I NEVER STOPPED PLAYING WITH DOLLS AND OTHER STUFF!

Hello Dear Readers!  I hope that you are well and having a great week.  I wish you joy and peace of mind and no stress....I wish you all to have all of your needs met and enough money to pay your bills and feed your families.  I wish you happiness and laughter and sunshine in your life. I hope you remember to count your blessings every day for I know they are many.  Don't forget to give thanks to the Universe and God for them  all.  The world loves a grateful heart.
Practice random acts of kindness.  They will bring you joy!  I have been in the drive thru line for many fast food restaurants.  The best times are when I get to the window to pay for my order. I ask the person if the car in back of me has placed their order.  If they have, I will pay for it.  I tell the cashier to tell them it was from a friend.  And then I drive off.  I feel so wonderful all day long.  Just thinking about their surprise and I hope delight  when they find out that their order has been paid for makes me smile for a week!  What a wonderful gift I have given myself!
I go through my day with a smile on my face.  It makes people crazy when they ask what I am smiling at and I say "Oh Nothing!"  hehehehehe!  You should try it.  I love to do it at Dunkin Donuts!  It does not cost much for coffee and a donut and it brings such joy to the giver and the receiver.  I don't do it all the time.  I could not afford to.  We all know how tight money is right now.  But the rewards are great.  I also like to pay it forward.  If someone does something selfless and nice to me I will pay it forward by doing something nice to someone else.  Imagine how happy and delighted you would be if you were in the car behind me and you found out that your order was payed for by a stranger??  It would not only make my day but make my week, month and year as well.  I don't think I would ever forget it.  Give it a try - you won't be sorry.

Now I have always had this giant attraction to Cabbage Patch Kids.  I just love their little round, chubby, happy faces.  When Danielle was little, she would go to yard sales with me every week. I would buy all the CPK dolls I found.  The only ones I stayed away from were the ones that had ink on their faces.  That almost never comes out.  I didn't care if they were soiled or needed a stitch or two.  I would throw them in the washer with a load of towels and bleach.  Then I would air dry them.  They came out like new.  I have kept all Dani's dolls and she must have at least 12 CPK dolls.  Lots of clothing and shoes.  We also have a highchair, crib, carrier, diaper bag, and a few other items.  Now that we have Francesca, I have another adorable little munchkin to buy dolls for!  I have already gotten her 4 of them.  Last week I went to our local Goodwill outlet store.  I found 4 CPK there.  They were each a different size from the largest to the small beanbag doll.  Again I washed them in the washer and air dryed them.  I got to thinking about how I could bring more dolls into my house without my husband going crazy.  So........ I came up with this idea.  I would collect the dolls all year long and crochet the clothes for them.  Then next Christmas I would donate the dolls to the toy closet at Yale New Haven Hospital's Childrens Hospital.  I would get to buy all the dolls I wanted, crochet their clothes and then make other little girls happy by giving them away!  Chessie has been in Yale Childrens Hospital more times than any child should.  I have been with them when they were being discharged and got to go to the toy closet.  They always need more items for the kids and for all ages.  I am thrilled with my decision!  In the past two days I have already dressed one little girl doll and am working on a little boy premie beanbag doll (with a pacifier in his mouth)!  The girl doll came out absolutely beautiful and the boy is adorable!  My husband went crazy over them!  He is actually excited about my project!  Hooray!!!!!  I am even going to make a pacifier holder for his outfit so it does not get lost!  If any of you dear readers have any CPK dolls that you don't want let me know.  I would be happy to pay you for them and for the shipping.  There is a website that I found that has all info about CPK restoration.  They even have instructions on how to restring their yarn hair.  I can't remember which website it was but I did print out all the info so I would have it.  If I can find where it is I will be happy to share the link with you.

Well dear readers, thats all I have to talk about today.  I will photo the dolls and post the photos so you can admire my babies!  I hope you might even like the idea and want to do a project of your own for the childrens hospital in your area!  And don't forget those random acts of kindness!
Hugs to you all!

RAMBLINGS OF A CRAZY WOMAN!

