

My defenses were up - I felt like I couldn't trust her and just left things be. Any chatting was not going to happen on a regular basis.

I had my magazine and hosted a party for an issue about BDSM and held it at Rouge as always. It was a great party because it was my way of venting off some energy and be with a lot of cool friends. Codie and Gabby host great parties and the tunes were great. What was most interesting was the one person who came in and stuck out like a sore thumb. In the middle of the night, Sunshine and I noticed a 'new' avatar with some really bad clothes pop in. She came in wearing some bad leather/latex gear and just walked in and spent her time looking at me without a word. For a few minutes I watched as this person walked around. No dancing, no interaction, just watching. Sunshine noticed and IM'd me. We chatted about the fact that it could be Babs.

I was just about to ask Gabby and Codie to talk to and possibly restrict or eject this person and they poofed. Within a short time, that avatar ceased to exist. A disposable avi that had been used to 'crash' my party? I would think so. Things after that got quiet and I tried not to think about it.

Focusing on me and my time in SL is what got me through things as I finally let go of the last of my hurt feelings about how our relationship had ended. Babs was happy with her GF and Sunshine and I were friends as well as a new person who entered my world and I spent more and more time with them. It seemed like everything was getting better as we all kind of moved on with life. But ending a stalker and their behavior is never assumed, it has to be driven out.

My next contact with Babs happened early in 2010, a full year plus after our split. I sent a message to her via yahoo because I'm sentimental as anything and I figured why not say something...and she came back with some harsh words, my favorite being an indictment on me about a myspace page that she had assumed was me. So just to paint this correctly, she got mad FAST about a myspace page that I had no control over. She said I had been 'talking shit' about her on there and to stop it immediately. Can you imagine this poor woman who is out there and enjoying life and somewhere in this world is Babs, watching on a computer screen and seething at it? Holy F*ck!

I had thought things were better but clearly she was swimming in the deep end of the crazy pool. Feeling awful for this poor woman that Babs targeted I convinced her that it wasn't me. Once satisfied, she and I talked a little again. She confessed to the alt from flickr with the snide remark and another of my suspicions was proved out. What bothered the hell out of me was her new tone. Before when we talked, she seemed like her normal self I had come to know but now, much more cold and calculating when we talked. She was now saying things about how we had 'gotten past' so much that I should give her more info about me. She was like 'what's the harm? Just tell me your real name'. Wait a hot second lady, you were furious at an innocent woman and now you want my real details?

The best was when she wanted to send a surprise to my office and asked me to give her an address so she could share something from her company. Guess what I said? You got it - 'er, thanks but I'll pass'. That's when the alarm bells rang again. Babs was in a space that seemed angry and obsessed. She pressed a few times to get my real info and somehow convince me that since Second Life was kind of over for us both, we should be friends.

Well, I put Lacie to rest around that time and didn't log on with her for many months. Letting her sleep safely was the thing I felt would bring total peace. No more Babs, no more of that crap. Babs has a twitter account and I did look at that from time to time, just to see what was going on but that was about it.

Then it got scary.

I signed Lacie back in one night and took some photos. Within less than a day a new avatar messaged me offline. A secret admirer. One I had never met or known. One that wanted to talk and 'had waited so long' for me. WTF is this!?!? Obviously someone with a script to report on my login had put it into place. Immediately I shrank back and wanted to throw up. Yahoo email account was given to me so we could message and I felt terrified by this crazy action. I tried to find out who it was and they said 'now what fun is that' when it came to revealing their identity.

But I had 2 good friends go into defensive mode and they quickly found a myspace page with some info and confronted her. She got spooked by this and quickly was gone. Deleted her myspace and the avatar. These friends of mine had dealt with stalkers many times before and didn't take it lightly, they wanted to go after them. They even found a flickr page and I had missed the friendship offer from months earlier. They told me enough information about what they found that I felt it had to be Babs. It was peculiar that the language this secret admirer used was the EXACT same words Babs had said to me when I became romantic with her in SL. Indeed, she is a creature of habits.

But wait....it gets worse

Babs loves myspace. It's her little place to put her avatar up and make a comment or two. No adults use this anymore but she did. She became a cyber bully and that's when I nearly lost it. Her avatar profile had her myspace profile link in it. Anyone visiting could see the link and simply click to view it. Knowing that this admirer had a myspace page and seeing a myspace profile in Babs profile made me curious so I clicked.

