So random, January/February '26

Another winter is almost behind us!  Winter is a part of God's natural cycle, but that's hard to appreciate when the cold makes one's joints ache.  I understand Daddy a little better now, as he was always cranky during winter.  Not mean, mind y'all, just grumpier than usual, and he'd always say "I'm not mad at y'all, I just hurt."  It sucks, and I'm glad it's almost over for another year.  Indeed, except for that bad cold snap in January it's been a pretty chill winter for the Bootheel.  That said, the ants aren't out yet.  They never come out until after the last freeze.

'Nuff chatter, let's get down to business.  On January 3rd I was able to get this lovely little trio together for a picture.

Y'all know how I like odd groupings, and these three are it.  The one in pink white is an obvious Li'l Miss doll, Li'l Miss Candi Stripes.  I'll be unoriginal and call her just "Candi," cutesy spelling and all.  I knew that she had stripey hair, but I had no idea that her clothes changed color too!!!

I know, I know, I said Li'l Miss Magic Hair was my favorite of the Li'l Miss dolls, but I ended up liking Candi's smiling eyes better.  I remember Treesa being surprised by teeth on a doll once, and I too was surprised to see that Candi has teeth showing.

Being an early nineties doll often means having big bangs, and this is what Candi looked like when I pulled her out of her box.  Thus why her bangs are currently bound with an elastic.

Interestingly, Candi didn't come with shoes.  I think she's the only Li'l Miss doll that didn't.  That's fine and dandy for summer and for the beachy clothes that Candi is wearing, but during a Midwestern winter it looks uncomfortable.  I can probably find some shoes somewhere, though.  Candi is probably used to it anyway, as she hails from a place in Kansas called Rossville.  Rossville's latitude is higher than Malden's is.  Not much, but enuff to make winters a smidge harsher.  Add to that the fact that the temperatures here in Malden wildly fluctuated during late December and early January.  On the 3rd it was cold and overcast, and by the 7th it was sixty degrees and threatening rain.  ANYWAY, the tall girl in the middle is Selene, and she's a Famosa doll.  Her city of origin is Scottsdale, Arizona.  Unlike Rossville, I've heard of Scottsdale.  With eyes like this, Selene LOOKS like she should be from Roswell, New Mexico.

NGL, I like Famosa dolls almost as much as I do Furga dolls.  Like Furga, Famosa dolls are proving to be quite diverse.  My Selene isn't wearing her original clothes, but she's unique enuff without 'em and she looks nice in white so I'll not worry about original clothes for now.  Selene is Nancy's friend, and she's...well, an alien of some stripe!  Her eyes once glowed green, just like Emerald the Enchanting Witch's eyes did.

I don't think they glow anymore, but they do sparkle.  I also love Selene's hair; it's this unusual silver blue color.

The last little doll is Italian, but is NOT a Furga doll.  She has just as much personality, but this one is from Italocremona.  I've chosen to call her "Cassandra," and her former home is Totowa, New Jersey.

Cass has some sass!  Here it's possible to see that, at least in Cassandra's case, Italocremona eyes are more realistic than Furga eyes.

On the evening of January 4th I took Candi outside to see if her color-change feature still worked.  Her instructions imply that she'll stop working over time, especially if she's exposed to extreme temperatures..  It was forty-one degrees outside that evening, so I crippled out with her.

Forty-one degrees...the weather we had not long after that made forty-one degrees look like a heat wave.  Anyway, the color change began before I even had the door shut.  As y'all can see, Candi's clothes and hair have turned pink and orange as they should.  Her lips also shifted; inside they were bubblegum pink, but when exposed to cool temps they turn fuchsia. 

I wonder how warm she'll have to be before her clothes turn white again.  Casa Pizarro is comfortably warm, but Candi's clothes remained pink and orange when I brought her inside, and they didn't change until I touched her.  I'll have to wait until summer, I guess!

January 10th.  Candela Laura pops in.

My phone's battery was too low for a flash, but I took the picture anyway.  Candela Laura looks the same regardless of the lighting.

January 11th.  These dolls are all standing on top of my great-grandfather's bookcase.  There's about thirty-five years worth of doll history in that lineup.

Okay.  The pink bunch consists of Alexis (Pretty Crazy Curls), Flower Magic Mary, Surprise Hat Susie, and Twist 'n' Style Tiffany.  Then there's Billie, Mosi, Dell, Zelia, and Camille.  Crystabella rounds out the bunch.  The black thing behind Tiffany and Billie is Grandpa's old globe, long out of date but still fascinating.  I think this bunch is interesting, by the way, as one YouTuber I ran into notes that dolls this size were at one time kinda unique.  They weren't American Girls, and they weren't Barbie, and in the nineties dolls didn't come in this size unless they were glitzy toddler dolls.  Note that my four glitzy toddler dolls do vary in size a bit; Alexis is the tallest and Tiffany is the shortest.  Please forgive the dust and the terrible angle; the bookshelf is six feet tall, and I'm both five-seven and standing slumped.

