A chilled out hump day

Had another bout of insomnia last night but still woke up early. I took a nap later, and this always interferes with any plans I might have made for the day that require focus. Did a little more toward Christmas un-decorating, spent time outside with the dogs and cleaning their “gifts” out of the backyard (tomorrow being trash day), and then I decided to try to identify the other three new-to-me dolls that came via Lynne.

Don’t know if it’s my tired brain, but I can’t say I’m confident about who the dolls are. I have some queries out to other doll collectors on Flickr, but in the meantime, here’s a fun photo I shot of them.


Ken has what’s often called the “Alan face mold,” it having been used first for friend doll Alan, maybe in 1990, and later used for around twenty-six Ken dolls (several of which I own). Then a modified version was used for another nineteen dolls (and yep, I own some of them, too).

The doll’s head doesn’t fit comfortably on the articulated body, and if this hadn’t come from a child’s collection, I’d think it was a collector-modified doll. However, there was in fact a doll that both had this head mold and posable arms and legs, and that’s the 1994 Hot Skatin’ Ken. The year fits, so I’ll accept Hot Skatin’ Ken for him. I kind of wish I had his original outfit. I’ve dressed him in some nice jeans, a pair of white sneakers, and a shirt I made. Looks like he and his friends are going to a block party where he’ll be forced to play guitar. I wonder if he plays as well as he skates.


Right now, my best guesses on these two are (white earrings) 1996 Valentine Fun Barbie or 1997 Shopping Time Walmart Special Barbie, and (red earrings) 1996 Valentine Romance Barbie. I cleaned up their hair disasters with a shampoo and conditioner, took the hair shears to some of the frizz and messy ends, and, as shown in the top photo, found clothes for them from the Doll Closet. Those are Mattel 1962 Fashion Pak gathered skirts. I guess the Barbies wanted to go a little retro. Then they sassed up their looks with a couple of midriff-baring tops and cute heels. They’re taking little dog Chicago with them so he can sing along with Skatin’ Ken.

What a party!

Mood: Monday

Peace and Love, 2021
acrylic, chalk, Posca ink, mixed media
© Art Sand, diminutive of the name Sandrine, self-taught visual artist, France

Happy New Year! January 1 is the World Day of Peace. It seems that every day, I think of, long for, wonder about peace.

It’s commonly said that we’ve never had peace on this planet and never will have. To be informed is to be confronted with constant reminders of violence, unspeakable horrors, and unimaginable cruelty. Though we can find other stories about or personally know people who make positive differences, those often seem insignificant in the face of suffering on what seems like a limitless scale. It can all be overwhelming and numbing.

What do we do? How do we make peace? Keep peace? Encourage peace? Quick, easy answers frequently come from sources whose own lives and time are anything but peaceful. Often their motives are far afield of peace, maybe summarized in words like greed and power; control and manipulation; “winning,” whatever the cost.

I wish I had the infinite answers tailored to all of our unique challenges. I don’t even have the answers for all of my own. I would posit that keeping and making peace in our lives requires mindfulness. Attention. Awareness. Honesty with ourselves. Mental, emotional, and physical effort. To identify where things go off the rails and examine how our habits, personalities, and ego may contribute to robbing our days, homes, families, friends, jobs, and hobbies of peace. What things can we control, modify, or change? What things should we walk away from?

A few things I think about in my own life: When do I need to say no? To not think I must provide an answer to every question? To make more room for stillness and less room for busy-ness and distractions? To mind my own business more and other people’s less? To watch for a subtle shift from coping mechanisms like humor and storytelling to more harmful actions (e.g., belittling, criticizing, judging, mocking)? To recognize when people are directing those things at me (or even to the world at large) and to find the healthiest reactions and choices for my inner and outer peace.

Such a simple yet complex word: Peace.

Last full moon of the year


Was able to catch a shot of this month’s Cold Full Moon in Cancer, the last full moon of the year. Here’s some of a “Today Show” article by Lisa Stardust on what that might mean to your sign.

