Birthday Blessings

So I’ve been a bit busy this last little bit and neglecting my blog. Thought it would be nice to celebrate my birthday with a few blessings…

#0010 – Thunderstorms that wash muggy days and rinse them with crisp evenings.

#0011 – Baby birds – with a special emphasis on the toddler version equipped with adult sized feet…

#0012 – Birthdays – you live longer if you have lots of them, so each is a special blessing!

#0013 – Daughters who remember the day even from far away.

#0014 – Friends who call and sing Happy Birthday and make me laugh.

#0015 – The potential held in a rosebud

Today was Easy

I wasn’t even looking for things for which I was grateful today, but they found me. 🙂

#0004 – Rainbows! I realized the weather was perfect tonight to breed rainbows so dashed outside to look. Not only was I rewarded with a swath of color splashed across the stormy skies, but it was a rare complete bow. I ran back into the house for my camera, but when I looked to the sky 60 seconds later, it was reduced to two partial arcs. I wish I’d waited and savored the moment while I had it, but perhaps that fleeting glance will live longer in my mind than if I’d had it long enough to lose the wonder of the moment.

#0005 – Clouds – Within 15 minutes, the sky where one leg of the rainbow had stood was clearing and blue, and I realized for the first time that rainbows need clouds in order to show to their best glory. Then the skies cleared enough for a sunset to dance from west to east. From our home, we can’t really see the western sky very well, but the end of the storm made an incredible background for the palette splashed into the east by the retiring sun. I wondered if maybe we also need a few clouds for the best to show in us as well.

#0006 – Friends who bake awesome brownies and share! – Not only did I get a wonderful treat, but I don’t have to endure having an entire pan of brownies at my disposal. That makes it a double blessing indeed! 🙂

Could That Be the Sun?

WAY back on February 18, I finally found weather almost good enough to block the shawl I finished on the 6th. Today, I finally saw the light – that is, that big shiny thing one occasionally sees drifting across the heavens when it’s not being obscured by leaden clouds, drenching rain, and February tornadoes. Finally I could take pictures, so I could share my excitement! 😀

This is my Jade Garden, and I so love this shawl! Knit with Dream in Color Baby in the Good Luck Jade colorway, using Sivia Harding’s Shetland Garden Faroese, it’s a treat from cast on to bind off and beyond.

I won’t repeat all the details here, as I discussed the adventure of creating this shawl, along with the changes I made, including a totally new border, a few weeks ago in my Double and Done post. Just wanted to finally share the pictures. 🙂

Sky Drama

Leaving the library early this evening, I noticed the sky was having a dramatic moment. It looked just like some of those powerful skies that show up in oil paintings. By the time I got home and grabbed my camera, much of the energy had dissipated, but I still got some “nice” pix I thought I would share. I really should get back into the habit of carrying my camera with me all the time… sigh…

That was my favorite shot for just looking, but I have some ideas for future uses for the cloud pix below.

I drove out to the edge of town to chase the clouds as they dashed out of town.

With interesting lighting, even the world’s ugliest water tower doesn’t look quite so bad. 😉

Our abandoned depot is always good for a picturesque shot. Today the window captured my attention.

I’ve Been Wondering…

It happened again tonight, and I have to say that it’s starting to bother me a bit. I think I’m a reasonably good amateur photographer.  It’s something I enjoy doing, and I work hard to get good photos – at least when I’m not just grabbing quick snapshots that don’t matter that much. I do consider photography an art, and it’s something to be learned, honed, and practiced – and continually improved.

So why is it that when people look at my very best pictures, they inevitably say (with envy dripping off their words), “You must have a really good camera!”

I’m SO tempted at times to say, “Yeh, I do. It’s a magical camera. I point it in the general direction of something vaguely interesting, and it automatically composes and frames the shot, removes background clutter, levels the horizon, assesses the lighting, adjusts the settings, then at the optimal moment, snaps a breathtaking shot for me to show around.”

