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Rain, Snow, Rain

January 29, 2024 at 8:47 am by Claudia

It rained yesterday. Then it turned to snow, and then, later in the day, it turned to rain.

Just plain yucky, though I will say that we enjoyed seeing the snow fall.

And now – pinch me – I think we have no rain in the forecast for about 8 or 9 days.

January in the Northeast should involve snow and lots of it. Maybe we’ll get walloped in February and March, but we’re almost at the end of January and there’s only been one significant snowfall and even that didn’t last long because the temperature warmed up quickly.

Let’s see, yesterday I took care of some chores, went to a zoom meeting, and did this:

Yes, that’s Shirley under there. She’s made of composition (made out of sawdust, cornstarch, resin, and wood pulp) and if you get composition wet, the doll will be ruined. So Shirley was covered in dish towels while I inspected the stitching on the wig so that I could decide where the curls should be. Her mohair wasn’t in very good shape to begin with, so my fingers are crossed. Will it be a bit better than it was? I’m not sure. I curled her hair years ago, but I didn’t use any water. This time, I did, per the YouTube tutorial that I followed. I also used those end papers that were a part of every permanent. It took me a couple of hours to put all the rollers in.

She’s sitting on the kitchen table. I offered to move her upstairs but Don is fine with her being there in her basket. I should leave the curlers in for at least two days. I may do three.

Then I have to figure out how to clean up her face and fill the hole in the composition near the corner of her eye. She also has some cracks in the composition on her legs but they don’t look too bad, so I’ll leave them alone. I found a product online (on eBay) that is made specifically for composition repairs and it’s very inexpensive, so I’ll be ordering some of that. The dress she’s wearing is one I ordered about 15 years ago from a dressmaker. It’s a repro of one of the dresses Shirley wore in the movies. But it doesn’t fit as well as I’d like. The one that was original to the doll was in horrible shape, so I had to let it go.

My mom would be shaking her head, wondering why I am doing this. Since she wasn’t all that fond of this Shirley made in Canada, she would say “Don’t waste your time!” But I’ve left her on top of the pink cabinet in the office for a long time and she needs some TLC.

We had a great FaceTime chat with Zachary the other day. His voice is quite deep now and he was very chatty. He’s so, so intelligent! He amazes me. He was fitted out for an EEG and had to keep that rigging on for 48 hours. (He’s had some seizures in the past and the doctor is trying to get to the bottom of them.)

Then Mere and I continued to chat and got caught up on things. A lovely surprise.

Another Etsy sale over the weekend, so I have to do some packing today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Sorting, Walking, Curling, Reading

January 27, 2024 at 8:42 am by Claudia

Rest assured, it’s still gray out there. This was taken over a week ago on a rare sunny day.

I attacked that junk drawer with relish yesterday. Much was thrown in the trash, the rest was reorganized in a way that made sense. It is now a thing of beauty. I was in the mood to tackle it yesterday. If only I was in that mood on a daily basis! The result was very satisfying.

We haven’t done our walk since January 11th because of the weather. Lots of snow, bitter cold, high winds, lots of rain – that has been our weather for the past two weeks. Today, we have a rare dry day, so we’ll be back at it. Tomorrow, we have a rain/snow forecast, so we’ll see. After that, it should be relatively stable for the week. We have missed that daily walk at the library.

I’m reading The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang and, though it’s very different than my usual fare, I’m quite enjoying it. And I just finished reading my required pages for this week in Wolf Hall. I haven’t played with the girls much this week. I needed a break from my Blythe feed on Instagram. It can sometimes be a bit overwhelming – too much visual stimulation and too much buying and selling by people who have far more money than I. When that happens, I back off for a while.

Besides, little Shirley Temple needs my attention this week. The sponge rollers that I need for her hair arrived yesterday. The whole idea of sponge rollers sent me on a memory trip. I remember setting my hair with large pink sponge rollers. I’m not sure what I was trying to achieve with my straight hair, but that was what we did in those days. My mom used the bristly type of rollers that you stuck a pick into. Remember them? The women in our neighborhood – and Don tells me it was the same in his, as well – routinely put curlers in their, tied a scarf around them, and went shopping. Seeing anything like that nowadays is extremely rare. It took me years to finally accept the fact that I had fine, straight hair. It has a very slight wave when allowed to dry naturally, but basically it wasn’t going to do what I wanted it to do – whatever that was.

Stay safe, my friends.

Happy Saturday.

Rain, Fog & Shirley Temple

January 26, 2024 at 9:03 am by Claudia

On my drive to the library yesterday to return a book.

I always take the back way because it’s quite lovely by the river.

Well. It’s been raining for three days, and I am over it. Just when our basement dries out, it starts again. Yesterday was incredibly foggy – dangerously so. I really would rather have snow, though that can also be a pain in the tush. But it’s pretty. Pretty much all of the snow is gone now.

I have to go downstairs in a minute to empty the bucket in the dehumidifier. A daily chore.

I finished a book of short stories by Kate Atkinson (that was the book I was returning to the library) and now I’m reading this week’s chunk of Wolf Hall.

I’ve been thinking of my mom’s Shirley Temple doll – the Canadian version, rather than the version by Ideal. My mom never really liked her and in typical Grandma fashion, even after Mom requested the American doll, Grandma bought the doll in Canada. She’s got to be 90 years old now and she’s made of composition, as dolls in that era were. Part of the composition by the inside corner of one eye is missing. There’s a little hole there. And despite my efforts several years ago, her hair is a mess. Yesterday, I said ‘”Enough!” and I started to research how to curl her mohair wig. There are some good videos out there. I started to gently pick apart the mats in her hair, ordered some narrow sponge rollers and papers and, hopefully, I’ll set her hair this weekend. I have to cover her with a towel when I do that because you don’t want to get composition wet.

She’s lying on one of the suitcases that hold Blythe clothes right next to me here in the den. I have to do a bit more work on the hair mats today. Frankly, she looks better already because her hair is fluffed out. That’s not the look for Shirley Temple, of course, so – fingers crossed – she’ll have some nice banana curls soon. If not? Oh, well.

I’d like to patch that hole in the composition, too. I’m researching it. I don’t care if it looks perfect.

I had 1950s versions of a Shirley Temple doll, but they were much smaller. I’d actually love to have a vintage Ideal Shirley Temple. I’ve always loved them. Shirley was the same age as my mom, who was also a Shirley. I grew up watching her movies with my mom and I’ve always adored her.

I suppose I’m too old at this point, At least, that’s how I feel today.

Mere just recovered from another case of Covid. I swear, I don’t understand people. Her work involves going to the house of whatever patient she is treating. In this case, the mother didn’t tell Mere that she’d just been exposed to Covid. She didn’t think she had it. But she did.

Okay. Have to finish cleaning out our kitchen junk drawer, something I have ignored for several years.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday,

Rain, Snow, Rain

Sorting, Walking, Curling, Reading

Rain, Fog & Shirley Temple

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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