There I was - or at least she tried. By IP tracker, she had 2 maps showing 'stalker home' and 'stalker work'. In an attempt to show where I lived and worked. I couldn't believe it and nearly threw up. Now I was the stalker. Her twitter account had comments about a stalker and I didn't put 2 and 2 together right away but here it was. I was her stalker. How fitting, she does all these things and to put icing on it, she's the innocent one that is playing victim.

But this isn't a game or a joke. This was real and she was really trying to show where I live and work. This is cyber bullying at it's purest form when someone is putting up personal information about another without consent. It's against TOS for myspace and many other places including twitter. It hurt to see that and feel violated in this way.

At first I freaked out and told friends. They wanted me to get a lawyer and get on this. I shrank back and stopped having Lacie on once again.

Yes - I would look in on her Twitter after that to see if she was saying anything more because I was considering legal action and even talked to one about it. Babs has made her twitter private and public back and forth over time. I really don't care now because she took down her myspace page with her SL avatar that had all my details.

I did make one poetic move that I know she saw. A bottle I called 'stalkerjuice' was my litle artistic ode to her. For the first time I did something directed at her. It was my clear message that I knew she was a stalker and that she must be drinking this evil concoction. Making my own label it was a Second Life original.

She didn't like it one bit. Babs was sure to note on her myspace that she had taken some action based on it.

I took it down some time ago but the message was sent. She's seen it and got the message. She has subsequently taken down her myspace and potentially left SL. Good for her, she can go and exist in her little rotten life torturing someone else. I have no desire to ever hear from her ever again in life. After all these years of knowing her and spending the majority of it as her target, as her stalking victim, there is a sense of relief in getting this off my chest.

Of course, she's somewhere in the shadows, reading all this now and fuming, can you hear the crackle crackle of her fuses about to snap from all the heat?

The conclusion on this for me is that being stalked has been one of the worst experiences in my life. Knowing someone is watching has made me paranoid and less trusting. It shattered my belief in what an online friendship can be, especially from someone I thought I could trust.

When you see signs of this behavior, protect yourself. Don't rationalize it away, make a stand and don't get walked on like I did. My relationship with Babs ended but it never went away as we went from friends and lovers to emotional torture.

At times I felt like I was being nosey but it was always to protect myself and to figure out events in the past, not plan for the future, not to harass anyone. That final moment when I posted 'stalkerjuice' is when I finally made a stand. That's when I took control and that's when it stopped.

Babs has to look at herself in the mirror and answer to her God at the end of it all about how she has behaved. I'm not especially proud of making that picture but it served it's purpose and gave me strength. Now, so many months later I sit here typing up this memoir of stalking and close it hoping none of you experience this like I have. Either through luck of friendship or from blissful ignorance. I had to be too much like a stalker at times to protect myself and that is not who I am.

Babs - get some help. Get a life.

Welcome to Stalking

When Babs and I had split, that funny feeling about how fast everything happened would not leave me. In the span of a week, I went from her partner that lived on the land she carefully created to out of all of her groups and staying at a friends SL home. This is when my curiosity got the best of me and I indulged in what some would call snooping and others would call stalking. I used one of Babs favorite methods to investigate: the groups. Simply looking at her profile and groups I could see her land group and with a click, a list of people that were in her new land group.

Babs had told me long ago that she found her ex girlfriend by this manner and used it to find out what alts had been created and were hanging out at the land. I didn't need to do anything more but click on two profiles that existed in her new land group. There were two people I had never heard of in there and that's when it all became clear. My Babs had an alt. Now, I'm not dumb, I knew she had a few alts, hell, even her avi I partnered with was an alt from her original that I met.

It was clearly her avatar with brunette hair. Not even really trying to be different. The picks had some of her favorite saying in them and was filled with love for another avatar. The one bit of information that jumped out at me was the date that she 'collared' her lover. It was from only a few weeks earlier and I remembered it instantly. That was a night that Babs had said she wouldn't be online that night.

I had gone online that night and hung out with my BFF and we were at her place talking, dancing on a new stand and dancepole she had modified and watched a Youtube video thing. Several times during the night we saw someone on the fringe of our radar but no name could be seen and each time they appeared, they were gone within seconds. Now, my BFF is about the most liberal person on the planet, clothing is purely optional to her and while dancing, it's typically topless. What's funny is that if someone saw us, they saw two topless women dancing and if they saw our conversation during that time, it was about music, food, current events and politics - not exactly 'steamy'.