I haven't yet thrown Candi into the mix (there's no more room on the top of the bookcase), and I haven't thrown in my other two new fourteen-inchers either for the same reason.  January 16th.  Kenya is on the left, and Philly girl Olivia is on the right.  Olivia is an I'm a Wow doll, the smaller counterpart to the I'm a Girly dolls.

Bet y'all forgot I had an I'm a Girly, LOL!  Robyn is still around, but Olivia is not analogous to her, not in appearance, anyway.  She's got blue hair like I like, plus highlights that change color in the sun.  As for Kenya, she's cute.  I'll be reviewing her...someday.  I've had zero energy lately.

January 22nd.  One of my favorite YouTubers had dropped a new video, and I was about to share a soda pop with Rubia Emilia. 

Swengle Studios and pineapple Fanta for the win!  Swengle Studios specializes in tornadoes, but he does other odd meteorological phenomena too, and he dumbs it down for idjit galoots like me.  For the record, I've since changed Rubia's first name to "Joyita."  That sticks with my old shipwreck theme, and I never really liked the name "Rubia."  So Joyita Emilia she is.

January 25th.  It was bitterly cold outside by then, I was recovering from the other type of cold, and Cotton Candy Mia wanted to show off her new hair bow.

We wear hair bows in Casa Pizarro.  Hair bows are cool.  LOL, this one was a freebie; it accompanied two larger bows that Mama got for me.

January 30th.  Random pic of Joyita Emilia. 

Joyita had her new pacifier by then, as well as an outfit change, but I was still waiting for the shoes.

February 4th.  A tale of two Sindy dolls.

Crimp and Style Sindy is on the left, and the wary brunette on the right is the late-model Pedigree that y'all met on Valentine's Day, before I put her in the pink dress.

February 6th.  Bella (one of my dogs) took five years off my life when she got her head caught in the bars of the dog kennel, and Uncle Man-Child didn't help when he told me Bella wasn't moving.  She ended up being fine.  This lovely young lady then turned up in the mail.

She's a chimera, a 2025 Barbie Basics head on what appears to be a Shani body.  These Basics are supposed to have Made to Move bodies.  Still, whoever rebodied this doll took the time to match a head to a body, because both parts are very pale.  "Amy" will be this doll's name, for reasons that might be obvious to some of y'all.

February 11th.  It was unseasonably warm after that cold snap, and I had spring fever.  Ayla Diamond thus fell victim to an early spring redress.

Etsy shop is MiniMediMo.  I'm with Miss Emily, by the way; these little babies need to be made with open eyes!  I'd hoped the Valentine's Day wave would have some awake and alert little ones, but no dice.

February 14th.  It was cool and rainy, perfect for cuddling dollies.  Enter Sandy Eden. 

Sandy is a bean-butt baby, my second.  Mama told me that she'd ordered a cute outfit for a bean-butt girl, but I didn't have a girl...or so I thought.  I forgot that Taniyah Yasmin can wear bean-butt clothes too.

February 17th.  I had my Baby Alive dolls (numbering four by then) on the couch, and Lily took a liking to them. 

Lily likes my dolls for some reason.  Doesn't matter who I've got scattered about.  She rubs them and purrs, like she's marking them as her own.  Maybe she likes them because they smell like me.  I dunno. 

February 18th.  My new dolls of the day struck a pose.  Better Now Bella is on the left, and her friend Ingrid Jessica is a Hasbro-era bean-butt baby. 

They're both Hasbro, come to think of it!

February 22nd.  Two of the Philadelphia bunch get acquainted. 

Treesa sent me both of these, albeit in different packages.  Alexandria Florida is the Cabbie, and Lina is the Magic Nursery baby.  They don't have much in common, but they're cute, and deeply appreciated gifts.  Indeed, I have several Magic Nursery dolls, but Lina remains my favorite.

February 24th, another sitting down image, since that's about all I can do nowadays.  These two are Gary Collier and Autumn Leah, and apologies for our unkempt bed.  Mama and I both hit the sack not long after I took this picture.

Mama isn't Gary Collier's biggest fan, but she likes Autumn Leah okay.  When she saw Gary from a more flattering angle she warmed to him.  He'd fallen backwards when she first saw him, see, and since Gary's mouth is a little open he looks kinda, sorta, really DEAD when his head lolls back.  

