Anybody want to tell me...

how it got to be FALL all of a sudden? It seems to me that it was summer just a few days ago. Sigh. I'm working diligently on...writing a novel. Yeah. That's what I said.

Maybe somebody out there in dollyland has heard of NaNoWriMo?

First of all here is a little something they put out on their site:

What in the world is that, you ask? Well, it stands for: NationalNovelWritingMonth. See? What do the underlined letters make? NaNoWriMo, of course! Thousands (I'm not kidding) of people all over the world pledge to write a novel in a month (November)—the folks who designed the project calculate that 50,000 words constitute a "novel" in this context at least—at high speed, throwing as much caution as you can muster to the winds and just letting the words flow. Some few people in the madly typing mass of would-be novelists are actually in pursuit of fame and fortune. The rest of us are mainly doing this to try to unclog the pipeline so some real work will be released, once we write something that is total trash and nobody expects more because of the breakneck speed at which we are working. If you divide 50,000 by 30, what do you get? *madly keying in the numbers in my online calculator* Well, this is what you get: 1666.666666666666666666666666........................... and so on, words—wait for it: A DAY. 

Now if this were say, TALKING? I would have my quota of words out before breakfast and the rest of the day would be, you know, like, free. But it isn't really like TALKING unless someone were following one around with a tape recorder hoping to pick up something wonderful falling from one's lips. I'm lucky when nothing disgusting, like crumbs or something, is falling from my lips. One must actually think up and type that many words every day for 30 days. *runs around room screaming and tearing out hair—making cat look funny*

But I digress. In this wonderfully freeing idea that no one is going to actually read, or even more horrifying, grade or in any way critique my, um, "novel" I can write any and every little thing that comes into my so-called mind. So far, there's actually a sort of murdery mystery sort of thing evolving, taking place last century, in the '60s in Louisiana, just north of Lake Pontchartrain (I even learned to spell that by writing this "novel"—proud of me yet?) in the swamps of the Pearl River. Because I've got an asignment of sorts but no one is going to grade me except on actually writing enough words and doing it for thirty days running, and I could write "Pontchartrain is a lovely lake" 10,000 times and make my quota, instead I do what I've tried to do before but failed. I could write an actual mini-book (50,00 is not a very long book after all) telling a real made-up story with a plot that goes from point A to point A and a half (knowing me) and it would still count. The whole idea of this deal is: You break through all your fears and bad habits and fears and laziness and fears... You get the picture?

And it becomes easier. You don't worry. You just think and type. I used to make up stories when I was a kid home alone having to entertain myself. But the minute I started trying to write them down? Ayeeeeee! Someone might see it and, you know, laugh and poke fun and say, "I suppose you think this is a real story or something." and I'd have to say, "Yeah, I think it is something but mostly it's something like nothing...you know, it sucks and all, and l can't really do this and I know it's an abomination and I should never even look at a crayon again much less a typewriter (yeah, we had those back in the day) and okay, I quit."

But this is fun and I'm having it! So. I'll get back to dollies again soon...MY soon, not necessarily YOUR soon, okay? I've got to do this. It's kind of like writing this blog but more like the blog would be if it were, like, say, a novel. Heh.

Love to all and the dollies and their doings and possibly I will get back to them soon, and even start sewing them some glamourous duds and making patterns for same and like that... I know, promises promises. Well, you never know. I never thought I would be 15600+ words into a novel either. Here's my wisdom of the day in a slogan wrapped in an enigma, etc. etc...."Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first!"

This is just a short 30-day "dessert" detour. You've been through those and even longer hiatuses—or however the plural goes—with me before. So, see you again back in Dollyland soon! (That's my idea of "soon" etc. etc. see above the paragraph above this paragraph...um, above.)

Back again, better late than ...

write when I have nothing to say! 

So here I am at the (almost) beginning of a new year. My Gummers has not appeared and I am becoming used to life without his sweet presence. Not resigned to it yet, but at least used to it. So I will go directly into dolly mode now and stop public mourning. I don't know when, if ever, private mourning will dwindle to levels that will allow me to stop constantly missing him. But I really don't want to stop remembering his amazing little self. He is really the first of my many animals that has affected me this way. The closest to come to it was Henry, my first pet as an adult that did not belong to my family of origin! What a lovely cat he was. I lost him to illness at age seven, but by then I had other animals and it was necessary for his welfare to put him down. I could be with him till the end. It is difficult in the extreme to realize that the Gum died alone. My only comfort is to think it was instantaneous. So, you, dear Reader, will be spared my further grieving. Thanks for listening so long!

onward to the land of Dollydom:

I am now the proud owner of a couple of Urban Vitas, joining the lovely American Model 2011 Gothic, various and sundry 16" ladies from Tonner, and the ladies who started all this--my MANY Genes, Madras, and Violets. 

As for dudes, I recently got a very Clark Gable-esque Rhett Butler. He is 21" tall which is a tad too tall for my Tonner and Franklin Mint Scarletts while being an inch shorter than the Gothic beauty. However, I can put a 2-inch platform under him and stand him behind the American Model so that she will be shorter.  Also standing her in the foreground with him a few inches upstage would work as well. I'm thinking of photos here rather than display.

In addition to Rhett, I also have a Michael Jordan who is quite tall (not in proportion to his human height unfortunately but as tall as Rhett at least!) with a permanent outfit (shorts and shoes) painted on but so what. He can still wear a suit. I have the Tonner Batman set, dressed in his tux but provided with his Batman suit too and he also is taller than say my Basil, Brenda Starr's mystery man. I have as well an Effanbee Humphrey Bogart who is very short, shorter even than my one lonely Trent Osborne. 

