Thursday, November 17, 2011

Day 19 of 61 Days of Martie.

*YAAAWN* Good morning! It's Thursday, which means it's...

....packing for DC DAY!!

I'm so excited! I've never packed for anywhere ever! How do I do this? What do I take? Can I get out of this sleeping bag, please?

Let's see.....these two dresses that Charlie made....

And all these things, too, I need everything, oh my gosh....

My new walking shoes from DollChris, and the brown flats, and where are my boots?

Jake says he's helping. I think he's just trying to take off with my shoes again.

"No, I'm not. Just helping. See all the packing boxes? Helping. Yep. Where are those shoes, again?"


...to be continued....

Makin' a list, checkin' it twice...

....'cause if I forget the camera and cable, it won't be so nice....

Martie's going to Wash-ing-ton!

DC!!

This weekend! TAAA-DAAAA!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Day 17 of 61 Days of Martie.

I love my UPS guy. Not only is he kinda cute and nice, he always brings happy things. My postal carrier, while really very handsome, frequently brings me things that make me go off on rants and throw pity parties. But the UPS dude is aces, especially today, because this:

Oooh,  packages from TonnerDirect!!

Here's the 20th anniversary of Tonner documentary, and a lovely card of a flippin' gorgeous Tyler. That was in the padded envelope.

And inside the shipping box!--another shipping box. I know, some folks are box collectors, but honestly, this drives me bananas. And makes it take longer to get to the goods, awwwyeah. Lookit, another Tyler card!

Disney? We don't need no stinkin' Disn .... oh, wait. In this case, we do.

And who might this be with all that hair and purple princess gown and all?

RAPUNZEL, BABEH!!

She really does look different from Martie. I'm looking forward to getting some comparisons to see just what Jim Ash modified in the painting as he replaced the eyes.

I just noticed she's casting a reflection on the DVD case to the left. That's a nice little bonus effect.

Together again, for the Very First Time! My utterly beloved Martie, and her sister, Zella! Welcome home, Zell!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Day 16 of 61 Days of Martie.

 I finished the holiday dress, but haven't gotten any real embellishing on it yet (subtle ribbon--the print is busy enough).

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Day 15 of 61 Days of Martie!

I rebraided Martie's hair, and here's what it looks like from the back:
There is a seriously crazy volume of hair on this girl! That fuschia lump she's sitting on is my left knee.

Blatant advertising.

Doll ponderings.

This will probably strike doll people as a step backwards, but I've been thinking seriously of selling off a lot of my resin BJDs and hanging on to the vinyl fashion and child dolls. OMG INOrite?!? Certainly not all of them; I have a few resin BJDs I wouldn't trade off for anything (Creedy Melodi and Shani, Goodreaus, Kim Lashers, Wiggs Nelly, PukiPukis and PukiFees, ROBIN!!). My collection and doll-jonesing is going a different way and I'd rather rehome a lot of these dolls than just ignore them. I know a few of them could go for some crazy money on eBay, and man, that's tempting, 'cause I do love me some crazy money. I'll keep updating re: this, and if I list dolls for sale, I'll post them here also.

Meanwhile, here's my latest acquisition, a bit out of my usual as I'm not a Barbie collector:

I gave some thought to selling this one, too, because I could easily get twice what I paid, but I don' wanna. She's prettyful.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Day 14 of 61 (or 62 or 63...) of Martie.

I'm going to keep calling it 61 Days of Martie, I don't care how many days there really are in it! Thus we may have Day 62 of 61 Days of Martie. And I can live with that.

Martie and I (and my son Sam) went to a Joann's fabrics this afternoon to get some necessaries. I've been to this Joann's a kajillion times, but when we walked in, we found that the store layout had changed!
Oh, no, it's all different! Well, now how do we find all the things we need?
We remembered the list, at least--that's going to be a big help now.

But won't Holly think it's a box for her toys?

This would be very pretty braided into my hair!

Martie picked out some charms for her holiday necklace.
So many choices, so little time!
We found everything we needed, plus some extras, of course. Off to the Walgreen's for milk and other useful stuff!

I'm a writer and designer, not a mathematician.

Based on my day count (ie, pulling out the calendar and just counting them out), I really should be posting 63 Days of Martie. I think. See, I've introduced the Element of Doubt now, and I am a tad flustered. A minor point, but I'd certainly prefer to post the correct number.