Hello dear readers! Its been a while since my last post. Hope you are all well and enjoying the new year. It seems that this winter will be a record breaker for cold and snow. Living in New England is a challenge with weather. One minute its freezing cold. the next its in the 40's. We get a foot of snow and in a week it's gone.  Its enough to make a crazy person sane!
I have been in a kind of a slump lately.  Not sure why but I seem to be having trouble finding a crochet project that I want to make and a subject I want to write about. What I have been doing is reading the Twilight sagas.  There are four books and I had heard so much about them that I asked for them for Christmas.  My dear daughter bought me all four books and the first dvd called Twilight.  For those of you who do not know what the series is about I will briefly fill you in.  It is about a high school girl named Bella who moves in with her father in a small town in Washington state.  She meets a boy named Edward who she falls hard for.  She is to find out that he is an immortal - a vampire.  Except these vampires do not hunt humans, they hunt animals instead for their blood.  Now I don't usually like books of this nature but this book is not a horror story with blood and gore and scaring the dickens out of you!  It is a romance and a very exciting one at that.  Oh and I forgot - there are also shape-shifting werewolves (not the type that are venemous and kill humans).  They are from an indian tribe that can change into giant wolves to protect their people and who also hate vampires.  To complicate the plot, one of Bella's best friends is a family friend named Jacob who becomes a werewolf.  I never read scary books or watch horror movies because I am too much of a whimp.  Do not enjoy them.  But I had heard so much about this book that I wanted to see what they were about.  I figured that if I didn't like it then I could just stop reading it and return the others that had not been read.
Well - OMG!!!  I was hooked!  Totally in love with them.  They are fabulous and I was not able to put them down.  I read one after the other and each one was wonderful.  You get so caught up in their story that its almost like you were part of them.  And the first DVD Twilight was awesome.  Very true to the book.  I always like to read the book first and then see the movie.
This did not disapoint me!  I actually read all four novels within four weeks and they are books with many pages.  At least 400 pages each.  The only problem now is that I am finished with them and have no more of the story to read.  What a bummer.  I just hope and pray that there will be another book.   Just like the Harry Potter series - which were my all time faves - there is so much excitement within the books that you never want them to end.  My daughter never likes this type of book and refused to read the Harry Potter books.  But she heard me rant so much about the Twilight book that she wanted to give it a try.  She was hooked.  She is currently on book two and is taking the other two books and the DVD back to school with her.

Speaking of my daughter - today she is moving back to school!  Yea!  Hooray!  What?  You are happy to see her go???  You bet I am!  Thrilled as a matter of fact.  She has been home since before Christmas when her semester was over.  I loved having her home.  Such a delight!
Right?  Well some of the times.  But, dear readers, she is, at best, a princess Bitch!  I forgot about the PMS mood swings.  A regular Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.  One minute she is a sweet girls and the next she is the shrew!  The shrew who could not be tamed!  One habit of hers that drives me crazy is when she is hungry.  She does this to me at home and in restaurants.  Will not decide what to eat on her own.  She will ask me what is there to eat......then I have to give her all the options she can choose from.....then she will tell me that she does not want any of them and what else can she eat?  So I get pissy and tell her that if she wants anything else she can just go make it herself.  Then SHE gets pissy and storms off to her room cursing under her breath along the way.  If I do come up with a suggestion when she is in her room she then yells that she is not hungry!  UGGGGGHHHHHHHH!  I could just scream!!  Now I know she has limited choices due to her gluten allergy.  BUT.......    And when we go to a restaurant it is the same thing.  Can't make up her mind what to order so here we go again.  God give me strength!!!  Get the picture??  Have you ever????  I try very hard not to end up screaming at her but alas!  I am only human.  Sometimes the screams just come out no matter how hard I try to contain them.  Not good when in a restaurant!  At home nobody hears but us.  But in public who's the bitch now??  You guessed it......ME.  Then she gets this stony face and tells me she is embarrassed and to stop it.  And I appologize.  I hang my head and look remorseful.  And so it goes.  Now when she is at school, I don't have to hear it.  She does call me every day and sometimes multiple times.  Or texts me.  I have to be ready to do her bidding.  Drop everything and run to her.  She only lives 10 miles away.  Just MY luck!!!  So I drop everything and run to her right?  WRONG!!  Only if I am not busy and was going out anyways.  And I do cook things she can eat and will deliver food to her.  For which she is very grateful.   She has these other quirks too.  She will see nothing wrong with spending $100.00 on a purse but she hates - absolutely resents - having to spend money on groceries, or shampoo, or deodorant.  She expects me to provide these things for her.  She has serious messed up priorities.  But I must confess that although she has these quirks that are so annoying - she is a really good kid.
Very responsible.  Works full time since highschool and pays her own way.  Bought her car and makes her payments, has her own cell phone bill, her own insurance for the car and never asks for a penny for any oth them.  She also pays for her own schooling and we help her whenever we can.  It is hard for us with me not working due to my arthritis and now her Dad is losing his job.  The electronics and appliance company he has worked for for 25 years has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will be closing all 15 of their stores by the end of February.
He is depressed to say the least.  We are hopeful that he will be hired quickly.  He is an excellant manager and is well liked by all.  Several other companies are interested in him and he has 3 interviews tomorrow.  We are holding our breaths over this.  We are in the same boat as so many of Americans.  We are praying that we will not lose our home.  I would appreciate all your prayers too.  Prayers work miracles.  But regardless of the outcome - it is in God's hands.  We are still so very blessed.  I am grateful for all my blessings large and small.
And we have faith.  God will provide.  So dear readers, that is all for today.  May you all be richly blessed with peace, joy, good health and happiness.  Y'all come back now, hear??