I can just see them telling Rembrandt that he must have a really good paintbrush… or their mechanic that he must have a really good wrench… or their surgeon that he must have a really good scalpel… or their favorite author that she must have a really good computer…

You Surely Couldn’t Tell It

At least, you’d never guess by looking at my blog… but I’m now three weeks home from what surely is one of the most lovely vacation experiences I will ever have in my life. Despite sundry glitches here and there, and a ridiculous amount of frantic effort preparing for the event, all I can say about Alaska is that it truly was splendid! From “big cities” that felt more like hometowns to friendly little villages that made me feel like I could uproot my entire life and move there quite easily, from dusky, fog-shrouded mountains and waterways to the occasional blessing of a beatific patch of clear, celestial blue, from the shrill “Scree!” of dozens of bald eagles to the breathtakingly brief porpoise escort, Alaska positively overwhelmed my heart and soul with memories that I will truly carry with me for the rest of my life. I have nearly 4000 pictures here that will help. 😉

We were away for 15 days, the majority of which were spent traveling aboard the Royal Princess, a smaller cruise ship, which gave us closer access to some sites and ports than the newer lumbering giants can achieve. We like the smaller, friendlier boats, as they seem to encourage easy acquaintance among both fellow passengers and with crew members. For me, that’s a HUGE plus. I love getting to know people when I travel; it gives much more depth to the experience. Many feel they need a larger ship for the activities, but I have to say, I never lacked for things to do onboard, and often I had to choose one offering over another, much to my chagrin. All things considered, I had far less time than I’d expected for knitting, though I did find ways to sneak in more than a bit of time for my fancy – including a rather pleasurable celebration of World-wide Knit in Public Day, parked on a lounge chair beside the pool with several other fiber-addicted passengers. 🙂

FYI – Not sure where to put this, so I’ll drop this note in here… If you are planning to go to Alaska, don’t buy a coat! You will likely need one, but coats and jackets are profusely abundant at excellent prices and in souvenir styles that are likely to have you taking leave of your senses and buying a few regardless of whether you actually need another. Don’t ask me how I know…

Our ports included:

