This is Halloween?

Happy Halloween!  Trick or Treat!  Sometimes I can't decide what I'd like more.

So here we sit on All Hallows and I have to admit that my only emotion is confusion.  What?  Halloween?  When the fuck did that happen?  It pounced on me, unprepared, costume-less, and, instead of tearing me to bits and chewing on my soul like it usually does, simply ran past me, and left me bewildered and un-mauled.  I feel a bit like you might after waking up on December 26th and realizing you'd been skipped by Santa the day before and not even noticed.  Shit.  How did this happen?

My blog tells me I've been incommunicado for three and a half months.  Strange because I could swear that my friend Bill was in town just a few weeks ago.  Evidently I'm experiencing some sort of X-files style time loss.  No, wait, maybe I can backtrack and figure this out.

The frame shop, maybe it's the shops fault.  Lets look at the numbers... Hmmm... yep, I think this might have something to do with it.  August, September, and October have all been at least 300% more busy than last year!  That explains something!  Clearly, I'm buried with lots of work framing art for people and keeping the new business alive.  This is a good thing.  Even so, it seems like that wouldn't have been enough to derail me from seeing my favorite holiday coming.

Oh hey, what's this?

Oh yeah!  Princess Thirza!  This little gigglebucket has been taking up a bit of my time and attention.  When Gale's not busy getting tickled by yours truly she spends her time bouncing on my belly and trying to choke me with my own necklace.  It's great fun.  But not enough fun to distract me from Samhain!  Surely there must be something else?

Could it be TaleTown?  Absolutely responsible for some of it.  Taletown is coming along slowly but surely.  I say slowly, but really, considering the scope of the project, and taking into account that it wasn't even conceived of 10 months ago, it's actually moving along ridiculously quickly.  I'd say we're about 35-40% of the way to full playability.  We've got dozens of bits of artwork, the ability to upload it into the game, interior house art is done, database being filled out, and, and, and.... it's all moving along.  Too much to cover. Gimmie six weeks, ask nicely, and you might get to come in, look around, kick the tires, and see how this thing works.  We're hoping for launch in May, realistically July, but who knows.  I'm not much for realistically or else I wouldn't be doing all this stuff simultaneously.  In any case, it's looking awesome.  Here's an interior screenshot if you want to set the inside of your house to fully "creepy" genre for Halloween.

Was is my writing?  No way.  I haven't managed to write any actual prose since July.  I did complete an entire map and world for the TaleTown Multiverse and outline and write the first portion of the comic book I'll be doing with Jiba Molei Anderson; Taletown: The Chrom.  That took up a chunk of my time/creativity in August and September mostly.

Surely all that's enough to keep me from noticing Halloween, right?  Nope.  I'm a Halloween fanatic!  It would have to take a lot more than that!  How about uprooting everything you own and having to move in three weeks?  Would that push it over the top?  *sighs heavily*  Well... I think it just might.

Less than a month ago we discovered that the home we're renting went into foreclosure.  There were several options on the table but the best one involved the bank basically paying us a lump of cash to avoid continuing the lease.  Lumps of cash are good.  But it meant finding a place to live, packing, and moving, in three weeks.  This is, of course, on top of all the other stuff I've already listed. 

We pulled it off.  We found a place, packed it all up, and we've moved.  We're surrounded by boxes.  I opened one and that's when Halloween jumped out and rushed past me.  Damn it.

Next year I'm starting to clear my schedule on October first and painting a great big pumpkin shaped bulls-eye on my chest!