February 25th.  This is literally a spur-of-the-moment picture, caught when I was riding to work.

Shelley is the blonde and Sindy is the aforementioned brunette.  The blue expanse behind them is my knee, sheathed in its usual denim.  Seriously, I live in blue jeans, practically.  Sindy has already been redressed, by the way, but I won't show that until mid-March.

Same day, different dolls.  I was inspired by this image to pair up my matching two dolls.  

I've got two Magic Nursery babies and like 'em both, but I was piddle-pooting around with Lina around then, so she and Pineberry got to sit together.

That rings down the curtain on another winter, for the most part.  I know some of y'all are still dealing with snow and I don't envy you in the slightest, but for me it's time to shake out my T-shirts and make sure my flashlight has batteries when severe storms come to call.  No more sandals because my ankles need some support, but that's life, and my doll kids can wear sandals.

Are y'all psychic?

Okay, first things first.  I'm still doing six-day work weeks and my rear is dragging, so it took a few days to throw this post together.  But here it is, my Galentine's Day box from Treesa!  Treesa told me that she has a Cabbage Patch Kid that she's fixing up for me, but she said that doll needs a little more work.  So seeing this doll was a shock!  Meet Alexandria Florida, y'all!  

Treesa picked out some papers to send (Alex's original papers are long gone), and I think she chose well.

I can't remember if I said this here on the blog, but I've been wanting a redhead with the #2 head for a long time.  I saw one on that video about the Cabbage Patch Kids beauty pageant, and the combo just kinda stuck with me.  Kinda makes me wonder if Treesa is psychic!  Apparently Alex is a big coincidence, as Treesa ran into her at a thrift store and thought she might be a Jesmar with those freckles.  Alex could indeed pass for a Jesmar, but she's your regular Coleco Kid.  From 1983, no less!  I wonder if Alex was one of the dolls that adults battled each other for back in the day?  LOL, anyway, I figure that the mischief in my room will increase once Alex meets Matthew Tommie.  #2 heads can be tricky, especially in pairs or groups, kinda like My Twinns with the Ariel head are!  Treesa reports that the dress is from an Etsy shop that I usually like, but the inside edges are kinda raggy and neither she nor I are thrilled with that, but I've got plenty of other cute little outfits that Alex can wear.  By the way, someone loved Alex and loved her hard at one point, because she's got a rent in her foot that has been mended.  A God-given tattoo is what I like to call scars, be they on dolls or on humans.

<sings off-key>  And I have loved you in a tame way, and I have loved you wild!  LOL, what a fantastic little Cabbie, though!  Alex would've made a fine present by herself, but she didn't travel alone.  She has her own little Cabbage Patch Kid...or I'm gonna pretend as such.  

I'm also going to pretend that he's a boy.  Tufties can be either/or, but I like boy dolls so that's that (I also like tufties, LOL).  He's really cute.  I think I'll name him Jeremy Kyle, after the British talk show host that used to split my sides.  Jeremy belongs to the Magic Nursery cradle/carriage set (hey, I remember that commercial!) and dates from 1998.  

The next package hearkens back to a recent post.  I've got Strawberry Shortcake and her little cousin/bestie, Apple Dumplin'.  Apple's pet, Tea Time Turtle, is also here.

Treesa gave me the lovely idea to do a post about Strawberry Shortcake clones and knockoffs, just as I have done with the Cabbage Patch Kids.  I think I'll do that, 'cause there's plenty of 'em!  As a huge coincidence, I have Apple's hat buried somewhere. 

I really got a kick out of this one, a Build-a-Bear piece.  He's a miniature Floppy Kitty!

Floppy Kitty is adorable in any size, but then I would think so because I'm biased towards orange tabbies, LOL.  My Adric is an orange tabby.  Y'all know those God-given tattoos I talked about above?  Adric has inflicted a few on me (accidentally, I swear!).  Adric is a sweet cat but he's also horrendously clumsy, and he tore the livin' sh!t out of my arm while falling off the kitchen table one time.  Anyway, Treesa included some other Build-a-Bear stuff, in the form of these shoes.  Shoes are always welcome. 

These socks aren't Build-a-Bear socks, but...well, footwear.  They're baby socks and will fit my larger baby dolls.  They're soft!

Then there's Dudley, another Wendy's Furskin Bear.  I think these are so cute!

Fans didn't go as ga-ga for Furskins as they did Cabbage Patch Kids, but these bears do have fans.  I like these little ones a lot because they're easier to store but have the same cute factor.