• Seattle, where we embarked after spending a very nice morning enjoying our first ever Duck tour, an experience that rather defies description, followed by a leisurely exploration of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, in order to earn cancellations in our National Parks passports.
• Ketchikan, a most picturesque little town that looks exactly as if it had been lifted off of a model railroad. My breakfast that morning was my traditional room service, enjoyed on our balcony (a first time experience for us) under the watchful eye of a bald eagle, who swooped in just as I sat down, threatening to make me miss my first shore excursion in a frenzy of picture taking, while my heart pounded so hard I doubted a one of them would come out clear. How was I to know that just an hour or two later, I would find myself literally in the midst of a flock of 2-3 DOZEN of them, swooping and soaring above and below me as I stood on the deck of the Aleutian Ballad, snapping photos like crazy, all the while believing I’d wake up at any moment to find it was just one of those dreams…
• Juneau, a state capital with charm, one of the most approachable cities I’ve ever seen. It felt as comfortable as my hometown, actually! I wasn’t overly enchanted with my first shorex here, as it fell far short of living up to the description that had convinced me it was well worth the $200 price tag, but it did net me two of my most treasured photos – one of Stellar sea lions, and the other the only whale tail I saw clearly in the entire two weeks, despite the fact that the whales were feeding heavily.  My afternoon outing was an unplanned surprise, as my original choice was canceled at the last moment. In a desperate desire to do something other than ride on a sightseeing bus for a few hours or go to a salmon bake, I managed to conquer one of my deepest fears and boarded a float plane to go sightseeing over 5 local glaciers, offspring of the Juneau Icefield. After the eagles, I figured I’d more than used up my quota of “thrill” for the trip, but this little venture proved me wrong – and coerced me into capturing nearly 400 pictures in just 40 minutes. You can’t begin to guess how terribly difficult it was to just pick two of them for this post! It was a spectacular experience, and the second of the two memories of Alaska that will forever vie for top position as “the best.” Both the Bering Sea Crab Fisherman Tour and this sightseeing adventure are very highly recommended and well worth the price.
• Icy Strait Point, Hoonah, Alaska would have had to make a much better show of itself to be a thrill, and it didn’t even have the weather in its favor, as we suffered an afternoon rain, which added quite a damper to this less than thrilling port. For me, it got off to a bad start with a bear watch, which turned out to be a VERY pricey walk in the woods to meet the infamous Alaskan mosquitoes, view one sandpiper, one American robin, and one red squirrel. In case you are wondering, yes, the mosquitoes really do have FAA numbers on their rumps.Although the walk through the muskeg was somewhat interesting, it being a novel terrain for me, my census of fellow passengers over the next few days turned up that the several dozen folks who had ventured out on each of the five bear watches that day showed that not one of us had actually seen a bruin of any color. My suggestion is to do your homework. If the salmon aren’t running, don’t waste your money – unless seeing robins and muskeg are worth over $100 to you. In the afternoon, I took a Hoonah sightseeing tour, then went to a cultural show. Sightseeing in the rain is even worse than the normal bus tour, since it doesn’t even afford the opportunity to jump out for two minutes to snap the same photos everyone else is grabbing. The only thrill I could have had on this trip was lost, because the juvenile bald eagle was frolicking on the other side of the bus, and oddly enough, no one over there was offering to trade me seats (or even listening to the guide at that point, for that matter!) 😉 The redeeming value of Hoonah was definitely the cultural dance performance, nicely and homily presented for the small group of damp tourists puddled on the much larger bleachers in the lodge. It was a very pleasant interlude in an otherwise lackluster day.
• Kodiak struck me as a very homey place in many ways. It’s not everywhere that a tourist asks for directions winds up with a private tour of the town in a patrol car! I enjoyed my “on my own” visit to the small Alutiiq Museum, but I wish I’d had more time available – and that the items in the museum shop had been a good bit closer to my price range, as there were some really awesome offerings. A few members of the local Su’nash tribe put on a dance performance in the middle of the town late in the morning, and despite the paucity of number and the atypical female drummer, it was nice to see. My afternoon shorex was called a Russian Heritage Tour. Perhaps my expectations were a bit high, having been so enamored with St. Petersburg, but I still think this could have been much better with only a few small changes. First and foremost, the guide, who gives every indication of having developed the entire tour on her own, chose to not take us to the Baranov Museum, which is there for the express purpose of sharing the Russian Heritage of Kodiak. I would have far preferred to see that museum than to take the rather wearying bus trip through the town, which did nothing to focus us on the actual point of the tour in the first place. Secondly – and I don’t know if there is such a place in Kodiak, but I saw them in several other towns we visited – instead of our rushed shopping stop in a local gallery, it would have been a nice touch to have gone to a Russian shop. I’m glad I bought the lacquer box in Juneau instead of waiting! The high point of this tour for me was the delightful Father Erasmus of the Russian Orthodox church in the area, who led us through the church and the seminary chapel. The tea at the end was a quaint and homespun affair in a church basement. The food was far from authentic, at least compared to the fare I had in Russia, but it was tasty if a bit sparse. The entertainment was similar – mostly Russian music, mostly sung in English, well performed by sometimes amusingly costumed musicians who obviously loved what they were doing. All in all, it was definitely less than I’d hoped, but it also wasn’t a Hoonah Bear Watch. 😉
