Call me Kristy. I am a left-handed nerd with OCD tendencies and a loud mouth and I just recently entered the world of being thirty. This pretty much means I still try to act like I’m nineteen while shouting how I’m too old for this shit
I make my home with my Wolfpack in the coastal Southern city of Charleston, SC by way of the Yankee metropolis known as Philadelphia. I graduated from Temple University with a degree in Journalism and Advertising but have made a career out of doing what I do best – being an IT geek. By day, I’m a Systems Analyst for a Cancer Center, which means I play with software, troubleshoot issues and keep the machines running that help my coworkers save lives. By night, I watch a lot of crappy TV, spend way too many hours reading blogs and immersing myself in social media, reading anything I can get my hands on and getting hand cramps from playing XBox for too long.
I thoroughly believe in retail therapy, a few glasses of red wine, Philadelphia Eagles, macaroni and cheese and slaying dragons in Skyrim or shooting NOOBS in the face on Call of Duty.
The Wolfpack
Steve and I went to high school together but ran in vastly different circles. He was popular and captain of the football team and I was a Chorus nerd with a select few friends who spent more time burying myself in books than I did socializing. That didn’t stop me from developing a crush on him when we shared the same Physics class my junior year and his senior year. We didn’t cross paths again until the summer of 2000, after my freshman year of college when we were both working in the mall. I ran into him at his store and mentioned that a girlfriend and I were going dancing and he offered to drive us. A few days later, he showed up at my store and asked me out. Our first date was spent sharing a six pack of Coronas in the parking lot of the theater then choosing the exact same row that my ex-boyfriend was sitting in. We were together from then on. We moved in together when we picked up all our wordly possessions and moved to South Carolina in 2006. We adopted our first fur baby and bought a house in 2007, adopted our second fur baby in 2011 and finally, after years of professing it would never happen, got married in 2012. We spend our time bonding on the XBox, watching movies and TV, trying out delicious restaurants and taking road trips to explore new places.
The Husband
Before we got married, I used to refer to Steve as my copilot because I felt silly being a thirty year old woman with a “boyfriend”. Even though I can now officially call him my husband, I will still say he is my copilot because he is there by my side in everything we do and every adventure we take. He is my rock and without him standing next to me, I have no foundation. He is a mechanic by trade and one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known. He is honest, loyal, steadfast and one of the most stubborn people I know. He puts up with my craziness, calls me on my shit and loves me like no other. His favorite things are video games, drag racing, fishing, shooting guns, watching crappy movies and annoying me when I’m not paying attention to him.
The Brains
Sammy came to us in 2007 when we found him at a local SPCA, huddled in a cage with a mane of wild and wooly hair. Steve immediately was drawn to him because he looked like a rockstar and I admit I passed him up with an “Ew!” while looking at the cute Shih Tzu in the cage next to him. But Steve convinced me and it didn’t take us long to fall in love with him. He’s a little bit Jekyll and Hyde – when he’s good, he’s very good but when he’s bad, he’s horrid. He’s a little bit broken and aggressive and we take that in stride. But we love him just the same. He’s smart as a whip and a grouchy old man, just like his dad. His favorite things are his Chewie, giving kisses and going bye-bye.
The Brawn
We found Baxter wandering near my grandma’s house in the summer of 2011. He was ragged, bony, filthy and covered in ticks and fleas but he approached us tail wagging and ears perked high. He was the first dog Sammy showed any interest in and we had spent the entire day making a decision that would lead to my grandfather’s passing so we felt fate, and maybe something from above, was sending this guy to us in our time of need. He is the all puppy … he wakes up full of piss and vinegar with a fully charged battery then crashes hard at the end of the day. He is super fast and jumps super high and spends his entire life trying to get or take as much as attention as possible from anyone who will give it to him. His favorite things are annoying Sammy, ice cubes, pulling every toy out into the living room and cuddling.
About Four23
I’ve had a personal blog before they were called blogs, starting my time at free servers and then being hosted on a few domains before I bought my first, and up until now only, domain – kallure.com in 2001. I stayed that site for a little under ten years until I got a wild idea that I had outgrown the Kallure identity, at least with regards to the website and wanted to try something new. This idea, of course, kind of came about around my thirtieth birthday and I figured what better time to start over and start fresh at a place that might closer fit me personally.
I rolled a few ideas around in my head for awhile and of course, ten years later, it’s hard to find easy and straightforward domains, especially those of the dot com variety. So I settled on Four23.org, which is a simple reference to a day I’ve always loved and a day that will always partly define me – April 23, my birthday. Simple, easy and to the point! Here’s to another ten years at this little home on the web!