For the record, I'm killer at algebra--until a number is introduced, then I fall apart. I get calculus jokes, until you throw a number in. This has utterly mystified more than one of my teachers over the years.  I credit this to synaesthesia. Numbers have genders, personalities, smells, back stories, etc, and they do NOT behave in my head the way arithmetic demands that they do. Even number lines occasionally throw me: 4 really *doesn't* want to stand next to 5, and no one wants anything at all to do with 9. Don't get me started on the twisted relationship between 6 and 7, and 5 is an even number.

See what I mean? Well, probably you don't, but that's why numbers get scrambled in my brain, even if I'm only counting out.

The majority of synaesthetics have a very good, sometimes extraordinary, grasp of mathematics. A few of us, primarily women, are utter shite at math but express ourselves extraordinarily well in language and art. My GRE verbal and math scores had such a wide gap (99th percentile verbal, 31st math) that the admissions committee had to have a long discussion about admitting me. They did admit me (that 99th on the subject test helped A Lot), and I have the MA to prove it, but even thinking about the statistics course I had to take 20+ years later still makes my palms sweat.

All I know is, according to timeanddate.com, there are 49 days and (as of right now) 8 hours, 7 minutes left in 2011. So whatever that shakes out to, that's what we're doing! ;D

Friday, November 11, 2011

Looky what we found!

It's the camera cable!

Day 13 of 61 Days of Martie!

I designed this. Yes, I admit it! I think it would be much better in lighter summer fabrics without the sleeves, and what was I thinking with those polka dots? Ah, well. it's warm, and it was a rather cold day out today. Addendum: I've decided they're pajamas. They work *MUCH* better as jammies. Next--a holiday dress.

These leaves blew onto my porch from across the alley. Very pretty.
In which we gaze mysteriously into the distance.

BONUS PIC! She's the Disney Animator's Rapunzel doll (in jams I bought on eBay--lookit the fabric!). If she were any cuter I'd probably be in a coma.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Day 12 of 61 Days of Martie.

I have utterly misplaced the nice little cable that goes from my camera to my MacBook. *GRARR!* As a placekeeper, here's a couple of pics taken recently but not posted:

I am actually *cleaning* to find that cord, and if you know me at all, you know that's serious.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Day 11.5 of 61 Days of Martie.

This is actually from a few weeks ago, on the bloody awful hiking trip I posted about. I forgot I'd taken this. It's a lovely scenic highway, I recommend driving it and not hiking when you get to Ohiopyle. Lookit the pretty falls, then drive back. The scenic overlook stop that this sign is part of is gorgeous: 

Day 11 of 61 Days of Martie.

No, sweetie, we are NOT hanging that on the front door.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Day 10 of 61 Days of Martie.

It's the scary part. Don't look!

Blast from the past.

When I was a kid, there were very few books in my house: a few odd storybooks, a 1920s history of Ohio (did you know Warren G Harding was the greatest President the US ever had?), some odd volumes of an outdated encyclopedia, and several volumes like this:

 I just got this off eBay, but I have several others I've gathered over the last few years. I don't have the copies from my childhood; the house burned down in 1989. This one is in lovely shape, and hadn't been read (pristine binding, some of the pages still crispy on the edges). Nice score for me!

 Why this particular volume, other than opportunity? Gee whiz, I don't know. Bunnies, perhaps?
 The table of contents always had the same graphics, and these pics are burned into my memory so deeply that I'm always a little "...wow..." when I see them again. Lookit that stereotypical pirate!
 Oh, hey, now I remember why I wanted this particular volume of the series.
Just to show you how gorgeous and well-done these books were (and how my family ended up with them is a mystery), check out who illustrated "The Magic Porridge Pot." Yeah. That guy.

I think I have more volumes now than I did when I was a kid, and it just now occurred to me that I know very little about them, other than that they're copyrighted 1959 (older than me, but not by much). So I shall investigate. Eee, an excuse to do research! :D

Monday, November 7, 2011

Day 9 of 61 Days of Martie.

Hi, all, it's Martie. Sorry about yet another shot of me in front of the computer screen. Charlie forgot about the time change and lost all the good light outside, where we were going to take a pic of something a little more visually interesting, like autumn leaves or a picket fence or a rock or something. To make it up to you, here's a photo of the dog, Holly! Holly hates cameras and tries to jump out of the way, so we're very fortunate to get a shot of her face instead of her tail end.  
Have a great evening, all!

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