• Seward was a bit of a mad dash, as there were things we wanted to see in the couple hours we had before our cruise. First stop was the Kenai Fjords National Park office for our passport stamps, then on to the Sealife Center. What a terrible disappointment it was to have to leave there so soon! I highly recommend several hours of exploration in that delightful place – and don’t bother booking a tour. It’s extremely accessible from the city bus that makes constant rounds through town. This is the place to see all the mysteries of the deep up close and personal, touch sea urchins, get photos of puffins… Then when you are done, swallow some motion sickness pills and get on one of the tour boats that will take you on a most lovely exploration of Kenai Fjords National Park! Despite the cold, fog, rain, and general atmospheric gloom, I’d consider this a keeper of a trip. This is where I finally saw sea otters, which made it a hit for me right there. How totally enchanting it was a bit later to be suddenly joined by a small group of porpoises boisterously leading our boat through the swells and thrilling those of us braving the elements and hanging over the bow of our little vessel! I do so hope I can eventually figure out how to share the video I took of that fantasy come true! Equally interested in us for awhile was a small pod of orcas, and we also saw humpbacks, puffins by the dozen more sea lions, and gulls by what was likely the millions in their rookeries! This is an outing to choose by menu. The homemade cookies were great – but the chicken wrap sandwiches and watery lemonade were as dismal as the weather… and the other company offers prime rib and a National Park Ranger… but doesn’t pay Princess a kickback, so…
• Skagway, as a stop, gets good marks, though the town definitely doesn’t have it all together. It’s a wonderful little place, looking very much like I would picture a gold rush town, but where that digresses from those days is that now Skagway rolls up its streets in the late afternoon, even when there is a cruise ship in port. I found myself with money to spend, an ideal souvenir in mind, and nowhere to buy it! Everything else about this stop was quite good, though, and it’s why I wasn’t in town much earlier. We took a bus trip out into the Canadian wilds, through some picture puzzle scenery and into the Yukon, where we gulped a hurried lunch, panned for gold, and rode on a summer training dogsled (and believe it or not, I actually knit a few stitches on said sled just to say I’d done it!), before heading back to Fraser. There we boarded the White Pass & Yukon Railroad for an inspiring trip back to Skagway, spotting wild caribou and our only grizzly bear of the trip. This is a must do trip, even though it could be improved by skipping Carcross and adding the unsatisfying 15-minute rip through that town to the Caribou Crossing stop. I doubt the people of Carcross would agree with me on that, though. 😉 I will add that the shop at the train station in Skagway is absolutely the single best souvenir shop I’ve seen anywhere on American soil, and I can think of only one I’ve seen anywhere else in the world that might rival it in my mind.
• Victoria, British Columbia… For some reason, our shore excursion options were just really lacking, and I’m glad I didn’t feel driven to take one. Instead, I ventured out on my own, enjoying a harbor ferry tour and a carriage ride, plus a mini yarnshop crawl. I only wish I’d had more time, as I so wanted to wander through Thunderbird Park… and once I got there, I found that the waterfront around the Empress and the Parliament was inhabited by street vendors with lovely Native handcrafts that enticed me as I rushed past… sigh…
• Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm Fjord we viewed from the comfort of our ship. Both were lovely and definitely made for enjoyable days, but they also brought some disappointments to one who had expected to see some superb wildlife and the excitement of glaciers calving. In Glacier Bay, there was plenty of cracking and groaning, whetting our excitement, but the glaciers couldn’t be bothered to do more than spit a bit, and my biggest excitement for the day turned into seagull shooting – a la camera. This would be a Black-legged Kittiwake. Wanna guess how I know that? Tracy Arm Fjord was simply magnificent. However, there is a bit of a catch 22 with glaciers, and we got stuck at the wrong end of it. Having been promised that Tracy Arm is where we’d be able to see the big action, I was more than eagerly anticipating this day, especially after the calving bust in Glacier Bay. Well, the glaciers were doing their thing, alright. In fact, they were doing it so well that the fjord was clogged with ice, and it wasn’t safe to take the ship past the last turn so we could actually SEE the glacier. Instead, we got to sit in the middle of a magnificent, ice-filled fjord, messing up the photos of the passengers on the bigger ship which couldn’t get even as close as we did. I didn’t realize just how massive were my surroundings until our ship’s four-passenger rescue boat went out on a photographic expedition and nearly vanished into insignificance in the scenery. It was impossible not to be impressed, glacier or not. See if you can find the boat in this photo. Two hints: 1. It’s orange. 2. It’s partially hidden behind an iceberg. (And you can expand this photo by clicking on it!)