At any rate, I am planning to design outfits for all these ladies. I don't know if I will be able to do any designing for the gentlemen. I'll leave that for others. I will probably be scaling patterns I already have for them. 

As the first order of business, I'm working on my dedicated doll room and have already changed my ideas about what will work best about 10 times. However, it has finally settled down as of last night with my best greatest last final idea yet. I think.

I'll keep you all posted.

Bye for now, Dollings!

Life keeps on rollin', rollin', rollin'.....

It still hurts a lot to look at my little Gum's picture. Those eyes get me every time! I'm still hoping against hope that the little body the lady saw in the street wasn't him after all and that someone found him and took him in. But I'm also hoping that they have been searching for his home and may possibly give up and take him to the animal shelter. I get reports from the shelter every day. Just today, the report had a brown tabby of indeterminate age picked up on December 21--yesterday--but there was no picture available! Most of the time, there IS a picture. However, since there isn't, I will go out to the shelter to look at this newest "inmate" to see if he is my baby. I'll let you know if it is! 
But enough of my woeful tale. 

On to something "DOLL"icious instead~

Wait for it: I think I am finally ready to start actual real work on Dolly Diva Designs! 

I have a lot of designs ready for drafting into patterns. Also, I've got--courtesy of the Lutterloh Yahoo Group's List Mama--a set of doll scale attachments for my tape measure so that I can draft some of the outfits from the 30s and 40s Lutterloh sets, now out of copyright, that will produce patterns for both the 15-16 inch ladies and the Tonner 22 inch American Models. I just can't wait any longer. 

Of course, the Gene Marshall group of dolls are supposed to wear those 4os styles because that's the era they are Happening! It is also the reason I started with the Gene, Madra (don't tell anyone but she's my favorite!), Violet, and the newer gals, Ivy and Marsha (Hunt, of course) as well as those I don't own personally--Oona and Zita. I adore the forties' styles--especially the Hollywood take on them, both on and off screen. 

I think I can tweak all those styles to fit the Madame Alexanders, D.A.E Originals, Tonners, and "Vitae" as the HLAYG people call the new dolls from Horsman as well! I have at least one example of each of those body types--with the exception of the D.A.E. Orignals but I'm keeping my eye peeled on eBay for the possibility of a good deal on one from that collection.

The American Models--I've had an early "brunette basic" with only a few joints but just got a bendy but GORGEOUS 2011 Goth Basic with a long straight wig and, in addition, I bought her a sort of Gina Lollobrigida short style (Here is Gina at her most gorgeous!)--are going to get copies of my concert gowns (the reason for the whole doll thing with me) made from the gowns themselves. I will keep one of each and put as many more as I can make out of the rest of the gown right here in the Dolly Diva Designs Boutique!

So stayed tuned. The Grand Opening is scheduled to happen in the Spring of 2013! And this time...

I really MEAN it!!!!

This is my beautiful Gummers, formally Mortimer Montgomery Miaouzalot.

He was just about a month and a half past his sixteenth birthday when his sweet voice was silenced forever. 

I'm devastated. Here in our "new" house, as in the one we just moved to but is not in any way actually new, it seems the front door latch doesn't catch easily. The door was ajar long enough for the Gum to take a stroll outside--bad news because he was strictly an indoor fellow. My husband didn't realize that Gum was outside and shut the door. We missed him an hour or so later. By then, it was dark and he was nowhere to be found. We searched and searched but found no trace of him. I slept in the living room on the couch with both the front and back doors open enough for him to come in but he didn't. 

After searching for days and plastering this lovely picture all over town, the online local newspaper as well as the print edition, and Facebook lost pets page, we got a call with the worst news possible. As she was taking her kids to school, the lady had seen his little body on the street which intersects the street our house is on the morning after he had disappeared. We hoped against hope it wasn't he, but he hasn't been seen by anyone in our neighborhood or any of the surrounding neighborhoods. Neither has he been picked up by the local animal control people. 

We are forced to believe it was he indeed who met his end in a collision with a car...whose driver probably never even saw him or realized he had been hit. The little body was sighted on October 4 so it has been nearly a month since we lost him. I don't weep as often as I did at first, nor as violently, but it is difficult to bear all the same. I'm missing him desperately. It seems so odd not to have him here. Every once in a while I will see him asleep on a chair or on the couch and realize it isn't the Gummers but just a discarded sweater or my knitting or something. 

He was such a wonderful little creature, very intelligent and loving and funny. He constantly nagged us to play...he had his favorite toy which my husband would try to keep from him. He always caught it and would carry it away to his "lair" under one of the living room chairs, tail and head held high in triumph. 

Please forgive the long paean in memory of my little animal friend, nay, my beloved animal child surrogate. He was the last of our five cats and I had decided that he would be my last animal altogether. I am becoming more and more chronologically enhanced and would not like to pass on and leave a little creature wondering why he or she had been abandoned!

Thanks for listening! I just wanted to memorialize this beautiful loving little creature, hoping to work out some of my guilt and grief not only for his loss but also for the pain of knowing I failed him by not missing him sooner and failing to find him before he made the fateful decision to cross the street.  

Goodbye, Gummers. May you meet me in joy on the Rainbow Bridge in the not too distant future.