I had a laugh at Treesa's label on these items.  She wrote "Baby doll accessories...I think."  Suits me.

I love that butterfly!  The items above would suit themselves to playing Dolly Doctor, should I ever go that way.

This little mermaid was made by Simba and would make a nice companion for my Sea Wee.  Remember the Sea Wee, Treesa?  I think she's so cute!

Treesa included some more carrots for Justine-Marie's horse...

...and some goodies for my dolls to bicker over.  That cake looks nummy!

Lately Treesa also has been wrapping some items so that they're kinda like blind bags.  I like that.  I don't expect Treesa to do that with EVERYTHING she sends, because that would be a ridiculous amount of work, but one or two little things is just right.  She did that with these cute conversation hearts.

Fun fact about me:  I despise the taste of conversation hearts, but I think they make great decorations!  These are also the perfect size to be candy for my American Girls. 

Also wrapped up in paper was this little feller, who would fit in the palm of my hand. 

But he's not just any baby, though.  He's a zodiac baby, and very fittingly, he's a Libra.  He's so cute!

Lastly, Treesa included a book.

It has some tips for writing stories about one's American Girl dolls (or other dolls), which will come in handy because I like doing that for my dolly children.  I'm not gonna lie, though...a lot of my dolls' backstories go further than science vs. math or favorite cake flavors.  My American Girls deal with bullies, religious differences, family conflict, and budding romance.  My ball-jointed dolls all have backstories that are downright dark at times.  But still, cake flavors and school subjects are a good place to start.  It should also be remembered that my AG characters are mostly older than the nine or ten years that the historical characters are.  My dolls, my rules.

Well Treesa, that box was another banger!  Alexandria Florida, Jeremy Kyle, the mermaid, and the Libra baby are making friends and finding their place in my dolly world, and the rest of the items are cute.  I especially like those rubbery carrots, LOL.  I like the way vinyl feels.  Where did you find the Libra baby, by the way?  He's interesting. 

Love,

RagingMoon1987 

Coming soon to a blog near you

The 2026 Atlantic hurricane list is up, and probably has been for some time.  There are some doozies this year.

Bertha.  I think I hate that name more than just about any of 'em.  But if she becomes a major hurricane that'll mean that a new girl joins my Cabbage Patch with that name.  I've already done it thrice, with Beryl June and Idalia Gale...

...and with Alice Helene. 

For the record, I also hate the name "Beryl," LOL.  And if I insulted the name of anyone's relative, my great-grandmother went by the name "Maud," and I loathe that name too.  Her first name was "Anna," so why she went by the name "Maud" was anyone's guess.

Regarding predictions for the hurricane season, the summer is expected to be an El Nino summer, so hurricane season may not be very active.  If we do have any names retired, I predict that it'll either be one of the fancy ones (Gonzalo or Isaias, for example) or one of the basic ones (like Kyle or Sally).  We'll see.

Breezy love,

RagingMoon1987 

A controversial redesign

I should've predicted this flack when I first saw these dolls, but I didn't.  American Girl recently announced a line of new dolls that were historical-themed, but not honest-to-God historical.  For the uninitiated, these are the dolls at the epicenter of it all and what they look like.

These are the American Girl Modern Era dolls.  They're the same size as the Wellie Wishers and the AG Sisters, and they're obviously modelled after the larger historical girls.
<elaborate>
A lot of the backlash is coming from members of my generation, who are up in arms over the new dolls being different from the original ones.  The main critiques I've seen are as follows: 

*Some say that these dolls are yet another way of cheapening up the brand.  I kinda see that.  These new dolls are probably all-vinyl, and while I like my all-vinyl crew they are very clearly toys, not items for both kid and collector.
*Reddit has a lot of skinny-shamers.  They say that the new dolls look like they're on Ozempic.  Uh, these dolls look healthy enuff to me!  The eyes are another point of contention, with some Redditors saying they look vacant.  I'll give 'em that; Kirsten is the biggest culprit there.
*Some of my fellow millennials are upset that these dolls are sooooo different from what they grew up with.  They want their daughters to have the same experience that they had.  Again, I get that, but it's also not the nineties anymore.  Little girls of today might relate to these new dolls better.
*Kaya, Kit, Nanea, Melody, and Julie were left out.  I personally take umbrage to this, as those characters are still in active rotation on AG's site.
*Some folks just think they're ugly!

