Update:
In recent years, I've had to say goodbye to a lot of people in my life. They lived good lives, but it has gotten harder and harder to deal with attending memorials or funerals or anything like that. Around all of that, there was quite a bit going on, including the pandemic. There is so much more, but getting away from what was going on and finishing my project with Come Into My Parlor is something that I needed to do.
You might say the timing "just happens" to be when the miniseries was released on AMC over the weekend. Ordinarily, this would make me shrink away, but considering a recent and years long experience I'm glad to finally see the end of, I'll make an exception. Some might be aware of what I'm referring to and many will not. I might go into it a little bit in an entry I'm thinking of doing that will give an overview of the career of Dr. Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D. She wrote several books about Anne Rice's work early in her career, including a biography of Rice herself, Prism of the Night.
I did not make much progress on moving the site content to a blog format until I could organize it in a way that would be both visually appealing and "user friendly". Now that this blog is set up in a way that will be far more efficient for you to navigate around, I can begin the tedious work.
The images, for the most part, have transferred over. However, in the text I had links to pages on various sites about a number of things. Some of those links will no doubt be to pages that no longer exist. Others simply need to be repaired or restored. Usually, this would result in massive amounts of grumbling, but I'm actually looking forward to it in a way!
I will be looking at options that will make content more efficient and appealing, such as for images I have entire galleries for. I do have more than one YouTube channel that I upload content to in video format, and my channel, Digital Dollhouse, will be the channel I am going to use for videos for this blog. None of my YouTube channels are monetized. Here is a sample thumbnail with an image from the new miniseries as the background:
You might notice another version of this thumbnail is used for the graphics on this blog.
You might also notice that the house in the miniseries has some differences from the actual house used in the novels, the Brevard-Rice house. I do not know why the actual house was unavailable for filming, but it IS a private residence. The house used in the miniseries is a different house in the Garden District in New Orleans, and it actually dovetails with another project idea. That is to give an overview of the houses in the Garden District that are very similar to the Brevard-Rice house. This overview will not include anything that would potentially violate the privacy of the owners/residents.
I have also learned in recent years that I do have a family connection to the Brevard-Rice house, myself, via the original owner.
So thank you in advance for your patience as I restore the content of the site so it can be revisited and built on going forward.
Previously:
You might have noticed that there are a lot of things that you're not able to see on the original website on Tripod. That is because I seem to have run out of space for so many files. So I have been looking for some solutions to this little problem.
The site will, of course, stay up. However, I am in the process of moving a lot of the site. There's a great deal of writing on my site, so I thought it was better suited to a blog style site that allows media. Of course the visuals will be moved as well.
Half the fun of visiting people's parlors is looking at stuff--sir? Sir? No, never mind the dog...just beware of Lasher. 'Kay?
I thought I'd put the graphics in new formats. Something new, something fun. Something that'll end up on YouTube next week. Or at some point.
There will also be something completely new. In the last few years alone, genealogy research has really taken off thanks to the DNA testing offered by sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.com. I've had an Ancestry.com account for well over a decade and I've researched my family history for most of my life.
Guess what.
Your hostess got the shock of her life one day a few years ago, and after further research...
It turns out I do indeed have a family link to the house at 1239 First Street in New Orleans. Well, more than one; it's complicated. Once I migrate the site content and set it up to work properly as a blog, I plan to go over those connections. Finding them was definitely a series of "WHAAAAAT??!" moments.
So please be patient as everything is brought over and layouts and media are polished like the silver in the butler's pantry. I do hope you'll enjoy the site here and that it will serve as something fun to do if you happen to be in an area where a lockdown is in place during this pandemic (I've gotten both vaccine shots already--the Pfizer shots).
Enjoy, and thank you for your patience and your support!
Originally Posted August 10, 2021