Honestly, this is such a tiny capsule summary of the trip that it scarcely does it justice, but Alaska rather defies any sort of compaction. Just the small part of it I tasted in that two weeks was much bigger and more wonderful than I could have imagined, and I well know that I barely stuck my finger in its wonders! This, for us, was a trip of a lifetime sort of deal, one that has been nine years in the making. Often when something like that has come and gone, there’s a bit of an empty feel, but oddly enough, I didn’t come home flat from this adventure. It was a very satisfying journey, and despite my gripes about some wasted shorex money, I’m content.  However, I’m also already planning my next trip to Alaska! 😉

The Sun Also Shines!

I’ve had these pix for a couple of days, but I’ve been too busy to get them posted. The day after the storms last weekend, it was sunny out, and the sky was an impossible blue. Not surprisingly, I simply had to snap a few more pix with this delightful third background.

Love this guy’s character!

Some things my new camera actually does very well! 🙂

I’ve been wearing my Changeling Socks a lot this winter, and absolutely loving them. 🙂 These are the socks I made under a bit of duress. My students wanted to make socks, and I wasn’t in the mood, but I didn’t tell them that. Instead, I bought some Wendy Guernsey wool from Schoolhouse Press and made the project a bit more fun by dyeing some of it to accent my socks. I started out with a KAL, but quickly decided that they just weren’t going to fit me correctly, so somewhere in the midst of the overly pointy toe, I reverted to Cat Bordhi’s Ridgeline pattern, which, of course, was a perfect fit – if you don’t look at the toes, that is. 😉 The pattern change is what inspired me to name them Changeling Socks, one definition of changeling being something that changes from one thing into another. What you can’t see is the bubbled, peekaboo ankle stripes. More pix here on Ravelry.

One additional comment on the socks… If you noticed a little spare color bleeding into the white, I rushed the dye job, and I suspect now that I didn’t nuke it quite long enough, and possibly didn’t rinse them thoroughly. If that wasn’t enough, the second time I washed them, I didn’t splash any vinegar into my rinse water. They don’t look quite as sharp now, but they are still delightfully warm and comfortable.

Magical

After all these years, I still feel tremendous wonder at the transformation snow works in an otherwise dreary winter world. We finally had a wonderful snowfall over the last day or so, starting sometime in the afternoon as wet stuff that hadn’t quite ripened, and after a brief respite and some melting, reappearing as a thick, wet, sticky snow that quickly blanketed everything and stuck to impossible surfaces, turning it all into God’s own personal art gallery. I couldn’t resist trying some nighttime shots when I took the dog outside, and come morning, I couldn’t resist taking even more!

Look again… Could that be Old Man Winter, exposed by the careless step of a stray cat?

Even the fence turned into lace!

The streets were very quiet this morning…

Magic Flute

I had a perfectly lovely day! It didn’t start out that way at all. And for that matter, it also involved a long drive through falling snow at night, so it had a lot going against it. However, the positives condensed into about 5 hours this afternoon rather overwhelmingly outweighed the negatives, providing me with a day I’ll remember for years to come. 🙂