The last moon of 2023 presents an opportunity for emotional release as we enter the new year. Here’s what to know.

Within the astrological practice of moon mapping, full moons are known as being times of rest and release. But they also take on the flavor of other cosmic happenings.

With Jupiter retrograde in Taurus and Saturn in Pisces present, we can confront and resolve any lingering resentments and embrace resolutions to such matters.

The day before, Venus in Scorpio will aspect Neptune in Pisces, allowing us to embrace our innermost desires. The same day, Mars in Sagittarius will aspect the nodes of destiny, leading us to make choices that will improve our lives.

While Mercury’s square to Neptune in Pisces, combined with its connection to Mars, on Dec. 27 may cause confusion, the alliance between the sun in Capricorn and Jupiter retrograde gives us the strength and determination to move forward towards what brings us joy.

Behind the cut you can read how this full moon might affect your sign.

Continue reading “Last full moon of the year”

random hump day post

Managing a day when Mercury goes into retrograde…

When I woke up and was about to take a shower, I noticed for who-knows-how-many times that a button was missing off my pajama pants. (I have a tendency to call procrastination “don’t sweat the small stuff.”) This time, I did something about it before my shower.

I found this coloring book recently, and as it was within my sight, I looked through it.

Most of the pages are pretty detailed, and this one appealed to me. It makes me think of my fictional Texas town, Coventry.

Then I was all NO! You need to get ready to write. So I grabbed the yellow book that has all the notes for the first chapters of the seventh book. And that’s the CD I ordered and will be listening to next of various artists performing John Prine’s songs.

I had to make a decision. Start writing, in which I would get lost for the day and into the night, or do some of the holiday things that need to be done soon (mostly mailing things out).

I spent a few hours in the kitchen pre-cooking tonight’s dinner and prepping the dough for cheese straws, some of which will be shipped.

Little dough balls for the cheese straws for Tom later to season with pepper and form into larger dough balls for pressing through the cookie presser.

They look like this pre-baked.

And then like this.

Sometime during the day I ran a shopping errand and an impulse item I grabbed was this little metal tray.

So that I could make the dining room table more festive and NOT a catchall place for the stuff I’m trying to get done.

I filled the tray with unshelled pecans, and I usually put those with Hersheys Miniatures as a snack for anyone who’ll sit with me and shell pecans. Since I had no Miniatures, I dropped in Kisses. (Shelling pecans is a zen activity in that it relaxes me and makes me reminisce about good times when I was growing up.)

There are picks and nutcrackers in that cup. That beautiful maple bowl is one made by Tom’s father and gifted to us. The table runner is a gift from Lynne (the reverse side has a fall theme).


Added an older dish to the other end of the table.

For the time being, it has the favorite candies of Tom, Tim, and Debby in it. This will change at Christmas.

Throughout the day, I worked on addressing Christmas cards. I’ve been sending them out in groups every other day. Now I have a few more and a package ready to go out, as well as contents for seven packages that I’ll box and ship tomorrow.

And…no writing got done, but a lot of other things did, and we had a good home-cooked meal, so it was time well spent.

Tiny Tuesday!

The kilt looks are finally completed, with some shirt exchanges once I sewed a new shirt. Now all the dolls are wearing belts I made, and I made and added their chains and sporrans (note the houndstooth), some embellished with their emblems. If you didn’t care about any of this to start with, I’ll put only one doll here and the rest behind a cut to save real estate on your monitor. If you do look at them all, thanks. I learned a lot of new things and spent my time on this project mentally plotting the rest of the Neverending Saga. That also gave me the opportunity to make good changes to the sixth book before diving into the seventh.


The Mogul

Continue reading “Tiny Tuesday!”

Button Sunday

For good or ill, below is a list of November 19 trivia.
Courtesy of The History Calendar.

