What a birthday! Three days later and I haven’t totally recovered. Add to that both Steve and myself still have lingering effects from that cold we shared last week, and I could be in for a rough remainder of the week – but it will have been so worth it.

Sunday was my 39th birthday and that’s a pretty big deal. Jeez…39…hard to type it even now. Not so much because of the age itself, those are just numbers after all, right? But I never thought I’d be on the cusp of a new decade, technically en route to “middle aged” without Nick by my side. By now we were meant to be married and, though we didn’t discuss it much, have several little Hardaway kids running amok reading each other’s minds and cracking jokes in posh British accents. Well…maybe simply have kids, period.

Instead I’m heading into that gray time of life when having kids is more difficult and more risky. If I can’t find a way to Nick soon I may never have them. But this is precisely the kind of thinking I wanted to avoid this year, so I decided to surround myself with people who were friends not only to me, but to Nick.

The Rose Red survivors see each other one-on-one or in small groups on occasion, but rarely get together for a full “reunion”. Thanks to Steve that’s precisely what happened Sunday night. It was my idea that we should all spend some time together, but he found the venue(s) and threw the bash.

In attendance were Steve, Emery and his lovely fiancée Mary, Rachel and her husband Brian, Annie, and Cathy and her husband Clark. That’s all the Rose Red survivors, their spouses/significant others (except Steve, who’s single), and me.

ABOVE: Somewhat awkwardly standing on an uneven surface, L to R top: Emery, Steve. L to R bottom: Mary, Rachel, Annie, me. This photo was taken by Rachel’s husband Brian. This was prior to our sitting at the Herbfarm – continue reading for more about that. Cathy & Clark hadn’t arrived yet. (Continue reading…)

I’ve put up two new galleries for those who enjoy photographs. The first is personal and will appeal only to those who have a keen interest in Nick and my personal life, and a love for all things bridal. It’s a gallery of our wedding plans…

If so inclined, you can view Our Wedding Gallery here.

The second gallery is of greater interest, and I think you’ll find something to like therein. It’s a gallery of items from The Ellen Rimbauer Museum, which closed its doors in 2007. But its owners kindly sent me catalog photos of their inventory, so I’m able to show you lots of Ellen’s personal items purchased from the estate auction or donated by the Gilchrist family.

Check out The Ellen Rimbauer Museum gallery here.

The 11 page tome that was my research on the Briar Witch took up a fair chunk of my week, so I really didn’t have the energy or time to write a personal update since Emery’s investigation results. Sometimes personal updates are no fun; it’s more enjoyable to give you the research, or the artifacts, or the spooky stories. It’s more fun to think of Rose Red as still being here, because that’s where I’m sure Nick is, somewhere or another.

Truth is Rose Red is still here, just not in the same way. Life here in my Rose Suite has to go on, even when it gets weird. My friendships, like plants, need nurturing to grow. I knew Steve would be upset with me, you may recall I wrote about it a couple days ago. He did call me, though he wasn’t as angry as I expected. We arranged dinner out, which we did yesterday. Chill. Nice. The sort of thing completely normal friends with completely normal ties to each other do. Except the tie that binds him and me is losing our significant others in a haunted house eight years ago…

Far from normal, wouldn’t you say? (Continue reading…)

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Kiss me, I’m Irish! (With a name like O’Sullivan, could you guess?)

Let’s celebrate with new galleries: Nick’s Scrapbook & Ally’s Scrapbook. These will be ongoing galleries of photographs from my life and from Nick’s life, and sometimes from our life together. I’ve called them “scrapbooks” because I’ve done some of the photos on digital scrapbook pages - too much time on my hands this weekend, even with the huge Deanna Petrie project.

See larger versions of these & more on the new gallery pages.

I’ve been hard at work bringing you a huge new gallery dedicated to Deanna Petrie, the 40s film starlet who disappeared in Rose Red in 1946.

I received a large number of photographs from the owner of a Deanna Petrie museum in Fresno, CA, for inclusion in this site. In the gallery are photos of Deanna in films and magazines plus many of Deanna’s outfits from the Oscars, time out on the town, her movies, and Ellen Rimbauer’s January 15th parties. All but the 1946 Rose Red gown are chronicled, as that’s the gown in which she vanished and therefore the gown that’s best known (it was the gown Hedda Hopper declared the cocktail dress for 1946). But the gallery will show you the rest, which you may not have seen - like this one, worn at Ellen’s anniversary ball in 1942, the first January 15th party Deanna attended.

You’ll also find lots of information about Deanna’s personal life and career. So hop on over to the gallery and get to know one of Ellen’s most beloved guests…

What a mad rush of a weekend it was. Not in the way I’d typically mean – typically I’d mean running around doing errands, or scrambling to finish a pile of reviews, or managing a spectacularly long string of social outings (something that hasn’t happened in a very long time, and I don’t much miss it). This was by all outward appearances a quiet weekend. I simply had a friend over for a visit, right?

But time flies when you’re terrifying yourself, and that’s precisely what I did. I don’t think Emery was a fraction as worried as I was. For all my calmness in my previous post, I started working myself into a tizzy in the hours between then and when he made his way here. After all, it wasn’t a housewarming party. I didn’t just invite him over for drinks to finally see my “new” place after all these years. He came because I was capturing shadows in photographs and cleaning up ectoplasmic goo off my kitchen counters.

I wasn’t frightened for myself, but frightened of what being here might stir up for Emery, both emotionally and in adding fuel to a paranormal fire. I didn’t want too much to happen at once, that’s precisely the sort of thing I vowed to avoid when I “disappeared” back in 2002…when I tried to lure Steve here. At least this time my motives were pure, and Emery kindly volunteered the visit anyway.

But as it happened, well…not a lot happened! Surprisingly little, upon reflection. I guess part of me expected the walls to suddenly swallow him up, or his mother to come springing out of the bathroom mirror. No signs of his mother, fortunately. Nor of Nick, unfortunately. But his stay wasn’t fruitless. (Continue reading…)

Have you seen the latest photo galleries?

ABOVE: Check out photos & stories from Nick’s investigations in this ever-expanding gallery here. Lots of tales of things that go bump in the night - but warning, one photo is not for the squeamish!

ABOVE: Great pictures from an architecture magazine of the bits of Rose Red they could salvage here. See the process of restoring these elements for use in the Rose Suites.

ABOVE: Photos from around my Rose Suite here, showing the salvaged elements from Rose Red in action!

Archived from the old site circa 2002.

As promised, I have photos of the roses in bloom here on the Rose Red property! If you recall from my May journal entries, the roses began blooming eerily early, which only piqued my curiosity about the passages in Ellen’s diary in which Sukeena somehow controlled the vegitation on the property.

Both these photos were taken last week in the quad / garden behind the complex. Of course the landscapers had to pick red roses, but I doubt they expected them to be in full bloom so quickly.

Strangest thing is, I cut a few of the roses and brought them up to place in my antique crystal bowl (that belonged to Ellen), and they began to die almost immediately after I’d cut them. It was like they withered in my hands. By morning the next day their petals were falling off!

(Continue reading…)