Meet Millicent

Her name is Millicent. I don't have her full family history yet but she's 10 years old and lives in England in the year 1792. I chose this because of the transition of the clothing styles right around this time will give me more options. This gown is her holiday gown. When Millicent saw it at the clothier's she wanted it more than anything else in the world but the price was far beyond what her father could afford. A few weeks later, to Millicent's surprise, a package arrived. In it, was the gown. She later learned that Father had sold his favorite silver cuff links in order to buy it for her.

OK, cheesy, but I'm not that creative when it comes to writing and story telling.

Grounded

There's 6 inches of snow outside today. I took this picture a few minutes ago. This is the snow that's on top of the hot tub cover. Being from Utah, you'd think I would love the snow, skiing, etc but NO, I've never learned to ski and I don't remember the last time I went sledding. Actually, I do but that doesn't matter. I don't like the snow. Sure, it's pretty on the trees and mountains but if you have a car like mine, you will pretty much ground yourself from driving if there's any snow on the streets. The snow has melted off the streets now but I'm still grounded. Why, you ask? Once again, I have neglected my house. I have been sewing and researching stuff and haven't given a thought to my house. I even went bowling all by myself yesterday. I did pretty good too. Three games: 145, 162 and 145. Why can't I get those scores on my league games?
I'm getting antsy and want to go again this afternoon but I've committed to myself that I cannot leave the house until it's clean. Not just the kitchen, but I need to mop the floor, vacuum, dust and fold laundry. I'm doing everything I can to avoid housework. I'm even writing in my blog. Now, that's avoidance!

Recent project

Just thought you'd like to see one of my recent projects. Felicity and Elizabeth will soon be sent to the American Girl archives and since I am kicking myself for not buying the last historical character they archived last year, I decided to get them both. I've been wanting Elizabeth for quite some time. She has a unique face that not many of the dolls have. I never cared for Felicity. I don't know if it is the color of her hair or her name or what but I never really wanted her...until now.

I purchased Elizabeth new from American Girl. Isn't she cute?


Here she is with her best friend Felicity, the way Felicity is supposed to look:


I figured I would save a little money and try to buy a Felicity off of eBay. This is what I won!
Pretty SAD, huh?

The day I got her, the first thing I did was pulled off her hair. That's clump of frizz was way beyond salvage. After I took off her wig, I took off her head, pulled all the stuffing out of her body, washed it very well, cleaned her face and head and since it appeared that someone had tried to paint or scratch off her teeth, I repainted those. This doll is an older doll and I've noticed that dolls older than a certain point have little or no color on their lips so I painted new teeth and lips. I got a new wig for her, tightened her limbs, re-stuffed her, re-attached the head, put the new wig on and Viola! I have a beautiful NEW Felicity (gotta change her name though)
Please excuse her nakey body. This was the clearest picture I have. The ones with her dressed are too fuzzy as they were taken with the wrong camera.

Surprise!

I bet you thought I'd melted in the Arizona heat...never to post on my blog again but don't delete me from your list of blogs to follow just yet. I'm still around and plan on making good on the promise I made to myself when I started this blog. I told myself that I would post at least once a week, even if I didn't have anything to blog about.

Well, I don't really have much to write. I came home on Sept 30th. I'd been gone for 31 days. Brent told me I had been gone long enough and although I am missing my new granddaughter, I was missing home... My other grandkids, my girls, my cats and my dogs. OK, I missed Brent a little too.

The following Sunday was my birthday so my wonderful daughters took me to lunch and a movie on Saturday. If you haven't seen "You Again", I suggest you do. Wait, it's been about a month so it's about time it's out on DVD :) Anyway, it's pretty funny and a movie I will buy for my collection. Sunday, Brent invited the kids over for dinner and he cooked. I had a wonderful day until I went to bed. Ohhh, I hate having the flu. I couldn't even get out of bed on Monday. Monday evening I started to feel a little better, or so I thought. I went to bed and BAM, it hit me again. Long story short, I ended up passing out and falling off my bed. Luckily there was nothing in my way for me to hurt myself on. The next morning when I woke up, I felt just fine. Then on Wednesday, Brent got it. Hopefully that's the last of it for this year.