Today in History – November 19th

1493 – Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico, on his second voyage.
1805 – Lewis & Clark reached the Pacific Ocean –first European Americans to cross continent.
1850 – Alfred Tennyson became British Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth.
1861 – Julia Ward Howe wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
1863 – President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address.
1893 – The first newspaper color supplement was published in the Sunday New York World.
1916 – Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn, one of the most successful independent film makers of all time.
1928 – TIME magazine published its cover in color for the first time.
1969 – Apollo 12 made man’s second landing on the moon.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to set foot in Israel on an official visit.
1980 – CBS TV banned Calvin Klein’s jean ad featuring Brooke Shields.
1985 – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time.
1997 – Septuplets were born to Bobbi McCaughey. It was only the second known case where all seven were born alive.
1998 – The impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton began.
1998 – Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of the Artist without Beard” sold at auction for more than $71 million.
2001 – President George W. Bush signed the most comprehensive air security bill in the country’s history.
2002 – The U.S. government completed its takeover of security at 424 airports nationwide.
2003 – Eight competing designs for a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center were unveiled.

SCIENCE, INVENTIONS, PATENTS
1895 – The “paper pencil” was patented by Frederick E. Blaisdell.
1954 – Two automatic toll collectors were placed in service on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey.

MUSIC HISTORY
1968 – The Supremes performed at a Royal Variety Show with Queen Elizabeth in attendance.
1971 – B.B. King marked his 25th anniversary in music by opening a European tour in London.
1990 – Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy Award because other singers had lent their voices to the “Girl You Know It’s True” album.
1995 – Bruce Springsteen’s thirteenth album, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” was released.
1996 – Prince released the 3-CD set “Emancipation.” The release was on his record label NPG Records.
1997 – The American premiere of Paul McCartney’s “Standing Stone” was played in Carnegie Hall by St. Luke’s Orchestra.
1998 -Motley Crue’s retail store, S’Crue, opened in Los Angeles.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS
James Garfield 1831
Tommy Dorsey 1905
Indira Gandhi 1917
Larry King 1933
Dick Cavett 1936
Ted Turner 1938
Calvin Klein 1942
Meg Ryan 1961
Jodie Foster 1962

It’s the little things


Here’s a silly product post for which I receive no free stuff or financial perks. I just feel like talking about it, and I’m not really even suggesting it for anyone else.

I started using Purpose® face wash back in the 1990s, and the reason I remember this is that a friend who I was around mostly in the 1990s asked me if I had a favorite product for cleaning my face, and this was it (and she had another friend who’d highly recommended it to her). For years, I used it, primarily because it’s so basic and doesn’t have a scent that bothers me.

Then suddenly, even before the pandemic and the supply chain problems, no one locally carried it anymore (I mostly bought it at Walgreen’s, and once they took it from their shelves, I looked at other places with no luck).

I tried other gentle cleansers, but most of them had scents I couldn’t tolerate–I felt like Goldilocks with my “too strong,” “too soapy,” “too perfumy” judgments and kept giving those soaps away to anyone who’d take them, or used them in my foot bath, because at least the scent wasn’t right under my nose. I wanted my “just right” Purpose®.

I rarely wore makeup in the pandemic years, and even when the public decided the pandemic was over, since I’m one of the stubborn people who continues to mask, because there are SO MANY different viruses and bugs and flus, and I don’t care if people think I’m weird, masking when I’m in public makes me feel a little more secure. If half my face is hidden, who cares whether I’m wearing makeup?

However, a few days ago, I decided to put on eye makeup, and then I thought about Purpose® and how much I missed it. So I did an online search and–BAM!–I could order it online, including this packet of four.

I don’t know. I can name so many horrors and problems in the world and among people I know, and I ache for all that and stay awake at night because of it. I recognize how utterly insignificant a face soap is in the larger scheme of things. Yet I also understand it’s not about the product. It’s about something that gives you comfort or brings a little normalcy to your life, whether an emotion or memory or moment of laughter or act of kindness, and yes, even some simple, tangible thing that has the power to make your world feel more like the world you want it to be.

I wish all those things for everyone.