As for me, I think the dolls are cute.  Felicity and Josefina are my favorites, and I particularly love that Felicity got the pants that her historical self so desperately wanted.  Shocker of all shockers, I like the Samantha doll too.  Y'all might remember that I'm not Samantha's biggest fan.  I do kinda wish though that they'd just made a series of outfits for the eighteen-inch models, or the fourteen-inchers, either one.  That way AG could've paid tribute to the historical roots of their dolls and still modern it up for today's kids.  And we wouldn't have had to buy a whole new doll just for a new look!  The timing of the release of these smaller dolls also makes me lift an eyebrow, as the AG Sisters just got released.  It's just...well, weird timing!

I read a couple'a days ago that Mattel's stock fell significantly after Barbie didn't sell well during the holiday season.  Perhaps they're releasing these modernized dolls as a desperate way to make a quick buck?  I dunno.  Time will tell.  But what do my American Girl fans think of these new dolls?  Yay or nay?  

Love, 
RagingMoon1987

Color of the year, 2026

It's rainy today here in the Bootheel, but I much prefer that to the snow and ice that we had two weeks ago.  Indeed, some of y'all are still having to put up with snow!  Ryan Hall said that for my neck of the woods February may end on a warm note, but I've noticed that the ants aren't out yet so we should get at least one more sharp cold snap.  When it comes to the arrival of spring, ants know better than we humans do.

Now!  According to an Etsy ad that I saw in January, the color of 2026 is...teal or patina blue or somesuch like that.  One of my favorite colors, but if it's one thing I love to do it's go against trends, so I've broken my own rule and declared it PINK SEASON!  Perfect for Valentine's Day, and perfect for a dreary day like today.  I did blue last year, see.  It's been a minute since Isolde was in the blog, so she goes first.

I do have shoes for Isolde somewhere, but God only knows where I put 'em.  The glasses are L.O.L. Surprise glasses and thus don't fit very well, but Isolde makes it work.

Let's face it, Isolde could make a paper sack work.  For that matter, so could Sindy.

Probably one of my other Sindy dolls would've worked better (they're all blonde), but this Sindy needed something to wear, so here she is.  I think this is a Pedigree Sindy, by the way.  She needs restringing, as her head is prone to snapping around to face backwards, kinda like in Poltergeist.  But she's otherwise everything I wanted in a vintage Sindy doll, and the dress (a Barbie dress) fits her well. 

As with last year, this post isn't just for Barbie-sized dolls.  One of my favorite Disney movies is Dumbo, so when I saw this I knew one of my dolls had to have it.  Idalia Gale has a bit of a tan, and she looks fantastic in light pink.  By the way, Barb, here's my wheat-haired girl.  You were nice enuff to share yours with us, so here's mine.  Wheat hair is kinda an unsung hero of the Cabbie world; it's not as eye-catching as red hair or lemon hair, but I love the way it looks.

Idalia is NOT a baked potato, by the way.  People on Failbook keep asking me that, and the answer is no.  I don't care much for that trend, but some collectors love it.  See, some Cabbies turn dark when they're heated, and some collectors toss their Cabbies in a low-set oven to turn them dark.  A hot garage, attic, or shed will work too.  Baked potato Cabbies thus look kinda like Afro-American Cabbies, but with white bodies.  I'll pass, thanx.  Idalia Gale and Ernest John look naturally tan, and that's the way I want them to stay.  But boy, they both look nice in pink!  Ernest John refuses to wear pink, but Idalia Gale is okay with it.  Now if I want a Preemie to wear pink I'll pick either Bunnie Candie or Carla Jennifer.

Oh right, Carla Jennifer is my new-to-me Preemie.  I didn't have the #4 head in an Afro-American tone yet.

According to her papers, Carla Jennifer wants to be a pharmacist when she grows up.  I can get behind that!  I also like Carla Jennifer's stock outfit, but this next getup is handmade and...part of it is pink.

If it's handmade, odds are I'm gonna be at least mildly interested, and the eBay listing said this was indeed handmade.   Bunnie Candie's dress is presumably handmade too (Mama found it on Etsy).  Polka dots!!!

For something a bit more traditional, here's what Primrose Jessalyn is wearing.  Mama supplied this, of course.  It's not pink, but it's cute so who cares about color???

Look at the little letters!  I think those are too stinkin' cute.

No American Girl stuff this time around!  The girls have new things, but it's spring stuff and they're not wearing it yet so...yeah.  But that's Valentine's Day for me this year!  Dolls in pink, rain in the air, and me chillaxing at work.  Not a flake of snow in sight, ha-ha-ha, and no tornadoes either (Ryan Hall thought earlier in the month that it might get bad today).  Right now all is well in the Bootheel, and I hope it is with y'all too.

Happy Valentine's Day,
RagingMoon1987