How Many of Me?

Well, this was interesting. One of the gals on one of the doll lists sent in this link. I knew that my first name has always been a PITA (the first name Susan is the 25th most popular name...there are nearly 1.2 million of us in the US!) but I also knew that marrying Gerry took me into the rarer aspects (there are only 630 people in the US with our last name). Turned out to be a great combo, for more reasons than one!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now...if I still had my name from my first marriage, it would really be a PITA...9,646 of 'em in the US alone.

Auditioning Fabrics

This was a new phrase to me, auditioning fabrics. One of the gals on the CPS list talked about visiting an artist's studio, and referenced being amazed as she watched the artist audition fabrics. That made so much sense, I just loved the visual...let's put you in here. Will you make the cut? Is there someone else better for the part? Can you hold my attention?

I'm contemplating a new doll. I sure seem to start a lot of dolls. I don't seem to finish very many, though! I have a new one buzzing in my brain, and what do I do? Favorite color (aqua blue), a little gold, and make mine batik.

I have a closet full of beautiful fabrics. Not as many fabrics as I had before the big move, but still a LOT of fabrics. Everytime I see a new doll, though, I go back to that little section in the treehouse, filled with batiks, and those mermaid-ish colors truly are the song of the siren for me.

Also, I've gone back to my beginnning M.O. While most doll artists whose patterns I buy have you put the whole doll together and then do the face, that just doesn't work for me. The face determines the personality for me, and so I have to do a face first and build the doll around it. I tried to change, I really did, and some of the dollmakers I admire most do the face last -- but perhaps they are a little more adept at faces. For the time being, I'm going to make lots of practice faces, and when I get one I like, I'll build a doll around it.

Christmas decorating

We decorated for Christmas this year. Last year, we were still so burned out from our years in retail, that we just couldn't face decorating. At the last minute, it may even have been on Christmas eve, we put up one of our artificial trees and put some spotlights on the house. We still were a little less than enthusiastic last year, but I just couldn't go with nothing.

This year we were feeling a little iffy, too. We're getting pretty bah-humbug-ish in our old age. A couple of weeks ago, we went through the Christmas decor department of a local garden center which had a bunch of beautiful designer trees. My husband happens to feel that Christmas should be red, green, white, maybe some gold or silver, and contain Santa and elves. Christmas is for children, not for high-buck decorators. But I said something about one day hoping to have a color coordinated, decor-type tree.

Yesterday we pulled out an artificial tree that we had as one of our "extras" from our NC house. We've decided not to have a real tree this year since we'll be traveling and not here to keep an eye on it. We then decided to make a trip to get all new, color-coordinated ornaments. I left the house thinking gold and green. We came back with gold and copper, feathers, and copper glittered twigs. Then I took the four foot tree out of the box and realized how small it is! Gerry had to leave to get new ornament hooks, rather than dig through all the boxes and try to find the ones we owned...and came back with a 6 foot artificial, pre-lighted tree! He said he just kept seeing the disappointment on my face when I realized how many ornaments I'd bought, and how little the tree is!

Here's a picture of the tree tonight. We had to go out today and get more of the garland, and we added a few more coordinated ornaments. I'm really happy with it. It may not scream Christmas in traditional colors, but it makes me really happy. I have more pictures at my picturetrail site -- www.picturetrail.com/windwhisper



Tonight, Gerry lit the house with spots focused on a large green wreath in the center of the house. I set up a lighted Victorian village. Feels good to get back into the mood. I was walking around, admiring how pretty everything was when I realized that Cosmo had left the first gift under the tree...unfortunately I'm not fond of dead mice.