1. A man waved me ahead of him at the bank when I was running rather late.
2. I started my second series of lace knitting classes at my LYS (an hour away) teaching students’ choice of Concerto or Symphony to 10 lovely ladies – good company, knitting, teaching, and income all rolled into one!
3. I got a Subway meatball marinara flatbread for supper – and they had plain Sunchips!
4. I got my first spontaneous compliment on a handknit shawl from a total stranger – and a potential 11th student at the same time!
5. When my Goals support buddy (aka dear friend Joy) came up with the brilliant idea of tracking our goals in a pocket planner, I immediately added one to my shopping list to pick up after class. Shortly after walking into my LYS, though, Arlene asked if any of us could use one of the pocket planners she’d been given – and one of them was green, no less!!!
6. Sharing some support/info/chatter re: CSM’s after class with one of my students who knows FAR more about sock machines than I do, I suddenly found myself totally shocked when she be handed a pair she’d produced, saying I could give them a test run – WOW! (This made me the “victim” of THREE RAK’s in one afternoon!)
7. And… I got a magic flute!

Okay… It’s not really magic – not the way most people would define that word, at least. For me, though, it’s total magic! You see, I’ve wanted a flute ever since I was 10 years old. I absolutely adored playing the flutophone back in fourth grade. It had been a required class for us, and for me it was a head over heels in love experience. I still l have my (totally unchewed) flutophone, and I’m not above getting it out to play four decades after my last class. I wanted to join the school band and play the flute in the absolutely worst way, come fifth grade, but my parents refused to let me, citing the very non-marchable piano in the living room, which, my mother claimed, would provide me with far more useful skills in the long run. From this side of history, I’m not sure that the skills of learning a very solitary instrument was as advantageous to me as being part of the social structure provided by the school band would have been, and although I still enjoy playing the piano, it’s never been a heart and soul sort of thing for me. I don’t regret my (very limited) piano playing skills, but to this day, I truly feel they should have allowed me a second instrument, especially since the spark of my passion never really waned.

A few years ago, it suddenly dawned on me (duh!), that there wasn’t a reason in the world I couldn’t still learn to play the flute. I’d bought 4 different recorders, a tin whistle, and a Native American flute in the meanwhile, but had somehow relegated my flute to the fantasy file. Then one day I had the opportunity to handle an antique ebony and ivory flute, and  my heart fluttered, fanning the embers of my dream into a full fledged bonfire. After checking the prices, though, I decided I’d best relegate it to my Christmas list.

For three years, it was totally ignored by my entire family. Then, after a third disappointment a week ago, I had another one of those lightbulb moments. Craig’s List + Christmas money! Within minutes, I found one I could afford listed in Dayton, which was convenient, since I was going to be teaching up there again starting this week. A quick phone call to set things up left me sitting and staring dumbly at the calendar, wondering how I was going to bear the 4 day wait until Monday!

Happily, I survived the wait, and between my afternoon and evening classes, I braved the snow and went to complete my very first Craig’s List transaction. Believe me, it was difficult to focus on my students for the second class with my brand new flute laying on the table beside me!

On the other hand, can you believe that Arlene’s husband was in the store helping with inventory, and it turns out he used to play the flute?! After class, he gave me a few pointers to get me started, and with a bit of experimentation tonight after I got home, I managed to play Mary Had a Little Lamb without too many extra squeaks and whistles.

And then I did what any new mother would do. I took pix! I love how the light made it look golden. 🙂

The picture directly above shows why my little finger is now totally exhausted. There sure is a lot for it to do on these three keys!

This is truly my magic flute. It’s made a dream of more than 40 years come true! How much more magical could it be? 😀

As for that New Year’s goal about making music for at least as few minutes each week? Week one – accomplished and logged in my new pocket planner. I had a wonderful day!

Running Away From Home

(As always, please excuse these stupid out of focus pictures. I’ve still not managed to get my camera problems resolved – too much going on! Also, at least as of this moment, I’m finding the photos to be showing up somewhat sporadically. If you see a big blank spot with the word “Atlanta” and a number, it means a picture is supposed to be there. Try clicking on the title of this post. For some reason, I’m seeing different photos when I do that.)