I've been busy sewing doll clothes and Halloween costumes. I've neglected my house. It's such a mess. It took me over an hour to clean my kitchen yesterday and I didn't even sweep. That was only dishes! My craft room looks like a hurricane hit it. I have misplaced the cord to my battery charger for my camera and I am crossing my fingers that it's in this mess somewhere. I need to take pictures of some new items I've made so I can post them on my website. If I don't find it, the next post will be as boring as this one!

A new collection

This is the beginning of a new collection of doll clothes from the 1860's era. This dress is pattern from Bunny Bear but I have switched out the sleeves and added a front plaquet with buttons. Watch my website (see the link to the left) for more items in this era to be added in the near future.

Three weeks old

Rylie is now three weeks old. I'm sorry that I've not posted anything sooner but now that I've been scolded by several, here's a short slideshow of our beautiful little Rylie Lynn.

Welcome Rylie Lynn

Rylie Lynn arrived today at 11:03 am weighing in at 6 lb 12 oz and 20 inches long. Mama, baby and Daddy are all doing well.
Welcome Baby Rylie. We love you!

The first day

I guess it's true what they say. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". Yes, I know. It sounds corny but I've never been a clever writer so that's the best I could come up with. Technically today was only half of the first day of the rest of my life because the first half of the day I was at work. I worked very hard, knowing that it's the last day of the month and it's always real hectic. My heart wasn't in it though and as the first couple of hours passed, I started to care less and less. Then I got an email from the boss with their ideas of a new compensation plan. I went outside to call Brent (because the new office is literally in a bunker and doesn't get cell reception, plus, I needed privacy). Then I cleared out my email, shut down my computer and walked out the door. Yes, I quit my job!

I am not sure I feel relief yet but I do know that I don't regret it. I am going to enjoy my time in Arizona. I am going to concentrate on expanding my line of doll clothes and I am going to be a success.

May I direct your attention?

Hi everyone! In case you have not noticed, I have a new friend. May I direct your attention over to Barb's Day? A while back, I answered a request for flannel shirts for the dolls I sew for and ever since then, I consider Barb and I to be good friends. Her last post is a fashion show of items I've made for her. It's worth looking into, especially if you want a little humor. Barb's quite the writer. I am working on another project for her as well but don't expect to see photos of these items until after the holidays.

I am also in the process of including "boy" or "tomboy" clothes in my line, thanks to Barb. She's been posting about me on a message board dedicated to American Girl dolls and because of this, my website has hit an all time high of close to 400 hits a day (389 hits in one day, to be exact). Thanks again, Barb!

I am getting ready to head out to Arizona this week. I will be there for an undetermined amount of time. It will all depend on who gets sick of whom first. My newest grandbaby, Rylie Lynn will be born on Friday. I can't wait! Yes, I will post pictures as soon as I can.

KissyFace

A picture is worth a thousand words! No need for explanation.

Good Golly Miss Mollie

As Papa puts it, this little girl has one heck of a personality. She's sassy and so talkative and even though she just turned 2, we think she thinks she's 15! Saturday night Kim thought she would come over so I can show her how to sew some things. They'd been here about 15 minutes. About three minutes of silence and Mollie comes down to my office with a box of baby wipes. She said, "here mom, clean me up". This was AFTER we cleaned her up!

This is what I found on my bathroom counter and in my makeup box:


Then as Kim and I were cleaning it up, Kim doesn't hear Mollie. She called out to her and JUST IN TIME, we caught her: Yes, that's a handful of vaseline. She was just about to rub it all over herself. She actually had two handfuls but I got one before we snapped the picture.

Remember the Sesame Street song: Guess which thing just doesn't belong here, guess which thing(s) just isn't the same...
Kim isn't sure if she followed the cat or the cat followed her.

It's Brent's fault

Brent said he started feeding her to keep her away from the baby quail. She came around every night at the same time. She follows him as he waters the lawn. It started raining at night so we left the garage open enough for her to come in and keep dry. This is where Brent found her the other day:

I did try to bring her inside one day but the dogs freaked her out. She will sit on the garage porch and meow but as soon as we open the door, she jumps down, almost as if to say "come out and play". She loves her ears and head scratched but don't even think about rubbing her back or tummy. She BITES!