The night ended and I went home and was about to log off when Babs suddenly came on! I said hello and she was in a fit! Not knowing what was up, I asked if everything was ok but she gave me the cold shoulder and didn't want to meet and have a hug which we always did. What the heck was up? She was so cold and I couldn't figure out what was up. So I logged off and went to bed wondering.

Now I knew after seeing this alt and the collar date. That night was the collaring date! She was in her alt, collaring her 'girl'! (Babs confessed to me a few months later that yes, she did snoop on me and my BFF from a distance and grew furious watching us.) Seeing that date, and not yet knowing the truth, I guessed that she had spied me, and either in a fit of revenge or as part of the night, she collared her girlfriend.

This leads me to my moral dilemma question. Is what I did snooping or stalking? My reason for doing this was out of curiosity and wanting to know the truth about something. Was it underhanded to look at groups and profiles? I'd always felt that profiles were public domain and if someone wants it private, they keep it private and don't share it with the world. However, I could be justifying it to my benefit, y'know? So I gained some peace from knowing it but it also made me mad realizing that Babs had apparently done this. It wasn't this innocent 'oh we didn't expect this' like they had tried to explain to me when they described the sudden onset of their relationship. Nope, this was something they both had plenty of time with.

After our split, things got snarky. Babs had a Flickr account and she promptly put up a number of photos of her and her new GF. Her GF didn't have a Flickr account so it was meant for my eyes since I went to Flickr daily. Is that stalking? You know, seeing new photos from a contact? I tend to think that it's not but yes, it involves seeing a contacts photos are updated and it's essentially in your face. To me, that's broadcasting new pics to your circle of friends which is beyond private.

Not to be outdone, I had a little Flickr drama of my own to indulge in. I took some new pics that were suggestive and included my BFF. This is when things took a turn to a new chapter in stalking. A new account made a comment on one of these pictures saying my BFF had a 'freaky avatar'. Now, if someone makes an unwelcome comment on a flickr picture, isn't that over the line? Isn't that inappropriate? It was an anonymous profile, but Babs has the subtlety of a punch to the face. (Again, she confessed to me later about this account so I know that my suspicions are factual.) The best part is that the profile existed for maybe a day or two max. She had tried being friends with about a dozen of my close friends in flickr before deactivating the account.

I saw all this and talked to 2 friends who had been contacted for friendship from this account. They had no clue and wondered what was up. Sadly, Babs had elevated from observing to now interacting and there was no turning back.

The kicker happened via Plurk. A social posting/twitter type thing that a number of SL friends use. I had been active in plurk for a while and when we split, I tried being good about venting my frustration and the things I was learning. Finally, one day I made a few choice comments about Babs and what we'd experienced. It was healthy to vent but not exactly the most classy moment I've had. The last thing I needed to do was feed her fire but I had held it in and wanted to blow off steam.

Things culminated in a venting email to Babs where I called her a coward for what she did. Knowing what I knew about her alts and the fact that my first partnership died because of alts, I had enough.

At that point her new GF stepped in and said that I was over the line. We set up a meeting and talked to try to bury the hatchet. It actually went really well and though I don't like her style, the GF appeared to make an effort to bring some peace. When Babs joined us after a long talk, she was pissed. She lashed out at me and ripped me up and down for what I had done. What the heck had I done? I couldn't figure it out until the comment from my Plurk was brought out.

That's when I was told that I was constantly being watched. The GF said something like 'you're not the only one with lots of friends online'. To which I asked 'is that a threat' and I got the equally cold response of something like 'it's a fact'.

Ok Lacie - guess what? You're being watched not only by Babs but by whatever army of others her and her new GF had. Things were just getting going.

A Stalker is Born

Felt like it was time to do a little story about something that has truly bothered the hell out of me in the past. What is Second Life without a little dramarama, right? This is my account of actual happenings during an extended time in SL. The whole idea of stalking, especially from the side of being stalked is something I didn't expect and yet, it happened to me and probably has happened to you all at some point in your web exploits. This'll probably become several entries as the story unfolds but it's all from actual events in my experiences. For now, this is the first entry, which will be known as 'A Stalker is Born'

Early in my SL, I met someone who I spent a tremendous amount of my time with and to be kind, let's call her 'Babs'. Me and Babs met early on and had a close and intimate friendship from the start. From those first days, there was something she openly shared with me - the fact that she liked to find out about who the people behind the avatar were. It seemed somewhat harmless to me at the time, I was so flipping new to SL, it was just a ripple in a sea of new experiences.

