I know responses, reports, and consults have been slower going lately – between non-online life obligations, a laptop that is a giant piece of crap and getting crappier every day, and some unforeseen hiccups with the online store (which I have not announced the re-opening of because it's been two weeks of weird-ass glitches and I have been chasing down orders that got eaten by the cyperspace grue and trying to make it up to the customers whose orders got messed up), well, things have been simply insane. Then, because when it rains it pours and because when you put put off doing needed replacements and maintenance because of lack of time, money, or ideas, everything tends to come back and bite you in the ass all at once, I have been offline since Thursday — my laptop, which has been clinging tenuously to life for a few months now, finally had a grand mal seizure – the shaky strip of blown whatever on the display no longer fades in and out but is permanent, which makes it nearly impossible to read/see half of the screen; and the system slowdown that I have not been able to solve with various anti-virus products now makes the system freeze and crash about every seven minutes (so it can't complete a virus scan and transferring files takes *freaking forever*) . And of course I had to rearrange the entire setup, furniture, wiring etc of the living/dining room/office areas so I can print from the new desktop, which I'm far from being done with (which has not been made any more fun by the combos of my bad back+moving furniture or my allergic asthma+all the dust that has been getting kicked up lol… in short, stuff has been frantic, disorganized, and not a hell of a lot of fun around here lately. So I've been working nonstop to get a new desktop set up and – more importantly and more time-consuming-ly, into the home network so I can save the files and print orders and labels and do everything else.
As of now (6 am Saturday morning), I have gotten about 70% of the files transferred to the shiny new(er) desktop. It is going to take me a very very long time to get them all organized though – I used dropbox instead a fancy file transfer thing to move the files, so they're getting moved chunk by chunk, but the folders weren't going the right way, so I have been dragging them over and moving them into a very large, very disorganized file on the new desktop; also I have probably screwed up the home network, because everything is going offline a lot more frequently than usual, and system performance is slow for online stuff even on the new computer. Client documents will be easy to find because they are named for the client and dated in the filename usually, but photos are another story entirely (they are often group shots, so I don't name them for a single client but crop and/or blur as appropriate when sending photos of lights and altar work to individual folks, and I am now paying – with interest – for trying to do it the quicker way before).
So I am going to go ahead and send the light setting reports I owe without the photos rather than delay them any longer, and as I locate and am able to sort and label the photos, I'll send them later. I apologize profusely for the delay – trust me, nobody hates this as much as I do or is more annoyed by this than I am, and the last thing I wanted was to keep my clients and customers waiting, especially now, since everybody is gearing up for holiday and family time. So if you've been waiting on me, I beg your indulgence for just a bit longer; I have never forgotten a client or customer yet, and I'm not about to start now, and I'm doing the best I can to get out from under this mess. And as always, if you have booked a consult and I have not begun it yet and you would like a refund, I'm happy to oblige.
In the meanwhile, there are a couple of bits of good news or things to look forward to – while I was cleaning/moving/rearranging, I found quite a few half-finished projects that I plan to finish soon, among them some rosaries, some altar/libation bottles for several saints and loa, the notes I scrawled in the kitchen a few times when I was working on new formulas for some brewed baths and waters, and a few shrine/shadow boxes. And the new storefront/cart at karmazain.com should be functioning properly very soon (it does work right now, and and orders are getting to me properly – finally – as far as I can tell now, thanks to my awesome web guy who bailed me out even after I said "let's go live and work out the kinks as we meet them" which was in retrospect a bit of gun-jumping; however, I have not officially announced or publicized the new re-opening, because I don't have the info clear/front and center for international buyers yet, so they understand how shipping is going to work in their cases – and also, for clients ordering services only, the shopping cart is still charging shipping which it shouldn't be doing. But for regular purchases of tangible goods to the US, the store is working fine, and it has most oils, powders, and salts, and the mojos, candles, etc will be stocked as we go, as we are able. If you want services only, now, though – light settings, consultations, altar work — it's still best to get them through my livejournal userinfo page for the time being. There you can book consultations, book a few types of light setting, and book some types of commonly-requested, simpler altar work, and nothing bizarre will happen to your order). And I hope to get some new rosaries and jewelry finished and put up soon.
I appreciate y'all's patience and am hoping to have all this crap fixed and all the rearranging and sorting done before Thanksgiving. Happy holidays and happy hoodooing!
Big Lucky Hoodoo 