90 degrees

Yes, it was 90 degrees in my bedroom on Sunday evening at 7pm. Brent finally got around to taking apart the HVAC to try to clean the filter. It's in such an awkward position that it's very difficult to get to but he managed to get part of it exposed so that he could get the vacuum brush in there. When he opened it up and shined the flashlight in there, it was covered in dog hair and dust, at least an inch thick. He carefully vacuumed it off and by morning, it was 70 degrees in my room. Ahhh, finally some relief. Now, I am hoping that by getting this fixed, now our electricity bill will go down. It was $332 for one month! Brent has a thing about fans and portable air conditioning units. He thinks the more the better. He doesn't pay the bills. He also doesn't pay the water bill. It was $200. Man, this summer is wiping me out.

As the World Turns

I feel like I have been out of the loop these last several weeks. I hardly have time to read my favorite blogs, let alone write on my own blog. I know, I've said this so many times before and I am sure you're all thinking I'm full of myself or crap, whichever but regardless, I will do my best to catch up.

Work has been busy as usual. Month end is always hectic. One person quit and I had to let another go so I trained one new employee and I've interviewed for the remaining position. Our COO has come out of retirement (thank goodness)and although I did the initial interview, he now wants to make the decision between my top two picks. We've had a higher than usual turn over the last few months. I blame myself for that in part. Maybe I wasn't clear enough when I interviewed in the past that this is a regular full time 8-5 job and somewhat stressful because of the work load. I guess people just think that working from home is a piece of cake. It's not. It takes a person who is focused and can stay focused and not be distracted by the little things going on at home. OK, enough of work talk for now. I will save the rest when I go on my rant next week.

On Friday 7/16, I flew to Arizona so I could go to a shower for my newest grandbaby. She will be born on Sept 3rd and I will be going back then as well. This is Jessica. I can't really call her the mommy to be because she's already a mom and has two kids, 15 and 13. Jessica is a very sweet woman and I know she and my son will be great parents.
Someone had given them a car seat and although it was only 2 years old and in good condition, I wanted to make a new cover for it. Not many car seats are designed for little girls and this one was tan plaid. Not girly in the least. I had Jeff send me the old cover. I picked it apart and used it as a pattern and Voila! a brand new car seat! I also made a matching canopy to keep the baby protected from wind or rain or whatever but because they are in Arizona and it gets so hot, I didn't want her to suffocate under the canopy so I made one with a mosquito net attached so that she can still be a little shaded but will get some air.


Sunday I took Jeff and Jessica to Babies R Us to get some necessary items such as a stoller and swing. Yes, I know. This baby is going to be spoiled by her Oma. I have to because I won't get to see her whenever I want like I do my other grandbabies. I will be going back in September when she is born. Jeff has asked me to come a couple days before to help Jessica get ready and then he would like me to stay for 8 weeks. I am not quite sure I can stay that long. I told Jeff that he will be anxious to get rid of me way before 8 weeks. I think this is something we'll just have to play be ear.

I'm such a slacker

I'm such a slacker when it comes to blogging lately. I have lots of excuses; from no time to nothing to blog about. My latest excuse is that It's almost no fun to post unless you have pictures to share. I have a brand new camera. It's a 12 megapixel camera. For some reason, my desk top cannot read the card so I have to load the pics to my mini netbook. Problem is, Blogspot won't allow me to load photos with that high of a resolution without resizing them and the problem with that is my mini doesn't have a photo program that I can use to resize them. This means I have to load on one computer, email to myself, start up my other computer, resize the pics then load to my blog. I haven't had the time to figure out any other way. I'd load one of the many photo programs I have onto my mini but my mini doesn't have a disc drive.

I started this post last night and actually even had quite a bit more that I posted about but when I went to publish it, my mini contracted a bug. It took me another two hours to fix it. NOW, I can't even remember all that I typed.

It's 85 degrees in my bedroom right now. Yes, we have central air and yes, it's cold downstairs but up here it won't cool down. The coolest it gets overnight in my room is 77 degrees. Brent said the coils freeze up and then it stops working. Gotta get that fixed!

It's still not coming to me. I can't remember what my post was about so I will just call it to an end. I'm going to do some reading to catch up on all of your blogs now.