Linna Heartlistener wrote:birdandbear wrote:My daughter is reading LFB now, and I've been thinking about this place a lot lately - my first internet home. ♥
Howww old is she?
And you have an older son, too, right?
(I think I saw pictures when you guys were like... caring for a baby squirrel?)
She'll be 15 in December. My son is 20, enjoying his first college summer break.
Damn. He was 6 when I first started hanging out at the Watch.
And Her Sciurus Majesty, Maisie the Squerelous, ended up staying with us, since there was no squirrel population in our area at the time she was ready for release (no trees mature trees in the new neighborhood.) She's 4 1/2 now, and we're all tolerated guests in her kingdom.
You know, it's funny. When I found myself back here the other day, I was actually Googling some old detail on a contest Gabe won when he was little, for tickets to a
Serenity screening. I found a post about it here, and another post in which I was proselytizing all over everyone about
Firefly and
Serenity, and how great they were. It was an odd thing to find from so long ago, because over the intervening years,
Serenity has led me on a very interesting and totally unexpected path. My life kinda revolves around that movie these days.
The year after it came out, some fans organized screenings of the movie for charity. (When I found myself here last week, I was trying to remember if Gabe's art contest was for one of the charity events or one of the pre-screenings.) It started in 2006 as a birthday celebration for Joss Whedon, but became what's known today as Can't Stop the Serenity - a series of screenings of the film that take place all over the world each summer, benefiting a women's rights organization called Equality Now. I attended every event, at first because of the movie, later because of the cause. And then one day in 2010 I realized I hadn't heard anything about the event that year, and discovered a recent post from the organizer stating that there wouldn't be one due to some health issues she was having.
I thought about it for an hour or so, and then gave her a call that ended up changing my life. I took over as an interim organizer for North Texas that year, and ended up staying when she decided to retire completely. Around the same time, I became very involved in a (successful!) fan effort to save
Fringe, and eventually that effort turned towards fundraising as well. I took a turn on a random summer day and stumbled right into a Calling.
These days, geek charity fundraising is pretty much what I do - my full time, unpaid job. I'm still organizing my local CSTS event, joined the Global team last year, and this year I'm the Global Event Coordinator for Can't Stop the Serenity, in charge of overseeing every event in the world. I still do my own freelance fundraising projects when I get the chance - I've designed and sold several variations of fandom related challenge coins for different charities, next I want to do a
Supernatural coin to benefit Random Acts. Or TWHOLA. Or both.
So that's what I've been up to this last bunch of years. It was so strange to stumble across the seeds of my destiny here, after so much time. Life is never quite what we expect, is it?
Make sure you keep sticking around. 
You're right -- there's no telling where life will take us.