Who's Shery?

Me in a nutshell:

In my other life, I’m a ghostwriter, an editor, the author of several books on journaling, an email course developer, and software creator. I have a journalism degree and I’m a lifelong learner. In addition to my writing/ghostwriting work, running various web properties, and managing my shops, I’m working my way towards a Copyediting Certificate from UCSD. I recently completed UCSD's Technical Communication Certificate Program, and I now have my sights set on a Design Media Certificate. I’ve been married to my best friend, a super wonderful man, since 2004 and we live in Central California with our two German shepherds. In August 2015, we welcomed our first child. I love scrapbooking (traditional and digital), card-making, mixed media, and basically anything that involves exercising one’s creativity!

Aside from this blog, I run the STAMPlorations™ blog, The Mixed Media Card Challenge, and One Layer Christmas Card Challenge. I also have a Facebook page devoted to all my craft-related activities. It’s my umbrella page for my Etsy shop, STAMPlorations shop, STAMPlorations challenge blog, and this blog. Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely, creative day! :-)

Me in a big shell:
(for those who’ve got time and want to know some of my quirks)

May 1997. That’s when I got online for the first time on my first ever computer. I was a complete noob. Fresh out of college at 20 and the only computer app I was proficient in was Wordstar. That was my graduation present — the computer, not Wordstar ;-). Forever thankful to the parents!

After the tech guy got my computer online (I don’t miss the sound of the modem as it dialed up), the first application I fired up was mIRC. There on Newnet, I got a barrage of private message windows from users — women, each one of them. They all had this to say to me: A/S/L. I was overwhelmed, but I quickly figured out what that meant and why I was getting all sorts of private messages. The tech guy had used mIRC while he was configuring my computer. He had used the nick “HotMike27″. [*pause, roll eyes here*] As soon as I figured out how to change my nick to something more appropriate, I never looked back. I put off applying for jobs so I could stay up for days just chatting. Wait, I didn’t really want to get a job because I wouldn’t be able to chat online. Pretty soon, though, I got tired of the endless chatting and thought about how I could earn money and still be online all day and night.

1998 was the year I bought my first domain and put up my first website. Then I started writing for other websites. Then I wrote my first e-book. Oh, did I mention that it was on the Internet (and only a few days after I’d gotten online) where I met the man who was to be ball-and-chained to me 7 years later?

Back then I kept some sort of an online diary (no, the term “blog” hadn’t been invented yet). It was a pain to maintain because I made the pages manually. I had to learn how to code because I found the WYSIWYG editors a pain in the patootie to work with. I kept my little virtual diary in Parthenon, a community in Geocities — if you don’t know what Geocities is, you haven’t been online that long ;-) — but then like all good (free) things in the world, Geocities came to an end. And so did my “blogging” days.

But then here now is this blog. And by golly, I’ve managed to blog since July 2013 starting with the blog found here and then continuing on to this blog! I tend to ramble on as you can see, and I’m thinking of how to end this. Perhaps I should end with a list of 7 things about me?

1. I’m a writer. (People pay me to write. Really.)

2. I’m obsessed with grammar. (That doesn’t mean I’ve got impeccable grammar, though. It just means I find a grammar book a more scintillating read than the latest book by some NY Times bestselling author. And besides, nobody’s perfect, even the most OC grammarian on the planet, and that’s not me, btw.)

3. I’m very nit-picky about many things. (I like my towels hung on the towel rack a certain way. My cell phone, wallet, pens, and sticky notepads have to be arranged in a very specific way in my purse. When I’m in bed, the sheet and comforter must be laid out correctly. I could go on.)

4. I’m a little OC sometimes. (I prefer the food on my plate neatly arranged and preferably not touching until I decide they can touch each other. I have a method I follow when I’m putting on my socks and shoes for when dear hubby — I’ll refer to him as DH from now on — and I are getting ready to go to the gym. I never leave the house without my little bottle of hand sanitizing gel in my pocket — it’s my safety blanket of sorts. I prefer things to be in even numbers because there is beauty in balance and symmetry. I gotta re-fold the clothes DH folds because I believe they should be folded a certain way. I think I’ll stop now.)

5. I sometimes hate happy endings. (I’m talking about the movies and television shows. Really. Many good movies and TV shows would have been better if their endings weren’t happy ones. Really. Happy endings are so overrated…but that’s just me.)

6. I drive my DH crazy. (We’ve known each other 17+ years and been married for 10+ and he still gets that bewildered, utterly confused, lost look in his eyes at least two times a day. I often hear him moan out in an agonized voice, “I’m so confused…” whenever I say or do something that completely confounds him — and that’s after he thinks he finally has me all figured out.)

7. I love buttons. (The kind you push. It doesn’t matter what kind of buttons they are — my fingers itch to push them. I go nuts when I see so many buttons to push. I have a knack for finding hidden features and functions in remote controls by pressing button combinations. The DH has a patience button, which I end up pushing way too many times. But he puts up with my button-pushing ways. Bless his patient and long-suffering heart!)

8. Nothing here really, but you should know why I had to put this in here . (Hint: the answer is in #4.)

And with that, I hope you have a great day! :-)