Babs had a close girlfriend that left her. Claimed she left SL but Babs was convinced that she didn't really leave, she thought that they were ducking her and she proudly told me she could figure people out, she loved to search online for people and find them. She'd find them in SL and in RL if they were going to give her enough information. It didn't creep me out at all but there was a red flag when that girlfriend left. Babs was obsessed with finding her and find her she did, she searched and found a very similar avatar with a lot of the same info in her profile and caught her in places her old girlfriend would hang out and confronted her.

I tried being supportive and yet felt awkward the whole time this happened. It was hard enough being left in SL but then to track someone down, it just seemed to make it worse. She'd tell me her tactics on how she'd find her and then keep checking until she found another alt account that was started. This wasn't a one off experience either. Babs would search out anyone she was close to and would proudly tell me where the RL person was from, age, job, anything she could learn. That bothered me and I felt like this was a warning, not to give out personal information to someone, even someone I felt I could trust because nothing good would come of it. I didn't need random calls or letters or worse, a visit from a person from my SL unless I wanted it.

This continued with Babs as she met new people, it was always an inevitable story of how she'd learn about them and share it with me. Mostly I sat and listened and said 'oh really? Wow!' a lot. It just felt weird and sometimes, but not very often, I'd say 'do you have to look into who they are' and she brushed it off as harmless fun. The thought would creep into my head though, was she thinking about me and how much had she tried to find out?

Ontop of all this, she had this quid pro quo approach that made it easy for her to try to get info. She was open about who she was to those she got friendly with. Her first name was volunteered to me, then she shared where she lived and worked and even sent me her cell phone and finally gave me her full name and even her birthday. Shoot, I even had some video she shared of her from a program she had been on. The catch was 'well, what can I know about you?' and that scarred the f*ck out of me. From early on, my rules were clear - my first name and city I live in are pretty easy to share but beyond that - no way. I have never given out my actual birthday to anyone with accuracy. Sorry, being a target is harder when the details are vague.

Our friendship grew and as we became more exclusive with each other, her details about 'snooping' on people got quieter as we did more and more together. It sort of melted into the background but she had made it clear that she loved knowing about the people she met.

I'll pause before the end of this 'chapter' and just say that stalking is a weird thing. It's hard to exactly pin down but I define it as the activity someone takes which monitors and follows a person in an obsessive and unwanted fashion. It clearly is done in secret for the most part and has a socially unacceptable and creepy factor. The 'sniff test' on stalking to me is: If you were to tell the person you are following about the activities you're undertaking and they are uncomfortable, then it is potentially stalking.

So it was clear that I had fair warning about her and her behavior and chose to ignore it for the most part. I believed as long as we were close friends and lovers, it would overcome any of that. Yet, I was very wrong.

We became partners in June 2008 and our time together was the culmination of many months of close friendship. After a wonderful summer together, the fall gave way to things not working out well and by the time December of 2008 rolled around, we were splitting up as she had found someone new and I was replaced. It was a sudden change for me and surprised me how quickly I was out of so much of her life. The new girlfriend was very bossy and I got uncomfortable around her right away. Something didn't add up, I couldn't figure how Babs had met someone so fast and developed feelings as they both claimed. Even for SL it was fast and something was fishy. At that point, I did some detective work and learned a lot.

Expanding on some thoughts

Okie - so I'm going to revive this blog if my intentions can actually come out. It's been a Hell of a long time but I've got some things inside that are ready to come out.

The first thing I'm going to share is what I call 'stalker tale' which will be a bit of an excursion into RL and SL mixing in a strange cocktail. Not to go into all the finer points but it's a safe bet this will be my most serious writing in a long time.

The story is about friendship and love which turned to obsession and some dangerous and illegal behavior. Hope that everyone who reads the story get out of it something valuable and necessary in this day and age of information.

When it's time to write, my mind typically races and gathers the whole story and I spend time just 'setting it free' in a word document as my fingers type. This is very different. My mind is focused on the subject and every day on the way to work and on the way home, I think about it and talk it out. It's been simmering for some time now and it just feels like it's time to share it here.

So please be a little patient as I gather it all together for sharing. It'll be a bit long, that's for sure, so look for the next post to either be the whole 'shebang' or a healthy first installment.

A lovely night to you all