So, last week, on rather short notice, I ran away from home. A friend wrote in the middle of June, asking if I’d like to go to Atlanta for the UFDC Convention. I had next to no money, but I couldn’t resist the draw of some time away from home, so as crazy as the idea was, I said yes. 🙂 I knew I could scratch together enough for my flight and my share of the room (which wasn’t inexpensive!), but past that, I would have to depend on peanut butter crackers, potential birthday money, and whatever sales I could stimulate in the few weeks before the trip. Happily, I came up with enough that I could eat one cheap meal out each day and have something to spend in the sales rooms, and a last minute addition of another roommate made it even a bit better. Still, I have to say that it was really tough being in such a fantastic sea of awesome dolls and accessories with so very little money, and there were a couple of wonderful dolls I lost out on because they were just a little beyond what I had in my pocket. But I didn’t come home empty handed –  and now that it’s a week after the event, I don’t even mind having eaten so much peanut butter. 😉

Hotels that look like this inside don’t come with cheap rooms…

View out our window – see the capitol building?

Martine and Hitty Darlene went along with me, so they did a bit of looking around for treasures. Hitty D. found little in her price range that she liked, but she was quite pleased with the pretzel, which reminded her very much of the huge German pretzels one can purchase at Englischer Gartens in Munich.

She really wished she had money to purchase the great bobbin lace pillow, but it was definitely out of her price range,

and the horse was fun to ride, but she couldn’t imagine paying $200 for it!

Martine, with some judicious bargaining and her sweet smile, brought home all sorts of goodies for her brothers and sisters, and a pair of Joyce Nicholsen’s espadrilles for herself. The little doll in the trunk is one of Alison Harwood’s fantastic creations. Jean-Paul apparently already ran off with his little wooden floor puzzle. Martine has promised to teach Gayelle to knit with the dress kit she bought for her. The purse is “so Malloree” that I chipped in a little bit of my money when Martine found herself a bit short at the end of the day.

We also picked out a few pieces of fabric.

And I bought a little something for my sewing room…

I really had a strong desire to bring home a new doll this year, but on my budget, the only things I was finding I could afford were the mundane – which I really don’t need. I’m definitely sufficiently stocked with those. If money were no object (That will be the day!), this is the one doll I’d have had to have owned. She wasn’t the most expensive doll there by a long shot, but she’s the one who stole my heart most completely.

This beautiful Kestner pink tint, covered wagon, china I thought was going to be mine. She wasn’t priced too badly, but still out of my range, but since it was the end of the last day of the show when I found her, I took the info and intended to contact the seller in a few weeks. However, I went back a half hour later and she was gone – sold. I embarrassed myself by crying. I’d so wanted her! However, she was $25 more than every penny I’d brought along, so…

I did find someone to come home with me, though, and she’s a pretty little gal who is unlike anyone else I have, so a nice addition to the family. And I could actually afford to adopt her, which was a big plus. 😉 She’s an ABG Dolly Madison china doll, from the early 1870’s, about 25″ tall. Clothes are not original, nor do they come remotely close to fitting her. In fact, they are so small that it’s going to be a trick getting the dress off of her. Her seller was a bit of a sourpuss, too, so she was more than happy to come home with me. I’m looking forward to having some time to dress her more appropriately, and I’m hoping I happen to have at least some underthings to fit her – though I’m not holding my breath on that count.

On Friday, we went to the Atlanta History Center. We saw some wonderful stuff there, but sadly weren’t allowed to bring any of it home in pictures, making it hard to retain what we saw and learned during our visit. These are two of the period homes which we toured – the Swan House and the Tulley Smith Plantation, two totally different types of homes, and each utterly charming in its own way.

And our trip through town netted me one of my favorite styles of city pix. 🙂

And in addition to the touring and shopping, there was all sorts of great fun, meeting a number of people I’d only known online until now, room parties, aching feet, and the pride of conquering the public transit system in Atlanta… All in all a very nice week!